Itsy Bitsy Spider (Emma Frost #1) (22 page)

"When you
didn't come
to see my painting as planned I was
worried," Jack said as we jumped into the car. He held the door for me,
since I was carrying Victor in my arms and the boy refused to let go of me
again. I had finally gotten rid of the handcuffs since Jack had found the key
on the kitchen table in Officer Dan's house and opened them for me.

I decided to sit with Victor in the backseat, we
were breaking the law if I let him sit on my lap all the way, but at that
moment, I didn't care. Something urgent had entered my mind. It was something
Officer Dan had said before he left me.

You stole my childhood
.
You had the life I was supposed to have had.

At first I had thought it was nothing, but the
more I thought about it, it made sense.

"So when I went to your house your dad told
me you were staying at Officer Dan's house, because there was too much snow on
the roads for you to be able to get back tonight. As I walked back to my own
house I realized the snowplows had been working all afternoon and that most of
the roads had been cleared by now. Especially downtown. So I thought something
had to be wrong, but went home anyway, feeling very uneasy. I can't explain it,
it was like something inside of me told me you weren't alright. I kept thinking
about Victor actually. There was this spider sitting on my sister's arm when I
fed her her dinner. It reminded me of him, so I thought it wouldn't harm anyone
if I went down there to check if everything was alright. As soon as I came
close to the house, I heard you scream from the back. I noticed Officer Dan's car
was gone, so I went around the back and saw you two through the window. The
rest you know."

"What can I say? We owe you
everything!" I said with tears in my eyes while kissing my son for the
fifteenth time since we entered the car. I didn't care if he didn't like it.
Jack was driving slowly through the blizzards that seemed to have gotten worse.
"If you haven't ... well I don't really like to think about it."

Jack looked at me in the rearview mirror.
"Me either."

I looked back at him and shaped a 'thank you'
with my lips. I had noticed he hadn't stuttered all the way in the car even if
he was the one who had talked the most.

I was the first one who saw it. I noticed it as
the first thing when we drove into the street. The island's police car was
parked in front of my grandmother's old house. I leaned forward and put my hand
on Jack's shoulder. "He's here," I said. My heart was beating rapidly
now. Officer Dan was on duty and now he was inside of my house? I felt Victor's
body start shaking in my hands.

"Let's go to your place first," I said
to Jack.

We turned off the headlights of the car and
parked in front of Jack's house. I carried Victor inside and put him on the
couch with a blanket over his little body. I kissed his forehead. "What's
that man doing in our house?" he asked.

"Don't you worry about him," I said.
"Try and get some sleep. You need it. Jack here will keep an eye on you
while I go over there."

Victor grabbed my shirt and pulled me closer.
"Don't go Mommy. Don't go over there." There was panic in his voice.

"I have to buddy. Grandpa is over there, so
is Maya and all the kids. I need to make sure they're all right."

Victor seemed pensive for a few seconds. Then he
looked into my eyes. "Look for the spider," he whispered. "When
the spider bites you make your move."

I looked at him thinking he was hallucinating. I
touched his forehead making sure he wasn't running a fever. He wasn't.

"Get some sleep," I said and tucked
him in. "It's been an eventful day."

"I have some soup if you're hungry,"
Jack said.

Victor smiled.

"I think he'd like that, thank you very
much," I said and walked towards the door. As I grabbed the handle I
turned to look one last time at my son, whom I almost lost earlier that same
day.

I didn't like to do it, but I couldn't help but
wonder, was I ever going to see him again?

"Here bring this. It's the closest I come
to a weapon," Jack said and handed me an old dagger. "It used to be
my dad's."

I felt strange
walking
across the street with a dagger in my hand. I
ran through the snow feeling anxious that I might come too late. I wasn't
surprised to find Officer Dan here. I had somewhere along the way figured out
that my dad was supposed to be his last victim. It hurt me so badly to admit it
to myself, but it was all very clear right now.

My dad was the father. My dad was Officer Dan's
father. My dad was the one who had gotten Irene Justesen's daughter pregnant at
only sixteen. Then the church people with my grandmother, Mrs. Heinrichsen and
the pastor in front had decided it was too great a scandal, which had to be
somehow covered up. Apparently my dad hadn't wanted to be the father of this
child, and so my grandmother had paid Irene Justesen to let them take her
daughter away, maybe they didn't even tell her where to. But they had locked
her in that bunker where she gave birth to her baby. Seven years they lived
down there before my grandmother went to the hospital with a broken hip and
didn't return until it was too late and the mother had died from hunger. The
boy was forced to eat her remains to stay alive had then been released from the
bunker when I found the key and opened the door. That was the story and now
Officer Dan was revenging himself and his mother. The only person left was the
one meant to be number one.

