Ghost Light (37 page)

Again, the boy glanced up and down the street; then he shook his head and said, “No, you can ask me whatever you want right here.”

“Well then, do you have any idea where he might have gone? His mother—you see, we’re divorced, and—well, I don’t want to get into any of the messy details, but I was given custody of Billy and his sister, but his mother stole them away from me and has been hiding out with them ever since. He must have told you where he was from.”

“Yeah… he did,” the boy said.

“He said he lived in Omaha, right?”

The boy nodded slowly.

“There, you see? I’m not making any of this up. Honest to God, I’m his father, and I need your help to find him.”

A faint smile twitched the corner of the boy’s mouth, and he looked like he was about to say something, but he remained silent, his arms still folded protectively across his chest.

“Look, I know they must’ve taken off early this morning. You see, I just found out where they were staying yesterday, and I was going to get a court order today for their mother to turn them over to me, but she—well, somehow, she must’ve figured out that I’d found her, because she took off with the kids early this morning before I could get them.”

The boy shook his head and shrugged. “Sure, that all makes sense,” he said, “but I have no idea where they could have gone. Me and Mike went by the house to pick him up this morning, but he never showed. I just figured he was sick or something.”

Alex almost said
I know—I saw you there this morning
, but then decided not to let this kid know that he had been staking out the apartment building. The less anyone he talked to knew, the better. He could still kick himself for pulling such a stupid scene in the principal’s office this morning, and the thought that she might have called the police after he left prompted him to act quickly and decisively.

“But Billy never said anything to you about… about where he might be going? He never gave you a clue?”

The boy squinted, apparently trying to remember, but then he shrugged again and said simply, “Nope.”

Alex hissed with frustration. His grip on the steering wheel tightened until it hurt. He thought for a moment about the knife and length of rope he had under the front seat, and how much he’d enjoy wrapping the rope around this little brat’s throat and pulling it tighter and tighter, making him squeal until he spilled his guts about
everything
, but he knew he couldn’t very well hop out of the van and start chasing after him. What good would that do?

“Try to think. This is
really
important.”

The boy was silent for a moment, then his eyes suddenly brightened.

“Yeah, I remember something. He did say something about not wanting to go live out at the lake.”

“The lake?” Alex echoed. “The lake!”

In a flash, like a stroke of lightning, he recalled the taped message from Cindy he had heard on Harry’s answering machine, informing her husband that she wasn’t going directly to the lake but was staying in town.

But what lake?… What fucking lake?

“That’s all?” Alex said, trying hard not to yell at the kid. “That’s all he said? Just, out of the blue, he told you that he didn’t want to live at the lake?”

Frowning, the boy shrugged and threw his hands up as though he were helpless to recall. “I don’t remember what it was all about. I just remember that, one time, Billy said something about how he was glad they hadn’t gone to live out at the lake, ’cause then he never would have met me and Mike. Sorry.”

“Sorry…” Alex repeated, squinting hard to control the swell of anger that was churning inside of him.

“Yeah. That’s all,” the boy said, nodding. “He said something about staying at his uncle’s cabin on the lake, but I don’t know what lake. Look, I—uh, I don’t want to be late for my job. I have to rake the leaves at Old Lady Johnson’s house and then get my homework done before I can do anything else today, so I—uh, I’ve gotta go.”

“Well then let me give you a lift,” Alex said in as calm and steady a voice as he could manage.

The boy hesitated a moment, then nodded as he reached for the door handle. He snapped the door open and slid onto the seat, then slammed the door shut.

“I told you my name, but you never did tell me yours,” Alex said, smiling at the boy through gritted teeth.

“Chris … Chris Russell,” the boy said. There was no longer even a hint of suspicion in his expression. All Alex could think was,
Great!

“Pleased to meet you, Chris,” Alex said, holding his hand out so they could shake hands. The boy’s hand felt small in his grip, easy as shit to crush to a pulp if he wanted to. “Hey, you’d better put on your seat belt. There’s that new state law, you know.”

