Ghost Light (28 page)

“Krissy, are you… all right?”

The only sign of life was when Krissy shifted her gaze up and looked at her. The blank expression on her face sent a jolt of panic racing through Cindy.

“Wha—what is it, honey? Is something wrong?”

Krissy’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. Then she took a deep, shuddering breath, and for the first time the little girl’s eyes seemed to brighten as they focused on her. The glazed, distant stare began to evaporate as tears filled her eyes.

“I was… I was scared that—that you… that you…” Krissy said, her voice trembling horribly before it faded away.

“Hey there, squirt, come on—don’t worry, all right?” Cindy said.

She bent down and scooped the little girl up into her arms, hugging her tightly. She was amazed at how small and trembling she felt. Her heart was racing like a frightened bird’s.

“It was… when you weren’t there, I… I got so scared, and I… ’n I started walking home, but there was a—a man, and he—well, I … I couldn’t remember the way home, ’n got kinda lost somewhere.”

She indicated the street with a tight nod of her head, then looked back at Cindy with a trembling lower lip.

“Well, you’re safe now, honey” Cindy said, squeezing Krissy even tighter and rubbing her back. “You’re perfectly safe with me.”

She closed her eyes and sighed, tearfully grateful that Krissy
was
safe, but her words of reassurance sounded hollow to her own ears, and she wondered again—as she had so many times since they had left Nebraska—if it was true.

Were
these kids really safe with her?

Break In

W
ell, it sure as shit doesn’t make any sense to sit around with my thumb up my ass
, Alex thought.

A little after seven o’clock in the morning he had parked the van at the far corner of the church parking lot across from Cindy’s apartment building, positioning himself so he had a clear view of the front door and driveway. He had gone to the Maine Mall last night and bought a pair of binoculars, along with some other things he thought he might need. For the better part of an hour he focused his binoculars on the apartment, sweeping back and forth so he wouldn’t miss anything. Several times this morning he had seen the blurry silhouette of either Cindy or one of the kids shift past the front windows on the second floor, so at least he now knew which apartment was her’s.

A little before eight o’clock, he had watched when Billy left for school with his two friends. Alex focused his attention on the other two boys, fixing their faces in his memory, just in case. About fifteen minutes later, Cindy had rushed out to the car with Krissy in tow and had driven off, no doubt taking her to school. Half an hour later she still hadn’t returned, and Alex was beginning to wonder if she was planning to come back to the apartment, or else had gone off for the morning to do some errands. Maybe she’s at the school, bitching out the principal for letting “
her
” little girl walk home alone the day before. The thought made him snicker with laughter.

The more he thought about it, though, the angrier he got that things hadn’t worked out the way he had wanted them to yesterday. He couldn’t stop wondering how the fuck he had lost track of Krissy after seeing her walking down Prospect Street. He had felt like he was in no hurry as he turned around in the school driveway and headed back through the intersection, but as he had driven down the street, he didn’t see a trace of Krissy. Thinking she might have covered more ground than he thought possible, he sped up and went straight to the apartment.

But she hadn’t been there, either, and although he had spent the next fifteen or twenty minutes going up and down the side streets, she seemed to have disappeared. He was sure she couldn’t have made it home in that short a time, just as he was sure he would have seen Cindy’s car if she had driven by and picked her up. He hadn’t seen Cindy until later, when she had pulled into the driveway, like there was a fire in her pants.

So how the hell did Krissy get away from me?
he wondered.
Where the fuck did she go?

Well, it didn’t matter anymore.

So she had slipped away from him once. He felt confident that she hadn’t seen him, and certainly not recognized him, so she probably had no idea just how much danger she was in. It might be today, or next week, or even next month—but he was going to catch up with her and
all
of them, eventually.

By nine o’clock, when Cindy still hadn’t come back to the apartment, Alex decided it was time to try the plan he had come up with last night.

What the hell?

He had a good enough cover story in case things went wrong.

