Rage burned through Taylor’s entire body.
She wanted to rip Nadine’s head off.
“Cash or card?” the attendant asked as Nadine stepped aside.
Taylor opened and closed her eyes. She pulled her card out and swiped it.
“Five-minute wait guys.”
They moved away from the counter.
“So are you setting the tempo then?” Taylor asked.
Nadine raised her eyebrows. “Huh?”
“You’re just going to do whatever you want. Until I have to make a decision about whether or not to pull out my gun and shoot you.”
“We’re eating burgers at a fast-food joint. What do you think’s going to happen? You think I’m going to try and grab your gun off you and start wasting randoms?”
Taylor grabbed her shirt and forced her up against the wall. “You better show me some fucking respect. Or I’m gonna blow your head off. You understand?”
Nadine swallowed. “Alright. Chill out. Settle down. I’ll be good.”
“You better be, I swear.”
“You know me,” Nadine smiled.
CHAPTER 27
Twenty past five. They were on the road in the middle of nowhere. Fields and farmland all around.
Erin was feeling perky. Exhilarated. There were gold stars all over her name. Money in the account. The murders this morning with the spiders were one thing. But this next crime scene would be making international news.
“I remember hearing about Spider Jack all the way back in high school,” Erin confessed. “You know like, fifteen years ago. His cases go back from there but that’s when I first heard about him.”
“What subject?” Darper asked.
“No, I wasn’t – we weren’t learning about him. I was just reading a magazine or whatever. I think your old partner, Special Agent Ross was the one being interviewed. He was just a regular investigator back then though.”
“Yeah, he’s been on this since the beginning,” Darper said.
“Why do you think they’ve replaced him?”
Darper pursed his lips. His hands gripped the wheel steadily.
“Am I not supposed to ask?”
“It’s just that I don’t know you that well,” Darper said. “It’s kind of personal information you’re asking about. And I have a relationship with Darper.”
“Oh.”
He glared at her.
“I had no idea.”
“Wait…” Darper murmured. “I mean… He is or was my partner for the past seven years.”
“Were you living together?”
“Jesus Christ. We’re not in a relationship. We’re not gay. Gosh.”
Erin giggled. “Got you.”
Darper looked at her, his sleek eyes reflecting movement and color. The road’s silent beat…
“Today is not a day for laughter,” he said quietly.
“Oh well,” Erin replied. “I know. It was just … I couldn’t help myself…”
“Few of us can.”
The car stormed ahead.
In the sky beyond, the oranges, the pinks and purples, splashed through the front windows. Erin could hear helicopters rattling throughout. Some of them with spotlights. Searching.
She sat up.
The smoke and fire were now visible. Red and blue flashing sirens everywhere.
A large ring had formed around the bus’s remains. Cars parked at wrong angles. Police holding people back. Cameras running amok.
Erin turned to Darper. “How are we going to get through them all?”
He didn’t answer.
“Darper?”
He suddenly jammed his foot on the accelerator and took the car off the road and into the field on the right. They went through a fence and teared through the grass diagonally.
“What’s going on?” Erin exclaimed. “The crime scene’s back there!”
“We’re not going to that crime scene,” Darper replied.
“We aren’t? But isn’t that where –”
“That’s only one part of it,” Darper said. “After he torched the bus he went somewhere else on foot.”
“But where?”
Darper hesitated.
“Come on, tell me where.”
“To his next target,” Darper said coldly.
CHAPTER 28
It was surreal. That’s all there was to it. Taylor looked down at the hamburger and fries and cameral flavored sundae and she knew she was weak. It wasn’t the food which tempted her. It was this … demon infested creature sitting opposite her, devouring an identical plate of food from her own. Nadine wasn’t even trying to test her. She wasn’t grinning or teasing or making the usual sarcastic remarks. Her mind was elsewhere, away from Taylor. Away from the restaurant. She was legitimately enjoying her food.
And now it was time for Taylor to eat.
She pushed hot fries into her mouth. Sucked on the straw. Took a bite from the burger. Chewed and swallowed. Sucked the straw again.
And she could feel him.
His dark presence.
Counting the moments until she next took a drink.
“Have you seen any good movies lately?” Nadine asked.
Taylor’s eyes shifted.
“Anything recent?” Nadine added. “It’s gonna be a while before I get to watch all the current ones. I might have to wait years. I don’t know how it works. I suppose they’ll have movie night once a week or month or something when I go to prison. Assuming I go back.”
Taylor’s eyes grew smaller.
Push. Suck. Bite. Swallow.
Suck.
“I wonder what it would take for that to happen,” Nadine continued. “What it would take for you to forgive me. Or are you incapable?”
“Is my forgiveness really that important to you?”
Nadine shrugged. She put a spoon in her desert. “Forgiveness is just a start.”
“You have no remorse for your actions. You seem to think it’s all a big joke.”
