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

  “Oh, save it,” Ryan said. “We don’t want your prayers. We want justice for our daughter.”

  “And justice you’ll get, once the courts …” Deputy Corel tried, but Ryan interrupted him with a loud roar.

  “You think that’s justice, huh? He’ll get a couple of years, and me and my wife we’ll get … nothing because nothing will bring her back. Do you know where my wife and I have just been, huh? Do you know?”

  David shook his head.

  “We were at the medical examiner’s office, IDing our own daughter. Can you imagine? Can you imagine what that’s like? Knowing that your son … your bastard son did this to her.”

  David’s head slumped. “I don’t understand,” he said and glanced toward Adam, who looked like he was sleeping peacefully. “He loved her. They loved one another.”

  “Love?” Ryan hissed, while Deputy Corel held him back once again. “You call this love? Your boy sure has a strange way of showing love. But mark my words, David. I will kill your son if I get the chance; you hear me? I will kill him in cold blood for what he did to my girl, and I’ll gladly take the jail time for it. Gladly!”

  Chapter Twelve

  We drove back from the hospital in silence. Sydney was sitting in the passenger seat next to me, and David was in the back seat where I couldn’t look at him. Just his presence in the car made my skin crawl. There was so much I wanted to say to him, so much I needed to say, yet the words didn’t come. This wasn’t the time or the place. The man was lying down — which was good; I needed him to be down — but I didn’t like to kick him while he was still down there.

  I parked in front of our grandmother’s house and killed the engine of my minivan. David got out first, and we followed him. As we walked up on the porch, David sat on the porch swing and covered his face with his hands. Sydney and I just stood there, not knowing what to do.

  “I just can’t believe it,” he said. “I can’t believe he would do any of those things. Not my boy, not Adam.”

  It became awkward really fast. Sydney and I stared at one another, then at our father, who sobbed and cried. Neither of us wanted to comfort him. I felt anger rise in me as I couldn’t stop wondering why he never cried over me. He could cry over his son, who was most likely a murderer, but never shed a tear for me?

  It was selfish, but I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t stop wondering what made Adam so special that his dad wanted to see him grow up and not me.

  Are you seriously mad because he kidnapped Sydney and not you?

  I guess I was.

  “He was a good boy; he is a good boy,” he continued. “He would never kill Allyson. Of all the people in the world, she was the one who loved him and that he loved. He adored the very ground she walked on. It makes no sense!”

  He lifted his glance and looked straight into my eyes for the first time in the two days I had been there.

  “Please, Eva Rae. Please, help him. You’re the only one who can.”

  I shook my head with a snort.

  So, now you want me, huh? Because I can be of use to you?

  “Please, sweetheart?”

  I shook my head in anger. “You don’t get to call me that. You hear me? You don’t get to call me that!”

  I stared at him, my nostrils flaring.

  “This is ridiculous,” I said and stepped back, emotions stirring in me like a tornado. It felt like my blood was boiling, and I found it hard to breathe properly. This was just too much for me.

  I saw that the garage door was open, and I turned away from my sobbing excuse for a father and walked in there, finding my grandmother, Eileen, underneath her Harley, wrench in her hand. She was eighty years old, yet still rode her bike, refusing to act her age.

  “I take it that Adam hasn’t woken up yet by the look on your face,” she said with a sniffle. Eileen had been with us to visit Adam the day before but had to leave because she couldn’t hold it together. I had heard her pacing around in the living room all night, and this morning she said she didn’t want to go with us; she said she’d go later. She said she had work to do, but I sensed she just couldn’t take it, that seeing Adam like that was too unbearable for her.

  I stared at her and shook my head. I had never had a grandmother before. The one on my mother’s side cut my mother off when she decided to have children at a young age, and they never reconnected, and since I never knew my real dad, I had never realized Eileen even existed. She had told me that she had been down to visit a few times when I was just a baby, but I couldn’t remember that, naturally.

  The strangest part was that ever since I saw Eileen for the first time two days ago, I felt like she was someone I could talk to. Not to mention the uncanny likeness in our appearances. We both had those same light blue eyes, and the red hair — well, hers was mostly gray now, but still had some redness in it — the pale skin, the shortness, and stubbiness. We had a connection that I had never felt in my life, except maybe with my sister. But with Eileen, it was different. It was like she understood me, and she knew me, like really knew me. It was like she was some sort of older version of me.

  She pulled out from underneath the bike, wiped her hands on a stray rag, then approached me. She was wearing ripped jeans with oil stains on them, a white T-shirt with a Harley logo on it, and a bandana on the top of her head. She still had long unruly hair, despite her age, which I liked. I never understood why people cut their hair short just because they rounded fifty or even sixty. Why weren’t women allowed to have long hair just because they were old?

  Eileen went to the fridge, grabbed two beers, and handed me one.

  “Spill it, kid. What’s going on?”

  “David …”

  “Your dad,” she said.

  “Yeah, well … he’s asking me to help Adam. He says he doesn’t believe Adam would do what he did.”