Chris nodded as he pulled the shoulder strap across his chest and clicked it into place. While he was doing that, Alex shifted forward in his seat and dropped his left hand down to the floor where he felt for the rope and knife.

Just in case I need to jog his memory
, he thought, smiling to himself.
Just in case.

“So… tell me, where do you live?”

The Wolf’s Hour

C
indy was beginning to realize that even after several days of intensive cleaning, the camp was still going to look like a disaster had hit it. Right after lunch, the man from Central Maine Power—a young, dark-haired guy named Roger—showed up. It didn’t take him long to get the power turned on. Cindy was happy they would at least have electricity and, hopefully, running water before dark. The water pump was in the pantry area next to the kitchen. She asked Roger if he could help her get it started, or at least take a look at it with her. Although he told her he shouldn’t because he was on company time, he checked it out for her, found there was nothing wrong with it, and after about fifteen minutes of tinkering around got it started. Cindy tipped him twenty dollars, and he left, saying he’d raise a toast to her when he hit the bar after work today. She checked to make sure the toilet upstairs flushed, and then ran the water in the bathroom and kitchen sinks for several minutes, until the brick-red rusty stream turned clear… at least mostly clear. Then she stripped the bed sheets off the two double beds upstairs, washed them with dish detergent in the kitchen sink, and hung them out to dry on tree branches.

Thank God
, she thought,
at least we’ll have clean sheets tonight.

After that, her first priority was to clean up the kitchen, or at least make it semi-sanitary. After she sprayed the stove top with cleaner, she realized that it was a gas cook top. Sighing with frustration, she turned on each control in succession and held a burning match up to them, but nothing lit. She didn’t want to bother driving back to town again today to call the gas company for a delivery, so she gave the stovetop a quick once-over and satisfied herself that they would have to eat a cold supper tonight. At least, if it got cold later tonight, the electric heaters were working.

Safe, dependable… and expensive
, she thought, grimly aware that her funds weren’t unlimited.

She decided that if they did end up staying here for any length of time, she would look into getting a load of firewood delivered and using the wood stove in the living room. Of course, that had its own set of problems, including making sure the flue was clean so it wouldn’t start a chimney fire.

The refrigerator wasn’t in too bad a shape, considering how long it had gone unused, but it seemed like it was on its last leg, rattling and bumping like a jackhammer whenever the motor kicked on. She threw away the leaking pickle jars, crusted ketchup bottle, half loaf of moldy wheat bread, and other unidentified items that had been left behind; then she washed the shelves and inside walls of the refrigerator and placed an open box of baking soda on the bottom shelf. After that, she tackled the kitchen cupboards, which were much more of a mess. Ancient cans of vegetables and soups had apparently frozen and thawed several times over the past few winters, leaking black sludge as thick as used motor oil all over the shelves. Cobwebs, crumbs, fragments of acorn shells, and crumbling pine cones littered all of the shelves inside the food closet. In one kitchen drawer, behind a tray of tarnished silverware, she found a ball of shredded newspaper, gray string, and rotting cloth. It took her a moment to realize that this was a mouse or squirrel nest, but whatever it was, she swept it into a trash bag, wishing she’d had the foresight to buy some mousetraps and a few boxes of D-Con. With cold weather coming, no doubt mice and other creatures would be looking for safe places to spend the winter.

Throughout the day, while Cindy was working in the kitchen, the kids occupied themselves outside. She kept a close eye on them, but Billy was out of sight much of the time. Krissy spent more than half of the afternoon sitting on an old tree stump with her hands squeezed between her knees as she stared blankly out at the rippling blue lake. Puffy white clouds slid slowly across the horizon and were reflected in the water. A steady breeze coming in off the water blew her hair back like thin, yellow streamers. Once or twice Cindy called out to her, asking if she was too cold, but Krissy just sat there, ignoring her and—apparently—pretty much everything else.