My dad. The father.

I felt a severe pinch in my stomach since I
found it hard to accept the fact that my dad had been a part of this insane and
very very cruel act.

But he must have known. How
couldn't he?  

I avoided the front door and ran around the back
hoping and praying that I wasn't too late. I peeked in the windows and saw my
dad walk towards the fireplace, throw in a log, then turn his head. I breathed
in a sigh of relief. He was alright. But as I looked at who he was talking to,
my blood froze. Right there in the living room sitting in an armchair was
Officer Dan in his full uniform. Probably knocked on the door telling my dad he
was on duty, maybe under the pretense that I sent him to make sure they were
all alright. Then asking for a cup of coffee, I thought and spotted a cup on
the table in front of him.

So he had them all tricked to think he was there
on a social call. I walked backwards and tried to look through the windows
upstairs. I spotted Maya in one of them. I threw a small rock on the window.
She didn't react. So I did it again and this time, she turned to see what it
was. I waved and she opened the window.

"Mom? What the heck are you doing down
there?"

I shushed on her. Then whispered as loud as I
could without anyone else hearing me. "Get out of the house. Now."

"I can't hear you, Mom. You really need to
speak up!"

I tried slightly louder. "Get out of the
house now!"

"What? Why? I just put the kids to bed.
What's going on Mom? Is this some sort of prank, cause if it is, it's really
not that good."

I bowed my head feeling helpless. When I lifted
my head again I looked into the eyes of Officer Dan. He was staring at me
through the living room window. I lifted my head and looked at Maya. Then I
yelled:

"Get out of the house NOW!"

When I looked at the window in the living room
again, Officer Dan was gone. My heart was racing in my chest and I started
running towards the door. It was locked. I couldn't see my dad anywhere inside
and suddenly I was afraid Officer Dan had done something to him. 

I took the dagger and used the handle to break
the window. I removed the glass carefully, then put my hand through and reached
the lock on the inside. I turned it and opened the door. As I stepped inside I
heard my daughter's horrifying scream coming from upstairs.

I stormed up
the
stairs and ran towards her bedroom, but found it
to be empty. Then I heard her scream again. Now she was pleading.

"Please don't. Please don't hurt me."

I ran down the hallway towards the sound and
opened the door to Victor's bedroom. In there was my dad and Maya both sitting
on the bed. I breathed relieved when I saw they were both still alive.

"Glad you could join us," a voice
said.

Officer Dan was sitting in the corner on
Victor's chair. In his hand he was holding his police gun, pointing it at my
dad and daughter. I walked closer and looked at Maya's cheek. It was bruised.
He had hit her.

"She's a little feisty one, huh?"
Officer Dan said.

"I'm gonna kill you for this!" I said
and walked towards him.

"Oh really? Is that so?" Officer Dan
said and lifted the gun.

I stopped.

"Now sit down with the rest of your family.
Too bad Victor couldn't be here, huh? Then we would all be gathered. Big family
reunion."

"Where is Victor?" my dad asked with
fear. "Did something happen to him?"

"He's fine," I said.

"Well he was lucky. So were you. I'll find
him and kill him later," Officer Dan said. "That's the good part
about being the only law enforcement on this island all night long. I have
hours and hours to kill people without anyone noticing. It's almost too
easy."

"Why are you doing this to us?" my dad
asked.

"You remember I told you about that kid in
the bunker?"

"How can I forget? You woke me up babbling
about it," my dad said.

"Well that was Officer Dan. He was born in
there."

"Born in the old bunker? I don't
understand." My dad sounded more confused than ever.

"I think you do, if you think about
it," I continued. I looked at Dan. "What was your mother's name,
Officer Dan?"

"Astrid," he said. "Astrid
Justesen."

My dad froze. He was staring at Officer Dan with
wide eyes. "What? ... What? ... What are you talking about?"

"You had a girlfriend named Astrid once,
didn't you Dad? She was Irene Justesen's daughter. She became pregnant when she
was sixteen. Do you remember that?"

 "Of course I remember," my dad
snapped. "It's hardly anything you ever forget. But she disappeared. They
told me she had decided to get rid of the child. They told me her mother had
taken her to the mainland to get it fixed and then she ran off afterwards and
never came back."

