Web of Lies (10 page)
He holds the bottle before Chelsea’s face. Unscrews the lid, bends down, and shakes out the spider. It scuttles across the floor.
Chelsea shudders violently. Dozens of little legs pinprick across her skin. On an arm. Aaah! She swipes it away. On her neck. On her leg . . . elbow . . . knee . . .
No, no,
she screams to herself,
they’re not real, they’re not real.
The man laughs. “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 sighs with satisfaction. “It’ll be more interesting if I don’t tell you what they look like.”
His foot moves again, comes closer.
“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 congeal. Every nerve comes alive, skittering.
“Poor thing, you look pale.” The man’s voice drips with false empathy. “Too bad I have to do this.”
Silence. Chelsea’s throat closes. She opens her mouth, wheezing in air. The person on the floor hugs herself, trembling.
“This is your fault, you know.” The man’s tone turns hard. He waves a hand at the female. “She’d have lived. You both would, if
you
hadn’t started it.” He glares at Chelsea. Then suddenly turns and scoops a long-legged black spider off the floor. Chelsea recoils. He grabs her arm, jerks it straight out. Her legs start to shake.
“What do you think?” His words are measured, taunting. Any minute now, Chelsea is going to faint. “Is this one poisonous . . . or not?”
He turns his hand over, opens his fingers. The spider drops onto Chelsea’s wrist.
And begins to crawl.
I
listened to Chelsea, horrified, muscles tight. My visual brain conjured every detail of her recounting as she spoke. At the end of her vision, the man was about to shut up his two captives in the room. Neither of them fought or tried to run away. Why? They were barefoot, with only the clothes on their backs. They had nothing but their bare hands to kill the spiders with, and they didn’t know which were poisonous.
Chelsea’s words finally ran out, pulling the plug on the projector in my head. I found myself staring at my desk, holding my body very still. A shard of thought pierced my mind. Chelsea Adams’s visions must be
terrifying
for her. The vividness of my own imagination could be all- consuming, but to actually feel present in such a torturous place . . .
For a frozen beat, neither of us spoke.
Slowly I inhaled. Then strained to pull my thoughts away from the scene.
God, couldn’t this vision have been about
anything
but spiders?
But I couldn’t dwell on that fact, couldn’t allow myself to feel too much. By sheer will, I sought the stabilizing force of analysis. “Okay.” What to ask first? “The girl you saw. What color hair did she have?”
Chelsea swallowed. “Brown.”
Brown.
Like Amy Flyte. “You’re sure of that?”
“Yes.”
“How long was it?”
She pondered her lap. “I don’t know. Because her head was ducked, the hair could have gone down her back and I wouldn’t have seen it.”
I rubbed my temple. “And you didn’t hear her say anything?”
“No. She didn’t talk.”
I nodded. “About the man. You said he grabbed the arm of the person whose body you were in. He dropped a spider on that person’s wrist. Do you remember looking at that wrist?”
Chelsea thought a moment. “Yes. But I was focused on the spider crawling.”
The film in my head threatened to whir into motion again. I concentrated on my logic. “That wrist you saw. Was it a man’s or woman’s?”
Chelsea’s expression flattened, as if she’d been down this road before and seen its dead end. “I don’t . . . My attention was on the spider. I just can’t tell you.”
“So there’s no way for you to know anything about this person?”
Her cinnamon eyes met mine. In them I saw both frustration and steadfastness. “Annie, I have to tell you something. I’ve learned the hard way not to assume
anything
from my visions. Because of that, I will be very careful to tell you only what I absolutely know to be right. That’s why I wrote all these notes.” She tapped the yellow pad. “This is what I know for certain that God told me. Anything else is merely conjecture. It’s not
wrong
to guess, understand. But I don’t dare mix guesses with the truth. What He tells me will not be wrong. What I guess can be very wrong indeed.”
