Web of Lies

by Brandilyn Collins

  He held the bottle before her face, then unscrewed the lid. Bent down and shook the creature out. It scuttled across the floor. Kelly peeked up to see where it went.

  Chelsea shuddered violently. Dozens of little legs pinpricked across her skin. On her arm. Aaah! She swiped it away. On her neck. On her leg . . . elbow . . . knee . . .

  No, no, they’re not real, they’re not real.

  He laughed low in his throat. “Imagining ’em already, huh? Just wait. I haven’t even locked you in here yet. But since you’re enjoying this so much, let me introduce a few more of your roomies. I got some special ones from Africa, called six-eyed crab spiders. They’re as bad as the Australian dudes.” He sighed with satisfaction. “It’ll be more interesting if I don’t tell you what they look like.”

  He stepped toward Chelsea. “Did you know when a spider bites a bug, it injects a liquid that dissolves its internal organs? Then it just sucks everything up, predigested. The African crab spider is so poisonous, that’s kind of what it does to humans. The venom eats up body tissue. Causes massive internal bleeding.”

  Chelsea’s lungs congealed. Every nerve came alive, skittering.

  “Poor thing, you look pale.” The man’s voice dripped with false empathy. “Too bad I have to do this.”

  Chelsea’s throat cinched. Her mouth sagged open, gulping for air. Kelly hugged herself, trembling.

  Sudden anger blazed across his face. He waved a hand at Kelly. “This is your fault, you know. She’d have lived. You both would, if you hadn’t started it.” He glared at Chelsea, then thrust his hand to the floor, scooped up a long-legged black spider. He grabbed her arm, jerked it out straight. Chelsea’s knees started to give way. “What do you think?” he taunted. “Is this one poisonous . . . or not?”

  Slowly he turned his hand over, opened his fingers. The spider dropped onto her wrist and began to crawl.

  Chapter 70

  We flailed over the uneven ground of an open field. My lungs puffed air in and out like creaking billows, fear and desperate hope fueling my adrenaline. As we crested the hill, the house bounced into view — and any remaining denial whisked away. There lay the sloping lot we’d imagined, the house two stories in front, three in back. And near the ground, toward the rear — the top of an oval window.

  My heart burst into splinters. Kelly, are you there? Chelsea?

  “The window!” Jenna wheezed. I veered toward it.

  Dave ran after me, grasped my arm. “Annie, we can’t look in there; he might see us.”

  I kept moving, trying to shake free. “I have to see her, just for a — ”

  “No.” He yanked me back toward the others.

  We stumbled down the hill, my legs moving through some force of their own. God, please don’t let him see us coming.

  At the manicured lawn we spread out, ducking as we ran. Dave pulled me toward the other side of the house. Milt and Jenna hurried up the porch. Stephen and Bill stayed on the first side.

  Dave and I slid to a halt at a large window, chests heaving. He dripped with sweat, his face crimson. “Here goes. Stand back.” He raised his piece of wood like a baseball bat, swung it toward the pane. Glass shattered. A siren whooped in violation.

  Crack. From the front came more sounds of breakage. And more distantly a third window smashed.

  “Keep away!” Dave thrust the wood back and forth, knocking out glass, his expression set with fury. A flying shard gouged his arm and blood welled up. He threw down the branch. “I’m going in.” Grabbing the window frame, he hoisted himself up and over. I heard his body thud onto the floor. His head came up, arm thrust down toward me. It ran with blood. “Give me the gun.”

  I pushed it into his palm.

  Dave disappeared.

  Chapter 71

  His fingers sank into Chelsea’s wrist. Her eyes opened wide, a rattle in her throat as she watched the spider crawl up her arm.

  Maybe he should mess with it, make it bite her right off. Would serve her right, after all the trouble —

  Whow-whow-whow-whow. The electronic cry split the air. He jerked up his head, froze.

  The alarm.

  He snatched his fingers from her wrist. Chelsea knocked the spider off her arm and shrank from him.

  “You!” he yelled at her. “Get over there in that corner.” He raked a look at Kelly. She was still on the floor, but her head was up, eyes wide. “And you, girl, don’t move.”

  He scurried out of the room, locked it with shaking fingers. Dropped the key in his pocket. Of all the times for a false alarm.

