Page 5 of Love & Other Killers

Araneoidea

W ell, I guess we started at the worst. It’s only up from here, right ...?” Lark says, rubbing Rose’s back as she vomits among the chickens. The birds rush toward the splattering sound, anticipating food. “I thought you said you took your meds.”

“Didn’t work,” Rose grits out as she heaves again. More birds flock to her feet and she waves a hand in the direction of the pile of human remains. “I blame the chickens. They’re super gross.”

“You should call Rowan over, Sloane. Maybe take a bird or two for dinner tonight. He could have a full circle moment. Nearly.”

Rose turns her watering eyes up to us when I huff a laugh. “Huh ...?”

“Rowan accidentally ate a guy once. I had to dig human rump roast out of his mouth,” I say with a shrug.

Rose heaves again.

“But that’s when he also admitted he had a crush on her, so it’s actually pretty romantic if you think about it,” Lark pipes up.

“I’d rather not.” Rose spits into the dust and I pass her a bottle of water. When she’s a little cleaned up and I’m reasonably confident she won’t pass out, we make our way out of the chicken pen, leaving the body behind. But I take the hyoid with me.

We check that the brothers are still standing at the other end of the chicken farm where we left them, and surprisingly, they are.

Rowan taps his watch as a slow smile sneaks across his lips.

Fucker. Lachlan is a statue, his thick arms folded across his chest, his brows drawn in a worried glare as he tracks Lark’s every move.

And Fionn is grumbling a string of Irish expletives as he tries to wrestle Barbara’s leash free of her jaws as she attempts to gnaw her way free.

With a brief and noncommittal thumbs-up to the men, we turn away, Lark shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand as her gaze pans across the farm. “So,” she says, “where to next?”

Rose stops beside her, downing another sip of water. Her skin is pale, coated in a thin mist of sweat. But there’s still determination in her eyes. “I vote we skip the other chicken shed. I don’t want to do a repeat. How about we just go straight for the house?”

“Yeah,” I reply, a spike of adrenaline hitting my veins even though we still have hours left before Munster is likely to reappear. We have only fifteen minutes before Rowan and his brothers will be on our tails, vying for the best positions to ambush our prey. “Let’s go.”

We stalk toward the farmhouse, which is simple but well kept, the siding freshly painted, a single rocking chair resting on the covered porch.

Unless they’re well hidden, there are no security cameras.

Not even a farm dog to warn of our approach.

A Welcome to Munster & Son Farms! doormat lies at the entrance, green rubber work boots sitting on its edge, a spray bottle of bleach beside them.

The scent of chlorine rises from their damp lugs.

I exchange a weighted look with Rose and Lark. We grip our knives tighter, and with a single nod, I pull open the screen door.

The house is nondescript. It could belong to anyone.

Or no one. It could be a staged set for a movie: This is what a farmhouse looks like.

Paintings of landscapes. An old upright piano.

Simple furniture in neutral colors. “Fionn would like this place,” Rose says as we move through the house.

She lifts the edge of a crocheted runner on a sideboard. “So many doilies.”

We sweep the whole house. Even the basement, though my heart hammers as we check its dark corners. There’s nothing to indicate a serial killer lives here.

But he does.

We end our exploration at the back entrance, which leads to an equally bland yard, beyond which sits a barn and several sheds.

“How much time have we got left on our head start?” Rose asks.

I check my watch and frown. “Two minutes.”

“I’ll check the barn in that case.”

“And I’ll try to sneak over to that building where his truck was parked,” Lark whispers. “Maybe I can take him by surprise.”

“I like it. I’ll hide here.” I tip my blade toward the front of the house. “The living room would make a perfect place for my web.”

The two women grin at me, though Rose’s smile seems a little more like a grimace, and we separate. There’s hardly a sound as they each leave the house, just a whisper of footsteps on floorboards, and then I’m alone.

With a sigh, I pivot on a heel to start rummaging through the kitchen. Nothing disturbing hides in the cupboards or the fridge, thankfully. I do find a tub of Tillamook Cookies & Cream ice cream, however, and snap a photo on my burner phone to send to Rowan.

Ahh, memories. Do you think this was milked fresh? I can check the label if you want.

Are you intending to win this year’s game by making me sick to my stomach? Because it’s working.

I smile and pocket the device, then move to the office to kill time.

I rifle through papers, but the only thing remotely damning are detailed maps of the Sproul Forest wilderness.

