Red Web

by Ninie Hammon

  Any fool could identify the tarantulas, every size you could imagine in your worst nightmare. He could see way more of them than anything else. They was all over everything, likely 'cause they was Melody's favorites. But they was crawling across the floor with all kinda other spiders. T.J. wasn't no expert, but just in the area around him he could see in the dim light he spotted ordinary daddy longlegs spiders, wolf spiders, yellow sac spiders, house spiders, hobo spiders, garden spiders and spinning spiders.

  Melody McCallum was an expert, though, had minored in entomology in college, knew and understood spiders, what they were like, what they could do and had enough money to … whatever she wanted. And apparently, she'd wanted to build a life-size terrarium and fill it with eight-legged monstrosities. There was dark lumps of … he couldn't tell what it was, some kind of plant life to feed the bugs … lying all around, reminded him of torn-up bales of hay left in a field for cattle. He had no doubt that among the crawly things everywhere, among the writhing sea of predatory spiders and the ordinary bugs that'd been provided for their dining enjoyment, were exotic arachnids even more dangerous than the poisonous spiders he could see.

  He knew precious little about the ones he could identify. He knew that black widows and brown recluse spiders didn't automatically deliver lethal doses of venom to humans. Depended on the size of the person and the size — and intentions — of the spider. Though the bite of either of them would deliver devastating, debilitating pain — some said the nerve-poison bite of a black widow was the most painful bite of any predator in nature — they delivered different doses depending on whether they intended to eat the prey on the spot or store for future consumption. But either way, the bites of multiple black widows and/or brown recluse spiders would most certainly be fatal.

  Maybe the bites of the spiders he couldn't identify would drop a person like a bullet to the heart.

  He didn't know what that soul-less child murderer had planned for him and Bailey, but the only way they was gonna survive it was to get out of here.

  And if Bailey passed out, he would have to carry her.

  The O'Halloran cabin was up at the top of Butterworth Ridge, commanding a spectacular view of the mountainside and the hollow below. No, not spectacular, not anymore. It once had been, and would one day be again … as soon as the woods all around it recovered from the devastating forest fire that had laid waste to thousands of acres of this part of the mountains. The evidence of the forest fire itself was long gone. No charred stumps and blackened ground and bushes. Even so, the recovery stage wasn't pretty. Tangled undergrowth had taken over where it could, now that there were no longer hundred-foot-tall trees to shade the forest floor and deny the weeds the sunlight they required. The U.S. Forest Service had planted two or three hundred saplings, maybe more — birch, maple, dogwood, sycamore and oak — about eighteen months ago and most of those had taken root and appeared to be thriving, but it would be decades before there was a mature forest covering the land again.

  The fire had wiped out everything in its path in a two-and-a-half-mile swath of devastation, the northwest edge of the blaze just clipping Edward O'Halloran's cabin. He and his family had barely escaped with their lives and in the aftermath, he'd built a bigger-better mousetrap on the site of the old one. Now, it sat in a clearing that hadn't been a clearing before the fire. He'd had expensive landscaping done on the house and grounds, but none of it had grown big enough to make the cabin look any less like a shoebox sitting out in the open with no real green vegetation any closer than the tree line to the south about seventy-five yards away. In deference to the fire, O'Halloran had added a fire lookout tower to the top of the house disguised to look like an ornate gazebo where he could see for miles in every direction, able to spot the first hint of smoke from any impending blaze.

  From a police perspective, the cabin was a nightmare.

  The grounds were totally open and even at the tree line, the trees were too small to offer much cover. The lone front door meant one man could hold off an army. And worst of all was the watchtower on the roof. There was no way to get above the thing to allow a police sniper to shoot down into it. Like the turret on a castle, it was accessible only from inside and offered sightlines in every direction, a firing spot that covered all the land around it, 360 degrees.

