Teresa blocked Dana’s way. Dana suddenly felt uncomfortable, penned in by the large woman. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Excuse me, I’d just like to . . .”
Teresa lunged at her, and the impact knocked Dana back, slamming her into the door. It flew open and Dana crashed down on the other side, Teresa’s bulk piled on top of her. She was quick for a heavy person. Before Dana could grab her weapon, Theresa had changed position and swung something at Dana’s head.
The first blow hit her like a cement block, causing a bright burst of dancing sparks in Dana’s vision. She tried to get her hands up, to shield herself, but one arm was pinned beneath her. She was able to get her free arm in the air and tried to ward off what was coming, but it was no use. The second blow she didn’t remember.
CHAPTER THIRTY / The Spider
They drifted and jeered around her, a pageant of haunted faces. Some were distorted as if by fun-house mirrors, others bore features of coyotes, bears, and bulls.
Then things calmed down, and the dream took her to familiar places. Her office, her home, slightly rearranged, larger. Her husband. He was standing in the kitchen, his back to her. Then in the living room, a small party. Yarrow. Lori Stender. Captain Bouchard. Even Hamill was there, lurking in the shadows, his cigarette glowing.
Everyone knew. Everyone understood what this time in history meant. Dana was the last one to resist. They needed to break her. They needed to draw her into the fold.
“It’s the time,” Hamill said in the dream, and he stepped forward, smoke coming from his mouth. “It’s now.”
* * *
She woke up tied to the bed in Teresa Dunham’s trailer.
“I know you, lady,” said a male voice. Dana looked at the end of the bed. The movement caused spikes of pain through her skull and she gritted her teeth. A tall man stood there. Two of him. Dana’s vision split the stranger into one solid shape and one more ghostly, barely lit by the pale light coming in from the outside.
The two shapes moved and shook in unison as the tall man waved his arms. “Can you see me?”
“Let me up.” Her wrists were bound, her arms splayed out, her legs too. The pain corkscrewed deeper into her cranium, driving through her thoughts. She tried to stay coherent. She tried to fight back. “They’ll be here.” Her voice was hoarse, as if she’d been screaming.
The double-figure jerked again as the tall man tossed his head back and laughed. “Come on, lady. I said I know you. You’re all protocol and procedure except when it comes to your pride. Then all bets are off. No one is coming. You didn’t call anyone.”
“The Feds followed me.”
The specter shrugged. “Maybe because of your past and your partner’s present, they’ve got eyes on you both. But I know more than they do anyway. I listen.” The shapes waved their arms towards the window. “But no FBI agent is going to come out in this. They don’t even have winter jackets.”
Dana licked her lips, thought she tasted blood. There was something tacky by her head; more blood. Hopefully the bleeding had stopped. How long had she been lying here tied up?
“Tell me why, Charlie.”
“You know my name.”
“Why are you doing this?”
Charlie, aka “Sven,” stilled for a moment. She could hear his raspy breathing. “The only post-mortem signs monkshood leaves is asphyxia. But, you put the girls in water . . .” Charlie made a dismissive pssh noise with his mouth. “You put the girls in water, you can’t see the asphyxia.”
“Except for Maggie Lange. Her throat closed up. We’ll find the aconite. Whether you got it from the deep web or Teresa Dunham’s convict husband. Everybody goes down. You, her, everybody.”
It hurt to talk. The vibrations tore through her skull in razor coils. She felt like she was going to pass out, and she willed herself to stay conscious.
He snorted. “Dunham’s husband?” Then he let out a burst of breath. “Oh — what? You saw the shamrocks at the bar? Come on, lady. A shamrock in an Irish bar? What are the odds.”
“But yours is five miles from a state prison.” She let her head drop back on the bed. She was rapidly losing energy, the sleep cozying up to her, making friendly, wanting her to sink into it. She forced her eyes open, and stared up at the black ceiling, vertigo swirling. The pain in her head was becoming a steady thump in rhythm with her pulse. She wondered if she had intracranial bleeding. She might be dying right now. Her family could be in danger. Why had she left the house? Why hadn’t she at least called someone?