What the hell can I do for her… for both of them?
Cindy wondered so often tears sprang to her eyes. Her throat and nose were raw from the fumes of the cleaning agents she’d been using, and the tears made her eyes sting horribly. By the time darkness began to fall, around six o’clock, the kitchen didn’t look noticeably better than it had when they first arrived, but at least she wasn’t afraid of putting her food in the refrigerator. She called the kids inside for a supper of cold-cut sandwiches, chips, and milk.

“Will we be going to school around here?” Billy asked after they were seated around the table. Cindy had been eating slowly as she stared out at the thick bands of yellow and purple clouds that streaked the western sky. The skeletal lines of tree branches against the fading horizon made her shiver deeply. It was definitely a winter sky.

“I… I don’t know,” she replied distantly, shaking her head. “I just want to… you know, take a few days to figure things out and all.”

Billy sniffed loudly. “Well
I
don’t see why we can’t just move back to Portland,” he said huffily. “Things were going just fine for us there.”

There was an edge of accusation and downright meanness in his voice that Cindy couldn’t ignore.

“Maybe we will,” she replied, looking at him steadily and mentally pleading for him to give her a tiny break, just this once. “I just want to lay low for a day or two, that’s all. I have to go into town tomorrow to order a tank of gas for the stove, so I’ll call Alice then to see if… to see how things are.”

The thought also crossed her mind that she should give Harry a call, to let him know that they had finally arrived at the camp; but it had been so long since she had heard from him that she had given up on him. All along, she realized, he must have been planning to use this situation to get rid of her.

Billy slumped back in his seat and stared blankly at the half-eaten sandwich on his plate.

“You know, this really sucks,” he muttered, so softly Cindy almost didn’t hear him.

“Hey, look,” she said, leaning forward and taking his hand in hers in spite of his resistance. “I know you’re upset about leaving your friends and all, okay? But this isn’t easy for
any
of us, do you understand? You have to believe me! After what happened to Krissy with that man in the white van, I just don’t want to take any unnecessary chances.”

“Why not?” Billy said in a loud, hurt-sounding voice as he jerked his hand out of her grasp and squared his shoulders. “What the heck are you afraid of, anyway?” He was trying his hardest to look and sound tough, but all Cindy could see was a scared and angry little boy.

“I’m not afraid
of
anything,” she said mildly, trying to force back the torrent of emotions she felt bubbling up inside her. “I’m afraid
for!
For
you
, goddamnit! For
both
of you kids! I know you probably won’t believe me, but I worry more about you guys, I’m afraid for you even more than I’m afraid for myself.”

She wanted to get out of her chair and hug both of them so close to her she could smother them, but she was feeling too drained emotionally and physically even to move. What she had been about to say next, that he and his sister were all she had left to remind her of her own dead sister, caught in her throat and died there before she could speak it.

“So what is it you’re afraid of, that my dad’s gonna eventually find us and take us back?”

Feeling utterly betrayed and defeated, Cindy slouched back in her chair, closed her eyes, and shook her head weakly.

“I don’t know,” she said followed by a weak sigh. “I just don’t know.”

The room was silent for a moment as she let her gaze shift back to the descending night, which had fallen across the lake like a purple curtain.

“Well … yeah,” she said finally. “I guess that
is
it. I’m afraid that your father or… or
someone
will find us, and—well, you know your mother asked me to… to take care of you both if anything ever happened to her, and… and I—”

“But not like this!” Billy suddenly shouted, cutting her off sharply as he banged his fist onto the table. He pushed himself violently away from the table, leaped to his feet and, balling up his napkin, tossed it so it landed in his glass of milk. A white tongue of milk slopped out onto his plate, soaking the remains of his sandwich.

Fairly trembling with anger and hurt, Cindy scowled at him as she fought for control. “Look, Billy,” she said as evenly as she could, “it’s been one hell of a stressed-out day for all of us. I want you to go upstairs and get ready for bed now.”

