Images of being locked in the coffin shrieked through her brain. “She got what she deserved. Twenty years locked up and that fuckin’ attorney, your uncle, him too. Had to live with what he’d done and lost his damned case.”
Her heart twisted as she considered Uncle Alex, a weak man who couldn’t resist the seduction of Blondell O’Henry, like so many others. He’d given up his integrity for her, but then maybe he didn’t have much to begin with.
“It was his gun, y’know.”
“What?”
“Blondell didn’t own a gun, but she’d been with him, so I figured he brought it.”
She wouldn’t believe it. “No way.”
“Then she took it from him, ’cause it was his. I figured she intended to kill the kids anyway. They were just added baggage that kept her tied to her ex, and by the way, he’s a real bastard.”
“But to shoot her children . . .” Even to plan it was too gruesome and horrible to consider.
Camp walked her to the closet of the bathroom, an awful, tight place that was so small she could barely turn around, the air inside thick. No, no, no!
“That’s why the gun was never found. I figure she ditched it, called him, and blackmailed him, and he came and got it before the cops got here.”
“That’s all just conjecture, and if he were here,” she said, suddenly desperate to vindicate her uncle, a man who had considered her his favorite niece, “why were there no tire tracks, apart from Blondell’s?”
“For a big deal reporter, you’re pretty damned stupid. He used a canoe, at least that’s the way I figured it. Didn’t he have him a house across the lake?”
“No, he lived in town, but . . .” She thought of the farm with the horses. Oh, God, Uncle Alex had known the truth all along! Had been a part of it! Her knees felt weak at his complicity. She’d discovered his affair with Blondell and half understood it, as his marriage to his wife had withered over time, culminating with the loss of their children, but she hadn’t been able to believe that he’d been here, at the cabin, on the night Amity was killed and the other children wounded. He would’ve heard the shots, even over the rain. And he didn’t turn around, try to come back and save them. But then, neither had the monster who held her in his grip.
“You had to have had a car,” she said, panicking as the door of the bathroom was suddenly in front of her face. She couldn’t go into that bathroom. Couldn’t! Still he propelled her onward.
“Truck,” he said. “An old beater I borrowed from a neighbor who was out of town and barely used it anyway. I parked a mile away near an old huntin’ blind.” He laughed a little. “I know how to make myself disappear, y’know. How to cover my tracks. Been a hunter all my life. That’s where my truck’s parked tonight, and Donny Ray, he’s got another alibi for me. Just like before. Now let’s get this over with.”
&n
bsp; Without another a word, he kicked in the door. Claustrophobia closed in on her, but rather than scream or cry out, she bit her tongue. She couldn’t show him that he’d somehow blundered into her worst fear; she was certain that if she did he would only make it worse.
He gave her a shove, and she stumbled over the remains of the sink, landed on the toilet. “You can just stay in here,” he said, and even in the partial darkness, with only the dim glow from the fallen flashlight seeping around Camp, she saw Effie Savoy, stuffed in the old shower, duct tape over her mouth, her body bound, her eyes open and fixed.
Screaming, Nikki tried to back away to the door, but Camp blocked her exit, his knife in his hand.
No, no, no! It was just like before. Stuffed into a small, tight space with a dead body.
“Surprise,” Roland said with a laugh. “You and Effie, you never should have started messing into things,” he said. “Because now I’m going to have to kill you too and get rid of the evidence.” He reached into his pocket again and this time came up with a lighter rather than a match. “Time to burn the place down. Too bad you have to go with it.”
He clicked the lighter, and in the illumination from its tiny flame she saw the evil on his face, the lines of pure hatred. And then he smiled. “But first, maybe some friends to keep you company.”
Reaching into the large pocket of his jacket, he withdrew a leather bag, and with his knife, slit open the string holding the sack together. Immediately three small snakes slithered out, their distinctive bands of red, black, and yellow visible.
Her insides curdled in fear.
The coral snakes belonging to Alfred Necarney.
“These little fellas, they’re shy,” he said as the snakes shrank from him, curling upon themselves, their tiny eyes reflecting the light as they wriggled away. And then another copperhead poked its head from his bag and dropped to the ground.
Oh, God.
“You’ll probably be all right if you don’t move, and if you do, don’t worry. You won’t suffer long. The fire will take care of you.”
CHAPTER 32
Nikki freaked!