and along came SPIDER ( A Martina Spalding Thriller ) (Spider Series Book 1) by J.R. WRIGHT Read Free Book Online Page B

onto her bed, flopped on her back, pulled a pillow over her face and
began to cry.
    Feeling bad now for
what she’d done, Marti sat on the edge of the bed, reached out, and gently
touched Gloria’s arm.  “If there’s a mad man out there, then we need to call
the police.”
    “No.  I can’t do
that.”  Gloria pulled away from her touch, as if pained by it.
    “Why not?”
    “Because he’ll kill me
if I do that!” Gloria exclaimed, and sat up onto the edge of the bed.
    “Do you know him?”
    “Of course I know him! 
He’s my most recent ex.”
    “So that’s your
mysterious lover?  Your ex?  Why, Gloria?”
    “Because he said after
the divorce that if I didn’t continue to have regular sex with him, he would
see to it nobody ever wanted me again.  And as a down payment on that threat,
he knocked out one of my teeth.  It cost me five hundred dollars to get a
replacement.”
    “Oh my God!” Martina
screamed and covered her mouth in shock.  “So what set him off, today?”
    “I told him I didn’t
want to see him anymore.  I said I’d tell his new wife if he persisted.” 
Gloria removed the sunglasses exposing two very black and blue eyes.
    “Oh, Gloria,” she
grimaced, “you have to call the cops!”
    “That’s not all, get a
gander at this!”  Gloria slid off the bed and pulled her top up over her head,
exposing a mass of bruising on her upper body and back.  “And no, I’m not
calling the cops, Martina.  He’s rich.  He has lawyers that’ll have him back
out on the street before you can say Jack Robinson.  Then he’ll come for me
again.  Or he’ll send someone else to do the job.”
    “What?  Try to kill
you?”
    “Exactly!”  She put on
a robe and went to the kitchen.  There she took two beers from the fridge and
handed one to Martina on her way into the living room.  “His previous wife was
fished from the Mississippi River, on the Illinois side, one month after she
divorced him.  She had a bullet hole in her head.  I didn’t find that out until
after we were married.  By that time it was too late.  He started with the
threats nearly on day one.”
    “Oh…my…gosh, Gloria! 
What will you ever do?”  Martina was panicked now and began pacing back and
forth in front of her.
    “There’s nothing I can
do!”  Her mouth feeling suddenly dry, she gulped some of the beer.  “I have
this feeling I’m dead either way now, cops or no cops.”
    “There must be
something we can do?”  Marti’s mind was a whirl of possibilities.  No way was
she going to sit idly by and let this animal kill her best friend in cold
blood.  Just the thought of such a thing happening to Gloria nauseated her.
    “I don’t want you
getting involved, Martina.”
    “Did anyone ever get
charged with the killing of the first wife?” Martina asked.
    “No.  Her murder was
never solved.”
    “What’s his name?”
    “Raymond  Koffee. 
Koffee with a K.  Raym, he likes people to call him.”
    “Was he ever questioned
about the murder?”
    “I don’t know.  This
all happened before I came to St. Louis,” Gloria said and pulled her legs up on
the couch.  “He did say, once, that he was out of the country at the time. 
Bahamas, I think he said.”
    “You said he’s rich. 
How did he make his money?”
    “It’s old money.  His
family is wealthy.  I think they made their money in real estate.  There was a
large ranch somewhere north of town, once owned by a distant grandfather.  But,
of course, that’s nearly all part of the city now.”
    “Oh, my!”  Marti got up
from her chair and returned her unopened beer to the fridge.  She then put a
pot of water on the range for tea.  “Do you have any pictures of him?”
    “None!  After the
divorce I burned every single one I had… even the wedding pictures.”  Gloria
ran quivering fingers lightly over her battered face.  “I didn’t want anything
left of him in my life.”
    Marti hesitated… then
decided to