Rock Spider (A New Hampshire Mystery Book 2)

by Mira Gibson

  “The underpants contained Peter King’s DNA, semen I found dried to the fabric that also matched samples from inside Doris Inman.”

  “In her? Where?”

  Gertrude sprang from the bed, abandoning her cell and scrambling for her clothes.

  She didn’t hear that Peter’s DNA had been found in her sister’s vagina. She didn’t undergo the same, gut clenching shock that was now gripping Jake. She was focused on getting the hell out of there, finding Roberta, kidnapping her if need be, anything to avoid the mind-splitting facts as relayed by Ed Cohn.

  “Hang on, Ed? Yeah, hang on,” said Jake, lowering the cell. “Where are you going?”

  Though she pulled her shirt over her head, she could still hear Ed’s voice coming tinny and faint through the receiver: “There was urine as well. Hello?”

  “Harry all but fired me,” she stated with affect. “He returned her to the house. I can’t leave her there. I don’t care about the consequences.”

  “Would you wait a minute?” Scrambling, he told Ed, “Will you be in the office? I can head over.” Then to Gertrude, he pleaded, “I say we both head over to Ed’s.”

  “You go,” she said, calling out over her shoulder as she tore up the hallway. “I’ll meet you there once I have Roberta!”

  Moulton Street was bathed in haunting shadows—black trees and faded asphalt so buckled it seemed to wince at its own history—as she angled her Audi onto the shoulder where she’d parked a million times before.

  Not one light was on in the King’s house, but it didn’t settle her nerves.

  Memories tangling with pitch-black fears cloyed through her mind so distractingly she couldn’t think straight. Why would Doris have had Peter King’s DNA on her, in her, hot off the heels of their confrontation with their parents that night? Had it been a confrontation? Or had something much darker transpired?

  Pushing the horrid notion from her mind, though it refused to be buried, she sprang from her car and stalked up the driveway, guns blazing if her terror were weapons.

  Just shy of the front porch, as her gaze fell to the planters, which had magically sprouted healthy bushes and flowering plants, she caught wind of voices through the forest, but they weren’t coming from the field far behind the house, rather up the road where, she discovered upon turning towards the sound, a faint amber light was glowing through the trees.

  Padding quietly, though snapping twigs and crunching pinecones threatened to announce her arrival, she came to a weathered shed set apart from a modest Colonial house where the lights along the second floor illuminated a well-manicured lawn.

  Their voices came distinct from the shed, and Roberta in an assertive tone stated, “You have to do what they say! This is the fucking end of me. Don’t you get that? Just go and fucking do it, Quinton!”

  Then came his response, equally tormented, “You won’t end up like Doris! I won’t let that happen to you!”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Listening, Gertrude neared the door and pressed her ear against its peeling paint, but Roberta and Quinton hushed, speaking in clipped whispers. One of them shifted their weight, floorboards creaking underfoot, which told her they sensed she was out here.

  No sooner than she eased back, dark intuition shuddering through her bones, memories of Doris encased in images of the cult, the abuse, dead animals, and faceless men—Roberta spinning it all up into a silken balloon—the shed door cracked open and Roberta’s gleaming eyes locked with hers.

  Far from startled, Roberta waited, her expression neutral as if she was reluctant to participate in the confrontation that would surely follow, while Quinton, behind her and bathed in shadows, quaked, eyes widening and breath held.

  Settling her gaze on Quinton, who seemed apt to crack, she asked, “End up like Doris?”

  Roberta's tone came out so steady it didn’t sound human. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

  “How do you know Doris?” she demanded, interrupting the girl, who was still wearing her dead sister’s clothes.

  “From school like I said before when you asked.”

  “No. You’re lying.” Barreling inside, she cornered Quinton in the poorly lit shed. “You won’t let her end up like Doris? My sister died in a car accident.”

  He was cowering, shuffling backwards, until he knocked into a table, jostling tools that clattered to the wooden floor. He winced as though anticipating blows, but she didn’t hit or shake or force it out of him.

