Ghost Light (29 page)

His first impulse when he entered the room had been to peel back the bed covers, drop his pants, and take a big shit right there in the middle of her bed. But that was obviously out of the question. He satisfied himself with loosening the screw holding the doorknob on her bedroom closet so it would slide off into her hand the next time she tried to open it. Then he went through her bureau drawers, rearranging things and wrinkling them up. When he opened the top drawer and saw the folded up piles of silky underwear, a idea struck him that made him laugh out loud.

“Yeah, Goddamnit,” he whispered. “That’s
just
what the fucking bitch deserves!”

He cast an anxious glance over his shoulder, then took out the top pair of underpants and unfolded them. After placing them carefully on top of the bureau, he quickly undid his belt and zipper and pushed his pants and underpants down around his knees. Then he slid his hand inside Cindy’s underpants, gripping his penis, and started stroking himself up and down until he felt himself stiffening. Closing his eyes and leaning his head back, he filled his mind with images of other things, sexual things he could do to Cindy to humiliate her. He was rocking back and forth and moaning softly when he reached orgasm, shooting a hot flood of sperm into the flimsy cloth.

“There you go, you Goddamned bitch!” he said, feeling weak in the knees and smiling with satisfaction. “Sit on
that
load!”

He started whistling an airy tune as he carefully refolded Cindy’s underpants, now sodden with his semen, and replaced them neatly on the top of the stack in her bureau drawer.

“Well, now,” he said, brushing his hands together and nodding with satisfaction as he glanced around the room one last time. “I may be back, but I guess that just about does it for this time around.”

He went out into the hallway and had just bent down to pick up his toolbox when he heard a soft click from the living room.

Someone was unlocking the apartment door.

2

H
mm, I wonder why I never noticed that before?

That was Cindy’s first thought when she unlocked the apartment door and saw the splintered wood of the door frame around the deadbolt lock. She put the two bags of groceries she was carrying down on the floor and took a few seconds to inspect the damage, carefully running her fingertips up and down along the jagged split. The break looked fresh, and the thought crossed her mind that someone must have tried to force the door to get into the apartment.

When?
she wondered as a current of apprehension went through her.

She knew that Alice was off to work every day, and she had been out all morning, so someone who had been casing the place might have tried to break in this morning. The thought made her nervous as she glanced over her shoulder at the apartment, wondering if she was safe. Under the circumstances, there was no way she was going to report something like this to the police. Why draw any undue attention to herself?

No way!

Then again, she thought, if someone
had
tried to break in, maybe it had been the cops who were out to arrest her for kidnapping.

“Naw… No way,” she whispered, dismissing the idea with a quick shake of her head. If the police or FBI were onto her, they sure as hell wouldn’t resort to break-ins; they’d come knocking on the front door and then politely present her with a warrant for her arrest before slapping the handcuffs on her wrists.

“Ahh, to hell with it,” she whispered as she eased the door shut behind her. She twisted the doorknob, giving it a few strong pulls to make sure the lock still held and then, satisfied, picked up her groceries and walked into the kitchen. She was still feeling tense so before she put away the few things she had bought, she sat down at the kitchen table, sighing heavily as she leaned forward and rested her head in her hands.

It had been one
hell
of a morning!

After seeing Krissy off to school, she had gone straight to the principal’s office and talked to Mrs. Castine about yesterday’s incident. Although she had tried not to say or do anything that would send up a red flag for Mrs. Castine, she had let her know in no uncertain terms just how upset she had been that the school officials would have allowed a little girl to wander away from the school unobserved.

“What if she had been kidnapped or hurt?” Cindy had asked Mrs. Castine repeatedly, cringing inwardly and hoping it didn’t show every time she said the word
kidnapped
. “What if she had gotten lost, trying to find her way home, and something had happened to her?”

What if
—?
What if
—? Nothing
had
happened, but she knew she could drive herself crazy thinking about all the
what-ifs
.

She realized that she was laying a lot of her own fears and anxieties onto Mrs. Castine, but she couldn’t help it. What had happened to Krissy yesterday threatened her on a deep, subconscious level. She had finally left the principal’s office after agreeing that she would come to the classroom every day to pick up Krissy, rather than wait for her out in the car. Cindy didn’t like that idea because it seemed to set Krissy apart from the rest of the kids, drawing more attention to her, but anything was better than going through the kind of panic she had experienced yesterday when, for nearly half an hour, she hadn’t been able to find her.

“God
damn
it all,” she whispered, staring blankly at the kitchen wall and shaking her head.

Sighing again, she got up slowly and began unpacking the bag of groceries. She lined everything up on the counter before starting to put things away. She carried the gallon jug of milk over to the refrigerator, swearing softly when she opened the refrigerator door and the light didn’t come on. When she knelt down to place the jug on the bottom shelf, her hand bumped against the shelf above it, and the shelf came down like a guillotine, banging hard against her wrist. She hadn’t let go of the milk jug’s handle yet, and as she jerked back with a cry of pain, she pulled the jug forward. It slipped from her grasp and, spinning around, hit the floor with a loud
thump
. The plastic cap popped off, and a fan tail of milk shot out across the floor, splattering across Cindy’s thigh.

“Shit!” she shouted.

