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

  I swallowed, not knowing what to say to him. I felt so confused. I thought about Matt, then about what he had told me on this same porch, how he believed he was in the way of a family getting back together again, and he didn’t want that. I didn’t want that either. I enjoyed having a family.

  Could the solution really be that simple?

  “Say you’ll try again with me,” Chad said. “I promise I’m over that mid-life crisis. Kimmie is history, and I’ve realized what I fool I was for throwing away what I had. I’m ready to beg you to come back to me if that’s what it takes.”

  “Please, don’t,” I said.

  “Then tell me what it will take. Because I see it in your eyes; heck, I felt it in that kiss we just shared. You want it as much as I do.”

  Maybe I do. Maybe I really do. But do I dare trust him again?

  “No, don’t answer me now,” he said. “Give it some thought. I was thinking that the kids and I could come back next weekend. Then you can give me your answer. Until then, think about it. Think about how wonderful it could be.”

  He gave me another kiss, then rose to his feet and walked to the door. He sent me one last glance, then sighed before he opened the door and walked back inside. I stayed on the porch, hugging myself, feeling like I had just betrayed Matt.

  He left, remember? He told you to get back with Chad. He doesn’t want to be in the way of your happiness. It’s not fair to him either. If you’re not done with Chad, you can never be in a relationship with Matt.

  I finished my glass of wine while pushing all the questions aside. I forced myself to think about something else, and soon I was wondering about Melanie Kagan, the kidnapped girl. Where was she now and what was the Leech planning for her? Whatever it was, I just knew it was going to be nasty. For the Leech, there really was no slowing down. Every act had to be ghastlier than the one before it.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  THEN:

  There was no way she could sleep. The many thoughts kept rushing through her mind, and she couldn’t keep them quiet long enough to doze off. Marlene kept going over every memory she had of Jack’s childhood when he was with Bruce. She searched desperately through her recollection of events they had been through together.

  The time they went to his grandmother’s funeral. Bruce yelled at Jack in the car on the way home because he hadn’t stayed quiet in the church. Had he hurt him then? Maybe after they came home and she wasn’t looking?

  Is it really possible that it could have taken place without my knowledge? For several years?

  Marlene finally had enough of lying there and got up. She walked downstairs to grab a glass of water, then looked at her own reflection in the window as she drank. She had gotten old to look at. It wasn’t a pretty sight what was staring back at her. In this moment, she despised herself.

  Have I just been a fool all this time? Have I been betrayed for all these years? Deceived into thinking we were a happy family?

  She put the glass down, then walked into the living room where she looked at the many pictures on the walls. She stopped by the ones that were taken of them when they went on their neighbor’s boat once when Jack was just four years old. Marlene remembered the dolphin that jumped out behind it when they were going at full speed. It was the first time Jack had seen a dolphin, and he had been ecstatic. Bruce had put him on his shoulders so he could see better, and Marlene had been terrified that he’d drop him somehow. The two of them had laughed at her for always being so anxious. They did that a lot — the boys ganging up on her.

  Was it all just a lie, Bruce?

  Marlene turned around with a deep exhale. She felt the tears welling up in her eyes as she thought more and more about what had happened. She missed Jack so terribly and couldn’t stand the thought of him not being home with her.

  What if he never came back?

  She wouldn’t survive it.

  Still, she didn’t know what to think anymore. She had loved Bruce so deeply for all these years, and they had shared so much together. Was she just supposed to throw all that away? Just like that? Wasn’t she supposed to stand by her husband through thick or thin? Of course, but how did you do that if that meant your son was being hurt? When it meant she was being betrayed?

  No, you must trust him. They got it all wrong. It can’t be true. It simply can’t be the truth.

  Marlene sat at the dining table, staring at Bruce’s laptop next to her. She thought it over for a few minutes, contemplating back and forth what to do, then finally succumbed to her own suspicion.

  She opened the lid and logged herself in, using the password that he used for everything, the old fool.

  She opened his browser, then looked at what he had been looking at last. It was a site selling refrigerators. Nothing strange about that since they were in desperate need of a new one, and she had asked him multiple times to replace it soon.

  Feeling silly and guilty, Marlene closed the browser again. She wasn’t even sure what it was exactly that she was looking for. She stared at the desktop for a few minutes, especially at a small icon that she didn’t recognize. Then curiosity got the better of her, and she clicked it.

  Probably just something work-related.

  As she watched what it contained, fighting the urge to throw up, Marlene realized that life would never be the same again.

  She would never be the same again.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  We were stalking him. David and I sat in my minivan and watched as Mr. Jenkins left his house and got into his white van. I had said goodbye to the children and Chad as they went back to Cocoa Beach that same morning. It was David who had suggested we kept a close eye on Jenkins today, and I didn’t object. I didn’t have a good feeling about this guy at all. If he had taken Melanie Kagan, then we were the only ones able to save her.

