Rock Spider (A New Hampshire Mystery Book 2)

by Mira Gibson

A motherly smile spread across her face. “Bennie, who I’ve been telling you about. I used to model. Did you know that?” She didn’t wait for a response, but launched into a woeful tale. “I had a promising career. I’d only just started. I’d barely scratched the surface when Bennie came along.”

  Her smile went suddenly slack and the stark contrast gave him chills.

  “He ruined it for me. He took something from me that wasn’t his to take. My body. My life. And he was ungrateful. I could see it in his eyes. Roberta has the same look in her eyes, the look of resentment, even though I didn’t ruin her life. We were on vacation, Charlie, Bennie, and me.”

  She paused only to touch the silken handkerchief around her head, smoothing her palm over it, feeling for bald patches along her scalp that might have become exposed.

  “Why we had to bring a three year old on our vacation I’ll never understand, but we went to the beach and Bennie wouldn’t stop throwing sand at the seagulls. I was reaching my limit with him, I’ll admit. And Charlie had wandered off to do God knows what. He left me alone with him. He knew.”

  Again, she fell silent and Quinton’s heart began punching through his chest, longing to escape, dying to run through the woods, through the field, find Roberta, and discover her alive.

  “He knew how I felt about him and he must have known I was angry. I don’t know why he listened to me when I told him to go on out in the water. He shouldn’t have listened to me.”

  Her gaze softened as though she was drifting away, no longer seated beside him in Roberta’s bedroom where the suggestive grins of band members leered at him from fading posters, their corners curling off the wall, but back on that beach, back on vacation all those years ago in a life before Roberta.

  “He went out in the water, Quinton, splashing and glancing over his shoulder at me. The smile on his face was a grimace. He looked evil. And then he was snatched. The undertow got him.”

  Gradually, her eyes focused as she returned to her senses and locking eyes with him, she asked, not rhetorically, but as if she genuinely needed an answer, “What’s wrong with my children that they do that sort of thing?”

  In a voice that sounded as small as he felt, he murmured, “I don’t know.”

  He needed to get out of there, get to the plants, remember where he put it, get it to Jake despite the detriment that would shatter life as he knew it, but Zhana was angling in on him, leaning near, her gaze softening, a prelude to another dark exchange.

  “Things will be different,” she whispered, “now that Charlie’s out of the picture.”

  His voice hitching in his throat, he croaked, “He is?”

  In his ear, she breathed the words, “He’s dead,” then studied his reaction—his widening eyes and a mouth that wouldn’t close, though he kept his head down, staring at his Converse sneakers, the only safe place to look.

  “You’re surprised? Of course he’s dead. Everyone thinks he killed Maude and Peter wouldn’t have it.” Then from out of nowhere, she bolted upright, launching to her feet and exclaiming, “Roberta!”

  Quinton hadn’t heard her come home, pad up the stairs, or tear through the hallway, until the bathroom door slammed shut.

  Zhana was rushing after her, Quinton at her heels. She pleaded through the door, “You’re all right, aren’t you? Please don’t shut me out! We never talk, Roberta and I know, I just know in my bones you’d be fine if only you would let me help you.”

  Pulling her away from the door and surprising himself because of it, Quinton said, “It’s me. Can you let me in?”

  But Zhana peeled him off, taking his place at the door. “I’ve been thinking, Roberta. I’ve been thinking we should go on a little vacation, just you and me, to the beach maybe. Would you like that?”

  Horrified, he struggled to overcome the implication, but managed to tell Zhana, “I can get her out,” the intensity of his eyes adding, If you leave.

  After a long moment sizing him up, her emerald green gaze slicing him down his center, she lifted her angular brows like a warning and eased back.

  “I’ll be downstairs.”

  “Why don’t you go in your room?”

  The suggestion was far too bold and her expression turned questioning, but after a carefully measured breath, she agreed, pacing off up the hall and rounding into her bedroom.

  Quinton rapped his knuckles softly on the door.

  “It’s just me. Can I come in?”

  It was quiet on the other side of the door, too quiet.

