SAY YOU LOVE ME (Eva Rae Thomas Mystery Book 4)

by Willow Rose

  Chapter One Hundred Five

  “You can try to run away,” he said. “But where will you go? The storm is still raging outside, and in here, well … we have your children and so many more innocent people, don’t we?”

  I exhaled. Chris kept filming me with his camera, and it made me uncomfortable.

  “Where’s Adam?” I asked. “What did you do to him?”

  “I’m so glad you finally asked,” Chris said and tapped on the phone’s screen. “I know that my viewers all are wondering about the very same thing. And here he is. This is a live feed from a Go-Pro camera I have attached to his head. I am just gonna share the screen here, and now my viewers can see both us and his feed.”

  Chris turned the phone and showed me the screen.

  “What am I looking at here?” I asked.

  “This is live from a shelter on the mainland — Yulee Elementary School, where more than five hundred people have sought shelter from the storm. I’ve placed Adam there with them, and he knows he’s not allowed to say anything to anyone about what is in his backpack. If he does, it blows, and everyone dies. This is a place where many homeless seek shelter or the poor who live in trailer parks, and many of them are children.”

  “You sent him in there with a bomb?” I asked, breathing nervously.

  “Yes,” he said. “And I have the switch here. The trigger.”

  Chris raised his hand and showed me a small device in his hand. “If I let go of this button here, then they all go.”

  “What do you want from me?” I asked, barely able to speak. I kept staring at the homemade device in his hand. The thought of poor Adam in that shelter waiting to be blown to pieces crushed me. He had to be so scared.

  “I have a feeling you want me to do something, am I right?” I continued, my voice trembling. “What are we at now? I know that Adam was Love, the people at the Ritz-Carlton represented Joy, while the nursing home was Peace, Melanie at the theater was Patience, while McMillen was Kindness, and Deputy Corel, Goodness. But what about the rest? Next, we have faithfulness? Is that Adam?”

  “You have done your homework, I can hear. Now, you mustn’t be impatient. I’ll get to that.”

  “Was it Jenkins?” I asked. “Was he faithfulness?”

  Chris scoffed. “Dear Lord, no. He was nothing. Not important.”

  “Why did he attack you? Did he know what you were up to?” I asked.

  “If you must know, I insulted him. He had a temper, you know. I simply told him it was his own fault, that everything that had happened was his own fault. Him losing his child, him losing his wife.”

  “Except it wasn’t, was it?” I asked. “I was wondering about the texts between him and Allyson. He was a registered sex offender, and I read through his case files from back then. He had a son that he lost the rights to because they found child pornography on his computer. But he denied it till the very end. In everything I found, he said he was set up. He served time in prison, and when he got out, his wife had committed suicide. You are that son, aren’t you? The one he lost?”

  Chapter One Hundred Six

  THEN:

  “How are my chances, do you think?”

  Marlene stared at Scott Hunter, her lawyer. It had been a long process, including several days in a courtroom where she had fought for her rights to be with her child. Now, they were standing outside the courtroom, waiting for the verdict.

  Scott cleared his throat. “Well, it didn’t help that you attacked the woman from the DCF who was sent to supervise your visit with your son; I can tell you that much. The judge won’t look lightly at that. Security guards had to drag you out of there. It doesn’t paint the picture of a stable and mentally capable mother. The opposition argued very well that you weren’t mentally fit, that there was no way the abuse could have taken place without your knowledge. And especially with your son’s extra challenges, his disease, they are arguing that you’re simply unfit to take proper care of him. I’m sorry to say it, but it doesn’t look very good, in my opinion.”

  And he was right. Marlene knew he was as soon as she stepped back inside the courtroom, and the judge looked down at her. He read the verdict, but she barely heard any of it. All she could think about was her poor son and whether she’d ever see him again.

  How can the world be this cruel?

  “I am so sorry,” Scott said as they came back out. “We did what we could. But you must remember that they’re only thinking about the well-being of the child.”

  Marlene looked up at him, tears in her eyes. “But … where will he go?”

  Marlene heard a voice behind her, and she turned to look. Then her heart dropped like a heavy rock in her chest. In front of her stood her mother. She hadn’t seen her much lately. Her mother didn’t like Bruce and had told her not to marry him, or she might end up regretting it.

  “You?” she asked. “What are you doing here?”

  “The court has appointed your mother as the new guardian of Jack,” Scott said. “I thought you’d be glad to know this.”

  Marlene’s mother smiled, and Marlene’s blood froze to ice. She knew her mother very well, and she also knew her to be the meanest woman she had ever met.

  “You?” she hissed. “You did this? You told them that Bruce was abusing Jack? You fed them the details, the pictures, and the stories?” she asked, gasping for air. She knew her mother could be one of the most vicious people on this planet, but this … this she had never thought she would stoop so low.

  “The boy needs a proper upbringing,” she said. “You weren’t giving him that. You were being sloppy. There was no discipline in that house. Bruce was unfit as a father and a husband.”

