Along Came A Spider
Prologue
Let's Play Make-Believe
New Jersey, near Princeton; March 1932
The Charles Lindbergh farmhouse glowed with bright, orangish lights.
It looked like a fiery castle, especially in that gloomy, fir wooded
region of Jersey. Shreds of misty fog touched the boy as he moved
closer and closer to his first moment of real glory, his first kill.
It was pitch-dark and the grounds were soggy and muddy and thick
with puddles. He had anticipated as much. He'd planned for
everything, including the weather.
He wore a size nine man's work boot. The toe and heel of the boots
were stuffed with torn cloth and strips of the Philadelphia
Inquirer.
He wanted to leave footprints, plenty of footprints. A man's
footprints. Not the prints of a twelve-year-old boy. They would lead
from the county highway called the Stoutsburg-Wertsville Road, up
to, then back from, the farmhouse.
He began to shiver as he reached a stand of pines, not thirty yards
from the sprawling house. The mansion was just as grand as he'd
imagined: seven bedrooms and four baths on the second floor alone.
Lucky Lindy and Anne Morrow's place in the country.
Cool beans, he thought.
The boy inched closer and closer toward the dining-room window. He
was fascinat ... read full excerpt from: Along Came a Spider ebook