  “He’s in the register,” David had told me the same morning. He pulled me aside before breakfast and told me. “I checked him, and he’s a sex offender.”

  “That’s usually not a good sign,” I said. “But it fits well with him being our main suspect.”

  So, now we were following him as he drove to the local Winn Dixie and went inside. David and I walked in as well and did a little shopping while keeping a close eye on Jenkins. He filled his cart, then paid and left. We also paid for the few items I had found, then rushed back to my minivan in the parking lot just in time to see him take off. We followed him closely as he went back to the house and carried all his stuff inside. We ate the snacks I had bought while the house remained silent, and he didn’t make his next move until late in the afternoon. As his daughter and wife came home, he left, rushing to his white van.

  We followed him as he drove to an old house down by the beach and drove into the garage.

  “What do you think he’s doing in there?” David asked, crunching sour cream and onion chips. They were my favorite too, and I hoped he wouldn’t eat them all. As soon as his hand was out of the bag and he put it down to get a sip of his soda, I reached for the bag and dug in.

  “Who lives here?” I asked.

  David shrugged.

  A second or so later, the garage door opened, and he backed the van out again.

  “He’s leaving,” I said and wiped my greasy hands on my pants like my mother always told me not to. I noticed David did the same.

  I stayed a good distance behind Jenkins, then followed him through town until he reached an old wooden building in the center. Jenkins drove into the back and we lost sight of him.

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  “It’s the local theater,” David said. “They have a performance tonight. Opening night. It’s usually a big deal around here. Lots of people come, both locals and tourists. The whole town’s gonna be here. It’s usually pretty good.”

  “So, you think he’s part of the show?” I asked, thinking we might be wasting our time. “That he’s helping out?”

  He shrugged. “I guess he could be. Let’s just stay and wai
t and see what happens. He might leave in a few minutes.”

  Thinking we might as well, and that we didn’t have anything better to do, I nodded in agreement. Of course, the guy didn’t leave, and after a few hours, people started to swarm the place. Cars parked in the parking lot and people flocked indoors.

  “Do you think he might have left if there’s another exit in the back?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” David said.

  “I’m gonna go check.”

  Pretending to be one of the crowd, I got out of the car and walked up to the theater building. I then ran around it and spotted Jenkin’s white van still parked in the back.

  He was still there. If he were part of the show, then he would be there for the entire evening.

  And apparently, so would we.

  Chapter Sixty

  It was pitch dark when she opened her eyes. Melanie blinked, but it didn’t help much. She was so confused, it was almost overpowering, and she wanted to cry. Yet she managed to hold it back while a million thoughts flashed through her mind at once, mostly asking questions.

  Where am I? What happened?

  Desperately, she tried to recollect what had taken place before this moment, but she couldn’t. No matter how hard she tried, it was all just a black hole, just as black as the view she was staring at right now.

  What is going on?

  Panic began to rise inside of her as she felt pain in the tips of her fingers and reached out her hand. The tips scraped against something like a wall, and she kept touching it, then reached out to the sides next to her and felt the wall behind her.

  Am I trapped somewhere?

  As the realization sank in, she felt anxious. Crying out in fear, Melanie reached out both hands and knocked them both on the wall in front of her, forcing it to slam open with a loud bang. A sea of light overwhelmed her. With a loud gasp, she closed her eyes and stepped out, then looked back at what was behind her, still covering her eyes halfway because of the bright light.

  What is this place?

  A type of closet was behind her. An old-fashioned wooden armoire with no clothes inside of it. Had she been kept in there? Why? And who put her there? Or did she go in there voluntarily? Had she slept in there?

  Had she really been that drunk?

  She remembered going out with her friend, and she remembered music and drinking beer, but that was about all she could recollect. It was like everything was just this big dark gap.

  It’ll come back to you. Once you figure out everything else. Take it one step at a time. It’ll come.

  Melanie touched her head and tried to figure out where she was. There was a lot of light shining directly at her, making it impossible for her to see properly. She heard someone cough and tried to look past the lights, wondering if someone was out there. That was when someone suddenly yelled or almost screamed.

  “It’s a bomb! She’s got a bomb!”

  “Who?” Melanie asked, scanning the area around her before she looked down at her own chest. She lifted a hand to touch the vest while the reality sank in.

  “It’s probably part of the show,” someone yelled back. “Sit back down.”

  What were they talking about?

  The crowd in front of her went quiet while Melanie stared at them, her pulse beginning to quicken as her fingers touched the wires. Sweat sprang to her forehead, and she felt her hands begin to tremble.

  Her. They were talking about her.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. David and I had walked inside to watch the show and hopefully keep an eye on Jenkins. I had spotted him standing by the stage, a camera in his hand, filming.

  Now, I was looking at the girl on the stage.

  She was standing in the center of it, touching the vest she was wearing, visibly weeping in distress. The crowd was murmuring, unable to figure out what was going on. Someone had yelled it was a bomb, while others said it was just a part of the show.