  “You poisoned Jack against us, telling him what to say; didn’t you? You came to the house that day a couple of weeks ago. I let you use Bruce’s computer because yours was broken and you needed to check your email, you said. You planted the file, didn’t you? You told them about the bruises and gave them the pictures that you had taken when Jack came to visit because you knew you could use it against us, against Bruce. And now he’s going to jail and I … I lost the rights to my own son.”

  Her mother smiled victoriously and lifted her purse. “Well, I told you that you shouldn’t have married him; didn’t I? You chose not to listen. You laid this upon yourself. You made your bed, dearest, and now you must lie in it.”

  Chapter One Hundred Seven

  “You weren’t abused by your dad at all, were you?” I asked.

  “My grandmother told me to say those things to the people from DCF and the investigators, or I would end up in Hell, she said. She said I needed to come live with her because I needed discipline. She told me I was a punishment from God, that my mom was being punished by God for marrying my dad, and that was why I had been born a freak, like she called me. That was why I had gotten Cutis Laxa and had to be hidden away from the public. And she was the only one who knew how to handle someone like me properly.”

  “And she knew that, with your condition, your disease, you bruised easily, right?” I asked. “It could easily look like abuse to the outside world.”

  “Just a bump on the leg could cause severe swelling or even a fracture to the bone,” he said. “I once fell and had a skull fracture. I began bleeding between the skull and my skin. The skull swelled so badly that I looked like E.T. That’s what I started calling myself because that was how I felt. Like an alien freak. My grandmother changed my name to Christopher since she said she never approved of Jack; that was my mother’s name for me, and as soon as I moved in with her, she started to try and drive the evilness out of me. She’d take me to her garage and whip me, telling me to repent of my sins.”

  Chris grabbed his shirt and lifted it. I gasped as I saw the deep furrows.

  “If there is no pain, there is no gain, she said. In all pain, there is a purpose. I had to rebuke my fleshly desires so goodness could grow in me. But the thing is, goodness never wins, does it? Look at the world we live in. Look at t
his storm. No matter how hard you try, even you, Eva Rae Thomas, evil will always win inside of you. We try to maintain all these virtues, telling ourselves that we possess attributes like love. An undefeatable benevolence and unconquerable goodwill that always seeks the higher good for others, no matter their behavior. But that doesn’t exist, does it? Because if we do one thing wrong, then we lose it. If we look like me, we never receive it.”

  “So, by forcing Adam to shoot up the school, you proved that love doesn’t exist?” I asked.

  “Everyone loved Adam. Everyone adored him. His family, the school …”

  “Allyson,” I said.

  Chris stopped. He gave me a look. “Yes, Allyson.”

  “You loved her too, didn’t you? But the older you got, the more you realized you could never have her or any girl like her. Your anger and resentment grew toward Adam because he had everything that you wanted. That’s why you did what you did to him. It wasn’t to prove love doesn’t exist, or that we are all basically evil; come on. That’s just too far out. You wanted him dead because you were jealous. My guess is that Bruce Jenkins over here, your dad, was trying to get back in contact with you, and that was why he was texting with Allyson. He knew you two were close, and since you didn’t want to talk to him, he tried to go through her. He texted her using a burner phone, so his wife wouldn’t find out because she didn’t know his story and he didn’t want her to. It would ruin everything for him, and he knew no one would believe him. Adam thought she was dating someone behind his back, but once he got the entire story on the way home from the party, he was no longer angry. Now, before this happened, Allyson kept telling you to see your father, and you did. He told you everything, didn’t he? He told you the truth about what your grandmother had done and how she had caused your mother, the only woman who ever loved you unconditionally and who really wanted you back, how she had killed herself in sorrow after having lost you. He told you everything, and you got so mad you killed your grandmother when you got back, am I right? I bet her body is still at the house.”

  Chris stared at me, his nostrils flaring. The look in his eyes was answer enough for me. I had figured him out, and he didn’t like it one bit.

  “And then you didn’t want to stop there. You wanted to punish the world for what had happened to you, how your life had turned out. You came up with this Fruit of the Spirit idea and started planning, making sure you could get Adam and Allyson down first because you were so mad at them. But everyone had to tremble at the sound of your name, right? You studied killers and wanted to be famous like them. You wanted finally to be seen by the world and recognized for something. If nothing else, then for being the most dangerous killer this world has seen, and the cleverest one. You think you were so incredibly clever, keeping under the radar, but I’ve got news for you. It wasn’t that ingenious. I’ve faced killers who were way out of your league.”

  I said the words, knowing it would anger him. All this guy wanted from me was to fear him, to acknowledge him as a master in his field, as the winner. That was why he sent me the video from the nursing home. That was why he had chosen me for whatever it was he wanted to do now. Because I was the expert. I was the one who could give him the recognition he had longed for his entire life.

  But I wasn’t giving it to him. I wasn’t going to give him that pleasure.

  Chapter One Hundred Eight

  “Where is Eva Rae?”

  Matt walked up to Chad, who was playing with Alex and his firetruck. Matt wrinkled his forehead in concern.

  “It’s odd. I haven’t seen her for hours. She wasn’t in the cafeteria, and she’s not with her grandmother either.”

  “Well, I haven’t seen her in a while either,” Chad said. He rose to his feet and looked worriedly at Matt.

