Rock Spider (A New Hampshire Mystery Book 2)

by Mira Gibson

  She checked the rearview and saw an empty road. She whipped her gaze over her shoulder at the bridge. It was desolate. Had there been a truck? Or had she imagined it. Returning her gaze to the road ahead, she caught sight of Roberta whose eyes were shocked wide in astonishment.

  That’s when it slipped. “Doris, put your seatbelt on.”

  A look of sheer terror came over Roberta’s face, flushing the color right out of her cheeks. Slowly and cautiously, her tone like backing away from a madman, she said, “I’m not Doris.”

  “No, I know,” she said, voice quavering in a laugh as though she might play this off. “I muddle words sometimes. Roberta,” she stated to prove she knew who was in the passenger’s seat. “You’re all buckled in?”

  “Ah, yeah.” Roberta slouched into her seat, becoming very small, and started wolf-biting her fingertips neurotically—a predator trapped and agitated because of it. “I need to call my friend,” she said, as Gertrude pulled up her driveway, coming to a stop in front of the cabin. “So he knows where I am.”

  “Sure.”

  Harry crossed her mind, as she stepped out of the car. She’d agreed to deliver Roberta to the DCYF to make introductions with the foster family, whom Harry had no idea was Gertrude. But she decided to deal with him and any subsequent fallout only after she got Roberta settled.

  “I’ll make you a key,” she mentioned, unlocking the front door.

  The cabin smelled stuffy, she noticed, as she escorted Roberta into the living room. The low light and disarray from her effort to clean up with Jake made the place far drearier than it ordinarily seemed.

  If Roberta thought the same thing, she didn’t let on, as she slowly walked around, eyeing her new surroundings—the wooden coffee table, the texture of the couch upholstery, a lamp with an off-kilter shade. She appeared to be deliberating, as if assessing whether or not she could see herself living here.

  “Are you hungry-”

  “Yes.”

  Taken aback by her eagerness, Gertrude listed the options then asked, “Would you like to take a shower, while I whip up sandwiches?”

  Her brow furrowed as though Gertrude had used a foreign word.

  “I have shorts and clean tees,” she offered. “And flip-flops and a pair of Keds in size eight.”

  “I’m seven and a half.”

  “I might have that size."

  Roberta was a non-responsive statue so Gertrude padded up the hall into her bedroom.

  She’d left Doris’ clothes in her closet. It had never entered her mind to donate them to the Salvation Army or even pack them in a box to store in the attic. She knew every garment as intimately as if it were her own, and hunted for the gray tee shirt Doris used to lounge around in, along with her favorite pair of jean shorts. At the bottom of the closet were her sister’s many shoes interspersed with hers. She plucked up a pair of purple jellies that Doris had broken in. They felt soft as putty in her hands.

  When she returned to the hallway, clothes and shoes in her arms, she found Roberta in the bathroom with the door wide open. She was combing her dirt-stained fingers through her greasy hair and appeared to be examining her scalp. Then she inspected her fingers, wriggling a few loose strands into the trash bin beside the toilet.

  “I keep waiting for it to come out in clumps,” she explained, as Gertrude set the clothes on the toilet lid.

  “The faucet’s a little tricky,” she said, starting for the shower stall. Turning it on and rotating the dial, Gertrude got the temperature just right. “There’s shampoo and conditioner,” she stated, pointing out the obvious. “Soap. Disposable razors are beneath the sink if you need one. And maxi-pads, tampons, all that, just help yourself.”

  A faint mist of steam wafted around the shower curtain. Not at all shy, Roberta let her red dress flutter to the tiles and Gertrude diverted her gaze, sharply turning but also catching a fresh cut on the girl’s thigh among the pattern of fine scars.

  She paused when she reached the door and before closing it to give Roberta privacy, she said over her shoulder, “I’d like to get you in to see a doctor before school starts.”

  “Why?”

  “For a Tetanus shot,” she stated, hand wrapping the edge of the door to draw it shut. “The orange soap bar is antibacterial.”

