Itsy Bitsy Spider (Emma Frost #1) (8 page)

I didn't pay
much
attention to what my son had said at night when I
woke up next to him next morning. All I cared about was that my beloved son was
lying next to me, almost so close I could lean over and kiss him. Victor was
still sleeping when I opened my eyes and I lay quiet next to him for a long
while, just looking at him, putting my hand above his hair, pretending to be
stroking it gently like I used to do when he was a baby. I leaned over and
sniffed his hair. I didn't even get to wash it anymore not since he learned how
to do it on his own. Tuesdays and Fridays were shower days. Everything had to
be so structured with him or he felt uncomfortable and insecure, the doctor had
told me. So I tried to keep a schedule and make things easier for him, but it
was hard. Today was Friday and I had to get him ready for school. Part of me
wanted to keep him at home for the day and just spend time with him, but then
again, I knew how important it was to him that everything was the way it used
to be. And Friday meant school and shower. It also meant Disney cartoons on TV
at eight p.m. and a small bag of candy. The way it always was. That was what
made him happy and if he was happy, then I was. I leaned over and whispered in
his ear.

"Sweetie. It's time to wake up."

Victor stretched and turned to look at me.
"This is wrong," he said and sat up. "Why am I in your bed? I
shouldn't be in your bed. I should be in my own room. This is wrong,
Mommy." He didn't look at me, but kept babbling on while getting his
things together, his blanket, his pillow, his precious Pooh bear that he
couldn't sleep without.

"You had a bad dream, remember?" I
said. "You didn't want to sleep in your own room last night."

"I don't remember, Mommy. What did I dream
about?"

"Spiders. Don't you remember?"

"But it is wrong, Mommy," he said
still while looking down. I could tell by the color of his face that he was
about to have one of his attacks. "I am supposed to sleep in my own bed,
in my own room. I'm supposed to."

"Take it easy, sweetie," I said with
calm voice. "It's okay. It was just for one night. You can go back to your
own room again tonight. Nothing to worry about."

Victor's cheeks were flushing red. He was
fighting to keep his anger down. "But it is wrong, Mommy. This is not my
room. This is your room."

"I know, Victor. I know. Calm down,
sweetie. It was all your idea."

Victor stomped his feet at the floor and started
yelling. "But it is WRONG. Don't you know it is wrong?"

"There is nothing wrong with sleeping in your
Mommy's bed, Victor."

"Yes, there is! When you have your own bed
and your own room, then that is where you need to sleep."

Victor let out a shriek, then stormed out the
door. I heard him slam his own door shut and then talking to himself real loud,
scolding himself and probably me.

I sighed and pulled off the cover. I wanted to
just stay in the bed and feel sorry for myself. I wanted to cry, I wanted to
yell into a pillow, but as usual I did what was expected of me instead.

I took a shower, then went downstairs to start
breakfast.

Maya was the first one down. She was running
down the stairs, threw her backpack on the floor, grabbed her glass of juice on
the table and drank it while still standing.

"I'm in a major hurry, Mom. No time to
chat," she said and rushed out the door. I glanced after her and watched
as she disappeared on her bike heading towards town. I sighed and put bread in
the toaster. I could really use some grown up conversation by now and Maya was
the closest thing I came to having one in the house. I missed chatting with her
like we used to. I knew it was my own fault. I had neglected her the last
couple of years, thinking she could manage on her own, and because I didn't
have that extra energy to listen to her problems as well. It had been all about
Victor since Michael left, she was so right about that. I started wondering if
there was anything I could do for her. Maybe we could take a day off together?
Go out and eat brunch, maybe? Do a little shopping?

"Where is my breakfast?" Victor asked,
coming into the kitchen without looking at me. "You know I need my
breakfast before I go to school, or I get cranky and can't concentrate. Did you
make one toast or two?"

"Two. Just like you usually get."

Victor smiled finally and looked at me. I could
tell he was relieved. Waking up in the wrong bed had somehow made him out of
balance. It was unusual and that he didn't like.

"Good," he said and sat down. I placed
his buttered toast on the table while wondering if I should take him to a new
doctor. Somehow it seemed like his - whatever it was - was getting worse all of
a sudden. It had been going so well this far. Much better than in the city, why
was he all of a sudden relapsing? Because of a nightmare?

I drove Victor
to
school and to the grocery store afterwards. The
lady behind the counter was too busy chitchatting with a colleague to take care
of me. I had to clear my throat a couple of times before she finally noticed me
and scanned my groceries.