  “Well, where can she be if she’s not here? You don’t think something’s happened to her, do you?”

  Matt shook his head. “We’re inside of a shelter. It’s a safe building. What could possibly happen?”

  Chad lifted his eyebrows. “It’s Eva Rae we’re talking about.”

  He had a point. Eva Rae could get herself in trouble anywhere. She didn’t have to go outside the door.

  “Boys,” a voice said from behind them.

  They turned and saw David. The look on his face made Matt’s heart drop.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “It’s Eva Rae,” David said. He stared at them, his eyes serious, then glared down at the phone in his hand. He lifted it so they could see the screen. A video was running. Eva Rae’s face was on the display.

  “She’s in trouble.”

  Chapter One Hundred Nine

  “What is it that you want me to do?” I asked.

  The wind was pulling at the plywood on the windows, and the rain was pounding outside. I stared at Chris’s wrinkled face, then down at the trigger in his hand, wondering how I was going to get it out of his grip without blowing up Adam.

  That was when they showed up.

  “Step away from her,” I heard Matt say as they came running around the corner.

  Oh, no.

  “Get back,” I said. “He has a backpack with a bomb at another shelter that he’ll detonate. Adam is carrying the backpack.”

  “We know,” David said and held up his phone. “We heard everything on your little live show. It was easy to find you when you’re standing in front of the school’s art wall.”

  The sight of the three men approaching made Chris smile. It wasn’t a pleasant smile, and I got the feeling he was expecting them to come. I wondered if that was why he had chosen that place to stand when I found him. To make sure they would find him.

  “Don’t come closer,” I told them.

  Chad spotted Jenkins on the floor in a pool of blood and gasped. He looked away, and I could tell he was terrified.

  “Better stay over there,” I said. “Don’t come any closer. I’ve got this under control.”

  “At least you think you do,” Chris said.

  Again with that smirk on his face.

  Chris turned sideways and put his phone up on the wall, making it stick by using his pop socket on the back of the phone, making sure he could still film everything. Then he reached in the back of his pants and pulled out a gun.

  “Don’t you dare hurt her,” Matt yelled. David held him back.

  What happened next went down so fast, I barely blinked. Matt took one step forward, breaking out of David’s grip, coming for me to protect me. Chris smiled at me, then lifted the gun and fired a shot at him. The bullet whistled through the air and, as I turned my head in terror, I saw Chad walk in front of Matt, taking the bullet for him.

  The bullet blasted through his chest, and Chad fell to the floor, rag-doll limp.

  Chapter One Hundred Ten

  I screamed my heart out, then hurried to him. I grabbed Chad in my arms and pulled his heavy body up while blood smeared my clothes. I cried and screamed as I held his head in my arms, unable to grasp what had really happened.

  “No, no, no, please, Chad; please, Chad, don’t leave me. Not like this, please, no!”

  David and Matt both stood like they were frozen while I cried. Chris stood in front of me, smiling from ear to ear, while I lost it completely. I rose to my feet and ran toward him. That was when he did something I had never expected. He turned the gun around and handed it to me.

  “Here,” he said. “Go ahead. Shoot me. I know you want to.”

  I stared at the gun in this hand, then grabbed it without thinking. I pressed it against his forehead, my hands shaking, sweat springing from every pore in my body. Anger rose in me to an extent where I could barely see out of my eyes.

  “Shoot me,” Chris said. “Get your revenge for your husband — your faithful husband. I was aiming for your faithful boyfriend, but your husband — sorry ex-husband — turned out to be the real faithful one. Dying when saving someone else’s life. What an example to us all.”

  My finger lingered on the trigger,
and I moved it, determined to shoot, to kill him right there and then. I wanted to do it more than anything in this world.

  “Just remember one thing,” he said. “If you do shoot me, then I won’t hold onto this button anymore, and the bomb will go off. Five hundred people, including your brother — your sweet brother representing gentleness — will lose their lives. Do you want that to happen? Or do you possess self-control enough to refrain from killing me? That’s the last one, you see? Self-control. The question is, do you have it?”

  I stared at him, snorting as I breathed. Never in my entire life had I been angrier. I could barely breathe, so badly did I want to kill him, to see him suffer.

  But I couldn’t. I couldn’t when knowing it meant killing all those people.

  I lowered the gun, my knuckles still white from the restraint. I glanced back at Chad lying on the floor, then sobbed.

  Chris smiled and went in front of the camera, addressing his viewers. “And that, my viewers, is how it’s done. I will now be able to walk out of here, untouched, because they don’t dare to take me down. I will keep on killing because I am simply untouchable.”

  Thousands of comments poured in on the screen, lots of likes and cheers. I felt the taste of defeat in my mouth when Matt came up behind me. He grabbed the gun from my hand, turned it at Chris, and before I could protest, he pulled the trigger.

  Chapter One Hundred Eleven

  The bullet went through Chris’s back. Blood spurted on the phone and camera as he grabbed his chest, then fell forward against the wall, trying to get a grip, reaching for something to hold onto, but soon slid to the ground. The switch fell out of his hand and rolled across the floor.