  His feet took the steps two at once. He burst through the door into the hallway — and heard the shatter of glass. The siren swelled in his ears.

  No. No.

  With a curse he launched himself into the kitchen. He banged open the end drawer and snatched up a gun.

  Chapter 72

  The world jumbled into a cacophony of sight and sound. Panic lifted me on my tiptoes. Glass littered the lawn at my feet, the siren shrill in my ears. I backed up, searching for a glimpse of Dave. Was he safe? Was Jenna in the house yet? Stephen?

  I saw nothing.

  Just get to Kelly.

  I stumbled toward the back of the house. Around the corner, across the rear lawn. Streaked around a second corner. My foot caught on something and I tumbled to the ground, breath knocked away. Gasping, I shoved to my feet and ran. My body seemed to only hover, a cartoon character with pedaling legs and no motion.

  Please, God . . .

  Ahead I saw it. A little circular stone wall. The top half of a grimy oval window. My heart leapt in my throat. I threw myself on my belly before the wall, stretched my neck toward the glass. It’s so dark, I can’t see anything! I pushed myself forward, a ragged stone edge ripping my shirt, scraping skin on my stomach. I thrust my nose up to the window, cupped my eyes with both hands.

  A dim little room, shelves on the walls. Two figures, standing up, clinging to each other. Kelly!

  I pounded on the glass. Kelly’s head snapped around, and Chelsea’s. They shuffled toward me. Their mouths moved, but I heard only the wail of the alarm. My daughter’s arms stretched toward me in desperate pleading.

  “Kelly!” I pressed my hand against the glass, willing it to dissolve. Forget our plans, forget where Dave and the others were; I had to get to my daughter — now. Why hadn’t I brought that piece of wood? I pulled away from the window, frantically searched for something to break the pane, even as I knew I’d never fit through the opening.

  Nothing.

  I slid back toward the glass, pushed my palm against it. “I can’t get in this way! They’re coming to get you; just hang on.”

  Oh, God, I don’t want to leave them.

  I slithered backward, pushed to my feet. Ran up the sloping lot, past the gaping window Bill and Stephen had broken, and around the corner to the front. The siren wailed in my ears. I leapt toward the porch steps. The door stood wide open. From inside — sudden noise. Feet running, Dave shouting. A thud. Stephen yelled something. A man’s voice barked a command.

  Ice rolled across my lungs. I slid to a halt, unsure what to do. Then carefully eased inside, head whipping back and forth. Straight ahead in the kitchen, I saw a flash of Dave’s shirt. Then nothing.

  My heart stabbed daggers into my chest. Sudden terror of the unknown shoved at my spine. I flung myself toward the kitchen and over the threshold.

  “Stop right there, Annie!” A man’s voice, one I recognized. I froze.

  My brain took in all the sights at once. Bill pressed against a cabinet, his camera askew on the counter. Its filming indicator light still glowed. Milt and Stephen posed, unmoving, by the sink. My gun dangled from Dave’s lowered hand, his limbs locked tight.

  Across the room stood Ryan Burns, one beefy arm crooked around my sister’s neck, a weapon pressed against her head. Jenna’s arms hovered in the air, her face white. Her gun lay kicked away on the floor, behind them.

  Ryan turned hard eyes to Dave. “
I told you to put it down. Now.” His face looked as I’d never seen it — contorted, hate-filled. Desperate. His shoulders heaved with each rapid breath.

  Slowly Dave reached out, placed my gun on the counter.

  “Push it away from you.”

  Dave shoved it down the tile.

  Nobody moved.

  Whow-whow-whow. The alarm took an ax to my head.

  “Ryan.” His name burst from my mouth. “Why?”

  He glared at me. “Why did you come here? Why didn’t you keep yourself safe? The town needs you, Annie; you keep killers off the street.”

  I gawked at him, trying to make sense of his insanity. “Please. I just want my daughter back. And Chelsea.”

  “They’re already dead.”

  No! I’d just seen them, alive and calling to me. But that gun in his hand . . . My legs turned to water.

  Suddenly Jenna shrieked. Jerked her head down. Ryan’s gun slid from her temple. She shoved sideways into him. His finger pulled the trigger. Crack! A bullet rent the air, barreled into the wall.

