Gingerbread Man (11 page)

"Holly?"

"It's okay, sweetie. I just want to take the
long way home this time."

"Why?"

Holly looked around. "Because that new boy
lives over this way, and I want to go past his house."

Ivy's smile spread wider. "Ooh. You
like
him, don't you?" She added in a sing song voice, "Holly and
Johnny, sittin' in a tree
—"

"Don't
even."
Holly scowled. "And
if you tell a soul, I'll never get you another library book ever
again. You hear?"

Ivy giggled, and skipped ahead "I won't
tell." Then she chanted, "Holly's got a boyfriend, Holly's got a
boyfriend..."

They walked down the street they didn't
usually take. And then the van came around the corner....

"No, no, no, no, no ..."

"Holly!" Hands gripped her shoulders, shook
her. "Holly!"

A sob welled up and she bit her lip, fighting
the nightmare of her past, telling herself to pull out of it, but
the words burst free anyway. "Mom told us to come straight
home!"

"Holly, open your eyes and look at me. Right
now." His tone was firm and level and strong. She opened her eyes.
Vince O'Mally was kneeling on the gravel road in front of her,
looking at her as if he thought she might be dying. She was sitting
down on the side of the road with her hands pressed to her ears.
Her face was wet. Really wet. So wet that tears were dripping off
her chin onto her blouse.

"What the hell happened to you? Was someone
out here? Did he—?"

She held up a hand to stop him. "I'm okay.
I'm okay, now." Her hand decided to grip the front of his shirt.
She'd been crying so hard her chest kept heaving with spasms, even
though she'd forced the tears to stop. His arms came around her,
and she didn't resist, although she remained stiff, holding herself
together by sheer will. He'd seen her out of control—twice now—but
only briefly. It was not pretty. He wouldn't see it again. No one
would.

He picked her up, carried her to his
Jeep.

She closed her eyes. "What's happening to
me?" she murmured. "Why now?"

He opened the door, set her on the seat, then
hurried around to get in the other side. "I'd like to tell you it's
all right, Holly, but I'm damned if I can do that until you tell me
what the hell is the matter. Did someone—?"

"No." She curled her legs beside her, and
turned her face into the seat. "No one was out on that road but me.
Me and my shadows."

"Look ..." he said. She felt his eyes on her,
sensed his hesitation. Then she felt his hand lower to her hair,
very gently. She thought maybe it was shaking just a little.
"Look," he said again, more softly this time, "if you tell me about
it...then, maybe I can help." He said it as if the words were being
pried out of him.

"No one can help me, but me." She forced her
voice level, refused to let it waver. It was broken by the
occasional sob, but that couldn't be helped. "I thought I was past
all this. Apparently, I have more work to do. And that's really all
you need to know."

Seconds ticked by. She felt him watching her,
felt the Jeep moving after a while, took comfort in the darkness.
She wished she could curl into it and never emerge. But she
couldn't do that. She had beaten the past into submission once. She
would simply have to do it again.

And she would do it on her own.

"I need to know a hell of a lot more than
that," he said as he drove her to her house. "And I'm afraid I
can't take no for an answer, Red."

HE DIDN'T KNOW what the hell to make of the
woman. He'd hurried to his Jeep, grabbed the envelope off the front
seat and tucked it underneath, and then driven out in search of
her. He had damn near run her over.

She'd been sitting there, right in the road,
rocking back and forth and sobbing the word "no" over and over,
never taking a breath in between. Her hands were pressing so hard
to her ears it looked as if she were trying to crush her head
between them, and she was crying so hard her back shuddered.

His first thought was that she'd been
attacked. That some son of a bitch had mauled her, or raped her.
But, no. That wasn't it

He carried her into her house, cursing at the
fact that the door had been left unlocked as he carried her
through. She worked at a police station, for crying out loud. Oh,
but wait, he thought, nothing bad ever happens in Dilmun. Yeah, it
certainly looked that way.

He carried her to her bedroom, or what he
thought was her bedroom. There were only two in the house, so he
figured he had a fifty-fifty shot at being right. They were
directly across the hall from each other, both doors open, and he'd
glanced quickly left then right. The first bedroom was neat. The
other was immaculate. He chose door number two, and took her in
there, yanked the covers back and laid her down in the bed.

She curled onto her side, buried her face in
the pillows, said nothing.

Vince pulled the covers up over her. "You
want some warm milk or tea or... anything?"

She said nothing. Just burrowed in more
deeply, hiding her face.

Sighing, he said, "Fine, have it your way."
He backed away from the bed, but he didn't go far. Just pulled up a
chair and sat down.

She didn't turn. But she did speak. She said,
"Go."

"You're a mess right now. I'm not going
anywhere."

"Please."

He got to his feet, went to the foot of her
bed, and yanked the blankets up. Then he bent and pulled off her
shoes. “Tell you what, Red. I'll go as far as the next room. I
imagine you like a little privacy when you get like this. I know I
do. So I'll go out there, and I'll close the door, and I'll give
you your space. But I'm not going any farther. Deal?" She was
holding it in. Waiting for him to leave and fighting with
everything in her to keep it all back until he did. He peeled her
socks off, and tucked the blankets back over her little pink feet.
Then he left the room, stepped into the hallway, closed the door,
and stood for a moment, just outside it.