  “He’s not going to talk if he’s scared,” said Roberta as easily as if giving pointers on how to train a dog.

  “Then you talk.”

  Backing off of Quinton, Gertrude shifted her gaze between the teenagers, but her authority didn’t solicit an immediate response.

  “We crashed into that lake on July 2nd,” she stated. “We had just heard a gunshot that I now know was the one that killed Maude. Someone stepped in front of my car that night and if I hadn’t swerved to miss them, my sister would be alive right now and they would be dead. Do either of you know who that person is? Was it intentional?”

  “I don’t know anything about your car accident,” said Roberta, folding her arms.

  “But you do.” Again she advanced on Quinton, his mouse-face pinching into a grimace that to Gertrude looked an awful lot like guilt. “Tell me what you know.”

  Swallowing hard and mustering his voice, he said, “Spiders.”

  “Quinton, don’t,” said Roberta in a cutting tone.

  “They’re rock spiders,” he said as though that would clear it up.

  Glibly, Roberta stated, “I already told her that.”

  Did she? Gertrude had no recollection, but even if she had, the term meant nothing to her.

  Roberta raised her brows, her eyes turning dull, as she said, “The men.”

  “If this is your way of speaking in code, I don’t appreciate it. What does this have to do with my sister?”

  “We were friends,” said Quinton, but Roberta immediately cut him off. Regardless, he kept going, abandoning the reference and harnessing some semblance of logic. “Before she moved in with you, she used to come here to hang out. Sometimes she’d just sit and stare like she wasn’t even in there anymore, like she was in some far away place. When she moved in with you, we knew they’d find a way to get to her and they did.”

  Sharply, Roberta said, “She doesn’t remember any of that, Quinton.”

  “Then help me remember-”

  “No.” Roberta angled her feline eyes up at her and a glimmer of compassion shined through. “I won’t. You’re lucky you don’t remember. It means it worked.”

  “What worked?”

  She didn’t answer, but Wanda Trentwell’s elaborate theory on the nature and practice of satanic ritual abuse sprang to mind—If it’s traumatic enough, the child won’t remember.

  Spitting the words through her teeth, utterly sick of getting nowhere with the same question and also vaguely aware she was dodging a revelation—she didn’t remember? What had worked, and on her?

  She demanded, “Why did they have to kill Maude?”

  No response.

  “Where’s the gun that killed her?”

  Quinton was trembling and looking at the floor. When he spoke, his voice was a thread. “You can’t be here.”

  “He’s right,” said Roberta in a resigned tone. “You should go home.”

  “I came here for you. To get you,” she said, remembering why she’d risked driving to the King’s in the first place and jogging through the woods to find the girl. “There’s evidence of the abuse now. It’s with Grafton County. It’s not safe here. You have to come with me.”

  “I can’t go with you,” she said, her tone even, but her expression pained.

  “Why not?”

  Roberta exchanged a heavy glance with Quinton and a silent conversation ensued.

  “Why not?” she demanded, repeating herself.

  “I don’t know how they did it,” she began
in a hollow voice, “but they got to your sister, because she left. I can’t go.”

  She was making excuses and Gertrude got the sense that in the hours that had elapsed once Roberta had left her house, Peter had gotten to her somehow.

  Without thinking, she grabbed the girl by the arms, thrusting her towards the door—Roberta: grimacing and digging her heels in and trying to wriggle free; Gertrude, clamping the girl tightly, begging Roberta to go with her, yelling with intensity that matched the desperation she’d felt trying and failing to save her sister’s life; Quinton: alarmed and shuffling away from the tangle, muttering for them to keep quiet.

  Roberta twined her spindly fingers around her hair and pulled hard, shoving her off to free herself, which worked. Gertrude stumbled back and slammed into the door at a bad angle, head smacking hard against wood, ankle twisting.

  “Why won't you let me help you?” she cried, shoulders rounding, thoughts scrambling under the weight of memories that were interlaced with nightmarish imaginings so severe, that it felt like her brain was tearing apart.