  “Got it,” she said, implying she would take it from here.

  Gertrude eased the door closed and in the kitchen, collected bread and luncheon meat to get started on the particular sandwich Roberta had requested—a ham salad sandwich.

  As she did, watching bread toast in the little glass-front oven, spreading mayonnaise onto thin slices of ham, listening to the crunch of her knife slice through the layers, Gertrude got lost in similarities between Roberta and her own sister, which were sprouting up like weeds through concrete—strong enough to break the thick barrier of all she’d forgotten yet delicate enough to snap if she grasped too tightly.

  Her parents had been harming Doris. She sensed it, but couldn’t see the memories, couldn’t pinpoint any precise event. Gertrude had gotten out, leaving her sister behind and hating herself for it. But years later, Doris had shown up on her doorstep. She’d gotten Doris out. And when the dust had settled, the sisters went back to confront their parents. About what specifically, she couldn’t say, and it was driving her crazy.

  She was so close, her mind brushing the rough surface of what had happened. Taking the turn onto Opechee too fast with Roberta in the passenger’s seat had jostled up hints from her subconscious, but they were intangible, abstract, nothing more distinct than eerie feelings. Peter closing in on her in the field had been too familiar. The terror of it had felt strangely routine, as well as her shakiness that had followed.

  As she set the plates on the coffee table and heard the bathroom door pop open, Gertrude was suddenly consumed by the image of Doris ill in bed—sweat beading on her forehead, comforter pulled to her chin, a stiff winter draft seeping through the window pane, her mother complaining Doris wouldn’t eat, soup growing cold on the nightstand, Doris’ refusal. I’d rather die than eat that, her eyes had said.

  Roberta also wouldn’t eat, would she? Starved was how she looked, the result of living with the Kings. Eager had been her response when Gertrude had offered. She would eat here.

  Doris in her cabin filled her thoughts—scavenging her kitchen the second Gertrude had taken her in, desperately stuffing chips in her mouth, a hindrance to the meal she’d started, too hungry to wait for the pasta to boil, she’d need more hands to eat and cook and revive herself.

  She jolted from her reverie when Roberta stepped into the living room.

  “Smells good,” she said through a wide smile, looking bizarrely like Zhana. “Toast is my favorite smell.”

  In three long strides she was on the couch. Hands wrapping around the sandwich, she stuffed it into her mouth as though she’d been deprived for days.

  Gertrude took small bites of her own sandwich, watching her. Roberta’s hair had dried along her forehead and ears—blonde wisps drifting away from damp locks. The tee fit her well, but the jeans pulled taut at her thighs, riding up and cutting into the flesh.

  “Let’s talk about what’s going on,” she suggested when Roberta devoured the last scrap and set the ceramic plate on the coffee table. “I’ve been awarded temporary custody and your parents don’t have the right to take you, though they could appeal.”

  She startled as if remembering something important and blurted out, “I have to call Quinton.”

  If she asked her to wait, she wouldn’t have Roberta’s full attention so she said, “The house phone is in my bedroom. Could you make it quick?”

  Roberta disappeared down the hall and Gertrude heard a quick series of murmured phrases, which she assumed would stretch out into a long, lingering conversation. She imagined Roberta playing with the coiled cord, her head tilting, feet kicked up in the air as she splayed across the bed on her stomach. But Roberta did none of those teenaged things and was back in
the living room within a minute, plopping onto the couch and tucking her legs beneath her, Indian style.

  “Depending on how things go and how you feel,” Gertrude went on, “you can stay here until you graduate, until you turn eighteen, or longer.”

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked, resonating her confusion from when they’d escaped her house. But before Gertrude could compose an answer, she guessed, “Because of your sister?”

  It was her greatest fear realized, that she was so transparent people would know she'd lost her mind, but she didn’t shy away. “Doris had scars. She'd kept them hidden. She’d been harming herself. In her mind she had reason to, it made sense to her.”

  “It’s just a distraction,” she said quietly, gaze falling to her lap.

  “A distraction from what?”