  As they drove out to the cabin, Brice told Nakamura what to expect. Though he had never attended one of the monthly hunters' feasts, Brice had been to the cabin right after it was completed — to serve a summons on O'Halloran. Some guy was suing him over a traffic accident. After his initial anger at the summons, O'Halloran became a gracious host, showing Brice around. At that time, there was only a smattering of furniture, a kitchen table, a bed in only one of the bedrooms, and gun cases — lots of gun cases — but no weapons. O'Halloran showed the sheriff the state-of-the-art security system he'd installed to protect all the firepower he'd eventually load into those cases, video surveillance cameras at all the entrances.

  "If he had that kind of equipment, how'd the kid get in there in the first place?"

  Brice barked a laugh. "Ed showed that system to everyone he knew. There are probably two hundred people in this county who know how to disarm it. One of them, I'm sure, is Lucas Ferrigliano."

  "And the Ferrigliano boy would know how to use all that firepower?"

  "As at home with a rifle as a city boy with a skateboard."

  Lucas's vehicle with a portable Andolino's Pies Delivery sign attached to the roof was parked at the end of the driveway next to the porch that extended out from the front door and wrapped around the east and west sides of the cabin. He'd gotten the family's old CRV for his sixteenth birthday when his father bought a new one. There was no hope of using the "element of surprise" in this takedown. His mother'd left Lucas a message telling him the FBI was looking for him even before his hysterical not-girlfriend warned him. Besides, "sneaking up" on this cabin was impossible. If the boy'd been in the fire tower, he'd seen the line of patrol cars as they turned off the highway a mile away. Nakamura spread out his troops, a total of more than two dozen officers, to surround the cabin — five sheriff's department cruisers, four West Virginia State Police cruisers and the vehicle in which Gomez, Trimboli and Hardesty had traveled. They quickly checked out the number of windows and doors on each side of the house, which way the doors opened — in or out — as well as any other potential avenues of escape, and there was none.

  Nakamura tried calling the boy's cellphone for the umpteenth time. It wasn't turned off, but apparently the ringer was. They had the telephone number for the land line in the O'Hallorans’ cabin and they called it. The boy didn't answer so Nakamura used a bullhorn.

  "Lucas Ferrigliano, my name is Special Agent Haruto Nakamura with the FBI. We need to talk to you. We will call you on the land line. Please pick up."

  Nakamura called. The phone rang and rang and rang. After two dozen rings, Nakamura was about to hang up when the line opened. The boy didn't say anything, not hello or anything else. But he had picked up the phone.

  "Lucas, we need you to step out the front door with your fingers clasped behind your head and walk slowly down the steps."

  "No. I'm not coming out."

  "You are not under arrest. No laws have been broken here; let's back this down before that happens."

  "I won't come out."

  "If you refuse this order to surrender, you can be charged with resisting arrest. Let's not go there. You don't want a criminal record, do you? I need you to step out the front door of the cabin with your hands clasped behind your head."

  "I said I'm not coming out and I'm not. Just go away."

  "We can't do that, son. We have to talk to you. We want to ask you some questions about—"

  "About Riley," he said, and his voice broke. "I have nothing to say to you about Riley. You're wasting your time. Go away."

  "We're not going anywhere until you come out and talk to us."

  "Are you deaf? Didn't you hear a word I said? I
don't want to talk to you. I don't want to talk to anybody. Leave me alone."

  "Lucas, you're not being reasonable. You're a smart young man. You know we won't leave without talking to you and I know you don't want anybody to get hurt."

  "Hurt? What? Are you going to shoot me if I don't come out?"

  "I didn't say that."

  "Yes you did, you said you didn't want to hurt me." He paused as if a new thought had struck him. "You can't shoot at me! Please, don't! You know I'm not alone in here and if you shoot at me, you might hit Baby Girl."

  Brice exchanged a look with Nakamura.

  "Who's in there with you, Lucas?"

  "I have guns, too, you know. Did you think about that? I know how to use them. And I can see you but you can't see me. You need to give up and go away. We just want you to leave us alone."

  "Lucas, who is it that's in there with you?"

  The boy did not respond.