Because Hamill was off the case. Because Yarrow, she didn’t like. Anyone else would’ve thought she was crazy. And, maybe she was.
Charlie didn’t respond to her remark about the prison being close. When he did speak, his tone was flatter. “What’s on the back of this card?”
Dana’s vision was still blurry, but it looked like Charlie the bartender was holding something in the air.
“Have you done something to Lori?”
He kept the card raised for a moment. Then he dropped it with a sigh. “You try to show people what’s going on, and they tune you out. They want to watch football. But, it’s done. The time is over. You lose; we all lose.”
“Let me up!” Dana bellowed. She strained against the ligature binding her wrists and ankles. She arched her back and gritted her teeth and pulled with everything she had. When she had exhausted herself, she sank back into the bed again. Save your energy, a voice said. It sounded like Shawn.
“Lady, lady . . .” The shadow-Charlie shook its two heads. “You and all your rage. You don’t need to be let up, lady. You need to let go. But, you know, I can’t blame you. You’re sort of like the frog in the boiling water. You don’t know it’s getting hotter, you don’t know you’re dying, because you’re in it. Most people are like that.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know something about spiders.”
“You need help.” She thought of Yarrow describing the serial-killer personality to her. Impulsivity, the need for control, and sensation-seeking. Predatory behavior.
“Spiders can be killed with diatoms.”
It shut her mind up for a second. “Oh yeah?”
“If you spread diatomaceous earth around in your home, you can get rid of spiders. It’s a powder. Fossil-based, comes from the water creature called the diatom. When a spider crawls on it, it gets all cut up. It leaks its body fluid, and it dies.”
“You learn that on the internet?”
Charlie let out a gusty sigh. “You stuck-up bitch. What, I can’t know about diatoms? Maybe I went to school. Maybe I went to Plattsburgh, graduated ten years ago.”
“Good for you.”
Ten years ago. And I’ve got ten on the job.
“I was a student just like Perry Brady. Perry and his little harem of women coming over to my house. Perry and the witches.”
Dana could feel the spittle gathered at the corners of her mouth. She turned her head to the side and spat. “You’re better than them, right, Charlie?”
“Oh, I don’t know about ‘better.’ I know what I see, though. And I see you, lady.”
I see your sadness. And your gifts.
(He keeps calling me ‘lady.’)
“Let me go, Charlie. Untie me. Now. Make this easier on yourself.”
“I see you’re a lot like they are. Nobody is what they seem. Think maybe I’m a chemist? Nah. I know about diatoms, but I actually studied philosophy. Because it all goes together. ‘Everywhere I go, a philosopher has been there before me.’ I’m just paraphrasing there. My mother told fortunes, you know.”
“I didn’t know that.” Struggling to keep conscious, to stay alert.
“I read that book. ‘Prophesized events during a Kali Yuga: Rulers will become unreasonable, humans will openly display hate and immorality, sin will increase exponentially, virtue will fade. People will break vows, become addicted to drinks and drugs, and followers of desire will control the minds of all human beings. Th
e elite will not be learned or honored, the military will not be brave, money-lenders will not be just. And at the end of Kali Yuga, there will exist no topics on the subject of God.’”
“Is that why you killed three girls, Charlie? You’re upset that they offended God?”
“Killed three girls? Come on, lady. Wake up.” The twin shadows suddenly lurched forward. Dana felt Charlie pick up the foot of the bed and then drop it with a thud. The trailer home shook on its axles. “Wake up!” Charlie shouted.
More of this and the neighbors are going to call the cops, Dana thought. Charlie was being careless, getting reckless. She just needed to ride this out, bide her time. She hoped the power outage hadn’t affected the cell towers. Sometimes it did, and phones went down for a time. She remembered Teresa saying that the trailer still had a landline hooked up. So, that was something.
