Read Online Nightlight by Michael Cadnum - Free Book Online

listened seriously. The cop had said other cops would listen seriously and be equally friendly. The cop had wished him a good day, and meant it.
    He would not bother these police, with their shotguns and shortwave radios. He felt confident, now, and strode back to the motel room, oblivious to the rain.
    Lise rubbed a towel into her hair. “Where’d you go?”
    He shrugged his shoulders to ease the clammy shirt off his skin for a moment. “I dropped into the police station.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œJust thought I’d check in with them. Let them know what we were up to.”
    â€œWhat did they say?”
    â€œNot much.” He swaggered around the room. “I mean, what could they say? My cousin is obviously just a silly twerp who’s off in the woods doing something city people do. Taping ghosts. Or screwing goats.” He laughed.
    She gave him a steady look.
    â€œWell, I just thought I’d check in with them.”
    He felt less confident now. The macho glow faded from him, and he wished that she were as buoyant as he had been, just to make him feel better.
    He should call the sheriff, he thought. The thought hit him like a slap. As foolish as it sounded, it was the right thing to do.
    They breakfasted in a café with a long counter crowded with men in straw cowboy hats. Most of them seemed to know each other, and it took a long time to get served. The coffee was tasteless, the sort of coffee of which it is said, “tasteless but hot.” But it was too hot at first, and rapidly cooled.
    The hash browns were leathery, and Paul recalled horror stories of hash browns that were dried and packaged, and reconstituted with water just before use. He wasn’t sure what had happened to these hash browns, but they were grim. The eggs were watery—sunny-side-up does not mean raw. The sausage was as sad a length of gut as Paul had ever seen.
    â€œI’ve never hit on the right breakfast to order at a place like this. Pancakes, maybe, but they always make me feel peculiar. Too full, too jittery. The syrup, I guess. And thirsty. But you can’t really ruin pancakes, can you? Or griddle cakes, as they call them on this menu.”
    â€œWhat will we do if we get there and there’s no food?”
    Paul put down his fork. “Of course there will be food. Or a grocery somewhere.”
    â€œYou believe that when we get there your cousin will be frying lambchops in the kitchen with some sort of muscular lover. He’ll be put off at first, but gradually happy to have us.”
    Paul didn’t know what to say. This had, in fact, been his fantasy. Or that perhaps he would have cameras set up all over the grounds of the place, whatever it looked like. But that certainly he would have food.
    â€œIt’s a terrible thing to take food.”
    â€œWhy?” she asked.
    â€œIt’s an admission that he might not be there. If he’s not there, we have problems.”
    â€œIf he’s not there, we stay and wait. We’ll have a vacation.”
    That seemed a little coldhearted, but the thought appealed to Paul. “He’ll be there,” he said.
    He peeled back the covering of a plastic tub, very small, filled with a liquid jam. It slid off his knife, so he poured it over the piece of pale toast.
    He found himself hoping that there was something terrible going on at the cabin. Something challenging. Something—he bit into his toast—disturbing. Like so many people he doubted his own courage. Not that he was a cowardly person. He had simply never been tested. This little visit to the woods might turn out to be exactly the right sort of test.
    A man in a green plastic poncho strode into the café, water trailing him in a ragged line of glistening drops. He greeted the man behind the counter, and they both agreed that it was indeed raining.
    Perhaps, Paul thought, it was foolish to want to be tested. He chewed his toast. He did not often indulge