Ghost Light (7 page)

“Goddamned neighborhood watch,” he whispered, looking back and forth to see if there was anyone else—like maybe another cop car—in the vicinity. It looked as though the coast was clear, so he turned around and started back toward Cindy and Harry’s house.

Once he was stationed back under the maple tree, he crouched clown and leaned against the tree trunk. His mind was almost blank with anger as he stared up at the lighted bedroom window. He could hear the rumbling rattle of the air conditioner in the window. He jumped, and his heart started pounding heavily when he saw something—some
one
—walk over and look out the lighted window. With the glare of light behind her, he wasn’t sure at first if it was Cindy or Harry, but then he saw her long hair, rising up as the air conditioner blew air into her face. His hands balled into fists, and he had a vivid image of twining his hands in that long hair of hers and smashing her face against something hard—maybe the edge of the counter, just like he had done to her sister. His anger was a sour taste that flooded the back of his throat, almost gagging him.

“Jesus Christ,” he whispered. He hawkered deep in his chest and spit into the darkness.

He was watching her so intently that he didn’t even blink his eyes until they began to water. Then, moving quickly, he reached up and grabbed the lowest branch above him and swung up into the tree. It had been years since he had climbed a tree, but the branches seemed to come into his hand of their own volition. The tree hardly shook with his weight and he scaled the branches, hand-over-hand until he was almost level with the second floor window.

From this vantage point, the view still wasn’t that much better than it had been from the ground, but he could see into the bedroom enough to see Harry sprawled on the bed with his hands behind his head. He still couldn’t make out any of the features on Cindy’s face, but he could tell that they were talking. He couldn’t help but wonder what they were saying.

Probably talking about me and how they’re gonna steal my kids away from me!

Cocking his thumb up, he pointed his forefinger like a gun at the silhouette in the window. Squinting one eye to draw a bead on her, he held the pose for a few heartbeats, imagining that he was squeezing the trigger as he whispered, “Bang” and pulled his hand up in an imagined recoil.

A grim smile of satisfaction spread across his face, but it froze there when he realized that another car was rounding the corner at the far end of the street and moving toward him.

Shit! If these were the cops again, and if they caught him up in the tree like this, he would have one hell of a time trying to explain what he was doing. Being nailed as a Peeping Tom was one thing, but once they put it together that this was the house of his sister-in-law, he might be in for a heap of shit.

The car was moving slowly up the street, well below the speed limit. Although he couldn’t see any markings or lights through the tangle of leaves, Alex was convinced that it was the police.

Shit!

What if Cindy had seen him out here and had called the cops?

What if—somehow—they had known what he was up to and were just waiting to catch him?

Or worse, what if they had finally found a hole in his alibi and were out looking for him to arrest him for killing his wife? He could tell, just by the way Cindy looked at him, that she didn’t buy the “accident” story. What if she finally convinced the police what had really happened?

Holding his breath, Alex clung tightly to the tree trunk and watched as the headlights crept slowly closer. The car’s engine hummed with a low, steady purr. The headlights blotted away the darkness on the road like a slow-spreading stain. Tension wound up tighter inside him as the winding, buzzing sound of the cicadas rose louder in his ears.

Just drive on by!
he thought.
Just drive right the fuck on by!

The car slowed to a crawl. In the stark glare of the headlights, Alex could see the texture of every pebble, every subtle depression in the road. Shadows of trees and bushes as thick and dark as ink swept to both sides like parting curtains. He sucked in a breath and held it when he saw the array of lights and sirens on the roof of the police cruiser. He glanced quickly up at the lighted bedroom window to see Cindy—
the bitch!
—was still there, probably watching it all, just waiting to see him get nabbed. He thought she was, but when he looked closer, he saw that her back was turned to the window.

Jesus Christ, just drive on by!

The cruiser was moving less than ten miles per hour now. Even before it was directly below him, he heard the chatter of the two cops and the scratchy, static voice coming over their radio. The driver was resting his elbow on the opened window, and Alex could easily imagine that the hand inside the car was gripping a service revolver and was just itching for an opportunity to use it on him.

That’s it
… he thought when the cruiser was directly below him:
Just drive on by… nice and easy now.

The cruiser’s brake lights flickered once, a bright red flash, but then the car sped up. Alex kept his gaze fastened on it until it rounded the corner and was gone, but he didn’t let out his breath until the sound of the engine had faded to nothing. When he looked back at the bedroom window, he saw that the light had been turned out.

“You fucking
bitch!
” he whispered dryly.

The grip he maintained on the tree branch was so tight that it hurt his hands, but he squeezed even tighter, imagining that his hands were wrapped around Cindy Toland’s throat and he was squeezing the life out of her.

“Don’t worry, you bitch. I’m gonna get you!” he whispered, his voice sounding like the rasping hiss of a snake in the darkness. “You just wait and see if I don’t!”

He climbed about halfway down the tree and then jumped to the ground, landing with a soft
plop
. There was a bad taste in his mouth, and he was hoping that a beer back at home would wash it away. Feeling at least a little bit buoyed from the evening, he started whistling again as he walked down the street and turned the corner to where he had left his car parked. His mood dropped when, as he was getting into the car, he saw the parking ticket, tucked underneath his wiper blade. Swearing as he grabbed it, he read the amount of the fine under the streetlight. Then, uttering a louder curse, he tore the ticket into confetti and sprinkled it onto the Street like a dusting of snow.

“Yeah, well fuck you, too,” he muttered, scowling as he fished his keys from his pocket and slid in behind the steering wheel. “Fuck you
all!
”

3

“Oh, my God, that’s
it!
”

“—hmmm—”

“I’ve got it!”