  “Please, Roberta, I love you.”

  It had slipped out and there was no way to catch the words that had escaped him.

  To mask his mistake, he quickly added, “I know where it is.” He wasn’t whispering so he corrected his tone before explaining, “The gun, Roberta; the gun that killed Maude. I know where it is.”

  The door popped open, startling him, Roberta on the other side, the red dress hanging off her every curve.

  “You what?”

  “I know where it is.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?” she demanded. “I’ve been looking for it. I’ve been digging in the dirt like a fucking dog all month looking for it and you’ve known?”

  He mouthed, “Come with me,” insisting they speak in whispers or not at all, as he took hold of her hand, leading her out of the bathroom and up the hall, rounding the landing and descending the stairs with quick patters, crossing the porch and hooking around into the planters where a plague of spiders had once devoured the vegetation.

  Before he endeavored to locate it, he grabbed her shoulders like he’d never before dared and stared up at her, terror like a firestorm in his eyes.

  “You can’t go on vacation with her. She’ll kill you.”

  But Roberta’s eyes flattened and her arms went stiff in his grasp.

  “How do you know where the gun is?”

  Deflecting, he said, “Did you hear the gunshot? I thought it was you. I thought they shot you.”

  Cocking her head as if he had her thrown, she asked, “Gunshot? I didn’t hear any shot.”

  “Coming from the field.”

  “Where they took Gertrude?” she asked, alarmed.

  He could feel her trembling in his grasp, but she shoved him off then fell to her knees, shoulders rounding in a hunch of despair.

  Kneeling beside her and forcing her to look at him, he was about to offer any semblance of hope he could, but she was already crying out, “She was one of us. I thought she could do it, Quinton. I thought she could help.”

  “Let me help. I can help.” Reassurances kept tumbling out of him, but weren't reaching her, until finally he scrambled to the spot and started digging. “It’s here. I buried it here,” he explained. “It has his prints on it. It was Peter’s gun. It’s all we need, Roberta. We can end this.”

  “You buried it?” She was standing over him, enraptured by the location, staring at him, at it, mind-boggled that she’d never come across it in all her attempts. “How did you get it in the first place?”

  Turning, the weapon in his palm, his fingers flexed back so he wouldn’t get his own fingerprints on it, he faced her.

  But she only shook her head, backing away.

  “We have no one,” she said. “There’s no one we can go to with it. It’s all over.”

  “Don’t give up.”

  “Why didn’t you bring this to me sooner when we had a chance?”

  He glanced down at the weapon in his hands, desperate to formulate a response that wouldn’t drive her away, but none came.

  “I couldn’t,” he said finally and then noticed a rash developing down the side of her neck, down her left arm, and across her chest on the same side. “What happened to you?”

  “I found him,” she said in a dead tone and when Quinton furrowed his brow questioningly, she added, “My dad. His body.”

  Overhead a cloud crept over the moon and her face fell into shadow then brightened as it past, but though the faintest glow once again bat
hed her, the glint of life in her eyes had gone out.

  “He was covered in them. Spiders. They leapt on me. I couldn’t swat them off fast enough.” After falling silent, focusing purely on ridding the memory, she said, “I don’t know what that gun will mean, but my dad’s body is evidence enough to get Peter locked up for a very long time.”

  “Where was he?”

  Quickly countering, she asked, “How did you get the gun, Quinton?”

  He swallowed hard. He’d never been a good liar.

  “I saw them.”

  “Who killed Maude?”

  “Look, I can tell you everything, but not until we get out of here. Let’s take this to...” he stammered through their resources, of which they had virtually no one. “Who will help us?”

  “Who killed Maude?” she repeated, but Gertrude was stalking towards them, carrying herself with exhausted steps that propelled her around the house.

  Her eyes, black and hollow, looked as dead as Roberta’s. Her beret was no longer on her head, making the bristles of her sheered hair all too apparent. The longer side swayed with her staggering gait and when Quinton looked down the length of her, chest tightening to be interrupted at the worst possible moment, he saw she was covered in blood.