Rose has better luck in the barn, texting that she found a freezer filled with severed hands.

Also that she puked again, but she still blames the chickens.

Surprisingly, none of the Kane brothers come into the house, though I see Lachlan enter the machine shed where the truck had been parked.

But beyond that one glance, it’s quiet. Oddly peaceful.

And when the minutes become hours and it nears the time for Munster to return home, I slip into the closet at the entrance, hiding in wait to ambush my prey.

I’m just checking the watered steel blade of my knife when the closet door whips open, and I nearly stab my husband in the dick.

“For all the times you’ve threatened to cut my balls off for that Peaches nickname, I didn’t think you’d actually do it,” he says, his hands raised. He’s leaning a safe distance from the point of my blade, but that fucking shit-eating grin is plastered across his face.

“Fucking hell, Rowan,” I hiss through unsteady breaths, lowering my knife. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

He shrugs. “Visiting.”

“That’s rich. Get out , pretty boy. This is my spot.”

The unmistakable rumble of a truck engine reaches us through the screens of the open windows. Rowan’s smile could be seen from space. “I think it’s our spot now.”

I glower at my husband and slip past him to peer around the foyer and furniture.

Rowan is right on my heels, of course, leaning over me with the kind of familiar heat that threatens to thaw my competitive edge.

We watch through the living room window as Allan Munster’s truck crunches down the gravel driveway in a cloud of dust, rolling to a stop not in the machine shed, but in front of the house.

“Dammit,” Rowan whispers.

“Aww, shucks. Lachlan wouldn’t be hiding in that garage over there, would he?”

It’s my turn to grin and his to glare. The truck door closes as Munster exits the vehicle, and we’re about to scramble back into the closet when Lark’s voice drifts like wind chimes through the window.

“Hi there! It’s Mr. Munster, right ...?” she asks.

We lean around the wall to look through the window again. Munster’s back is to us, Lark approaching from the direction of the machine shed, her steps light and carefree. Munster’s back is rigid with wariness. “Yes, ma’am, that’s right ... Who are you?”

“I’m Meadow,” Lark lies seamlessly as she comes to a halt a few feet from our prey. “My friend said you’re the one who made the great whiskey we had last night. We’re just staying a short walk from here, thought I’d come by and check if you had any that I could buy from you?”

The tension in Munster’s shoulders spirits away like gas. Lark tilts her head and smiles. It’s so warm, so beautiful. So seemingly naive. She looks like the definition of easy prey . Opportunities like Lark Kane surely don’t come around very often for a man like Munster.

“I most certainly do,” he says, his voice a little too slick, like it’s coated in the same engine grease that stained his hands when we met. “I’ve got a whole shed behind the house if you’d like to come on back and taste test a few?”

“That’d be great, thanks so much. Say, would you mind if I used your bathroom first? I’m absolutely dying .”

I can almost hear the grin that must be sneaking onto his face when Munster says, “Of course, come on in.”

Rowan and I hustle into the closet, sliding the bifold doors closed just as two pairs of boots land on the veranda. We’re facing one another in the shadows, jammed up among the coats and shoes and a Dyson vacuum cleaner.

“Try not to take advantage of me, Blackbird,” Rowan whispers as he closes what little space remains between us. He smiles down at me, a murderous glint shining in his eyes.

But I have no intention of losing to Rowan at any of his games.

I sheathe my blade, laying a hand on Rowan’s chest to push him back until he bumps into the vacuum. Its quiet knock against the closet wall is lost to the sound of the front door opening and Munster’s voice as he tells Lark where to find the bathroom.

I rise on my tiptoes, my voice little more than a breath against Rowan’s ear. I press my body to his. Run my hands down the corded muscles of his arms, all the way to his wrists. “I think I can manage to keep my hands to myself. Almost. ”

My teeth graze his earlobe. His hard cock presses against my stomach. Rowan shudders.

And three things happen at once.

Rose screeches, “ Ta-da, motherfucker! ”

Something whacks into a wall with a shunk as Munster shrieks an inaudible cry.

And I tighten a noose of fishing line to Rowan’s wrist, tying him to the looped handle of the vacuum.

“Gotta jump. It’s showtime,” I say as I whip Rowan’s blade from the sheath at his side and burst from the closet.

Munster is rising to his feet, a fiery anger burning in his eyes.

Lark is helping Rose tug a hatchet free of the drywall.