  Mortified, she didn’t wait for an answer, but fled, running through the woods with no recollection of having thrown the shed door open, no memory of Roberta’s anguished statements that she hadn't heard but were now echoing through her mind—I’m sorry! You’re a good person! I can’t be saved!

  Driving home was a blur that seemed to happen without her, hands clamping the wheel in a white-knuckle grip, eyes scanning the road, the woods, and the darkness beyond the shock of headlights that bounced off fog as it rushed over the windshield.

  It means it worked.

  What worked?

  Fragments of their exchange swirled through her mind, but were anchored to nothing. She’d asked what had worked, hadn't she? What had Roberta said? Nothing. It wasn’t there. But it had been, hadn’t it? She sensed it had, but some masterful aspect of her psyche had buried it deep.

  She had hoped to find Jake’s truck in front of her cabin, but there were only tread marks left in the dirt. He’d gone somewhere, but tracing through the events of the night she couldn’t place it, as she angled her Audi towards her cabin and killed the engine.

  When she crossed the deck and reached her front door, it wasn’t locked. Instantly, she recalled that she’d left Jake here. She’d stormed off to get Roberta, leaving him here in the wake of their impulsive lovemaking. The call. She suddenly remembered it, as she eased the door open and stepped soundlessly into the dark living room. Ed Cohn had called from Grafton County delivering harrowing details connecting Roberta to Doris to the cult—rock spiders.

  What did the term mean?

  Countless times her father had taken Doris and her to the hospital, spider bites blowing up their skin in bubbling rashes, fears of allergic reactions the pinnacle of his concern, though Albert’s concern had never seemed defined by genuine care but rather self-serving motives. Doris’ constantly ill floated to the forefront of her mind then vanished when she saw a body on her living room floor.

  Her heart jutted up her throat at the sight and she scanned the walls, the bookshelf, the floor for satanic paraphernalia, but there was none.

  As she neared it, realizing it was a man lying on his side and facing the couch, his arm sprawled out, legs twisted, terror like a hand crushed her windpipe, blocking the air from her lungs. She knew exactly who it was—Kevin Robinson.

  Using her foot, she pressed his shoulder to the floor, turning him onto his back, then gasped, breath hitching in her throat the second her eyes locked onto his face.

  It had been torn off.

  “No,” she whispered, backing away, the room reeling all around her, shadows cloying at her, blurring her vision with dizzying surrealism, as an onslaught of dark conclusions crashed over her—they needed a scapegoat, Jake had destroyed Wanda, she’d let him in, Roberta refused to come back, it was happening all over again, and she had to get out.

  But as soon as she turned for the door, strategies of rushing to Grafton County forming in the forefront of her mind, Peter King stepped in, his boots clanging hard against the wooden floor.

  “Got a call about screams coming from this cabin,” he stated, though his brittle grin contradicted his charade.

  As tires crunched over gravel outside, police lights began flashing through the windows, brightening the living room with a chaotic mix of red and blue.

  “This doesn’t look good for you, Gertrude,” he sneered.

  Pressing her mouth into a sickened line, she glared at him, as two officers passed through the front door, making slow work of assessing the scene.

  Peter took strong, confident steps towards her, eager to share his clever police work. “I’ve kept my eye on you, you know. Your little visit to Wanda Trentwell at the institution gave me a hunch.” He shot one of the officers a sly glance and the man, whose wiry posture and sharp-toothed grin made him look like a gargoyle, chuckled menacingly. “Made me wonder if we caught the right woman.” He eyed what was left of Robinson and frowned then his gaze snapped back to her. “I’m rarely wrong in my hunches.”

  “Like you’d release her,” she said.

  “Oh no, we can’t release her. She’s cared for where she is and it’s not my place to disrupt that,” he said easily, his tone dripping with conceit, which turned sharp when he said, “step away from the body.”

  She paced off as instructed and the officers motioned for her to come forward, while Peter stalked over to the body and squatted, taking careful note of Robinson’s skinned-raw face.

