Spiders in the Grove (In the Company of Killers #7)(57)

“Yeah. I sent him.” Fredrik’s shoulders fall with a heavy breath, and although I’d expect him to be apologetic, having to admit that he’d done exactly what I told him not to do, I get the feeling he has far worse things on his mind, and so I decide to save the scolding for another time.

“Why is he dead?” My eyes move back and forth from Fredrik to Dante. “Why’d you kill him?”

“I didn’t kill him.”

My head snaps around.

“You didn’t kill him?”

Back and forth. Dante. Fredrik. Dante. Fredrik.

Fredrik wipes sweat from his forehead with the dish towel.

“I really need you to leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on—and where’s Apollo?” I feel like I’ve been gone months rather than weeks, everything is so…fucked up, so different.

“I did kill him,” Fredrik says.

“OK, so then which is it? You killed him, or you didn’t?”

“Godammit, Izabel—I killed him. I had to. I don’t expect you to understand, but…it is who and what I am”—he gestures at the body—“this is what I do, what I need, and…I don’t want you here. Not today. Not tomorrow. In fact, it’s probably best we part ways and never speak to each other again.”

All words have left me; the only thing I feel is hurt. I just stare at him a moment, my chest constricting.

Finally, I decide that Fredrik just needs time; he’s going through something that I can’t help him with, and the things he just said he only said in the heat of the moment.

“Where’s Apollo?” I ask again, hoping he’ll at least tell me that before I leave him to his…issues.

Fredrik pauses; I hear him take a breath. “He’s dead,” he says, and then the rest falls into my ear like an avalanche of bad news. “I’m assuming Victor found him, which means he knows I was helping you behind his back—and for that he’ll never trust me again. Apollo couldn’t have gotten away on his own; he was set free.”

OK, it’s good he’s at least speaking to me and not dragging me out the door.

“But what makes you think Victor—”

“Victor was shot,” Fredrik reveals, and I gasp, and the avalanche starts pressing on my chest, crushing me. “By Artemis. Nora killed Apollo, but Artemis got away. I think Victor was who set Apollo free. I don’t know for sure, but it’s what my gut tells me—and the fact that Victor refused to see me when I went to check on him.”

“Victor was shot?” That’s the only part of what he said that I really heard. “Is he…is he OK?” My chest rises and falls heavily.

“He’ll live,” Fredrik says.

“Where is he?” I ask, already moving up the basement steps; I stop on the top.

Fredrik looks up at me from the bottom.

“He’s with Mozart.”

I start to leave, but his voice stops me.

“I meant what I said, Izabel. Don’t ever come back here. Forget you ever knew me. I never want to see you again.”

The pain of his words digs deeper, but I do all I can to ignore it, to force myself to believe that he doesn’t mean anything he said, and that we’ll be back to normal in a few days.

He just needs time, I tell myself.

Fredrik turns and moves away from the bottom step without another word; I watch his shadow moving on the floor for a moment.

Having dire issues of my own to tend to, I leave his house quickly, but with a heavy heart, and I fling open the car door and thrust the key into the ignition. I drive non-stop to Mozart’s house.





Fredrik


I go back to cleaning up the mess with Dante the serial killer left for me. He’s been dead about nine hours; the last I heard from him was when his plane landed and he called me from the airport. I’d told him to go straight to my house and wait for me; I told him he’d be safe here. Strange thing is, in that moment, I wasn’t exactly sure what made me say that to him to begin with, that he’d be safe here. Nobody was looking for Dante; he wasn’t in any danger as far as I knew—after what happened at the mansion in Mexico, even if he’d blown his cover, there wasn’t anybody left alive to hunt him down. “You’ll be safe there,” I told him, and I’ll never forget it.

It was odd enough a thing to say that I’d made note if it. But I didn’t understand it until I got here myself and found him dead. That was when everything began to make sense: the feeling of having eyes at my back weeks ago the night Dante left for Mexico—she was here, at my house; she knew where he was going. And then later that same day when I was in the library meeting with Kenneth Ware—she was there, in plain sight. I believe she was the woman who walked past our table; who made me stop to think about her at all. She’s been following me; she probably knows more about me than I know about myself.

It was instinct that knew Dante was in trouble, that she’d intended to use him to send me a message. Unfortunately, the rest of me didn’t figure it out in time to save him.

Beside Dante’s body, reflecting the light from the ceiling is a small mirror. For the first time since I walked down here, I pick it up, and I look at my reflection; tiny speckles of blood dot the glass. I know she wants me to look at myself; I know she made Dante look at himself before she killed him. And I want to know why. Not because I’m angry, and answers to the most typical questions are important, but because it intrigues me—she intrigues me.