"She told me your mother locked her down
there," Officer Dan took over. "Your mother had called her one day
and asked her to come over for tea to get to know one another better now that
they were going to be family, those were the words she used to lure her to the
house. When she arrived your mother asked her to go get a flashlight in the
bunker, the big one, because the lights had gone out in the basement and she
couldn't see when she wanted to go down there and get some jam. So my mother went
into the yard and down the bunker to find the flashlight when the door shut
behind her and was locked. For weeks she thought it was an accident but later
she learned it was your mother's way of getting rid of her. And yours
apparently. Was it good to get her out of your life? Did it feel good to not
have to take responsibility for her or the baby? Did you ask her to do it? Did
you ask your mother to take care of it? My mother thought you did. In the end.
Right before she died, she said she used to believe you loved her, but she had
stopped believing in it anymore. Now she had realized you were probably a part
of it as well.
I wasn't good enough for him
,
she kept telling me.
I wasn't good enough.
Do you have any idea how that felt? Do you?"

My dad was in shock. He stared at Officer Dan
while tears were rolling across his cheeks. That was when I realized he hadn't
been in on any of it. He hadn't known.

"I ... I ... I didn't know ... Do you mean
to tell me ... Were you both down there all this time?" My dad held both
his hands to his face. "I ... I can't believe it." He looked at
Officer Dan. "So .. So .. you're my ..." his voice was shaking
heavily as he spoke ... "So you're my son?"

Officer Dan nodded. My dad was crying heavily
now. "Emma ... you ... you have to believe me. I didn't know about this. I
... I loved Astrid. I truly did. But we were young and my mother ... well she
was against it. I had nothing to do with it. You always ask what went wrong
between her and I. Astrid was what went wrong. She wanted me to stop seeing her
from the beginning and I wouldn't. I loved her, I told her. And when she was
pregnant I told my mom I was going to marry her. I really was. But then they
told me she had decided to leave the island, to get rid of the baby. It was her
mother who told me those things. She told me I would never see her again. It
was the worst time in my life. I lost the one I loved and also the baby. But
... But I'd never imagined ... this ... that this would happen. I can't believe
... I can't believe ... I ..." My dad suddenly went completely pale.

"Dad are you alright?" I asked and
moved forward. I was hiding the dagger in my sleeve. Officer Dan lifted the gun
and pointed it at me. I grabbed my dad just before he fainted. I helped him lay
down on the bed.

"I didn't know, Emma. You must believe
me," he mumbled.

"I know, Dad. Now I know."

"It's all very nice and all, but ..."
Officer Dan said. "All this family love is getting a little old. I'm tired
of it."

"So this creepy guy is your brother?"
Maya suddenly said. "He's my uncle?"

"I guess so," I answered.

"Stop," Officer Dan yelled. "Stop
all this chitchatting. It makes me sick to my stomach. Sit down next to the
others before I shoot you."

My dad was moaning, when I sat down next to him.
I felt Maya's hand on top of mine. I looked up and met her eyes. She looked
scared, but still managed to worry about me. Suddenly she was all so grown up.
I smiled at her, then felt the dagger in my sleeve again. I knew I could have a
shot at stabbing him in the neck, but I didn't know when the smart time to move
would be. It was our only and last chance to make it out alive. But I also
risked him shooting my daughter or my dad in the process. I wasn't sure I dared
to risk that.

I was breathing heavily while feeling anxious in
my stomach. I don't think I'd ever been this scared in my life. I stared at
Officer Dan who seemed to be in some sort of world of his own. Maybe he was
just trying to figure out how to kill us and in what order. He rubbed his
forehead like he was tired. The gun was resting in his lap. While speculating
about when my move should be I suddenly spotted it. I spotted a spider crawling
up Officer Dan's leg. Remembering what Victor had said I held my breath as it
climbed up into his lap and on his hand where it stopped. Officer Dan felt it
now and looked down. Then he smiled.

"Now where did you come from little
buddy?" he said then suddenly let out a loud scream and jumped out of the
chair, the gun falling to the floor.

"It bit me, the little shit bit me! "
He yelled and trampled on the spider that had fallen on the ground.

When the spider bites you make
your move
.

Without thinking twice I leaped from the bed and
buried the dagger in Officer Dan's throat. It must have hit a main artery
because the amount of blood that spurted out from him was overwhelming. I was
covered in it and so was the floor and the bed. Maya was screaming when the
blood hit her face. I screamed to both her and my dad to
get the hell out of here
, while I watched
Officer Dan grab the handle on the dagger with his hand, then turning to look
at me as if to say something, before his eyes rolled back in his head and he
fell to the ground.