“No, I don’t.”
“And you have no problem lying through your teeth.”
“Most people would rather be lied to than be told the truth about themselves.”
“Does most people include you?”
Nadine scrunched up her face. As though the question didn’t compute.
“Because I can tell some truths about you,” Taylor said. “If you’re willing to listen.”
Nadine dropped her spoon. “I’m all ears.”
“I think you’re an inch away from a full blown mental breakdown,” Taylor said. “Once the weight of your actions finally catches up with you, once you can see yourself clearly, you’re going to lose it. You can’t outrun the shadows chasing you forever. There will come a point when it all dawns on you. Your moment of revelation. You’ll realize that you’re no longer the person you once were. That you’re no longer any person. You’re just an animal. A vicious, self-centered, disillusioned beast. And it will be your legacy till the end of time.”
Nadine avoided eye contact.
Taylor could see she was contemplating the words.
“You may be right,” Nadine said finally. “I just wonder why it hasn’t happened yet.”
“Because you lie to yourself. You lie to yourself and you lie to others and in the past, people have believed your lies. I’m sure it gave you a real kick. But now any person you come into contact with is going to see you for what you are. And it’s going to add up eventually. The pressure will mount. Your self-identification will clash with how the world sees you. And as time goes by, it will get harder to believe the lies…”
Nadine groaned. Faking that she wasn’t impressed.
But Taylor could see what was happening underneath.
Nadine was unsettled.
Taylor watched as she shuffled in her seat. How she couldn’t get her arms in the right place.
How she held her food the wrong way.
The butterflies in Taylor began to bleed out.
Taylor fi
nished her burger and sucked hard through the straw.
CHAPTER 29
The last gasps of twilight spread out across the rural suburban landscape. Dwayne and Max were sitting in Dwayne’s car together, the headlights off. Discussion had been limited. They were at the beginning of another mission. Talking could often be turned around to talking themselves out of it. So only the bare minimum was required.
“Check the map again,” Dwayne said. “Satellite view.”
Max scrolled through his phone.
“This is the right one, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Max said after a moment. “Just go over the back fence and we’ll be there.”
“Okay. Good. You can put it away.”
Max slid the phone into his pocket.
“Any final questions?” Dwayne asked. “You understand what we’re doing?”
“Our prime object is securing the target,” Max answered. “Any show of resistance and we move to the secondary objective. Shoot to kill.”
“Okay.”
“I have one question though.”
“What’s that?”
“If we kill Spider Jack how is that going to go towards keeping our jobs.”
Dwayne’s eyes shifted. His expression remained frozen.
Max panicked. “I mean, that’s what all this is about, isn’t it?”
“Fuck our jobs,” Dwayne said. He pushed open the driver’s door and stepped out into the road. He moved alongside the car and stopped in front of the trunk. He popped the lid as Max got out.
“I was just trying to think about what’s best for us,” Max said approaching.
Dwayne tossed him an assault rifle.
“What’s best for everyone is getting this sick fuck off the streets. If that means we have to sacrifice our careers in order to take him out, then that’s something I’m willing to live with.” Dwayne grabbed his own rifle, checked to see that it was loaded to full capacity, then shut the trunk. “Are we on the same page here or what?”
“Of course,” Max nodded.
“Alright.” Dwayne walked by him to the other side of the road.
“Only,” Max said.
Dwayne stopped.
Glared back at him.
“Only we should be sure it’s him,” Max said.
“If he has another reason for purchasing seven thousand tarantulas, then I’m all ears,” Dwayne said. He ripped the small balaclava from his pocket, stretching out the ends, holding it in front of his face. “Mask up.”
CHAPTER 30
The gates in front of the estate were wide open giving Special Agent Darper’s vehicle free access to travel up the winding driveway. Erin had her seatbelt off before they reached the top of it, anxious to get to the scene. There were two squad cars and three officers standing out the front as they arrived, but no sign of reporters or film crews. Obviously word hadn’t gotten out yet.
“Wait for me,” Darper said trying to hold her back, but Erin was already out of the car, slamming the door. She hurried up the concrete steps and met with the officers out front.
“I’m Agent Leeds,” she said flashing her ID. “That’s Special Agent Darper. Is the house secure?”
“We haven’t been upstairs yet,” one of the cops explained. “We saw a couple of dismembered corpses in a common room on ground and got the hell out of there.”
“So you’re not sure if the killer’s left the premises?”
“Doesn’t seem like the sort of thing you’d hang around for. But still you should wait for backup before anyone goes in.”
Erin glanced back at Darper climbing the steps.
“Backup just arrived,” she beamed.
Erin brushed past the other two officers and stepped through the front entrance. The house was cold. Quiet. Dark.
She drew her weapon and surveyed the area. Lights were on to the right. She followed them.
