Rock Spider (A New Hampshire Mystery Book 2)

by Mira Gibson

  But when Zhana collapsed to the porch and the cult began swarming around the house, Gertrude saw a thin stream of smoke wafting into the night air. It was coming from Quinton's gun, as he stood with the barrel trained on the dead woman.

  The cult closed in on Gertrude, on Roberta and Quinton who didn’t have any bullets left to kill them.

  Gertrude did, but she was paralyzed, an old reaction to the cult, to their hands on her, taking hold of her instincts, tearing at her, and muddling her mind. She couldn’t think straight. She could barely process that they’d captured Roberta, clustered around Quinton, wrestling him to the ground.

  The cult was dragging them towards the field where a sea of men chanted in torchlight—stark as the flames of hell.

  She fought, twisting and writhing in their grip, jumping and digging her heels into the soft earth, screaming and hissing, as her mind split open, fragmenting into a million splinters, each slice an image reflecting horrors she’d survived.

  And just as the men were about to toss her onto the metal plate at the center of their circle, force her down into the earthen chamber where spiders lurked, hungry and dancing between cracks, the men began grunting and collapsing, one by one, jolting and falling dead, bullets piercing their backs, their heads, clipping their shoulders and blowing out their knees.

  The next thing she knew, she was on the ground, cheek to grass and screaming, frantic to assess whether or not she’d been hit, though she didn’t move a muscle to find out.

  Then hands wrapped her arms, hoisting her up and rushing her through the field. Confused, she managed only to get a sense of what was happening. She saw a helmet, a man's profile, his bulletproof vest, military boots punching the earth in quick strides. Turning her head, she saw Roberta being rushed off in the same manner and behind her was Quinton who was being escorted by another member of the SWAT Team.

  When they reached the front of the house, flashing ambulance lights momentarily blinded Gertrude and she sensed more than saw a team of medics rolling Zhana on a gurney towards the back of the vehicle, while others ran to Roberta and the boy, wasting no time to investigate their injuries, as they helped the kids into the back of a second ambulance.

  “Gerty!”

  In the chaos, she whipped around and found Jake jogging towards her, his blue eyes catching the light, his expression conveying a world of relief and anguish for not making it there sooner.

  “God,” she said. Her voice was a mere breath, as he wrapped his arms around her, needing to feel her against him to believe she was alive. “They killed Kevin Robinson.”

  “I know,” he said, urging her back so he could study her face; search her eyes for the story of what she might have been through. “We found Charlie. He’s dead. We’ll capture Peter. We don’t have enough to pin Maude’s death on the cult, but we have enough to get King locked up.”

  “I know who killed Maude,” she said, stepping back.

  “Peter?”

  “No.”

  The SWAT Team was stationed at the tree line in the front yard and Gertrude’s attention was stolen when she heard one of their men assert, “King’s dead!” She glanced over at him, as he pressed his fingers to his ear as if listening to word coming through from the field. “Shot in the chest. They’re pulling him out of the hole now.”

  “Jesus Christ,” said Jake, returning his gaze to her. “If it wasn’t Peter, then who?”

  “Quinton Avery, Roberta’s friend. He has the gun.”

  Gradually, he began nodding to show her he understood and then pulled her in for another hug.

  “Thank God you’re alright,” he whispered, kissing the top of her head.

  But was she?

  After all she had just learned, would she ever be alright?

  Epilogue

  Sitting in her Audi, surrounded by index cards, their motivational advice calling to her—Always do your best, what you plant now, you’ll harvest later, and Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it, and You’ve come this far, don’t give up! Gertrude stared at the house she grew up in.

  Blue and stately, the two-story Colonial set against the backdrop of Lake Winnipesaukee, wrapped in a white picket fence, and bathed in the late-summer sun didn’t at all convey the dark history that had unfolded within its walls all those years ago.