  When the officers took hold of her upper arms, cuffing her hands behind her back and then yanking her out the door, she started yelling everything she could think to get them off of her, jerking and shifting to get out of their grasp.

  “You won’t get away with this! Grafton County has evidence against you! All of you! It won’t matter your reach, Peter! It won’t matter who you’ve threatened into keeping your secrets!”

  But they tossed her in the back of the police cruiser and slammed the door.

  “He was one of you,” she went on, shouting at the back of the officers’ heads as they sat silently, the cruiser backing away from her cabin and swinging around, heading off down Opechee Street. “Kevin Robinson was a police officer, and his only mistake had been to believe that a little girl had been murdered, and for that, Peter killed him. He’ll do the same to you,” she pressed on, astounded that they could ignore her so easily. “You know I’m innocent.”

  She wasn’t even close to the brink of running out of steam, but when they turned off Opechee, pulling along Moulton and the forest grew thick all around them, Gertrude knew they weren’t taking her to the precinct.

  Suddenly, she felt like she couldn't breathe.

  Again, the officer behind the wheel angled the cruiser into another turn, but she didn’t recognize it, and as the vehicle bounded over rough terrain, she understood they were going off-road.

  She demanded, “Where are you taking me?” but was met with heavy silence that landed like a fist to her chest.

  Nose to glass, she watched as the trees thinned out into a field that was faintly illuminated in torchlight.

  Then the chanting began. Low and guttural, it emanated through the vast expanse, punctuated only by breaths and the intermittent beat of a drum.

  “You can’t do this,” she said in a small voice, as they pulled her out of the backseat having parked to the wayside.

  Dragging her through the tall grass, the officers didn’t acknowledge her and weren’t challenged when she twisted to free herself, kicking and jerking and fighting.

  As they neared the cult—its cloaked figures, their faces masked in hoods, all but their mouths concealed—the circle parted and the officers threw her in.

  Gertrude stumbled and fell, palms striking matted grass, chest slamming against the earth, head cracking hard against a metal plate. But before she could register that it was the trap door she’d seen Zhana lift earlier, Gertrude’s world went suddenly bl
ack.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Coming to was a slow climb. Several times during each attempt to ascend, she thought she had opened her eyes, reached consciousness, and understood where she was—hooded men, mouths with shadowed faces surrounding her, torchlight lapping them from behind, casting them into a dark silhouette, as they closed in on her, chanting and beginning the ritual, the air thickly scented with soil like the underground walls were breathing. But soon the nightmarish scene disappeared, as she fell into darkness again; rising and falling, two steps forward, one step back.

  The side of her head was throbbing and it sent a painful slice behind her eyes with every pulse. She must have hit it on the metal plate, she thought, opening her eyes. The impact had to have been inches above the arching scar around her left ear.

  Gradually her vision focused. She smelled the rich soil all around her, but the room wasn’t full of men. She couldn’t see anyone, but sensed she wasn’t alone, as she watched the flame of a single torch burning bright, crackling and illuminating the room just as it had been in her nightmarish dreams moments ago.

  She was on the ground, lying on her side, her shoulder crooked against the hard earth, her head pitted against soil, the back of her hands resting on dirt.

  Her hands.

  They were in front of her, not cuffed behind her back as they’d been in the police cruiser.

  Pushing up, she muscled her way into a seated position, but the effort sent her brain pounding hard against her skull. That’s when she smelled it—rancid, rotting flesh, the sharp tang of iron. She looked around, gaze darting from one corner of the room to the next, terrified to confirm she’d been dumped here alone with a dead body. Kevin Robinson’s? Had they moved him? Or was it Charlie, the man no one could seem to find?

  But there was no body.

  She sensed movement behind her then heard the distinct tap of a boot heel striking dirt and startled, turning and skittering back like a crab, as she met eyes with Peter King.

  “You hit your head pretty bad,” he commented as if reading a bedtime story. “Do you know why I brought you down here?”