After walking through a few hallways and under a few arches, Erin had reached the room with the light on. This was the crime scene. A man’s naked body was lying on the floor near the doorway. He’d taken shots to the head. Peering further round the corner of the door she could see another body, this one female, lying on top of a pool table inside. It was just a glimpse she took in, but it was enough to catch a fragment of the gore. Erin pursed her lips together. Her heart pounding.
She saw a shadow move across the other side of the hall.
Erin swallowed. “Hello…?”
A rattle in another room.
Resisting the urge to look back in the room, she walked past the doorway and towards where she’d seen the shadow. As she approached the corner she thought she heard muffled voices. There must’ve been more police searching the house.
Erin looked back down the hallway. No sign of Darper.
She shook her head and took a moment before gradually creeping around the corner. She pushed a door back and entered what appeared to be a large kitchen. Very dark in here.
Erin suddenly saw a figure move in the distance.
They were carrying a weapon.
“Shit,” she cried out, diving underneath a counter just in time to escape the flood of bullets overhead. She propped her elbows up on the counter, steadying her gun. The figured move again and she fired at him.
He dropped to the floor instantly.
“Ooh…” Erin murmured. “Ooh no…”
She crept round the counter to where the figure was. She could see dark blood spilling out across the floor from his head.
Then the room grew fierce behind her.
She turned slowly to find herself staring face to face with a pair of green eyes.
Hiding behind a ski-mask.
CHAPTER 31
Darper stormed into the kitchen a moment later with the officers behind him, switching on the light switch. They found Erin standing in the middle of the room, holding her gun, trembling. A dead man at her feet.
“What the fuck’s going on in here?” Darper exclaimed. “Who is that?”
“I’m really, I’m so, so sorry,” Erin blurted out.
One of the officers took away her gun.
Darper knelt down beside the body and pulled the balaclava off his head.
It was Special Agent Max Cruther.
“He – He fired at me first,” Erin said. “It was self-defense.”
Darper looked up at her. “Of course it was.”
“Captain’s not going to like this,” one of the cop’s remarked.
“I know this man – this man who’s been killed,” Darper said. “His name is Special Agent Max Cruther. I worked with him in the field. He must have been … part of an operation we weren’t made aware of.”
“She still shouldn’t have been coming in here by herself,” one of the cops said.
“Look, we’ll leave that for our superiors to decide.” He stood back up and turned to Erin. “Are you okay?”
Erin shrugged. “Yeah, I’m fabulous.”
“Alright, you go with the officers. Wait outside for me. I have to make a couple of phone calls. Okay? Then we’ll go back to the city.”
Erin nodded.
One of the officer’s tried to put his hand around her, but she shook it off and stormed past him.
“Stay with her,” Darper said to the remaining cops.
They nodded and followed her out of the kitchen.
Darper turned and looked down at Max again.
He inhaled slowly.
Special Agent Ross couldn’t have been too far away.
CHAPTER 32
Darper eventually found him in the billiard room with the dead bodies, pouring himself a drink at the bar. Trying not to look at the deceased, Darper trained his gaze to where Ross was and held it there. Ross wasn’t facing him directly.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Darper asked.
Ross picked up the shot glass and downed its contents.
“Are you listening to me, Dwayne?”
Ross shook his head and poured himself another drink
. “Sixteen years. Sixteen bloody years.”
“What?”
“That’s how long Max gave to this job. And … I’ve known him for five. That’s five years right there.”
He drank again.
“I understand you’re upset,” Darper began.
“No, no, I’m not upset,” Ross interrupted. “I’m not really feeling anything. It’s like the sound is so loud you can’t hear anything anymore. Like there’s no sound at all.”
“Listen. Police are going to be all over this place soon. You might as well get out while you can still say you weren’t here.”
“And you wouldn’t tell them?”
Darper exhaled. He didn’t even know the answer to that question.
“Come on. Come in here. I want to show you something.”
“Dwayne, I’m serious –”
“No, you need to see this. You need to see what we’re dealing with.”
Darper took a deep breath. He stepped over the dead man in the doorway and approached the pool table. Ross was standing on the other side of it.
“Go on,” Ross said. “Tell me what you think of this.”
Darper looked at the woman. She was naked as well. Each of her legs and arms had been severed down the middle and spread apart, each singular limb now bearing the appearance of two. They were all still connected to the torso.
“Eight,” Darper mumbled. “Eight … Eight legs…”
“Just like a spider,” Ross said.
Darper moved towards the top end. The woman’s eyes had been cut out, along with four deep gouges just underneath her nose. Both her right and left temple also had holes in them.
“Eight eyes,” Darper said.
“I know right,” Ross agreed.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” He had to look away.
Ross moved in from behind.
“The guy’s finished though,” Ross said. “We don’t know where he is, but we know who he is.”
Darper whirled around. “Who?”
Spider Jack (Guess The Killer Book 2) Page 7