I shifted, stalling for time as I absorbed her words. I knew they were true, could understand, after what she’d been through, why she would be so adamant. “I hear what you’re saying. I just wondered because we’re working on this homicide right now in Redding . . .”
Briefly I told Chelsea about the shooting I’d witnessed and the possibility of two missing people — Amy Flyte and a young man not yet identified. “Amy has brown hair. She might be the girl in your vision. And I’m wondering if the person whose body you were in is the young man.” I studied Chelsea’s expression for the slightest hint of recognition. If God had given her this vision — and I believed He had — He could continue talking to her, right? Give her new impressions?
She focused on my words, her body still. When I finished, she eased back in the chair, gaze drifting to my desk. For a moment her eyes closed, as if she were praying. It struck me then — the deep level of her caution. This woman would not be swayed to believe one iota more than what God showed her. If anything, her fear of doing so might lead her to err on the side of being
too
cautious.
Chelsea shook her head. “Annie, I know you hope my vision can shed light on your case. But I
don’t know
.” She spread her hands. “I don’t feel anything one way or another. Logic tells me that, with the timing of all this, the vision
is
relevant. But again, that’s just
my
logic, not a knowledge God has given me.”
Disappointment pulled at my mouth. I worked to keep my expression placid.
So what am I supposed
to do, God? If You’re going to send somebody a vision, why don’t You fill in the details that count?
Chelsea tilted her head and shrugged — a gesture that looked almost childlike. “I know you’re frustrated. I wish I could tell you more, I really do.” She pushed to her feet and wandered aimless steps away from me, one hand rising to her neck.
I watched with a half-wary silence. This woman’s ability to read me was on a par with Jenna’s. More than a little disconcerting, considering we’d just met. Yet she was candid enough to voice her perceptions and she responded with understanding. Had to admit, that was better than Jenna’s arguments.
Chelsea turned back to me, her voice thickening. “My problem is the same as yours. Always has been. I wish God would tell me everything. Sometimes He does. I’ve had visions where I saw enough to know exactly what I was supposed to do and why. Other times, I know what to do, but
nothing
about why. I’m left with more questions than answers. And I tell you, every time it’s like — ” she brought her palms together, moving them up and down — “like stepping off a cliff. I
know
God will bring me to safety. He’s never failed me yet. But I’m like you, Annie. I just wish I knew everything from the beginning.”
Something inside me shifted. Watching Chelsea struggle, I felt resolve flow through my own limbs. Then,
bam
, memories from the Poison Killer case hit. I leaned forward, fists pressed against my legs. “If we knew everything up front, Chelsea — ” my voice was low — “we’d be too scared to walk off that cliff.”
She dropped her hands. “I know. You’re so right.” She returned to her chair, sank into it. Summoned the ghost of a smile. “Okay. So. Now that I’ve got that out of my system, maybe I should describe the face I saw after the vision?”
Yes, the composite. Back on familiar ground. As I reached for my drawing pad and pencil, a new thought wafted into my brain. What if this face was the face of the
captor
, not the second captive? What if that face belonged to Orwin Neese?
I looked at Chelsea expectantly. “Ready if you are.”
F
or a week now he hadn’t seen the second spider.
Thing had to be dead. Probably eaten by the female.
He stroked the side of the terrarium with a finger. Good reason these babies were sometimes called widow spiders. After mating, she’d just gobbled him up.
See? Murder happened even in nature. No big thing. Besides, who cared? The female was bigger and more interesting to watch.
He drew his mouth down, idly wondering how many males would hatch from the sac. Would their sisters mate with them, then eat them up too?
Women were plain deadly.
He squinted through the glass, looking for the spider. Most of his specimens were in the basement, but he’d brought this terrarium up for a few days. Soon he’d exchange it for another. Kept the fascination fresh that way.
Yeah. There was the female. He could barely see her under those twigs in the corner. Sleeping. Button spiders were nocturnal.