  She looked like death walking, and before her gaze could fall to the gun in his hands, he tucked it down the back of his pants, shuffling behind the plants and hoping like hell that the end drawing near wouldn’t be his own.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Roberta was back to wearing that dress. In the low light, covered in shadows but for the moon outlining her silhouette, only her eyes popped through the darkness—dilated pupils framed in gleaming white like a nocturnal creature. Quinton was a mere tracing beside her, but he wasn't Gertrude's concern.

  The girl was a stranger and yet so completely familiar, an eerie clone of her sister, maybe herself, that Gertrude couldn’t fathom what to do next. The sheer sight of her, that red dress, the memories that twisted and tangled because of it, had Gertrude bogged in woolly confusion.

  “You warned us,” she said, staring at the girl, whose eyes narrowed as if to indicate they were in danger.

  Shifting her gaze in a quick flash to Quinton then back, Roberta seemed to stiffen, her hands balling into fists.

  But Gertrude had to push her point through. She needed to know she wasn’t crazy. “You were outside the bathroom window. You told Doris they were coming. But they weren’t.”

  In a panicked whisper, Quinton said, “Zhana’s inside. We should go.”

  “Where?” she snapped, angling her eyes on the boy until he shrank. “To my cabin? To another body; so I can be arrested again?”

  Advancing on Roberta, she pressed her point. “She was scared. You terrified her. She convinced me to drive that night. We went to our parents’. We would’ve never gone if it wasn’t for you.”

  “And then what?” she challenged.

  “You tell me,” she countered.

  Quinton rushed to Roberta, blathering whisper-shouts about getting out of there and clutching her arm, but she shoved him off.

  When he fell to the bushes, Gertrude reached for Peter's gun she’d tucked down the back of her jeans, but didn’t draw it. Her hand was ballooning, her fingers numb, and even if they weren’t, there would be no point in threatening a child with a weapon. “You think it’s better we went?”

  Roberta’s sharp eyes softened.

  “You were there that night, weren’t you?”

  She said nothing.

  “In the field. Albert took her and I stayed at home with my mother. They were gone for hours. You know what happened, don’t you?”

  Her voice was a quavering thread almost too faint to hear, as she said, “Maude.”

  Insistently, Quinton rushed at her again, pitting himself between them and saying, “None of this matters. We have to get out of here, don’t you understand?”

  Before Gertrude could shut him up, Roberta grabbed and tossed him into the plants in one scrambling, ugly movement. After landing badly, he rubbed his elbow, tucking his knees to his chin like a wounded animal.

  “She was old enough, they said,” Roberta went on. “They made us...” she trailed off then clarified, “Doris and me. They made us take her out to the field. But it didn’t go right. I didn’t want to. But Doris... the hatred in her eyes... She didn’t care about Maude. She had no sympathy. I begged her that we should run off into the woods. The men hadn’t seen us. They were chanting in their circle around the trap door. They were so far off in the distance. We could’ve run. We could’ve escaped to Jake’s house or Quinton’s parents. There were so many options.”

  Her dark eyes misted over with tears and she had to bite her lower lip to stop it from quivering.

  “But Doris wouldn’t. I could see it in her eyes. She’d turned all her pain into rage. She thought Maude would replace her. That sacrificing my sister would free her.”

  From the bushes, Quinton got to his feet and peered at the living room window as if he expected trouble to stare back.

  “I hated her for it,” she went on. “I tried to fight her. Maude was confused and I kept yelling at her to run, but she wouldn’t. I could sense they’d hear us. I could feel them glance over their shoulders at us. I knew they’d come for us. They’d take matters into their own hands so I punched Doris in the leg, right where I knew she liked to cut. The sting of it killed and she doubled over, falling into the grass, and I grabbed Maude and ran like hell.”

  “Please,” said Quinton urgently, but both Gertrude and Roberta were deaf to him.

  “I brought her to the shed, to our safe place, and told her to wait for Quinton, because I knew they'd come. I couldn't wait with her. I went back and the rest of the night was routine except that my dad told me I was dead for not bringing Maude.” She quieted then turned to Quinton, demanding, “Where were you?”