“Wake up,” Charlie repeated quietly. The jostling of the bed had affected her vision. The double images were gone. Now she just saw one shape for Charlie Plume. And as her eyes continued to adjust to the light, she could see more of the tall man’s face. His eyes were shining in the gloom.
“I freed them,” Charlie said, having grown reflective. “In the moments before they died, they found nirvana. No one killed any girls. They were willing participants in their own ends. And the last thing they were was girls.”
“You murdered them.”
Charlie shook his head. “You think I force-fed them? They took it willingly. You tell kids these days something will take the edge off, they’re all over it. It’s the existential vacuum — all these kids care about sex, escape, themselves. It’s hedonism. And now, what, they have psychic gifts? That’s black magic. And that’s been around for thousands of years, and it takes a man to see that. And a man to know what to do about it.”
He nodded to himself in the pale light of the window.
Dana had the sudden, vivid mental image of tall Charlie Plume driving down the interstate with a dead girl in his trunk. Pulling off onto Covered Bridge Lane. Carrying her to the river. Dropping her in.
Leaving her there for Scott to find?
Had he wanted Scott to find her? Dana felt the hate rising, tightening her throat, sending blood to her muscles. She pulled again against her restraints. Charlie watched, wordlessly.
Dana gave up. She was out of breath.
Charlie seemed to have lost some of his energy, too. His silhouette slumped against the window. The posture reminded Dana of how Hamill had seemed at the convenience store — sad. As if Charlie carried a burden, a knowledge that weighed heavily on him.
“Monkshood is also known as women’s bane. You know, I’m not the first, to have to do this. This goes back to the Greeks. Poison born from Cerberus’s lips. The same as the froth of a rabid dog.”
“Charlie,” she said. “Untie me. Let me go. Let’s sort this out. If the girls committed suicide, or overdosed on their own, then this is a whole other ball game. If you have the proof of that, come on. Right? Get out of this now. Untie me, let’s go to the FBI, let’s lay all this out, explain the situation. You didn’t do anything, Charlie. And there’s a little boy in there. Just a kid . . .”
“You want to try it?”
Charlie was suddenly nearer, too close for comfort, with something dangling from his pinched fingers. It looked, in the gloom, like a flower.
She turned away. He grabbed her face, his fingers pressing into her skin, clutching her jaw, and he pulled her head back towards him. He was wearing plastic gloves. He squeezed her mouth, forcing it open. She tried to speak, but all that came out was garbled sounds.
“It doesn’t hurt,” he said. “It’s very humane. It’s pleasant. You’ll dream.”
She twisted out of his grip and his hand clamped around her mouth again. She whipped her head back and forth, screaming. She cried out for help. In her panic, she saw a spider, having spun a great web, waiting for its prey.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE / The Bargain
Dana lay on the bed, watching the dark snowfall out the window. She’d lost track of time. How long had she been at Teresa Dunham’s trailer? An hour? Longer? Every available state trooper would be out on the prowl right now, searching for her, weather or no weather. Someone must’ve heard her scream. Or, Shawn would’ve woken up, worried where she was, and called the station. How bad could it be out there? Severe storms were nothing new. And even when schools shut down and county offices closed, the plows stayed out, the state troopers stayed out — they had to. At the peak of the big winter storm last year, three motorists had gone off the road in the same night: an old man who’d had a heart attack, a middle-aged woman who’d collided with a guard rail, and a group of kids. The troopers had managed to help them all, except for the woman, who’d died of exposure. They would be searching for Dana now. How long did Charlie think it would take before Bouchard or Yarrow put it together that she’d come here? It had to be soon.
But no one came. The snow accumulated on the window sill. She remembered how that window had looked when she’d first come back to consciousness — she’d been able to see out of it. Now it was opaque; her warm, breathing body on one side, harsh winter on the other. She could feel the cold working its way into her clothes, driving deeper into her bones. Had to be close to freezing in here now; her breath smoked in the gloom. She could feel death’s approach.