He tilted his head, studying the messy web. He could see the egg sac, full of promise. Can’t wait till those little buggers pop. But as for stored food in the web — nada. Lazy little mama, eating and sleeping her life away. She’d soon need the fly he’d trapped in a jar. He glanced at the insect buzzing against the glass and laughed low in his throat. You’re about to come to a bad end, pal.
He reached for the jar, remembering a story he’d read about the black button spider. The reason he just had to have a pair. They weren’t usually deadly, but their bite was bad news. Nausea, headaches, muscle cramps, banging pulse, mucho pain, and local nerve damage. In South Africa, where they were found, a young boy had been bitten on the arm while helping his daddy with the corn harvest. Kid had screamed himself to death. Literally.
He grated out a laugh.
Wouldn’t it be cool to watch something die from this little mama’s venom? He scratched his thigh, thinking it over. Some small animal. Like a hamster or a kitten. No, not a hamster. Too quiet. At least a kitten could mew.
Wonder how long it would take . . .
He tapped the glass. Come out, come out, pretty spider. All black and silky, so proud of that red-orange hourglass tattoo.
The spider slept on.
He sniffed. Wiped his nose. Time to feed the beast. Sorry, little fly. Your end has come.
With one hand he held the jar, and with the other, slid the top of the terrarium aside a few inches. Unscrewing the cap, he held it in place and turned the jar over near the open space of the terrarium. Here came the tricky part. Lose enough flies, you learn to be fast. He moved aside the cap, thrust the jar into the terrarium, and shook it. The fly tumbled out. Quickly he pulled back the jar and slid the glass top in place. The fly careened into a side of the terrarium, backed up, and buzzed into it again.
Trapped! Only a matter of time now, buddy.
His mouth curved in a slow smile as he screwed the cap back on the jar.
F
or the next hour Chelsea and I worked on the composite. As anxious as I was to see the face, I had to force myself to concentrate. Would these be the features of Orwin Neese?
As the interview progressed, it became clear the face was not Orwin’s. Who then? Perhaps the second captive after all? The young man Orwin had also threatened to kill?
But these questions were pushed aside as a new concern infiltrated my thoughts. Chelsea’s description of details was acute. Almost too acute. This vague smear of suspicion began to coagulate, then harden. I tried to battle through it but couldn’t deny what my training had taught me. Studies of the interview process have shown that a witness who describes a face extremely well isn’t necessarily all that accurate. Some people are simply better with words than others, while their memories may be faulty. A few times in the past I had produced composites that highly confident interviewees swore were right, only to find later that the drawings were less on target than others from more tentative witnesses.
God, has Chelsea fixed details in her mind to a fault? Please don’t let her go too far astray.
The worries pulled at me. I worked to keep a poker face, even as my heart picked up speed. We
couldn’t
get this wrong. If these features weren’t accurate, if they never led to an identification, where would we be then? Always wondering where this person was, what had happened to him . . .
On the other hand, if this
was
the man missing along with Amy, authorities already had her picture. That alone may be enough to lead police to both of them.
Then again, if we didn’t need this composite, why did God send Chelsea here in the first place?
Minutes ticked by. My palms dampened and I wiped them on my jeans. Chelsea must have noticed my anxiety, but she never let on. She spoke with patience. Calmness. Not once did she waver in her memory or change her mind. After what seemed like a long time, the general essence of the face was complete. I pulled in a breath and studied the drawing.
Small, deep set eyes. Would they alter in the refining process? A somewhat flat nose, thin lips. Narrow jawline and prominent ears. Interesting features. Distinctive.
“Okay.” I smiled at Chelsea. “Here’s what we have so far. There will probably be things to change, and we can do that one feature at a time.” I handed the drawing pad to her.
She looked at it, slow satisfaction planing across her face. “Wow. It’s not far, really. Just . . . a few details.”
“Sure.” I flipped to a page in the FBI
Identification Catalog
. “Let’s start with the eyes. Any of these closer to the real thing?”