Back at the house I put everything in place,
then unpacked the last of our moving boxes. I stood for a while and looked
around in the living room deciding it wasn't too bad even if half of the
furniture wasn't mine.

"It'll have to do," I said to myself.

I grabbed a cup of coffee and walked outside in
the yard. The wind was coming in strong from the North Sea and made my eyes
watery. I drank my coffee with my winter jacket on and wondered how great a
view I would get if I cut down all the trees. But Victor would kill me. He had
loved those trees from the day we got here. Even now when it was getting too
cold to stay outside for long, that was all he wanted to do when he got home
from school. Go outside and play with his trees. He could still spend hours out
there talking to them, playing and doing God only knew what.

At least he was always happy when he was out
there. I wondered if he ever saw any spiders and that was why he dreamed about
them.

"One day, dear trees, one day I'll cut you
all down and see what you're hiding," I said out loud as if I also
believed they could hear and understand. I chuckled and considered walking down
to the beach to get a better look at the view. I had only done it a few times
since we moved in and it was beautiful. But it was a long walk through the huge
yard and there always seemed like there was no time for something like that.

"I could do it now," I said to myself,
but then again I really wanted to take a closer look at my research for the
book. I hadn't gotten very far but I really felt it would be worth my while to
begin digging into the story of Mrs. Heinrichsen. So far I had written a few
notes about her down, about her life here in the island, about what Sophia had
told me, but I felt like I needed something a little more substantial. I had
also found out that it had been twenty-five years since there last had been
someone killed on this small island. And that was a bar fight where someone
pulled a knife. Before that time, they had no records. So you could argue that
it was kind of spectacular that someone had been killed, like really murdered.
It was actually the first real murder on Fanoe Island. I couldn't help but
think that had to be a great story.

I walked back into the house and grabbed a new
cup of coffee. I brought it with me upstairs to the room I now referred to as
my office. I had never had an office before, so it did take some getting used
to, but it had a nice ring to it, I thought. Some days I just sat in there
throwing pencils against the wall saying it out loud.

"This is my office. I'm sitting in my
office. Be right there ... just gotta get something in the office. I'll get you
the papers, they're up in my office."

Yup. It sounded real awesome once you said it.

I sat by my computer and turned it on. I sipped
my second cup of coffee and realized it needed more milk. I didn't have the
energy to go downstairs again, so I drank it anyway. I found my notes and
started scrolling. It really wasn't much so far.

Maybe a piece of chocolate
will help my brain think better?

I opened my drawer and pulled out the packet of
Marabou-chocolate, my favorite kind. I realized to my terror it was almost done
and thought that maybe it was about time I started running. Then I ate the last
pieces. I closed my eyes while the crunchy chocolate disappeared and made my
taste buds have a party on the way down. I closed my eyes and flushed it down
with the rest of my coffee. Then I looked at the screen. No. It didn't improve
anything, but sure tasted good. I chuckled and opened Google. I typed
something, then deleted it again.

I sighed and leaned back. Fact was I had no idea
where to start or where to end. I had never written a book before, only dreamt
about it a lot the last many years, but it was a lot harder than expected. I
started thinking about where I really wanted to go with this book. I pictured
it as a sort of portrait of the woman, Mrs. Heinrichsen, of her life leading
one day to her brutal murder.

Voices brought me back to reality. I looked out
the window and spotted a couple of the neighbors gathering in the street. I couldn't
stop looking at them. Sophia was among them. The strange guy Jack was there
too, but was standing in his yard looking like he didn't really want to take
part in the conversation.

Their voices were loud and sounded upset. I was
curious and ran downstairs to get my jacket. I started finding an excuse for
coming out at this exact moment.

"I was just on my way to the grocery store
... what's going on?"

No, that wouldn't do. This was a small town,
chances were someone might have spotted me at the store earlier in the day, or
that the woman behind the counter could have told I was there.

"I'm going to buy some bread at the bakery
for lunch?"

That would do. I decided that would be my alibi
and it would be even better if I added, a "does anyone need me to bring
anything back while I'm there?" That would give me a plausible reason for
actually talking to them, and asking what was going on.

Very good
,
I thought to myself as I walked out the door. Sophia saw me at once and waved.
"Emma. Good you're here. You need to hear this too."

"I was just going to the ..." I
realized they didn't care about where I was going or my fake alibi. They really
had something important to tell me.

"What's up?" I asked as I approached
them.

Sophia looked serious and it scared me slightly.

Could it be something about my
kids? Why did she say I needed to hear this? Was it Maya? Was she in some kind
of trouble at her school? Or had something happened at Victor's school?