I spot Fionn through the open door, holding a squirming Barbara at arm’s length as she tries to claw at his face.

And Lachlan is stalking toward us from the direction of the machine shed, heading straight for the open door of the house.

“Fucking crazy bitches—” Munster seethes as he tears a lamp off a side table and tosses it toward me. I duck. It hits the closet doorframe and shatters above me. Rowan’s free arm comes over my head as porcelain chips rain down around us.

“Lachlan, get that fucker,” Rowan calls as I duck out from under his protective wing, and he goes back to trying to wrestle free of the vacuum.

Lachlan stops at the threshold. He crosses his arms, blocking Munster’s exit as Lark leaves Rose to the hatchet and takes swipes at the man with her knife.

“What the fuck, you bellend? Kill him! ”

Lachlan lifts a shoulder as Lark faces off with Munster, who repels her strikes with a metal chicken statue. “She’ll drug my muffins if I don’t let her win.”

Lark cackles.

With a triumphant shout, Rose finally manages to dislodge the hatchet and joins Lark’s side. I take up the center position to try to hem him in. And then there’s a sudden stillness. Time seems to stretch thin. It’s the kind of fraught moment where every second that follows happens in slow motion.

Munster throws the chicken statue at Lark.

It hits her shins. She lets out a pained yelp and buckles.

Lachlan shouts an irate “ Christ Jesus ” as he rushes toward her.

Munster takes his shot and runs into the living room, not even glancing back.

Rose draws her arm back and then lets the hatchet fly.

It tumbles end over end, coming to a stop in Munster’s left ass cheek with a sickening thwack .

He lets out an agonized cry and pitches forward, landing on his hands and knees.

I hear Rose heaving, but I’m already passing her.

The race is on. It’s just me and Rowan now.

We scramble toward our victim. Rowan is still tethered to the vacuum, but he’s wielding it like a club.

Munster is up on his good leg now, limping into the dining room.

Rowan’s free arm comes back to try to keep me behind him as he swings the vacuum with the other, the appliance traveling in a wide arc until connecting with the side of Allan Munster’s head.

Munster goes down hard. Rowan loses his balance with the momentum of the vacuum. And I’m right there, ready to claim my prize.

I drop to my knees and slide on the polished wooden floor, colliding with Munster’s back as I sink Rowan’s blade into the side of his neck.

Every garbled breath. Every tremor in the steel. Every twitch of nerves that travels through my palm. Munster’s death in my hand brings me only one thing. Relief.

When the last lungful of air rattles past his lips, I pull the blade free, crimson blooming across the floor.

A moment later, Lark and Rose are crashing into me, squealing with delight.

Lark presses gold stars on my cheeks. Rose hugs me so tight I can’t breathe.

And when I rise to my feet, I face my husband, who might try to look disappointed at his loss, but he fails.

His eyes are bright with pride as he reels me into an embrace.

“You might have cheated with that vacuum trick,” he says as I dig my fingers into his ribs, “but you deserve that win. Now let’s make you that web, Orb Weaver.”

And we do.

Rose and Fionn do a sweep for codeine before locking Barbara in the bathroom, and then they get to work cleaning with Lachlan.

Rowan ties Munster’s body onto a chair in the center of the room and then gets up on the furniture to suspend the lines of the webs to the ceiling.

Lark declares she has a crafting idea and sews fishing line into Munster’s arms and legs, integrating the dead man right into my art.

And I work on taking the pieces I need and placing them onto my web.

A slice of skin over the soleus muscle for Shawn Collins, a man Munster murdered two years ago.

Another over the trapezius for Terri Bismark, a woman who vanished while hiking in Sproul Forest. A slice over the mylohyoid muscle for Martin Jeoffries.

Then I finally take Allan Munster’s eyes, starting with the left, fixing them both into the web.

“What’s that?” Rowan asks as I string the last item into my masterpiece. Martin Jeoffries’s hyoid. I place it right next to the skin I sliced from Munster’s throat.

“The bone of a guy he killed,” I reply, tying the last knot before standing back to survey our work. “Do you think the FBI will figure it out this time? That I left them a web?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I dunno. But I am sure about one thing.”

“Let me guess. That we should call it a draw.”

Rowan chuckles. “No, love.” He drops an arm across my shoulders, and I lean into his warmth as he presses a kiss to the crown of my head. “That they’ll marvel at the Orb Weaver. My goddess of chaos.”