  “Well, David has followed your career closely. He knows how good you are at what you do. That’s why he called you to come. You are the only hope for Adam, like it or not.”

  That was a surprise to me. My dad had been following my career? Didn’t make me feel better about him, though. If he knew where I was, he could have come looking for me. It didn’t have to take a murder case for him to do that.

  “But … what is it exactly that he thinks I can do? There’s like an entire cafeteria full of witnesses who saw Adam come in with that gun and open fire.”

  Eileen sipped her beer and shook her head. “It’s just not like Adam. I’ve known the kid for fifteen years.”

  “But still, the case is pretty clear … the evidence overwhelming. And now they say he killed his girlfriend too?” I said.

  Eileen almost choked on her beer. “Allyson? Oh, dear God. They found her?”

  I nodded. “In a dumpster at a place called Peter’s Point.”

  Eileen sucked in air, and I could tell that her eyes were welling up.

  “You knew her well?” I asked.

  Eileen nodded. “She used to come here all the time. They’d hang out with me out here by the bikes, or they’d be in the house doing homework together. Those two were the cutest couple.” Eileen shook her head and drank more from her beer. As she lowered the bottle, she snorted angrily. “Nope. I’m not buying it. This is the drop. Adam would never hurt her, never!”

  She gave me a look. “You have to look into this. I know how you must feel about your father …”

  “I don’t think you know the half of it,” I said.

  “Maybe I don’t, but this is not about him. I’m not asking you for your dad’s sake. Do it for Adam’s. He’s innocent; I’m telling ya. He would never do any of these things. I know my grandson. He loved that girl. He was a good boy and always kind to his classmates.”

  “Did he have any history of mental illness?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No. Nothing of the sort. You must believe me.”

  I sighed and finished my beer, then put the empty bottle down. My eyes met Eileen’s.

  “You k
now … you could have looked for me,” I said. “You could at least have tried.”

  With that, I turned my back on her and left, while mumbling, “Thanks for the beer.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Hello-o-o, everybody. I’m back. Now, last time you saw me was earlier today when I took down a guy at the liquor store. Remember that? I hope you got a kick out of seeing me beat him senseless in the alley behind the dumpsters. I sure got a kick out of it; I have to say. My knuckles are still sore and swollen, look.”

  The man who called himself E.T. lifted his hand to the camera in front of him. It was hooked up to his computer, broadcasting everything live. Four users, Heinz45, Geogina211, superstar333, and hushnow5 were already commenting on his video, cheering him on. Now was the time for him not to disappoint them. They had come to listen to his words and to watch him as he lived out the fantasy that they could only dream about.

  “I know that no one knows my name right now, but one day, I aspire to be really famous,” he continued. “And this guy will help me achieve just that. Come and see.”

  E.T. took the camera with him toward the car parked in the garage. He opened the trunk so the viewers could better see.

  “This is Jeff,” he said and filmed the guy with the alligator-shaped scar. He was crying behind the gag, trying to scream, pleading for his life probably. “Jeff, say hello to everyone.”

  E.T. trembled with satisfaction, and he was certain his viewers did the same. The number on the computer screen of the people watching right now rose to almost a hundred, and it pleased E.T. immensely. This was what he needed to make it big. Now, he was reaching people all over the world with his achievements. It was odd how easy it was to become famous in the world today. And he hadn’t reached nearly enough yet.

  More came too, and soon he was closer to two hundred. E.T. filmed the guy in the trunk, placing the camera very close to him.

  “There you go,” he said. “Smile for the camera, Jeff. You’re being watched from all over the world. They’re commenting and liking this as we speak. Look, there’s one guy from the Philippines, and one from India. Isn’t it exciting, huh? Being seen by the entire world. Aren’t you the lucky guy?”

  E.T. put the camera back on the tripod, then reached down and grabbed the man with the scar by the shoulders and pulled him out of the trunk. His heavy body landed on the concrete with a loud thud. He could hear him whimpering behind the gag. The sound made him feel powerful.

  More viewers had joined the broadcast, and more were commenting.

  “Kill him with a hammer,” hugo789 wrote. “There’s one right behind him on the wall. Take that and smash his face in while we watch.”

  “I would like to see him get stabbed,” IWunYu wrote.

  “How about a good old-fashioned strangulation?” JulienP34, wrote. “I always enjoy those.”

  “Now, everyone, you must have patience. As most of you know, I have plans for this guy. Big plans. Plans that will put me on the map, and make people talk about me with a shiver in their voices. He’s not here to just be killed savagely, even though it is tempting. No, I say you go big, or you go home. Am I right?”

  The man with the scar was lying on the cement floor, whimpering behind his gag, while trying to fight the strips holding his hands. E.T. let him squirm till he got tired of watching him. He then grabbed the pliers from the shelf and turned to look at his new friend, Jeff, tapping the pliers repeatedly on the palm of his hand. Then he squatted next to him and stroked him gently across his hair, making sure the camera captured everything. It was almost a shame. Jeff was so young and pretty still. His skin was so smooth and had no wrinkles.

