Free Say Goodbye by Lisa Gardner Page B

didn’t think so. Not yet. But it was coming and the thought of losing her was nearly unbearable. She was his very first pet and while he had collected many more specimens in the years since—rarer spiders, more exotic colors—she would always be special. After all, once, a long time ago, she had set him free.
    No doubt about it, he would operate.
    He started by gathering supplies. A stiff piece of cardboard to serve as the operating table. Tweezers, magnifying glass, eyedropper, Q-tip. He returned downstairs to boil the tweezers and soak another piece of sterilized paper towel.
    Boy was on the couch. He didn’t make eye contact when the man appeared, but kept his eyes resolutely fixed on the TV. Smart boy.
    While the tweezers cooled, the man set another damp paper towel on top of the back panel of a Cheerios box. Next, he dissolved two drops of Ivory dish soap in one cup of boiled water, cooled to room temperature.
    He headed back upstairs, once more passing by the living room. This time, at the sound of his approaching footsteps, the boy flinched.
    The man smiled.
    Upstairs, he had to extract Henrietta from the ICU, careful not to jog her, given her delicate state. Once he’d slid her onto the hospital bed/piece of cardboard, he moved her closer to the nightlight and pulled out the magnifying glass.
    Upon closer inspection, she appeared hopelessly stuck, her old exoskeleton barely cracked, not a single leg peeking through. It was much worse than he thought and he took a moment to draw in a ragged, pained breath.
    Then he steadied himself. With the Q-tip, he dabbed the soap solution on the exuvium, careful to not drip any fluid that might get into Henrietta’s book lungs and drown her.
    While he waited thirty minutes for the solution to soften the exoskeleton, he decided to take his intervention a step further and fully remove the sternum piece of the old, molting shell. The plates were connected by a thin membrane, and were very easy to extract using the sterilized tweezers.
    This process went smoother than anticipated and soon he’d removed most of the carapace and sternum plates.
    Henrietta’s legs remained trapped, however. Long, delicate new legs held prisoner by the hard rings of her old skin. Without use of her legs to work herself out of her old exoskeleton, she still wasn’t going anyplace.
    He got back out his magnifiying glass and considered his options.
    Downstairs came the sound of the front door opening and closing. Hushed voices murmuring. Debating, no doubt. To disturb or not to disturb. Upstairs was his sanctuary, filled with his own special guests. None of them liked to come up here. At least, not any more than they had to.
    Finally, however, the sound of footsteps, creaking up the old stairs, hitting the landing, approaching his room.
    The door opened, flooding the room with unexpected daylight.
    “Close it!” he snarled.
    The door closed.
    “Stand. Don’t say a word.”
    The intruder stood, didn’t say a word.
    Better.
    He would have to break the heavy rings articulating each leg. If he could chip away that part of the hardened exoskeleton without damaging the soft, unprotected leg beneath, Henrietta might have a chance. Four joints each leg. Eight legs.
    He settled in for the painstaking work, still aware of the presence behind him, the girl who did not move, would not move, until he spoke again.
    Five minutes rolled into ten, thirty, forty-five minutes. An hour. He chipped away at the hardened exoskeleton on each leg, slowly, carefully, ring by ring.
    When he finally looked up, he was surprised to find that perspiration stuck his shirt to his skin and he was breathing hard, as if he’d been hiking for hours, and not just hunched over a table in a pool of dim light.
    He had all eight legs free, though several were bent awkwardly, clearly damaged. As he watched, however, one leg moved, then another. Henrietta was still with him, fighting to pull through.
    “You are so beautiful,” he