DON'T LIE TO ME: Eva Rae Thomas Mystery #1

by Rose, Willow

  "Eva Rae? What…?"

  "You sick bastard," I said, then clenched my fist and placed a punch right on his nose. His nose made a loud cracking noise as it met my knuckles. Phillip screamed and bent forward.

  "What the…? What are you doing?" he yelled. He held a hand to his nose, and it came back with blood on it.

  "That was for Dawn," I said, then turned on my heel and walked away. I could still hear him yelling at me as I started up the car and backed all the way down to my own house and went inside.

  Once inside, I found some ice and applied it to my pounding knuckles, then sat down by the kitchen table with a deep sigh. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep, so instead, I grabbed my laptop and opened the lid.

  I entered the station's database, then opened Sophie Williams' case and went through all the files, going through every little detail of her disappearance from the Girl Scout camp. I wasn't quite sure what I was looking for, but anything that would stand out, anything no one had noticed before.

  Except there wasn't anything. The leader, Michaela Strong had been interviewed over and over again about the last hours before the girl disappeared. She was also the one who had found out that Sophie was no longer in her tent when she came to wake her up the next morning. She had started the search in the woods afterward. She had called the police. For a very long time, they believed Sophie had walked out at night and gotten herself into the swamps and drowned. They had searched the river and swamps nearby for days afterward, using helicopters and airboats, but found nothing. The dogs hadn't been able to pick up a trace either. They had found nothing, not even a shoe or a piece of her clothing. Her sleeping bag had been gone with her, and that was what puzzled the investigation team. If she had wandered off, why bring the sleeping bag? If she were kidnapped, why would the perpetrator take it with him? It made no sense to them. Until now.

  He placed her there in her sleeping bag for us to unwrap her, like a freakin' Christmas present.

  I sighed and leaned back in my chair, running a hand through my hair. My eyes fell on the stacks of books and research files I had left out in the hope that I might one day get a little time to write my book. I wondered if I ever would. I had to, at some point, find the time. It was my bread and butter now. I had a deadline.

  I grabbed one of the books and flipped a few pages, wondering about this Phillip character. He rubbed me the wrong way and had from the first time I met him. Why had he given Christine a ride the other day? I had met him once, and then he believed he could just drive around with my daughter? His car had been white too, like the one I saw at night in the alley, and like the one we saw in the picture. I hadn't taken a look at the license plate when he dropped off Christine. I should have paid more attention. That would have told me if it was the same one that picked up Maddie. He could have stolen it from Thomas Price's mother's driveway. It would be easy, and it would drive the suspicions elsewhere. Maybe that's what he wanted all along? To get us to focus on Coach Thomas so he could continue his mission on his own. Was it possible? Could Phillip be the killer? Was he sending me a message by taking my daughter for a ride? To let me know he could get to me at any time he wished? Get to the ones I loved?

  He's too perfect, were Melissa's words. Could she be right? He sure fit the profile. He’d just gone through a difficult divorce too.

  My eyes returned to the screen while a million thoughts rushed through my mind. Did Phillip Anderson know Sophie Williams from somewhere? I looked through the files and found his name on the search team along with the rest of the firefighters from our local station. They had pitched in and helped where they could, of course they had. Everyone did that around here, so nothing suspicious about that.

  My head was spinning out of control. I opened Google and searched for articles about Sophie's disappearance and found hundreds in Florida Today alone. I spent the next several hours reading through them all until daybreak came and the sun began to rise outside my window. When the alarm rang on my phone, I laid my eyes on a picture in one of the later articles, an interview with Michaela Strong, the leader. As I stared at the picture, my heart started to pound heavily in my chest.

  There it was; staring right back at me from the newspaper clip was what I had been looking for.

  Chapter 54

  "Are you insane?"

  Matt stared at me as I entered the police station and walked up to my desk. The place smelled of freshly brewed coffee. I needed that. I had fought with the kids all morning to get them to school on time. Christine had ended up yelling at me that she hated me. So much for best mom ever. Guess that was already forgotten by now.

  "And a good morning to you too," I said and put my laptop down. I sat on my chair.

  He came closer and leaned in over me. "You punched Phillip Anderson last night?"

  "Oh, that, well…yes."

  He shook his head and threw out his arms. "Are you crazy?"

  "You already asked me that once," I said. "But to answer, no."

  "He was in here earlier, blabbing on about how you came to his house in the middle of the night and punched him in the nose. The chief was furious. Why, Eva Rae? Why would you do that?"

  "He deserved it."

  A furrow appeared between his eyebrows. "I don't get you. He was threatening to press charges and everything. You're lucky you have me. I managed to talk him out of it."

  "Let him," I said.

  "What?"

  "Let him press charges. I'll show the judge the pictures of the woman that he beat senseless last night."

  Matt pulled out his own chair and sat down. "What are you talking about? Phillip? He would never do anything like that."

  "Oh, I have the pictures to prove otherwise," I said and grabbed my phone. I found a series of pictures I had taken of Dawn while she was sleeping, just in case we needed them for prosecution later. I was still hoping she would change her mind and press charges against this guy.