  Climbing out of her car was an exercise in overcoming every instinct she had to run. But she couldn’t turn back. For Gertrude this wasn’t over.

  It was a very long walk to the front door and when she reached it, lifting her knuckles to its white surface and willing herself to be brave, she accepted the fact that nothing could have prepared her for this moment, not the week she’d spent meeting with Dr. Hagstaff, not the hours she’d given to the Grafton County Police, and not the long nights she’d shared with Jake going over every last shred of evidence to help the District Attorney build an airtight case against all individuals involved in the conspiracy.

  A cult hiding in plain sight was a hell of a beast to take down. And though the authorities had incarcerated nearly every member, there were two left who had eluded police.

  Marsha and Albert Inman.

  And Gertrude would be damned if she let them get away with it.

  With conviction, she pounded on the door, but the second she stepped back to wait, her hands began trembling and she lost sense of the ground beneath her feet.

  She startled when the door popped inward, revealing her mother’s elegant face, which was so like Zhana’s that it made her reel—vibrant eyes rimmed black with precision, a taut mouth stretched thin into a brittle smile, an overall manicured presentation though her head was wrapped in a silken handkerchief, hiding thinning hair.

  “Gertrude,” she said in a carefully measured tone that revealed the slightest hint of apprehension. “What brings you here unannounced?”

  “I have to talk to you. Is Dad home?”

  “He’s tinkering in his study. Model trains,” she said with a casual eye roll as though her husband was as whimsical as Santa Clause and not the monster Gertrude had come to realize. “Come in, please.”

  Clutching her purse, Gertrude glanced over her shoulder, one last look at safety before she stepped inside.

  Marsha closed the door and though the living room was bathed in daylight, to Gertrude the house looked dark and threatening.

  “You’re looking well,” she said, indicating she could have a seat on the couch while she rounded into the kitchen where a long-stem martini glass sat waiting for her return. After plucking it off the counter she circled back and perched on the edge of a lounge chair across from her daughter, who she began studying, her gaze traveling the short side of Gertrude’s hair then down at her attire—a loose blouse and black jeans, Keds ill-matched with navy blue socks, an eclectic outfit her mother seemed disapproving of. “We’re told your memory hasn’t been restored, but Albert and I feel it’s a blessing.”

  “Hmm,” she said, trying not to tune out, fighting the urge to slip into the dissociative state she used to live in during her years home alone with Marsha, with Doris struggling for life upstairs, with Albert raging in the background. To anchor herself, she buried her hand in her purse and gripped Doris’ cell phone, reminding herself this would all be over soon. “Yes, my memory,” she echoed. “I was in the hospital for a very long time.”

  “Oh where are my manners?” she asked, springing to her feet.

  “I don’t need a drink, Mom,” she said impatiently, but it didn’t stop her mother from proceeding into the kitchen and busying herself with cocktails as a means of avoiding wherever this conversation was leading.

  Then, in a tone like ice, Marsha said, “Shame about Zhana King,” and the way she kept her steely eyes on Gertrude made clear the comment was in fact a warning.

  Finding her voice, she said, “It would’ve been nice if you visited me,” even though it was a lie. Though she’d felt that way while struggling to regain her faculties during her long four weeks at
the Brain Rehabilitation Center, ultimately she was glad they’d abandoned her. “It might have jarred my memory if you came.”

  “Again, Gertrude, I think it best you take it as a blessing. You’re back at work now. You’re managing. There’s no need to dredge up the past.”

  “But we both know that’s exactly what I’ve done, don’t we mother?”

  To punctuate the implication, she set Doris’ cell phone on the coffee table and watched Marsha’s reaction to it, though the woman had none, other than to sip her martini in a manner that was so like Zhana’s that Gertrude felt momentarily dislocated from reality.

  She snapped back when Albert Inman stalked in from up the hallway. His gaze, dark and beady, locked onto her like a heat-seeking missile the instant he stepped in the room and the veneer over his hardening expression told her he was holding himself back from ripping her apart, as he said, “I didn’t realize you were planning on dropping by.”