  Everything happened at once. Dave leapt for my gun, snatched it off the counter as Bill grabbed for his camera. Jenna rammed into Ryan again. His weapon flew out of his hand, clattered to the floor. Stephen scrabbled for it. Somebody yelled and my own mouth screamed. Ryan Burns launched toward the gun — and my son. Milt rushed the man and knocked him to his knees. Then kicked him in the side. Ryan collapsed like a sack of flour and rolled, groaning, onto his back. Jenna scraped her gun off the floor just as Stephen scrambled to his feet with the other one.

  Three barrels pointed at Ryan Burns.

  Whow-whow-whow. The siren screeched in my brain —then suddenly stopped. The abrupt silence blistered my ears.

  From the front hall I heard stealthy footsteps, men’s lowered voices. “In here!” I called. Two deputies materialized at the threshold, guns drawn. They took in the sight with sweeping gazes, jaws dropping in disbelief.

  “Help me,” Ryan moaned. “They broke into my house.”

  Voices talked at once, the deputies commanding all guns put down, Dave explaining, and Jenna protesting. I paid no heed, had only one thought. Kelly and Chelsea.

  My head swiveled. Where was the basement? Milt was already jogging down a side hallway. He reached a door, flung it wide. “The steps are here!” He turned toward the deputies. “They’re locked in down there.”

  Oh, God, please let them be alive.

  Ryan pushed to his feet, demanding our arrest, his face the old innocence that I knew. “Don’t listen to him!” I pushed myself into a deputy’s face. “You have to make him give you the key! We have to get them out!”

  “I don’t have a key,” Ryan insisted. “I don’t know what they’re talking about.”

  I stumbled past him and down the steps, Milt behind me. On my left, three closed doors. I fell upon one, yanked it open. A laundry room. “Kelly!” I screamed. “Kelly!” Milt skidded to the second, flung out his hand —

  “Mom! In here!”

  The voice floated through the third door. We both whipped toward it. Milt reached it first, but I shoved him away. I tried turning the knob. It didn’t move. I pulled and rattled, but it wouldn’t give. A deputy appeared at my side. “Do you hear them? We need the key!”

  The deputy shouted to his partner, then headed up the steps.

  “Kelly, hang on! Chelsea, we’re coming.” At the door I jittered and trembled, hands at my mouth, waiting an eternity. The deputy appeared again, hurrying down the stairs, a key in his hand. Ryan’s loud protests fizzled down to my ears. The deputy thrust the key in the lock, flung open the door.

  “Mom!” Kelly rushed out and into my arms. We held each other and erupted into tears.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “We’re okay.”

  Chelsea stumbled out of the room and tripped. Milt caught her. I reached out with one arm and pulled her close. “Thank You, God,” I hiccupped into her trembling shoulder. “Thank You, thank You, thank You . . .”

  “Bill, get down here!” Milt shouted.

  Vaguely I registered more voices. A bright light. The whir of a camera. For once I didn’t care. I could not let go of my daughter. Or Chelsea. The three of us did the only thing we could possibly do.

  We clung to each other and cried.

  Saturday, October 22

  Epilogue

  The house gleamed. The floor and wood wainscoting were polished, furniture buffed. Two dozen helium balloons were tied to various log posts, the balconies, and numerous lamps. All four of us had dressed up, decked out for Jenna’s thirty-sixth birthday party. I donned the black dress I wore to my own birthday dinner four months and eons ago. And of course, the necklace Dave and Erin gave me that night.

  Our party promised to be quite the gathering. Amazing, the friends you find when your family brings down a silent killer. And makes national headlines.

  Again.

  My sister was in the kitchen, bossing me as usual. “Those hors d’oeuvres should be in the refrigerator” and “Send Kelly over to Dave’s for more ice.”

  “Jenna — ” I shook my head — “knock it off. I really do have this under control.”

  She mumbled under her breath and I feigned a glare.

  I knew the reason for her nervousness. Milt Waking was coming. He’d flown all the way out from filming some story on the East Coast and planned to stay three days in Redding. Fortunately, he was bunking in a hotel and not in one of our guest rooms. I owed him the world for helping us find Kelly, and I’d told him so. But having him around for three days was another matter.