  “Everything.”

  “What were you looking for when you were digging around your house?”

  “I’m not your dead sister, okay?”

  “No, I know that,” she quickly offered. “I only want to help.”

  “Help who?”

  “I don’t want to scare you,” she said, fishing her cell phone from her pocket, “but I need to ask if you know who did this?”

  Gertrude pulled up the photo she’d taken of the deer in the field behind the King’s house. The image was disturbingly sharp, but she angled it for Roberta to see.

  Looking at it, Roberta’s gaze went slack and she clenched her jaw, darkening in a way that didn’t translate as fearful, but rather agitated. Then Gertrude thought she caught the clever wheels turning inside Roberta’s fast working mind. A chilled grin came through her expression.

  “Looks like Weird Wanda escaped the institution,” she surmised, meeting Gertrude’s gaze.

  “Weird Wanda didn’t attack those men who were found,” she countered, retrieving her cell and placing it on the coffee table. “What about the symbol?” she pressed. “Do you recognize it? Have you seen it before?”

  “No,” she said over Gertrude.

  “Roberta,” she started, trying not to gape in astonishment that the girl was making it difficult to protect her. “I know you know what’s going on at that house. I know you have an idea of whatever rituals are taking place in the field out there. If you’re afraid of them, whoever they are, you need to tell me. This can all be over.”

  Staring at her, the grin slid off her face and her gaze went so soft she looked suddenly vacant, darkness hollowing her out as if she could will the cold hand of death to take her. Then, like her mother and like Peter, she argued, “You think that has anything to do with Maude?”

  “Yes. I do. How could it not?”

  “Or do you think it has to do with Doris?” she challenged. “You can’t tell us apart, can you?”

  “Of course I can. It was a slip of the tongue, I told you that. I muddle my words sometimes.”

  “I don’t think you’re muddling your words,” she countered. “I think you’re brain has been destroyed.”

  Gertrude felt a hot flush break out across her cheeks, but she wasn’t offended or angry or shocked only deeply saddened. Nothing hurt like the truth.

  “I want to help you,” she said, her voice a thread she barely recognized.

  Then Roberta leaned forward, surging into herself so starkly that Gertrude found herself drawing away.

  “You don’t even know how close you are,” she said, searching her eyes as if she could see the distance between what Gertrude knew and what she had yet to discover. “But you don’t want to close the gap,” she said, relaxing into the arm of the couch. “Trust me.”

  Gertrude startled when her cell vibrated on the coffee table. After grabbing it, she checked the screen and saw Jake’s name and number flashing so she accepted the call, rising off the couch and pacing away into the hall.

  “Hey,” she said softly.

  “Where are you?”

  He sounded rattled, but she sensed him ease when she said, “At home.”

  “I had my contact run the blood from the book I took,” he began, his tone tensed then he paused, breathing. “You’re not going to believe this. It was a match for the cop who fell of payroll July 5th.”

  “What?”

  “Kevin Robinson. He had to have been the one who made up that homicide report. Anyone who knows or suspects anything is getting plucked off the face of the earth. I’d like to come over. Is that okay?”

  “I have Roberta here.”

  His sudden silence set her teeth on edge.

  “I filed for custody,” she said, nervous to admit it.

  “Gerty, we found prints on the candles. They belong to Roberta. She was in your house. She had something to do with that shit. You aren’t safe with her there.”

  A sixth sense told her she wasn’t alone. She turned. Roberta was standing in the mouth of the hallway, her eyes fierce and searching. Jake’s voice came tinny through the receiver—Gerty, what’s happening? Are you okay? But she was lowering her cell, suddenly certain she'd made a terrible mistake.

  “Who are you talking to?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Spying through the window, which caused him to trip over his bicycle, sending the tire spinning from where it lay on its side, Quinton neared the glass pane, stepping into a stark reflection of sunlight that momentarily blinded him. He thought he heard voices murmuring inside the cabin, but he couldn’t detect Roberta’s distinct timber—high and melodic no matter how harsh her words.