  Matt grabbed my phone and looked through them, swiping with small light gasps emerging from between his lips.

  "In case you can't tell, that’s Dawn. What’s left of her."

  "Phillip did this?"

  I nodded.

  "Oh, the bastard, I have never…" He looked up, and our eyes met. "He’s such a nice guy?"

  "They're usually the worst," I said, thinking about Chad and how wonderful he had been when we first met. He had never laid a hand on me; that wasn't his style, but he had turned around completely and showed a side to himself I didn't know existed. I could never have imagined he would abandon his children like that and not want to be with them anymore. Just like that. Had anyone told me six months ago, I would have laughed. Those kids were his entire life. I thought I knew him, but apparently, I had no clue.

  "Wow, I must say, I am…baffled."

  "Yeah, well…I have more," I said. "I’ve been looking into our little friend Phillip a little and guess what I found?"

  "I have a feeling I’m not going to like this," he said.

  I pulled out a print of the article and pushed it toward him. Matt looked at it, then back at me.

  "So?"

  "His ex-wife is Michaela Strong," I said. "And there's more. He was there. At the camp on the day Sophie disappeared."

  "Okay, just as you were about to make sense, you go full-blown crazy on me again," Matt said. "What are you suggesting? He was there in the afternoon, yes, to talk about fire safety. His wife had asked him to. He does that all the time. He talks at the school every year too."

  "But he was there on the day she disappeared. He stayed the night too. At the camp."

  "With his wife and daughter, who was also part of the Girl Scout camp," he said. "It's perfectly normal. We were actually very happy he was there, so he could help with the search from the beginning and take charge of the situation. It could have ended in terrible chaos. He and his wife stayed on top of it from the beginning."

  "Okay, but there’s more," I said.

  "Of course, there is," Matt said. He
looked at me with a sly smile, like he was enjoying this. I ignored him and slid another piece of paper toward him.

  "Have you been up all night or something?" he asked.

  "Something like that," I said. "Read."

  "What am I looking at here?" he asked. "Can't you just tell me and save some time?"

  "Okay,” I said. "I did a little search on Phillip in the newspaper's database, and this came up. This is a picture of Phillip with the senator's son from last year’s Christmas parade."

  "I can see what it is," Matt said, "but why is it important?"

  "They knew each other," I said.

  "This is Cocoa Beach; everyone knows each other."

  "Okay, but there is one last thing that I found," I said.

  "I can't wait to hear what it is," he said. He was starting to annoy me, but I did my best to ignore him.

  "Maddie Jones," I said.

  "Let me guess, he knew her too?" Matt asked.

  "I called her mother this morning after driving the kids to school because Alex missed the bus again. She went to high school with Phillip up in Daytona. Before she was divorced, they lived not far from one another, and their girls used to play together when they were younger."

  I looked at Matt. He shrugged. "So what?"

  "Don't you see? He's connected to all three children?" I asked.

  "So what? It's Cocoa Beach. We're all connected in one way or another. That doesn’t prove anything."

  "I know it doesn't, but it creates a connection. And that's all I need to get suspicious. The guy fits the profile like a glove. I’m sure if I dig a little deeper, I'll find more, something we can actually use against him."

  Matt leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest with a sigh.

  "What?"

  "Listen, I get it. You want to nail this guy for what he did to Dawn; heck I want him punished for that too, but that doesn’t mean he's our killer."

  I nodded, knowing he was right. I couldn't let myself be blinded by my desire to get justice for Dawn.

  "True," I said. "But it doesn’t mean he didn't do it either. Besides, right now he's our only lead so far, so I say we go with it."

  Matt sighed, then rose to his feet. "I'll get us some coffee."

  Chapter 55

  THEN

  After the court had given their dad full custody, they moved to another part of town. The boy liked it there. His father built a playhouse in the treetop, and the boy spent many afternoons up there in that place that he had all to himself because his sister was busy swinging on the new swing set that their dad had put up for them.

  New Mommy got a big bump on her stomach, and soon they were blessed with another sister, one who cried a lot at night, but otherwise brought much joy to the family.

  As the years passed, the boy almost forgot about his mother, even though he sometimes sat in his tree house and cried about her. But he never told that to anyone. That was his little secret and the treehouse his hideout, where he could think about her and cry if he needed to without anyone seeing it.

  He was angry with his mother for choosing the life she had and for not wanting him like his dad said she didn't. Instead, she had chosen a life of drugs and drinking and being a stripper. Hearing him talk about The Thing and how she lived her life made the boy feel ugly and dirty. His mother didn't even call on birthdays and, by the time the boy was a teenager, he resented his mother and he decided she was dead to him. He decided he might as well pretend like she didn't exist.

  One day, as they were crossing the street and he was holding his sister's hand on their way home from school, there was a sudden yelling of his name. He recognized the voice, and the boy knew very well that it was her.

  He didn't turn and look, but pulled his sister's arm to cross the street, but hesitated for just a second as his mother yelled their names once again. As he paused, the light changed, and he could no longer cross. This meant their mother could catch up to them.