“But I don’t want to! I’m not tired yet!” Billy shouted, shaking his clenched fists in frustration in front of his face.

Cindy was momentarily afraid that he was so mad he might even attack her, wanting to hurt her more than his words already had. Again, she was shocked into silence by how much he reminded her of his father—especially when he was angry like this. She could see—almost
feel
Alex’s violent rage seething inside of Billy; but she looked at him steadily, hoping that, beneath it all, she would also be able to see the hurt little boy she knew he really was—the scared ten-year-old boy who was crying for help, begging to be comforted.

He misses his mother more than he’ll ever be able to say
, she thought with a cold touch of sadness; but as she looked at him, all she saw was his angry, hate-filled stare, and it was directed straight at her.

“You’ll
do
it,” she said in low, measured tones, “because I
told
you to!”

Rising slowly from her seat, she didn’t say another word as she picked up her and Krissy’s plates and walked into the kitchen with them. Tears welled up in her eyes, blurring her vision as she dumped the chip crumbs and bread crust Krissy hadn’t eaten into a trash bag and then stacked the dirty dishes and utensils beside the sink. Reflected in the window above the sink she could see Billy, standing there in the middle of the living room floor as motionless and transparent as an apparition. For a nerve-tingling instant, her vision doubled, and she thought she saw someone else, another indistinct figure, standing beside him. At first she thought it was a double reflection in the window, but then she realized that the figure was different. In the blink of an eye, though, it dissolved into hazy darkness.

Sniffing back the tears and biting down hard on her lower lip, Cindy stared at Billy’s reflection, waiting for him to say or do
something
, but he just stood there as though frozen. As time and the hostile silence stretched out, the back of Cindy’s neck began to burn. All she could hear was the steady, rapid thunder of her pulse, pounding inside her head.

Finally, Billy turned around and, without another word, ran upstairs, stomping his feet on every step before he slammed the bedroom door shut behind him.

Forcing herself to remain as calm and in control as possible, she walked back to the table, cleaned up the mess Billy had made, and carried his silverware, glass, and plate into the kitchen.

“Hey, Squirt, you must be pretty tired, too, huh?” she said, glancing over her shoulder at Krissy.

The little girl didn’t say a word. Throughout the argument, she had just sat there with her shoulders hunched forward, not moving a muscle. Her face looked drawn and pale, and her expression seemed oddly blank, as though she was only partially aware of what was going on around her.

“D’ you think you might go to bed now, too?” Cindy asked.

Without a word, Krissy shifted out of her seat and trudged upstairs, shuffling her feet slowly on each step.

“Yeah … Good night,” Cindy said in a whisper that was too low for Krissy to hear. Tears were streaming down her face as she turned around and faced the window again, still wondering what—if anything—she had seen reflected there. With a sudden convulsion, she bent forward and threw up into the sink.

2

F
ucking shit, this ain’t gonna be easy
, Alex was thinking as he sat on the bed in his motel room.
But then again, nothing worth shit ever is!

It was well past midnight, and he was feeling quite blitzed after having more than a few beers at Three Dollar Dewey’s, a bar in downtown Portland. He was sitting on the edge of the bed with a map of Maine spread out over his lap as he nursed a beer from the six pack he had picked up on his way back to the motel. He couldn’t help but chuckle every time he thought about that kid he’d talked to earlier today.

What was the little brat’s name again? Chris something-or-other. What the hell! It didn’t matter! It cracked Alex up how the little twerp had acted so cocky and self-assured, never even suspecting how close he was to getting his scrawny, little neck strangled.

In spite of his growing frustration that Cindy had slipped away from him—
That’s. twice, now, and oh, baby, are you ever going to pay!
— Alex thought it had been the high point of the last few days, toying with that stupid little kid and leading him on to think that he was actually helping him find his son when, in actuality, he didn’t have a clue how easy it would have been for Alex to snuff him out and drop his useless carcass off somewhere into the woods.