  The sun was roasting him. His back felt slick with sweat, which caused his black tee to cling uncomfortably, but when he fit the length of himself against the rounded logs, pressing his nose to the glass, it was just shady enough to afford him an ounce of relief.

  Coming here greatly deviated from her instructions, but when she’d told him the address over the phone, he couldn’t help it. He had to make sure she was okay. He hadn’t seen her since the night at Jake Livingston’s house. It had been three terror filled days, waiting for the consequences of the photos he’d taken to be delivered. In her absence, Quinton had feared the worst, visions of Roberta being tortured in the field plaguing his thoughts—Roberta strapped down to a stone slab, whipped and beaten, sliced to the tune of their harrowing chanting, made to watch deer being skinned alive, forced to drink blood, humiliated and pissed on—heinous acts he’d never witnessed but imagined were likely, given the instruments he’d stumbled upon in the King’s basement.

  Quinton gathered he was peering into a living room. The wooden edge of a coffee table jutting into his sightlines, a bookshelf and wall to its right formed some semblance of a common area. From the far corner of the room came the social worker looking rigid, her cockeyed hat threatening to slip off the side of her head. Roberta followed after and he deduced they’d entered from a hallway. He nearly did a double take seeing her. She was dressed like a normal person and her hair was fluffed clean.

  Their body language was strangely intimate, both closed off, yet testing the other with brief glances that reminded him of the fallout after a fight.

  When the social worker turned towards the window, he ducked, heart galloping zero-to-sixty before his knees hit the grass. She hadn’t seen him. He’d been too quick, but it’d be best to get out of there before he got caught. He didn’t particularly want to deal with the brain-damaged woman who he feared would make things worse for Roberta, but at least Gertrude didn't induce his panic like Roberta did. Disobeying her had never gone well for him in the past.

  He scrambled for his bicycle, hunching and dragging it low to the ground until he felt certain he wouldn’t be seen should either of them glance out the window. The spokes and pedals tore grass up as he went, but when he righted the bicycle, he tapped the sod free then swung his leg over the seat, hopping on and peeling out.

  Cutting through the woods and bouncing with the Huffy's high-tech suspension that was completely unlike his previous bike, he veered between trees and loose rocks until the tires hit the smooth asphalt of Opech
ee Street. The leafy Maple treetops cast shadowy patterns across the road as he cruised along the bay. His wished night would fall before he got there. It’d give him a fighting chance of pulling this off.

  He hadn’t had enough time on the phone. Roberta had been sharp and demanding, brushing over the glaring upheaval of her life. Quinton, desperate to understand why she was with the social worker, had listened hard, scrambling to do the math—Living there? She moved? She’s not coming back? as reality sunk in, ratcheting up his anxiety, chest clamping like a giant fist tightening around it, Quinton leaned right, angling the bicycle onto the shoulder just shy of the King’s driveway, and as he stumbled off it, jogging and dropping the bike, he slammed against the thick trunk of a Maple.

  He spied Zhana on the porch, but she wasn’t alone. Draped on the railing, legs crossed long with a womanly point at the knee, martini glass in hand, stem between her long fingers, Zhana gazed up at Peter, who looked like a drill sergeant lying his way into the heart of his weakest cadet. There was a pleading quality to his eyes and posture, however.

  Taking quick stock of his options, Quinton swept his gaze along the tree line then the yard, noting the shadows he might hide in and the trees that were thick enough to skulk behind. If he was stealthy, he could dart to the corner of the house, whip into the bushes, dig hard and fast and get what he needed then dash off again for his bicycle.

  But though Quinton took great risks diving into his mission, scurrying from one tree to the next in plain view, and working his way closer and closer to the porch—all guts for what glory might come—a terrible instinct rattled his bones, which told him he wouldn’t succeed until Zhana and Peter were gone.

  Spying them from where he’d snugged himself behind an old tree stump eight yards off from where he needed to be, Quinton watched for his moment. Zhana had her back to him, but until Peter turned away, he would be able to spot him if Quinton darted any closer.