  Seven o’clock, and the guests started arriving, Dave the first. Erin had already been there for hours, helping with the house and food, and spending the last hour with Kelly, doing makeup and hair. Chetterling arrived with his date, a voraciously chatty social worker named Rowena. “An old friend,” he told me somewhat sheepishly last week, “come back around again.”

  Good for you, Ralph.

  It was Chetterling who told me every detail about the storming of the Boyle Road house. Neese had finally answered Tim Blanche’s megaphoned calls, yelling through a top-floor window. But negotiations didn’t get very far. Neese panicked and fired some shots, wounding a deputy in the shoulder. At that moment a SWAT team member got a bead on him and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Neese in the forehead. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

  Three weeks ago I attended Amy Flyte’s funeral. According to autopsy and forensics reports, she’d been strangled soon after she disappeared. Such a horrible truth to realize — that she lay dead before anyone even knew she was missing, and all during those days we searched for the spider room, hoping to rescue her. A second body of the “possible missing young man” was never found. To this day we could only hope he was merely a lie in Orwin Neese’s raging threats. But sometimes I woke in the night, wondering . . .

  The doorbell rang again and I answered it. “Chelsea!” She stood on our porch, brightly wrapped present in hand, flanked by her handsome husband and sons. “Come in, come in.”

  They flocked into the great room, Chelsea first. She shoved the present into her husband’s arms and hugged me tightly. “How are you and Kelly?” she whispered in my ear.

  I pulled back, studying her face. As much as I’d thanked her, it would never be enough. I owed this woman more than I could ever repay. What she did for us, allowing herself to be taken into that nightmarish room . . . Not until days later, when I began to sort the puzzle pieces out, did it hit me — when Ryan Burns insisted she come get Kelly instead of me, she’d known.

  “I’m doing fine,” I told her. “Kelly still has her moments. A couple times a week she crawls into my bed in the middle of the night. I just hold her and we pray. What more can I do?”

  Chelsea’s eyes glistened. She nodded.

  “And how are you?”

  She tilted her head. “Okay. As long as I don’t see a spider in the house.”

  We exchanged wan smi
les.

  She introduced me to her husband, Paul, and her sons, Michael and Scott. The girls took one look at her boys, and their expressions outshone our hardwood floor. Soon the four of them were headed for the TV room.

  “Where’s the birthday girl?” Chelsea asked.

  “I think she’s down in the basement with some folks, finishing up a tour of the house. Want to go say hi? Dave’s down there too.”

  “Oh no.” Chelsea waved a hand with a little shiver. “I’ll just wait for them up here.”

  More friends arrived, some from church, others who’d become Jenna’s local clients. Gerri Carson and her husband, Ted, showed up. Gerri hugged me even more tightly than Chelsea did. “How great to see your face, Annie Kingston.”

  “Yeah, well, next time you decide to go to Hawaii, check with me first, okay? You sure picked a week to be gone.”

  She leaned close to me, looking conspiratorial. “Is he here yet?”

  “Who, Milt? No.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “I can’t wait to meet him in person. He’s absolutely gorgeous on TV.”

  “More so in real life,” Jenna said, sidling up to hug Gerri.

  “Oh yeah, he’s terrific.” I wagged my head. “Just ask Chelsea how much she adores him.”

  Jenna rolled her eyes.

  Five minutes later Milt made his grand entrance, planting a kiss on Jenna’s cheek and glad-handing everyone like a smooth politician. I watched him and sighed. The man was so annoyingly, arrogantly . . . heaven-sent.

  He greeted Stephen and Dave like it was old home week, pumping handshakes. Stephen pulled him aside with a dramatic whisper. “Did you bring it?”

  “Yeah, it’s in the car. Didn’t want to give it to you in front of everybody.”

  I suppressed a shudder. I knew what it was — Bill’s footage of our break-in at Ryan Burns’s house. The smashed windows, drawn guns, Chelsea and Kelly released. As if Stephen needed a copy, after all the times the story had run on national TV. Still, I supposed my son couldn’t see it enough. He’d show it to his friends and they’d crow. He’d earned that much.