She quickly righted the milk jug, but it was already too late; a comma-shaped splash of milk covered the floor and her left leg was saturated. Muttering angry curses, she grabbed some paper towels from the sink and wiped up the mess. Then she recapped the milk jug, which was now almost half empty, and, after making sure the refrigerator shelf above it was secure, carefully replaced the jug on the bottom shelf. She’d worry about checking out the burned-out light bulb later, she told herself as she headed down the hallway to her bedroom to get some clean clothes. She walked into the back room where the washer and dryer were, peeled off her pants, and sputtering more curses, tossed them into the washing machine.

3

J
esus Christ, I couldn’t have planned this any better if I had wanted to,
Alex thought, snickering softly as he crouched inside the closet in the laundry room. There was a damp aroma of mildew in the close darkness that almost gagged him, but he smiled as he listened to the angry sounds Cindy was making as she moved about the apartment. He almost laughed out loud when he heard her start swearing away like a pirate.

Well, well, well… you must have had a little surprise or two… sounds like you’re out in the kitchen.

He wished there was some way he could see what was going on out there, but he knew he had to lay low for now. There was that little problem of how long he would have to stay in here so she wouldn’t see him.

He cringed when he heard the sound of footsteps coming down the hallway. Thin trickles of sweat ran down his sides and a sheen of perspiration formed like dew on his upper lip. He jumped involuntarily when he realized that she had entered the laundry room. He craned his head forward, trying to catch a glimpse of her, but saw only a blurred hint of motion. Through the angled slats of the closet door, something dark—it looked like a twisted pair of jeans—sailed through the air and hit the inside of the washing machine with a loud, ringing metallic sound.

No, no, don’t look in the closet, sweetheart! Don look in the fucking closet!
he chanted mentally when he saw her shadow shift across the laundry room floor, coming closer. He held his breath until it hurt. After a few anxious seconds, the shadow shifted away, and he listened to her light tread as she went back up the hallway.

Tensed and listening carefully, he opened his toolbox so he could have something to use as a weapon if he needed it. His hand wrapped around the handle of one of the screwdrivers he had bought at Sears last night.

Yes-sir-ee, by Jesus
, he thought, feeling a calming measure of security as he squeezed the hand grip tightly.
This’ll punch a few good-sized holes in you if you find me here and I have to do something about it.

But this wasn’t the right time to get Cindy, he told himself. This wasn’t the way he intended for it to go. Hell, no— The fun was just beginning. If he could spend the next few days or weeks doing shit like this to drive her absolutely, bug-shit crazy, why—it’d be fun as hell… even a lot more fun than the rush of pleasure he’d felt when Cindy’s husband, good ole’ Harry, had opened the door to that sleazy motel room and seen him sitting there on the bed instead of his whore.

Yeah, it’s too bad I had to kill the sorry bastard, but he had it coming… Christ, did he ever!

His grip on the screwdriver was so tight it began to hurt.

Shit, yes! Good ole’ Harry had it coming almost as much as you do!

4

C
i
ndy was still feeling upset and angry after she put on a clean pair of jeans and went back to the kitchen. She considered taking a shower, but by the time she was done putting away the groceries it was a little past eleven o’clock—almost lunchtime—so she prepared herself a light lunch. She ate only half of it before scooping the rest into the garbage.

She sat at the kitchen table and looked around the room. The lighting was muted, and every corner of the kitchen seemed dingy and drab. The environment was depressing—no doubt about it—but today for some reason, everything around her seemed threatening. She sat hunched up as though she expected something to come popping out at her any second. Her body and mind were wired with expectation, and she knew why.

She was convinced that something was wrong.

She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she was filled with a pervading sense of anxiety, a gnawing dread that things weren’t quite right. She knew a lot of it was her own guilt for what she had done and fear of eventually getting caught, but she also realized that what had happened to Krissy yesterday had shaken her more than it should have. She knew the healthy thing to do would be to put it all behind her, but she couldn’t. Her fears for Krissy’s and Billy’s safety left her with a cold, hollow emptiness, like a disease that was slowly eating away at her insides.

God I’ve gotta get out of here
, she thought. She was filled with agitation as she stood up on shaky legs, grabbed her purse, checked for her keys, and went out the front door. Once she was in the hallway, she closed the door and checked the lock again by pushing as hard as she could against the door to see if it would snap open. It seemed secure, but that didn’t make her feel any better. A winding nervousness was bottled up inside her, building up pressure, and she knew that it would explode out of her if she didn’t do s
omething
.

Maybe once the kids are home from school, we’ll go out and do something special… maybe eat out at a restaurant and take in a movie or something
, she thought as she walked out to the car.

All morning long, and even yesterday, she had been feeling tense and tight like this. Over and over, she tried to tell herself that the kids were doing fine, and that she should probably get a part-time job to keep herself occupied while they were in school. But she couldn’t quite work up the enthusiasm for going around and applying for jobs. And anyway, although she knew that wasn’t what was bothering her, she had no idea what was.

God, I’ve got to do something to get myself out of this mood!

5

A
lex heard Cindy leave by the front door, but he wanted to be
positive
she was gone before he came out of his hiding place, so he waited in the laundry room closet another ten or fifteen minutes after he had heard the front door slam shut before he put the screwdriver back into the toolbox and opened the closet door. He glanced into the washing machine and smiled when he saw the wet jeans. As he walked down the hall, he couldn’t resist pausing to haul back and kick at the wall. The toe of his shoe made a fist-sized hole in the wallboard.

Goddamned good!
he thought, laughing a full-bodied laugh as he walked boldly out the front door. He closed the door behind him, making a point of leaving the door unlocked… just so she’d have one more thing to worry about when she got back home.