  “Albert, Dear, don’t be testy,” Marsha ordered then quickly reminded him their daughter was still recovering. “She still doesn’t remember a thing,” she stated as though it would prevent him from boiling over. “Have a drink.”

  Judging his posture—the broad shoulders framing a barrel chest, his thick arms and legs—Albert was built for combat more so than treating children in his private practice. But it was the glint in his eye, the flat-darkness she couldn’t escape, that called to mind Peter King and all that went down underground.

  She’d killed him.

  As Marsha returned to her perch on the edge of the lounge chair, and Albert settled into an adjacent one, Gertrude forced the ugly memory from her mind—Peter tangling around her, Gertrude squeezing the trigger, the gun jamming, her panicking, him laughing as he spun her around, spiders fleeing every which way, Peter glaring at her as he choked her without realizing she was lifting the weapon, pulling the trigger, barrel to his chest, POW.

  Focusing on her father, she crawled out of the memory just as she had that night from the ground, and lifted Doris’ cell phone off the coffee table.

  “I remember that night,” she said. “I remember everything you said. You didn’t deny it. Doris recorded it on this phone. Every word.”

  Albert’s expression went slack and he turned white, while Marsha launched into nervous laughter.

  Gertrude knew she could kill them. She wouldn’t need a weapon. After everything she'd been through she could probably rip their throats out with her teeth. But they were already dead—Peter in the bottom of a hellhole he helped create, Zhana sprawled across a porch.

  She cued the cell to play and as it did, she set it on the coffee table and watched her parents' web of secrets unravel.

  “Turn it off!” Said Marsha in a shrill tone as though she couldn’t stand hearing the sound of her own voice smugly offering up an indignant confession. “What does this matter?” Desperately, she turned to her husband. “Tell her this doesn’t matter. The cult is finished! It’s over! There’s no sense in crucifying us!”

  Albert lunged out of his chair and Gertrude knew what would come next, but in the same breath, she was on her feet yelling at him.

  “The Grafton Police have that recording! I’m here because I wanted to see your faces. I will never forget those looks,” she yelled, pointing to each of them and memorizing every detail of their long, stunned expressions. “I will never forget your shock at the fact I exposed you.”

  She started for the door then turned on her heel.

  “Doris might have died in that accident, but you killed her. And for that, you’ll pay.”

  As she spilled down the walkway, vaguely aware of the police cruisers pulling into the driveway, sirens blaring and officers jumping out, eager to arrest the Inmans, Gertrude focused on her breathing then trained her attention on steadying her hands from shaking.

  By the time she parked in front of the DCYF and angled her beret onto her head, the brief moments spent at her parents’ house felt like a distant dream, haunting but completely unreal.

  Wendy met her in the entryway and wasted no time holding blazer after blazer up to Gertrude’s chin, eyeballing which option would work best, while up the hall a photographer explained his vision to Harry McNeil as if there would be anything artistic about capturing Gertrude’s image for her award.

  As Wendy talked her through the pros and cons of each look, beaming with a wide and excited smile, Gertrude drifted into the mind-bending facts that had been unearthed in the weeks leading up to this moment.

  Two decades worth of children who’d been reported missing throughout the Tri-State area had been found buried in the field behind the King’s house. The cult had stretched far and wide, and had used children like Roberta, like Doris and Gertrude to execute their dark operation without killing them. Ed Cohn’s work linked countless members to the grisly goings-on in that dark neck of the woods, and Jake had written an award-winning article exposing the cult on a national level.

  As heartbreaking as it was, Quinton had been arrested for the murder of Maude King and sent to the Sununu Juvenile Detention center where he was sentenced to stay until his eighteenth birthday at which point a review board would determine whether he would be released or transferred into the state penitentiary.