  At least he’d never get any.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  I stared at the computer screen in front of me. I was scrolling through my brother’s Instagram feed, trying to find anything that would give me an explanation as to why my brother would want to shoot his classmates and kill his girlfriend. A manifest, an angry post, a cry for help, anything.

  But there was nothing but happy pictures of him and the girl Allyson, who they believed he had killed. He wasn’t a gun lover; he wasn’t angry at the world like I had expected him to be.

  At least not publicly.

  “Eva Rae?”

  “Huh, yes, of course, you can ask me a question.”

  I had finally called Matt. I was sitting at the desk in the guest room where Eileen had put Sydney and me up while we were there. Sydney was reading a book while I kept going through my brother’s social media accounts, tapping annoyed at the keyboard. I wanted my brother to be guilty so badly because that meant I would be off the hook; that meant I could leave here and go on hating them all for the rest of my life.

  But nothing showed up, nothing. And deep down inside, I didn’t believe he was guilty either. It was nagging at me.

  I hated being in this house; I loathed even the smell inside of it. Because every second I spent there reminded me that I could have known these people, that these people who were supposedly my family, they didn’t try to reconnect with me even though they knew perfectly well where to find me.

  Three darn hours in a car was all it took. Three. That’s all.

  “What did you expect to find when you went up there? Why did you go?” Matt asked.

  I looked up and leaned back in my chair. I was getting a little tired of this conversation.

  “What do you mean? They asked me to come. David called me, and Sydney asked me too.”

  “But you could have told them no. If it wasn’t to help them out, then why did you go? Just to look at them and let them fry in their own grease? Just to make them suffer? Or what?”

  “I’m not following you,” I said, even though I was. I just didn’t like what he was saying. It hit a little close to home.

  “I’m saying that it’s not you, Eva Rae,” Matt said. “I don’t believe you went up there just to make them sweat, and I don’t think you intend to leave them in their misery and go back to your own life. Because that is not who you are. I think you went because, deep down, you wanted to help. Because it’s what you do, even if you don’t feel like it, even if they make you angry beyond anything in this world, even if they hurt you, you want to help. You want to help them, Eva Rae. Besides, if it turns out that your brother didn’t kill Allyson, then there’s a murderer out there who did.”

  I exhaled and rubbed the bridge of my nose. Matt was right. Why did I keep dragging it out? If David and Eileen were right, then outside those old windows, on this forsaken island, there could be a murderer that needed to be caught.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The detective in charge of Adam’s case had his office at the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office in Yulee on the mainland. Sydney drove us there, while I looked at the beautiful scenery through my window. Amelia Island was a gorgeous island with lots of creeks and marshland, not to mention the beaches that seemed to have endless white sand. It was way further north than Cocoa Beach, and the winters could get cold, I was told. It wasn’t at this time of year, though, so it was hard to imagine. The island was located close to Jacksonville and not far from the border to Georgia. It was about as far north as you could get in Florida, and still, it was a blazing eighty-nine degrees in October. I had dressed nicely in a black skirt and a light green button-up shirt. It wasn’t how I usually dressed, but I wanted to make a good impression. I wanted to be taken seriously.

  Sydney parked in front of the one-story red brick building. Nassau County Sheriff’s Office, it said in big letters above the entrance. None of the three flags outside were moving. The wind had completely died down and made it feel even hotter.

  I had called ahead and set up a meeting with Detective McMillen, and he greeted us slightly indifferently the hallway, then led us down to his office. He sat down, then folded his hands across his desk.

  “And what can I do for you, Miss Thomas? Or is it Mrs.?”

  “Miss,” I said, fee
ling a stab to my heart. I still hadn’t gotten used to the fact that I was divorced. I touched my finger gently where my ring used to be, then thought briefly about Matt before finding my focus once again.

  “I’m here about the Clarke case, Adam Clarke.”

  He leaned back in his chair with an exhale. His fingers drummed on the desk. “I know who you are and what a mess you caused down in Miami a few months ago. Why are you really here? I know you left the FBI, so it’s not the bureau that sent you. Are you writing a new book? I read one of your previous books; didn’t find it very enlightening … basic stuff almost anyone could have written if you ask me.”

  Okay then.

  “I just have some questions about the case,” I said, doing my best not to be offended by this guy. McMillen was the type that obviously didn’t think women could teach him anything.

  He looked at his watch, then exhaled. “All right. I have a few minutes, but remember, it’s an ongoing investigation, so there won’t be much I can share.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll take what I can get. First of all, I need to know if Adam Clarke has been charged with the murder of Allyson Woodland.”

  “He will be. We believe the two cases are connected.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “Well, she was his girlfriend. She disappeared two days before he showed up at the school carrying an AK-47. He was on a killing spree. He wants to be famous like the other school shooters, or he’s angry at the world or both. He kills the girlfriend first, and after that, there’s no way back. Until our school resource officer, Conroy stops him and shoots him in the chest. If he hadn’t been there, right on the spot, it could have ended a whole lot differently. All it takes to stop a bad guy with a gun is …”