  "I would like to talk to whoever is in there with you. Would you put them on the line, please, and let me speak to them?"

  The boy barked out a sardonic laugh. "You want to talk to Baby Girl? Riiiiiight. Like I could put the phone to her ear and the two of you could have a conversation. You know better than that. You know I'm the only one here who can talk on a phone, okay. Just me. So, listen to me and go away."

  "We are going to stay right here until you come out. Until you both come out. No matter how long it takes. There is nothing to be gained by putting this off. You will have to come out eventually and we will be here when you do, so you need to do it now, before the situation gets a whole lot worse."

  "It'll only get worse if you make it worse. I'll only start shooting if you make me start shooting. If I do, a whole lot of people are going to get hurt. Think about that and go away."

  The boy slammed the phone down and the line went dead.

  "You don't think he's got all three of those kids in there with him," Brice said. It was a statement, not a question.

  "If he does, they're all dead."

  "Baby Girl …" said Agent Hardesty. "The little girl taken this afternoon — she's deaf. She can't talk on a phone. Is that who he means?"

  "Maybe …" Nakamura wasn't convinced.

  "So he kidnaps three kids, kills the first two and we show up before he has a chance to kill the third," Hardesty continued. "Baby Girl's still alive in there. You think?"

  Nakamura shook his head. Brice wasn't buying it either.

  "None of it fits," Brice said.

  Nakamura stepped away and began to speak into his cellphone, summoning a hostage negotiation team from Pittsburgh.

  "Lucas's mother said he was at work at the time Christi Strickland was taken," Agent Trimboli put in. "If the girl at the drive-in window covered for him today, maybe she covered for him then. I suppose if you pulled up to the park with a pizza delivery sign on your car, you might get a little girl to get close enough to it to grab her."

  "We didn't see a pizza delivery truck on the video footage from the ATM," Hardesty said.

  "Could have turned off before it passed the ATM," Gomez said.

  "Nobody reported seeing anything like that anywhere near the park that day," Hardesty said.

  "A pizza delivery car can be like a fire hydrant, see it so often you don't see it at all," Gomez said.

  Brice shook his head.

  "What's his motive — for snatching any of them? We have a box of gifts the little boy hid in a stuffed animal and a handful of harmless — if weird — photos of Riley that Lucas hid in his closet. And this kid has no connection at all to the other two victims — at least none we can find. Why take Riley from school when Lucas had access to him twenty-four-seven right next door? Why take him at all? We don't have any good reasons to support that a sixteen-year-old kid who has barely had a driver's license long enough to get a speeding ticket suddenly goes on a spree and kidnaps three children — that doesn't add up. What for?"

  "Then why's he holed up in there with an arsenal of guns and a hostage, refusing to come out?" Hardesty said.

  "I'll send some deputies down the road, talk to the neighbors, find out when — or how often — they've seen Lucas's vehicle turn off Route 22 onto this road," Brice said.

  Nakamura glanced at the sky and noted the gray storm clouds hurrying across it.

  "First, find me a spot to set down a chopper. Hostage negotiation team's on the way and we're on the hook until they get here. Lock it down; we'll wait him out."

  Five minutes after they'd settled in to "wait him out," Lucas Ferrigliano started shooting.

  Chapter Forty

  From what T.J. could remember of the layout of The Cedars, there was only one exit from the ballroom other than the doors behind them, which was locked tight, and the handful of internal doors that might as well have been welded shut. There was an elevator and a staircase in the back of the room that led up to a door that opened out into the top turret above the third floor of the house, the part that looked like a lighthouse. From there, another staircase led down on the outside through the roof of the porch and out into the back yard. Would that door be sealed, too? Maybe, but it was his only shot. He had to get them up to that door, and then back down outside — with Bailey barely able to stand.

  He didn't let go of her, couldn't or she'd collapse, just turned her toward him, held her shoulders and looked into her face. She was cryin'. She'd started screaming soon's she seen that what was wrapped up in that plastic sack was a child, but she'd stopped in just a few seconds, cut off her own screams like turnin' off a water spigot. She couldn't stop the cryin' like that, though, and she heaved air in and out, tears streamin' down her cheeks.