  Harry hurried Gertrude over to the photographer, as Wendy trailed behind, blazers swinging from hangers that she held, in rhythm to her proud strides.

  Maneuvering her into the bright lights, the photographer asked her to smile on his count and reminded her to look alive. The photo would forever live on the wall amongst achievement placards and the various awards in social services the DCYF had accumulated throughout the years.

  Alive, she was.

  SMILE!

  And she did. It was radiant and victorious and most of all real.

  CLICK.

  When she turned from the lens, the photographer thanking her and Wendy boasting to the gathering social workers how she always knew Gertrude was something special—My best friend the hero!—Gertrude spotted Roberta lingering just beyond the glass door, as Jake strode up to her.

  Approaching the door, Gertrude waved them in.

  “Don’t be shy. The photo took two seconds,” she explained, brushing over her accomplishment as they stepped inside.

  “I’m hungry,” said Roberta, who’d put on a few pounds in Gertrude’s care, but could use a few more. “And I want to help build my room.”

  Jake shot Gertrude a sly grin. “Which means she wants more clothes.”

  “I need more clothes,” she argued with dark affection, ever laced with a flirtatious air. “I need work clothes, and school clothes, and clothes I can get messy. What? Do I have to call you Mom and Dad to get a few things around here?”

  “Ha, ha,” said Jake, handing her his keys. “Get in the truck and we’ll see.” When she padded off through the parking lot, he asked, “You sure you can handle her?”

  She was. More than anything, she was sure.

  Please take a moment now and leave a review if you enjoyed this novel

  THE NEW HAMPSHIRE MYSTERIES CONTINUED:

  Read on for more dark, psychological thrillers by Mira Gibson where new characters emerge in Daddy Soda and all characters converge in the epic conclusion of the series, Tar Heart.

  Daddy Soda (A New Hampshire Mystery, Book One)

  Tar Heart (A New Hampshire Mystery, Book Three)

  If you liked this story, please CLICK HERE to join my mailing list where you will be the first to know about new releases, discounts, and giveaways!

  ALSO BY MIRA GIBSON:

  The Kensington Killers

  COLD DARK FEAR (Prequel to The Kensington Killers Series)

  LUNATIC (available now)

  CRANK (coming winter 2016)

  MANIAC (coming summer 2017)

  www.mira-gibson.com

  AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

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  Mira Gibson is a playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. After majoring in
Playwriting at Bard College, Mira was accepted into Youngblood, the playwrights group at Ensemble Studio Theatre (NYC). There, Mira's plays received developmental readings and workshops. Most notably: Daddy Soda (2009), Old Flame (2012), and Diamond in the House of Thieves (2012). Her one-act play The Red White and Blue Process received a commission from The Sloan Foundation. And her one-act play Old Flame won the Samuel French Playwriting Competition and is available for licensing via Samuel French Play Publishers. In 2012 Mira's first screenplay, Warfield was produced by Summer Smoke Productions. It is available on Amazon Direct. She lives in Los Angeles, CA. Story is her life.

  If you liked this story, please CLICK HERE to join my mailing list where you will be the first to know about new releases, discounts, and giveaways!

  www.mira-gibson.com

  AND NOW A TEASER FROM…

  Tar Heart

  (another New Hampshire mystery)

  Prologue

  It was freezing, the moonless night deceivingly still except for the stiff wind.

  Vacantly, Rose stared at the lake shrouded in darkness, its icy surface, the snowdrift spilling out from the shore, as dread ratcheted up her spine, her heart pumping madly.

  As the frigid wind bit into her, she agonized over calling her husband and leaving another voice message. She was gripping her cell like a wishing stone, she realized, when the wind changed course, causing her hair to whip into her eyes.

  He hadn't picked up when she’d tried his cell. Dialing his office line had rendered the same result and unnerved, Rose had left a brief, frantic voice message, keeping her point cryptic while urgently demanding he get back to her.