  "Hi, baby; hi, sweetie," she said, panting from running.

  The boy didn't even look at her. He kept his eyes focused on the light and kept himself ready to rush across the street as soon as it changed. He held his sister close.

  "Oh, my God," his mother said, clasping her face with her hands. "You've both grown so much."

  She reached out her hands and felt his face. The boy pulled away, still without looking straight at her.

  "Oh, my babies," his mother said, sobbing loudly now. "I can't believe it. Do you live nearby? I know your dad moved you. Is it close to here? Oh, it's so wonderful…I am so happy to see you both."

  As she spoke, the light changed, and the boy pulled his sister's arm forcefully, saying:

  "We're not happy to see you."

  With those words he walked away, pulling his sister hard, still maintaining his posture and not letting even one tear escape the corner of his eyes. He wasn't going to give her the pleasure of seeing that.

  Chapter 56

  Ever since the break-in, Mary hadn't been sleeping well. It had happened three weeks ago but still gave her the chills, especially at night when everything was so quiet. It was on nights like these that she wished Don was still there with her. He had left her when the kids were one and three years old. Right when it got really tough, he had simply left and not looked back. Mary knew she too played her part in him leaving. She didn't fool herself and say she was the innocent one. She hadn't been herself since the birth of their second child. A depression her doctor had later told her it was. Postpartum. But at first, she didn't know what it was. It had knocked her out completely. For months, it was like she walked in a haze like she couldn't cope with anything in life, especially not a young child crying all night. And that was when she started taking it out on Don. He was the one who had worked all day to support them and, as soon as he came home, she couldn't help herself. She had to unload. At first, it was because she wanted him to feel sorry for her, to know that she too had a rough day, that she felt inadequate and guilty for not feeling all oozy and happy at the arrival of a new child. But when he hadn't been understanding the way she wanted him to, when he hadn't said the right things, and instead told her she was lucky that she got to stay at home, that was when she started to resent him. Mostly, she probably resented herself for not enjoying staying at home with the children like her mother had when she was a child. It was all Mary had ever dreamt of when growing up. Like her friends, she didn't dream of some big career. She just simply wanted to be a mother. But once the kids, Rylan and Faith, arrived, it had been nothing like what she wanted, what she thought it would be. Instead of feeling fulfilled, she had felt inadequate. She had this constant feeling of not being enough nagging inside of her, and this voice in her mind telling her she was doing it all wrong, that she was not cut out to be a mother, that she would end up destroying her children.

  The yelling was bad, but it wasn't what drove him away. It was when the yelling stopped. Realizing it did her no good, that nothing in this world could make her feel better, Mary simply gave up. She dragged herself out of bed in the mornings and only did what was most necessary until she could crawl back into bed. Soon, she didn't even leave the bed at all.

  Don begged her to talk to someone, to go to a doctor, but she didn't want to. She couldn't deal with the guilt that would ram her if she explained to someone from the outside that she couldn't even cope with her children, if she had to tell him how she had neglected her own children. She simply couldn't face that conversation.

  So, she stayed in bed, and one day, Don didn't come home from work. He stayed out all night, and after three days, he finally came home…drunk. He told her he couldn't take anymore, that he had taken a job in Louisiana and he and a buddy were going up there the very next day.

  Mary hadn't even asked him to stay. She had barely looked at him, and Don had left crying, slamming the door behind him. The divorce papers came with the mail a few days later when Mary had finally managed to get up and take care of her children. She realized she
was all alone down here in Florida since all of her family lived up in North Carolina. It was after a phone call from her mother that she finally got herself to a doctor, who gave her the diagnosis and some medicine. Now she was doing a lot better and so were the kids. She didn't even miss Don, to be honest. Or all the fighting. It was actually better now that she was all alone. Don sent a check every month for them, and they lived decently.

  The break-in had happened a few weeks ago. It wasn't so much the fact that there had been someone in her apartment; that was bad, yes, but the worst part was that it happened in the middle of the night, while Mary and the kids were asleep.

  When they woke up the next day, the window facing the street was open, and there were dirty footprints on the carpet. Luckily, nothing had been taken, and the police told Mary that it was probably just some homeless person looking for shelter, thinking there was no one home, and then when he realized they were there, he had left.

  Mary had believed them but still felt uneasy in her own bedroom. So it was again this evening when she had put the children to bed, and she lay in her bed, waiting for sleep to overpower her. She couldn't help hearing all these sounds, and it kept making her open her eyes and look toward the window. She thought she heard something again, then opened her eyes and thought she saw a shadow walk past her window. The shadow continued on, and she knew it was probably just someone walking on the sidewalk outside of her building, then she closed her eyes again.

  Sleep, come on, wondrous sleep.

  Finally, Mary dozed off, and soon she was snoring lightly. She didn't even hear the window being pulled open from the outside, nor did she hear it when a pair of very dirty shoes landed on her carpet. She did, however, hear her own name being whispered very close to her ear, and she opened her eyes with a gasp, just in time to feel the fingers as they tightened their grip around her neck.