The pain had become a constant companion, something she could distract herself from only by watching the frost form on the glass, or by going over the case: Lori Stender and Sonia Taylor are friends. They begin the year taking a social psychology course. Wayland Kimball announces he’s looking for participants in a study. Lori, already a fan of the paranormal, of Rakesh Lata, convinces Sonia to sign up. There they meet Holly Arbruster, Maggie Lange, and Perry Brady. The five students become friends. They go out together, they hit O’Sullivan’s, a popular student hangout and underage drinking spot. Charlie, the bartender, takes an interest in them. He has a place they go after hours. A place to chill, keep drinking, get a taste of the harder stuff. The students don’t talk about it much — they’re protective of Charlie’s because of what goes on there. The usual drug use, and something new. Something, perhaps, promising visions, glimpses of past lives. Charlie takes their willingness to open their minds and uses it against them.
Dana hadn’t been poisoned — mercifully, Charlie had given up. At first she didn’t know why — he could have easily forced the plant into her mouth and made her swallow — but an idea was forming; behind the barbs of pain and flashes of panic. She thought she might be coming to understand something about Charlie the bartender. He liked to toy with people. And then he was there, darkening the doorway.
The tall man was silent for a moment, standing just inside the room.
He bent out of sight. Dana could hear him rustling with a bag. He found what he wanted and came closer. He had a gun in his hand, a large semi-automatic.
“You ready?”
“Where are we going?”
He paused. “When you showed up, my girlfriend wanted to kill you. Tried to, really. She hit you with a clothes iron. One of those cheapies, though. Probably why you’re still alive. How’s your head?”
Dana hadn’t heard a sound since she’d been here except the front door opening, twice. She’d become convinced that Teresa and Scott were gone. She was alone in the trailer with Charlie.
There was a pressure on one side of her head where she’d been bludgeoned. A stinging sensation on her forehead where she’d been sliced, probably by the sharp edge of the clothes iron. There was a trail of dried blood down around her ear and into her hair where it formed a clump.
“I could use a fucking ibuprofen or two,” she said.
Charlie lifted up the bag he’d been zipping and patted it with the hand holding the gun. “Got those, actually.”
“What are you doing?”
“She wanted to kill you, but I said no. I don’t do that. I said, let her see. So, we’re going to see.”
<
br /> “Going to see what?”
“We’re going to go see what the girls saw.” He set the bag down. He undid the restraint on Dana’s right foot. “Now don’t kick me or anything. Or I’ll shoot you.”
“I won’t.”
One leg being free filled her with relief. She winced as she flexed her knee. It felt so good to have movement again, the blood flowing.
He moved around to her other foot. He loosened the ligature with one hand and held the gun on Dana with the other. Then he started undoing Dana’s hand. “Okay, lady. I’m going to do this one, then you’re going to do the other. I got mountain climbing line on there, which has a bit of give. But around your wrists I’ve got special ones. The kind you restrain the nutjobs with. You’re going to want to push back that little buckle and . . .”
“I know how it works,” Dana said, feeling suddenly impatient. Easy. Stay easy. She wanted to undo those straps and fly off the bed and put Charlie the bartender right through that frosty window. Maybe get his face cut up like hers. What did she look like now after getting hit with an iron? Not that it mattered, not that she cared. But, the girls. They would have to see their mother like this. If she got out alive.
Having freed her left hand, Charlie backed further away and aimed the gun at her. She flexed her arm. At first it felt like it didn’t want to go. And then with a queasy feeling, she was able to bend it in, and she touched her face with her fingertips. Her face didn’t feel right.
She rolled over and undid her final constraint. It took a little bit of fumbling. Finally she undid the buckle and slid her last arm free.
Sensing Charlie growing impatient, Dana sat herself up. She kept her movements big and slow and deliberate, the way cops wanted them when they had a perp in their midst. She got to her feet, at last the sluggish blood had a chance to circulate.
She kept her back to Charlie for a moment. She did this deliberately, too. She wanted the killer to trust her. Then she slowly turned around.
“Alright. Let’s go see this big thing.”
DARK KILLS a gripping detective thriller full of suspense Page 21