Whistling a jaunty tune, he got out of the van and slipped the keys into his pants pocket as he adjusted the blue workman’s coveralls he was wearing. He had bought them last night at Sears. Walking to the back of the van, he opened the double doors and took out the large, green metal tool box which he had also bought at Sears. The box was nearly empty. It contained only a couple of screwdrivers, a pinchbar, a claw hammer, a roll of duct tape, and a hunting knife—things he thought he might need. He had seen no reason to piss away a lot of money just so he could present a convincing cover as a repairman. Just in case someone had noticed and was watching him, he hefted the tool box, letting his arm drag down as though it weighed close to fifty pounds as he started across the parking lot.

He walked boldly to the front door, opened it, and stepped inside. The hallway was hot with trapped heat, and there was a strong, musty smell that made him wrinkle his nose as he started cautiously up the stairs. Old boards creaked underfoot, as though announcing his presence. He looked all around, up and down the stairway, expecting to bump into a curious neighbor who had heard him.

No sweat, though
, he thought, feeling a tingling rush of excitement in his stomach.
I can bullshit my way through anything as long as I don’t bump into Cindy… I don’t want to see her… Not yet!

He paused on the second floor landing, placed the toolbox at his feet, and wiped his forehead on his sleeve, wondering how the hell the air in the stairway could be so stifling on such a chilly morning. Was he
that
nervous?

“Naw,” he said, chuckling as he picked up the toolbox again and walked to the door straight across from the stairs. There was no name plate on the door, just a brass number “3” and a hand-drawn “B.”

Alex hesitated.

This
had
to be the door. The only other door was to his left. Based on what he remembered of the building from his survey of it from the outside, he guessed it must be for the apartment on the back side of the building. After glancing nervously over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching him, he reached into his pocket and took out the pair of rubber gloves he had bought at the pharmacy last night. A small cloud of powder arose as he wiggled his fingers into the gloves and snapped them tightly at his wrists. Then, licking his lips, he took hold of apartment 3-B’s doorknob and gave it a strong twist.

For a flashing instant he thought the door had been left unlocked and was going to open, but as he leaned his shoulder against it, the lock fetched it up.

“
Shit!
” he hissed under his breath.

He pushed harder against the unyielding door until a sheen of perspiration broke out on his forehead, but he could tell the door wasn’t going to yield easily. He stood back and considered what to do next. He could take the hard way and try to jimmy the lock open with a credit card, or he could take the easy way and pry the fucker open with the pinchbar he had in the toolbox. Forcing the door would probably be faster. He sure as hell didn’t want to be caught out here on the landing, trying to pick the lock. But, on the other hand, using the pinchbar would leave some telltale evidence.

“Ahh, what the fuck,” he said as he undid the clasps on the toolbox and took out the pinchbar. It felt good when he hefted it in his hand. He chuckled softly when he had a brief mental image of using it to bash in Cindy’s skull.

Yeah, that might not be a bad idea
, he thought. And so what if Cindy came home and realized someone had broken into her apartment? What was she going to do about it? All along he’d been toying with the idea of trashing the place once he got in there. Why the fuck not? Cindy was on the run with two kids—
his
two kids—so she sure as hell wasn’t going to go squawking to the police.

Then again, if she was aware that someone had broken in, she might get even more paranoid than he wanted her to be. She might pack up and take off again, and Alex sure as hell didn’t want that to happen. Now that he had her where he wanted her, he didn’t want to go through the aggravation of tracking her down all over again.

But I don’t have all morning to fuck around out here, either
, he thought.

He gripped the bar tightly and jiggled the chiseled edge in between the door and the frame. After positioning his feet, he leaned back, pulling with a slow, steady pressure. Chips of paint fell to the floor, but he thought if he was careful enough, he just might be able to pop the lock without leaving much noticeable damage.

The wooden door creaked loudly and sagged inward under the pressure he applied, but no matter how hard he pushed, it didn’t seem to want to give.

What the fuck
, he thought,
does she have a three inch deadbolt on this?

He eased up and stood back to wipe the sweat from his face again. His breath was coming hot and fast, and he could feel his anger rising to a breaking point.

“Come on, you bitch! Give it up!” he said as, once again, he wedged the pinchbar into the door, leaned back, and, grunting fiercely, pulled back as hard as he could. With a loud splintering of wood, the door suddenly snapped open so fast that Alex lost his grip on the pinchbar and it went flying from his hands. It hit the floor, clanging as loudly as a fire alarm.