  I had my doubts. It didn’t take me long to recognize Melanie from the pictures in the local online newspaper. And the vest she was wearing was a real bomb. I had no doubt about it.

  “We need to get these people out of here,” I said to David in a low voice. “Preferably without anyone get trampled in the panic.”

  He rose from his seat, and I followed, trying to do so calmly, but by then, it was too late. The woman in the front who had yelled that it was a bomb was still whimpering, and now as Melanie stepped forward and they could see her distress, a wave of shock went through the crowd.

  “Help me,” Melanie said through tears, her voice quivering. “Please, someone help me.”

  That set them off. The woman from earlier grabbed her child in her arms, turned away from the stage, and set off toward the doors. It didn’t take many seconds before about fifty others followed, stumbling for the doors, tripping over one another, screaming.

  But as the first woman reached the doors and she tried to open them, they didn’t budge. It was then that my blood froze.

  “Try the other door,” I said to David, and he ran to the one behind us, but it was also locked. Someone tried the emergency exits too, but they were locked as well.

  We were trapped. Trapped inside a small room with a bomb.

  Screams filled the air as people panicked and hammered on the doors. David grabbed his phone and called nine-one-one while I tried to calm people down around me and prevent them from panicking. But it was no use. They were screaming and yelling and knocking on the doors hysterically. There was no way I could calm them down. I felt the panic spread inside of me as well. I had never been good with claustrophobic situations and being trapped inside a room with hundreds of people and a bomb wasn’t exactly not claustrophobic.

  I took a few deep breaths and calmed my poor beating heart, focusing not on the danger or the fact that we couldn’t get out, but on what to do about it, what I could possibly do to make sure we made it out alive.

  Instead, I turned to look at Melanie on the stage. She was still weeping and had fallen to her knees.

  Heart in my throat, I elbowed my way through the crowd, going against the traffic toward the stage, where I climbed up to her. She was pulling at the sides of the vest, her face strained in fear.

  “Melanie?” I said.

  She looked up, and our eyes met. I cleared my throat to make sure I didn’t sound shrill or like I was about to freak out, which I was.

  “Hi there, Melanie. My name is Eva Rae Thomas. I’m with the FBI, and I’m going to try and help you, okay?”

  “Please,” she said and pulled at the vest. “Please, just get this thing off of me!”

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  “It seems to be connected to some sort of measuring device,” I said as I examined the vest. David had come up to us on the stage and knelt next to Melanie.

  “I don’t know much about these things,” he said. “But my guess is it is very real. I can’t take the chance and say it isn’t. I know we first need to find the switch, a trigger, or a timer. It could be operated remotely in case the carrier of the vest has a change of heart; then it’ll go off anyway.”

  I was sweating in the heat from the lamps and because of the tense situation. My fingers were also trembling as I examined the vest closely.

  David took a closer look at something, a small monitor that was also attached to Melanie’s arm, then wrinkled his forehead.

  “Please,” Melanie pleaded. “Please, just get this thing off of me. I can’t breathe properly; I’m so scared.”

  “We’re doing what we can,” I said. “But it’s easier said than done. You can’t pull at it, though; you risk setting it off. Now, it seems that the detonator is attached to something, and we need to find out what makes it set off the bomb.”

  “It can’t be,” David mumbled.

  “What can’t be?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

  David gave me a puzzled look. “It’s … it’s … I think it’s a sphygmomanometer.”

&nbs
p; “What are you saying? What’s going on?” Melanie shrieked. “Please. Can’t you help me, please?”

  “English, please,” I said, “what’s that?”

  “A … a blood pressure monitor.”

  “What’s going on?” Melanie asked, sobbing loudly. “Please. I’m about to burst into a panic!”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  He pulled me aside. “It’s connected to a blood pressure monitor, keeping an eye on Melanie’s blood pressure.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I have no way of knowing this for sure, but let me tell you what it looks like to me. My guess is, the more agitated she gets, the higher her blood pressure will go, right? And when it reaches a certain level, it’ll go off.”

  I stared at him, eyes wide. Melanie was whimpering behind us, making strange nervous sounds.

  “Well … can’t we just take it off of her? So it won’t monitor her blood pressure?” I asked. “Rip the thing off her arm?”

  “That will most likely set the bomb off too,” he said.

  “You think?”

  “Do you want to take the risk?” he asked. “Now, I called for help, and they’re on their way. The only thing we can do right now is to make sure the bomb doesn’t go off before they get here.”

  “But how?”

  “We keep her calm,” he said. “We prevent her from going into a panic, whatever it takes.”

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  It was easier said than done. Melanie was out of reach, panicking, and her blood pressure was through the roof. I took Melanie’s hand in mine and stroked it gently. I could feel her rapid pulse underneath her skin, and it made mine soar as well. I still couldn’t hear the sirens yet but prayed they weren’t far away. Problem was, they had to find someone to be able to defuse the bomb first and then bring that person here. I desperately wondered how long that was going to take.