  “She wasn’t there,” he said. “I told you that. I told you when I got to the shed she wasn’t there.” Quick to assert his point now that he had their attention, he begged, “We have to leave now.”

  But Gertrude barked, “No, Quinton.”

  As cutting as her tone was, it only incensed him. In the blink of an eye, he whipped his hands forward and the movement was so fast it took her a moment to process the fact that he’d drawn a gun on her.

  Reflexes taking hold, she drew her weapon as well and they held steady, breathing hard and silently daring the other to shoot, as Roberta froze in the wake of their mounting tension.

  Tears were streaming down his face and his hands began shaking, rattling the gun.

  “She was in that shed,” said Gertrude, piecing the sequence of events together. “Everyone was out in the field. They never went back to the house that night, did they? After the ritual, after Doris returned and we went to a bar, the Kings searched for Maude in the field, in the woods. But you brought her to the house, didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t mean for anything to happen,” he said, crying.

  Roberta’s face went slack, staring at him.

  “But something did happen,” she pressed. “You killed her.”

  “She wouldn’t stay quiet,” he said, pleading to be understood. “I just wanted her to keep quiet.”

  “No,” said Gertrude, reading his shifting gaze, the anger building behind his eyes. “No, it wasn’t an accident. You were with Roberta before she left for the field that night. You’d never seen her in a panic like the one she was in because Maude had never before been in danger.”

  Finally, the dam broke and a torrential downpour tumbled out of him.

  “It would’ve killed you,” he said to Roberta. “You knew you couldn’t stop it. Even if you saved her that night, there would always be another night, another chance for them to take her. So I shot her. I brought her back to the house and held her down on the floor and shot her. Charlie should’ve been arrested. Zhana should’ve been arrested. It should have all been over.”

  Robert
a lunged at him, but he stiffened his grip, aiming the gun at her with precision, his eyes darkening with such determination Gertrude feared he might actually pull the trigger.

  “I love you,” he said. “I did it because I love you. But then I couldn’t find you. I biked as fast as I could heading towards Gertrude’s, thinking that you might be there with Doris, hoping I could catch you, explain, show you how this was for the best. Then I saw her car,” he said flicking his eyes at Gertrude. “I thought you were in the car. I biked down the hill to get to you, to explain, Roberta!" His voice went shrill, wailing, but he calmed himself enough to go on. "But I hit a rock and wiped out just as the car was driving over the bridge. I ran the rest of the way, but landed badly in the road, in front of the car and it swerved.”

  A storm cloud rolled through Roberta’s eyes and she turned wild, lunging at him again, swinging her fists and clobbering him to the ground, screaming and tussling, as Quinton shrieked between blows.

  In the commotion, Roberta tangling around him, Quinton angling the gun this way and that to avoid her or lock on her, Gertrude couldn’t determine so she aimed her weapon at him, shouting “Stop!” But he wouldn’t.

  Suddenly, the porch light popped on and Zhana stepped out, gasping to find Gertrude poised with a gun clutched between her hands.

  Instinctively, she swept her gun up to Zhana and the second she did, the woman transformed into her own mother, scrambling her mind, confusion commingling with a bizarre hallucination she couldn’t escape or control.

  Zhana stilled, straightening her mouth and turning stoic in the line of Gertrude’s barrel.

  “They’re coming,” she said coolly, her gaze locked on Gertrude so fiercely that Gertrude felt her heart shudder. “You should’ve gone to the institution. You won’t be offered it again.”

  That’s when she heard them, chanting behind the house growing stronger, as torchlight, creeping slowly into view, brightened the grass.

  Zhana’s mouth twisted with a knowing smile, but then without warning gunshots started firing—Zhana bucking and jutting with every impact, her blouse turning red with blood.

  Stunned, Gertrude felt suddenly beyond her body. She didn't know if it was her shooting. She couldn’t feel her fingers, which were numb and betraying her, spider venom spreading across her skin.