My stomach turned into a knot of worry as a
mother's tend to do for no apparent reason but the fact that a whole bunch of
thoughts just entered their minds and made them scared of the most ridiculous
and absolutely unrealistic things.

"There has been another one," Sophia
said.

"Another one of what?" I asked feeling
stupid for not getting it right away. I didn't know any of all these people
surrounding me, only Sophia and of course Jack who stood a couple of feet away
from the crowd. For a second I worried what they thought about me. Not
something I usually did much, but for some reason I did at that moment.

"Another murder," Sophia said.

I felt my eyes grow wider. "What? Someone
else has been killed? How? Who?"

"Irene Justesen," Sophia continued.

I could tell that the rest of the crowd knew all
this already since they were nodding along as she spoke.

"Who's that?" I asked.

A woman I had only seen a couple of times at the
grocery store leaned forward. "The Queen of Fitness," she said.

"That's what they used to call her,"
Sophia took over. "When she was doing all those videos and the TV
show."

I gasped. Suddenly I knew exactly who she was.
We used to make so much fun of her when I was a teenager and accidentally
flipped on her show. How we loathed those pink legwarmers and the sweat band.

"How did it happen?"

"I heard it from Anne down at the
bakery," Sophia said secretly like this Anne was an undercover agent whose
identity was not to be revealed under any circumstances. "She told me the
cleaning lady, what's her name ... Clara Hermansen, found her in her own private
gym down at the estate this morning when she arrived to clean it. Apparently
her blood had soaked the entire floor in there. And get this ... the killer had
stuffed her sweat band down her throat."

Sophia paused for effect, waited for the people
surrounding her to react. It came promptly. All the women gasped like had they
rehearsed it. I turned and looked at Jack. He didn't take part in the gasping
or talking. He seemed more like he was worried about something.

 "Don't you think?" Sophia
suddenly said and looked at me. I turned my head and stared at her. "I'm
sorry, what did you say?"

"I was just wondering about two murders in
a very short period of time on this island, it is kind of scary, don't you
think?"

I nodded. "Yes. It most definitely
is."

"Do you think they might be
connected?" another woman asked me like I carried all the answers.

I shrugged. "I don't know. But I give you
it is kind of strange. Do you know if the two killings had any
similarities?"

"To be perfectly honest, we don't even know
that Irene was in fact killed," I heard a voice say. I turned and looked
at Jack. He was the one who had spoken. He blushed when all the ladies suddenly
looked at him.

"I...I...I'm jjjjust sssaying, we ddon't
kknow, ddo wwe?"

His stuttering was all of a sudden back and I
could tell it was hard on him to speak. But I was also relieved to hear that he
could speak normally without stuttering. I remembered reading about it and how
being put on the spot or in situations of pressure could make it much worse. It
made sense, I guess. I smiled at him and he smiled back. His blue eyes were
gentle and very kind. I wondered about his story, that Sophia wouldn't tell me.
I really wanted to hear it, but was afraid of pressuring him or making him feel
bad.

"Jack’s right," I said. "We have
no idea if it was in fact murder. We can't know for sure until the police also
call it a murder."

"What about the sweat band, then?" a
woman wearing a strange pink outfit with golden stitches asked.

"Well, I give you that," I said.
"That isn't something she could have done on her own, but we don't know if
that is even true, or if it is just a rumor, do we? So until it has been
confirmed by the police, I believe it's very important that we don't spread too
many rumors and especially that we don't make any new ones up as we go along.
Fear and panic is very easily spread in a small society like this."

They all looked at me like I was a complete
idiot. "That's just what I think," I said. "Now if you ladies
will excuse me I have work to do."

I turned feeling their eyes on my back while I
walked back to my house. I heard steps behind me. Sophia caught up with me.
"Are you insane?" she asked with a low voice as she tripped on next
to me towards my house. "You can't tell island people to not spread
rumors. That's all they live for for Christ sake. It's what gets them up in the
morning. Finally something exciting happens on our island and you want them to
keep quiet about it!"

I couldn't help but chuckle. The woman had a
point. There wasn't much to do let alone talk about on this island. Two
killings in less than two months was quite spectacular, especially since no one
had been killed here in twenty five years.

"So will you bring the wine tonight, or
shall I?" Sophia said.

I laughed. Our weekly gatherings had become some
sort of tradition already and something I was always looking forward to.

"I will," I said even though I had
been the one to bring it every time, but also knew that it was fair since she
was struggling financially.

"See you at nine."