  "You got to help me now," he said. "We got to get out of here. You understand?"

  She nodded, but he wasn't sure whether she really did or not.

  "Lean on me." He put her arm around his shoulders and held her there by her wrist. Then he half-carried, half-dragged her along the circular wall beside him, makin' for the back of the room. The sound of crunching insects underfoot made his skin crawl. He passed the first of the Hobbit doors that led to a spiral staircase that'd empty into one of the theatre boxes on the wall. Near the next doorway, he heard a sound overhead but couldn't place it. It was scratchy, a little like a cricket but not musical. And a hissin' sound come from somewhere up there in the gloom. Wasn't no bug made a sound that loud, which meant it was Melody, able to see them when they couldn't see her.

  The grating scraaaaaatch got closer, and suddenly Bailey pulled away from him and stood swayin' in the red gloom.

  "Shannuck!" She took in a deep, shuddery breath. "The spider in the camper that protected Katydid …"

  Bailey was fighting nausea and dizziness, so it was hard for her to get the words out.

  "The spider killed the wasps … and wrapped them up in shiny silver bags."

  She turned back the way they'd come, her eyes seeking the body of the child they'd found.

  T.J. looked around the ballroom, getting it now.

  "That's what this is." He could hear the wonder in his own voice. "A spider's lair. She filled this whole ballroom up with spiders, with bugs for 'em to eat and some kinda plants for the bugs to eat — all 'cause a spider was her hero."

  "Where'd she get so many spiders — and poisonous ones?"

  "When you's rich—"

  The sound came again, the scratchin'-hissin', and the ropes just above their heads moved. Something was up there in the rigging.

  "Melody." Bailey layered the word in horror and cringed away.

  "We gotta get outta sight. We sittin' ducks here in the open. No tellin' what she's armed with."

  He unwrapped Bailey's arm from his shoulders, grabbed hold of her wrist and pulled her along beside him to the nearest Hobbit door. The interior should have been lit with hundreds of flickerin' colored lights, making the same pattern of sparkles on the walls inside the stairwell as the chandelier made on the walls of the ballroom. But there wasn't no sparklin' lights. No lig
hts at all. It was the black dark of a pipe, not no light whatsoever.

  Bailey balked, tried to pull away.

  "They's stairs in here and we gotta climb up 'em to the theatre box on the wall. It connects to the next one, and to the next. They's places to get outta sight in them boxes, tables and chairs to hide behind. And them overhanging awnings'll block her line of fire from above. Come on."

  He pulled at her arm, but she pulled back, almost fell, would have if he hadn't steadied her.

  "Bailey, she's up there somewhere sightin' in on us! The only way out of here's on that back wall. But if we take off runnin' toward it 'cross the dance floor, she gonna mow us down."

  She stared at the black hole with eyes open so wide he could see the whites all around, shook her head slowly, refused to budge.

  Nothing for it but to force her. He tightened his grip on her wrist and yanked her forward. She'd probably still have fought him, but she couldn't, drugged like she was, and she staggered after him into nothingness.

  T.J. put out in front of him the hand not grippin' Bailey's wrist, a blind man, feelin' around in the empty air. He took one sickeningly crunchy step.

  Then another.

  And another.

  His fingers brushed somethin' solid. Cold. Metal. He grabbed it and began to slide his hand along it, feeling his way. Somethin' with scratchy feet like a roach crawled up on his hand and he shook it off, put his hand back down and felt beneath it a crawly — this was a spider! He crushed the spider with his palm, prayin' it wasn't no black widow or brown recluse or some other poisonous thing he didn't know the name of. Tensed for the agonizin' bite pain … that didn't come, he continued forward along what he now knew was the railing, the banister of a spiral staircase. He led the two of them around it in the dark until he found the first step.

  Then he began to climb.

  One step, two, draggin' a resistant, unsteady Bailey along behind.