Ghost Light by Rick Hautala

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!
    “I know what,” she whispered.
    Harry was breathing deeply as though already sleep. She had to fight the impression that she was alone in the darkness, talking to herself.
    “Your Uncle Richard’s summer camp at Little Sebago, in Maine. We went there a couple of summers ago. We could stay there.”
    “Uh, you may recall, Uncle Dick died two years ago, and the rest of the family has been squabbling over who’s going to get the camp. Besides, why the hell would we want to move to Maine? Now that Uncle Dick’s dead, we don’t have family or friends there.”
    “So Alex would never think that’s where we went! And we don’t have to stay there. I’m just talking about using it for a little while. Why not? I mean, if you explained our situation to your sister and brother.”
    “I suppose so, I mean, if we had to; but look, Cindy—” His voice became edged with agitation. “I don’t want to talk about this right now, all right?” He slammed his fist into his pillow and, huffing, rolled away from her. “Lemme get some goddamned sleep!”
    Well. I want to talk about it , Cindy thought, but she didn’t say anything. For the first time in over ten years marriage, she was thinking that there might be something that was going to split them apart. They had made it through job hassles and emotional problems, rough the anxiety and sadness of not being able to have children of their own, and through numerous family tragedies, including her parents’ deaths and her sister’s accident— No, murder! —but now Cindy was thinking that this might be it: this might be the issue, the wedge that would finally drive them apart.
    When she searched her feelings, she was frightened to discover how much she didn’t care. Not really. Right now, protecting her sister’s children, sparing them the pain of being raised by an abusive, alcoholic father, maybe even saving their lives from the man she was positive had killed their mother was the most important thing in her life… even more important than her marriage.
    And in the dark, humid pre-dawn silence, she decided that she was going to do it, with or without Harry’s help. It might take her a few days, maybe even a week or two to get things organized, but she going to kidnap Billy and Krissy Harris.
    She had to!

Chapter Four
     
    Rendezvous
     
    T he sun hammered down onto the asphalt and rebounded in rippling, watery waves as Harry Toland pulled his bright red Camaro into the parking lot of the Buzzy Bee Motel. As always, he was a bit concerned about the conspicuousness of his fancy car with the novelty license plate reading “HRDWRE,” but—as always—he told himself that the odds of someone on the Iowa side of the Missouri River recognizing his car were… well, at least small enough not to allow the worry to ruin his afternoon.
    No siree, even though he was exhausted from not getting enough sleep last night, he had no intention of letting any worries spoil the fun he had planned for this afternoon with Elizabeth St. Claire. He glanced at his watch, saw that he was almost ten minutes late, and hoped like hell that Elizabeth’s attitude wasn’t already soured. She was on her lunch break from the credit union and would no doubt have to hurry to get back to work by two o’clock. But just thinking about her waiting for him in that dark, air conditioned room, made his erection harden.
    Shifting his car into park, he killed the ignition and grabbed the bottle of white Zinfindel from the sea beside him. He was hoping it would go a long way toward making up for lost time; and as much as