Alex straightened up and looked around anxiously, but as far as he could tell, either the building was deserted or else no one gave a shit. At least no one came out to see what the noise was all about, so as long as someone wasn’t already on the phone to the police to report a break in, he was okay for a little while.

Alex replaced the pinchbar in the toolbox and entered the apartment, sniffing the stale air as if he could sense the immediate presence of danger. Before closing the door behind him he inspected the lock and door frame for damage, and was happy to see that it wasn’t too bad. In fact, unless she was looking for it, he was pretty sure Cindy wouldn’t even notice it. He felt a growing sense of self-assurance as he walked from the living room into the kitchen, and then went down the hallway. He poked his head into each of the bedrooms and could tell at a glance which was Billy’s and Krissy’s. Again, though, he was struck by the notion that seeing where his children had been staying didn’t fill him with a sense of love or longing to see them again. No, he felt only violent anger, which he focused on both his children and their kidnapper.

Oh, yes, by Jesus! They were all going to pay!

As he took a quick inventory of the drab surroundings, his mind was racing through all the possibilities of what he could do here. The most sensible thing, of course, would be just to leave, content with the knowledge that he had invaded her privacy and could do it again, whenever he felt like it. But he felt compelled to do
something
, if only to mark his presence here. Putting his toolbox down, he came back to the kitchen and stood in the middle of the floor with his arms folded across his chest as he considered what to do. His plan had never been to do very much. He just wanted to rearrange a few things, maybe move things around a bit. Little things that might not even be noticeable but which, hopefully, would put Cindy even more off balance than she already was.

Oh, yeah!

The ideal would be to drive her right out of her mind with paranoia and worry.

His eyes lighted on the wall telephone over by the refrigerator. It was an old fashioned rotary dial phone, and that gave him his first idea. Remembering a little trick he used to pull with the pay phones in his high school, he picked up the receiver, quickly unscrewed the mouthpiece, and shook the transmitter out into his hand. He chuckled to himself as he slipped it into his pocket, knowing that the next time Cindy tried to make or answer a call, no matter how loud she yelled, the person at the other end of the line would hear nothing but dead air.

“Damn, I wish I could be a fly on the wall to see
that
, “he said, snorting with suppressed laughter.

He spent the next fifteen minutes or so going around the kitchen, repositioning things on the counter and table. He took brand new, full boxes of cereal and a near-full jar of instant coffee, and dumped most of their contents into the toilet and flushed them away. Using one of his screwdrivers, he loosened the towel rack inside the cupboard door beneath the sink, then he poked a hole into the bottom of the plastic bucket Cindy kept under there. Opening the refrigerator, he dumped a fairly large amount of milk in behind the vegetable storage drawers, hoping it would spoil soon and start smelling all to hell. Next, he loosened the refrigerator light bulb in its socket, and then removed one of the refrigerator shelves and wedged it back in so, as soon as Cindy put more weight on it, it would collapse. He even resorted to the old high school cafeteria trick of swapping the contents of the salt shaker and sugar bowl on the kitchen table.

Once he was through in the kitchen, he went back to the living room to do a few little things. He pried the TV’s on/ off switch loose so the next time someone tried to turn it on, it would come off in their hand. He tilted back the easy chair and couch and, using his screwdriver again, loosened a leg on each of them so the next time someone sat down, the leg would break off. Satisfied with his work in the living room, he went down the hallway to the bedrooms.

He wasn’t exactly sure why, but he decided not to do anything to either of the kids’ rooms. It wasn’t from sentimentality, he told himself, it was just that his goal was to drive
Cindy
bug-shit, not the kids. Besides, they probably wouldn’t even notice if anything was missing or broken, anyway. He went into the bathroom and loosened the screws on the hot and cold water faucets on the sink and then, using a razor blade he found in the medicine cabinet, he made a long slice along the side of the toothpaste tube.

“Yeah, that should be enough for here,” he said as he started down the hall toward Cindy’s bedroom.

He paused in the doorway and looked around the room, waiting for inspiration to hit. He couldn’t think of very much else to do—but then again, he told himself that he didn’t want to do anything too blatant or obvious so she would instantly
know
someone had been in the apartment, screwing around. No, he wanted to be as subtle as possible so things just started fucking up on her, and she would have no idea why.