“Huh… whaa… got what?”

“I know what we have to do!”

The boxsprings complained as Cindy jerked up in bed and leaned forward to hug her knees. She stared at the square of window, glowing orange from the streetlight outside. In spite of the overworked air conditioner, her body was slick with sweat. She knew she was sweating as much from the dream she’d been having as the heat, but she couldn’t recall any of the details.

None except one… the idea that had exploded in her mind while she was asleep.

“We’ll have to do it, Harry!
We’ll
do what we thought
he
was going to do!”

The bed jiggled as Harry rolled over and looked at the clock; then she heard him gasp.

“Good Lord, Cindy, it’s almost four o’clock!”

“Umm, but I have it! Well kidnap the kids!”

“What kids?”

“Billy and Krissy.”

“Christ, are you crazy?”

“Maybe, but that’s not the point. Well take them away from him. They’re ours legally, anyway, so why not? We can take them over into Iowa and get legal custody there. Then Alex can’t touch us.”

“Jesus, you are crazy,” Harry said. He shifted down into the bed, pulling his pillow over his face so his voice was muffled when he said, “Come on, honey, go to sleep now. We can talk about this in the morning. I have to drag my ass up in two hours.”

“No, we have to talk about it now!” Cindy said, shaking his shoulder roughly. “I want to figure it all out so we can do it tomorrow… today!”

Harry let out an exasperated sigh as he rolled onto his side and looked at her. “You’re crazy to even think it, but don’t you think we should at least run it past Holder first? I mean, there’s got to be a whole shit-load of legal problems involved in doing something like that.”

“I’m sure there are,” Cindy said, her voice getting dreamy for a moment. “But I dunno—maybe we don’t want to get a lawyer involved. I mean, if it is breaking the law—”

“
If?
Jesus Christ, Cindy, you’re talking about kidnapping! There are no
ifs
about it!”

“Maybe there are if there’s a legal document appointing me as their legal guardian.”

“Yeah, but you can’t… just take someone’s kids away from their father.”

“Even if he killed their mother?”

Harry let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t want to get started on
that
again. There’s no proof Alex did anything, and the police sure as hell aren’t acting like they think he did.”

Cindy covered her mouth with both hands to choke back the sob that was building up inside her. A flood of desperate energy vibrated within her, making her want to leap out of bed and run around the room screaming.

“And I don’t think, even if you’re across the river in Iowa, that Alex would stand for something like that. He’d get a—an extradition order or whatever. We need to talk to Holder about this to see what all the legal issues are.”

Biting her lower lip, Cindy shook her head viciously, even though she knew the motion was wasted in the darkness.

“I don’t want to get him involved. No one else.”

“Well it sure as hell will involve the kids! Have you stopped to think how they might react to all of this?”

Cindy was silent for a moment, then said, “They probably already know what their father did. You sure as hell can’t pretend they didn’t hear and see what was going on in their own house. They may not know their father killed their—”

“You have no proof of that, Cin. Come on. You’ve got to stop talking like this. Just drop it!”

“No, this is something you and I are going to have to handle.” She covered her mouth with her hand for a moment, thinking. “If you don’t think we can do it in Iowa, then let’s take them even further.”

“Yeah, like where?”

“Like California, maybe, or someplace on the east coast. I don’t know. I think we should plan this all out and do it, though. Think about it! There are two children, two little kids—my nephew and niece—involved here. I swear to God, Harry, I think their lives are in jeopardy.”

Harry sighed with exasperation again, and Cindy felt him shift on the bed. Again—like oh, so many times since Debbie had died—she wished that he would reach out for her and hold her, letting her know that he still loved her and that he was going to do everything he could for her. But as tough as-it was to admit, she had to acknowledge that she didn’t feel anything like love or support coming from Harry. Maybe they had drifted too far apart over the years. Maybe he no longer cared for her… or no longer loved her.

“Look, Cindy… honey, I have to get up for work soon. Can’t this wait until breakfast?”

“I’ve got it. You could sell the hardware store,” Cindy said sharply. “Hey, you’ve hated it for years anyway, so why not get rid of it?”

“Well, I don’t exactly
hate
it…”

“Bull! I can’t count how many times over the last few years you’ve told me you felt like you were at a dead end with it, that in order to
really
make money you’d have to expand, and that you didn’t want to risk our savings. So why not consider it? Why not cash in and get out now?”

“Come on, you know it wouldn’t be that easy. I’d have to put it on the market. Just finding an interested buyer could take months… years.”

“So what? Let’s dump it and move. We’ve got that ten thousand dollars Debbie saved. Add that to what we’ve got in savings, and it gives us a damned good start. Why not start a whole new life in another state with Debbie’s—”

In spite of her rising enthusiasm, the mere thought of her dead sister made Cindy choke up again. Tears sprang from her eyes, hot and sticky in the darkness. A small corner of her mind was desperately wishing that Harry was more attuned to how she was feeling, more sensitive to her needs. She covered her eyes with her hands and sobbed softly in the darkness.

“Well… maybe…” Harry said, smacking his lips sleepily. “Maybe I’ll think about it.”

Harry’s response broke Cindy’s heart. He had to know she was crying, yet he still did nothing to comfort or reassure her. That’s all she really needed right now, for him to hug her and tell her they’d work it out… together. It was painful, but she had to admit to herself that she knew he was just saying those words, agreeing with her so he could get his precious sleep before getting up for work. A lash of bitterness uncoiled in her stomach. As if his work was more important than the lives of two children!