He heard the dam break. Heard the sobs, soft
and squeaky. He didn't want to ache for this woman. But he ached
all the same. And for some reason it was taking every bit of his
willpower to stay out of that bedroom. There was this part of him
deep down inside that was itching to go back in there, hug the
woman close, and tell her he'd make everything all right for
her.

"It doesn't work that way, O'Mally," he told
himself.

This woman was different from the other needy
women he'd tried to rescue. She didn't want his help, didn't want
him anywhere near her, and seemed determined to keep the fact that
anything was at all wrong in her little world entirely to herself.
She was stubbornly independent, determined to be strong, even if
she wasn't.

He stiffened his spine and walked into the
Newman family's kitchen. He made himself a pot of coffee. While it
brewed, he slipped out to his car, and grabbed that fat envelope
from underneath the seat. It had "Newman" scribbled across the
front in his partner's familiar hand. Vince carried the file back
inside, sat down at the kitchen table, and began reading it

It was not a pretty story. It was long, and
it was chilling.

He hadn't finished it an hour later when
Holly dragged herself out of her bedroom. She looked bad. Her hair
stuck up all over, and her eyes were red-rimmed. She'd changed her
clothes, put on a terry robe, and he didn't know what else
underneath. She was sniffling and muttering to herself as she
entered the kitchen, but she stopped short when she saw him.

Blinking, she said, "What the hell are you
doing here?"

"I told you I wasn't going anywhere, Red.
What, you didn't believe me?" As he spoke, he shoved the papers
back into the envelope. But one sheet fell free, and fluttered to
the floor, face up. It was a grainy photocopy of the missing child
poster that had been plastered all over Syracuse after the
abduction of little Ivy Newman— Holly's kid sister. The little girl
depicted on it had been cute as hell. Chubby cheeks, and dimples.
Holly stared down at it and went utterly still.

"Where did you get that?"

He picked it up, but her eyes remained
riveted to the poster until he'd tucked it into the envelope, out
of her sight. Then she came closer, yanked the envelope from his
hand, and looked at the name scrawled across the front. Lifting her
gaze to his, she looked angry and betrayed. "You had to go digging,
didn't you?"

"I'm sorry, Holly. Yes. I had to."

"Why? My God, why?" She dropped the envelope
onto the table as if it were dirty. "You have no idea how difficult
it's been for my mother and me to put this behind us."

"If you think you've put it behind you, you'd
better go take a look in the mirror. This thing is eating you
alive."

She turned her back to him. "It wasn't. Not
until you showed up."

He sighed and got to his feet. Walking closer
to her, he touched her shoulders. "I need your help, Holly."

She sniffed. "You're not here on vacation,"
she accused.

"No. I'm not. I'm here because of two kids
who were abducted not long ago. Bobby and Kara Prague."

Her body went still as a statue under his
hands before she moved away and fixed her eyes on his face.
"Killed?" Her voice had gone flat. Toneless. Lifeless.

He did not want to answer that. But she
probed his eyes with hers, and then she seemed to know. "So was my
sister," she said in that same voice. "And what about the book?
What does that have to do with any of this?"

"I found it. In the same house where I found
... Bobby and Kara."

"I see."

"It came from the Dilmun Library. I thought
there might be a connection. That's why I came out here."

She shook her head slowly. "There's not."

"There has to be. Look, I know you don't want
to talk about this, but honestly, can it get any worse by trying?
You're having panic attacks, flashbacks—Jesus, Red, keeping it to
yourself sure as hell hasn't been a big success so far, has
it?"

She only stared at him, so he drew her to a
chair, set her down, and poured her some coffee. “Talk to me," he
said. "It can't possibly make you feel any worse."

"It won't do any good. It's a coincidence,
that's all."

"What is?"

"The book. That it's the same book my sister
was carrying when—"

"When what, Holly?" Reaching across the table
he gripped her hands.

"You already know. You read your precious
file."

He shook his head. “That file is full of dry
facts. Dates and times. Cops are trained to be objective and
uninvolved. I want to hear it the way you remember it."

The remaining color seemed to drain from her
face.

"Come on. Come on. Tell me," he urged.

She closed her eyes. "Don't ask me to do
this."

"You can help me save some little kid's life,
Red. Now you know damn well you can't say no to that. So, can we
skip ahead here and get on with it already?"

She opened her eyes, glared at him. "You're
cruel."

'Talk to me."

She drew a deep breath, fixed her gaze on her
hands where they lay flat on the table. "We were walking home from
school. I decided to take the long way home. I knew better. It was
my fault"

"That's bull."

She held up a hand. "If you want to hear
this, don't interrupt Vince. If I stop I may not be able to start
again."

"Sorry," he said. "Go on."

She lifted her head, stared past him at some
distant space, and gave him the story in short, clipped sentences
with no elaboration. It was not what he wanted from her.

"There was a van. It pulled over. A man
jumped out and grabbed her. She screamed. I did, too. It happened
very quickly. He just threw her in, and sped away. I ran after
them, screaming for help. People gathered around." She shook her
head slowly. "And that was all. It was a minute—less than a
minute—and it changed everything."

"Did you get a look at him?" He wanted more.
He knew she had more inside her, but maybe she couldn't let it out.
Maybe she couldn't even access it.

"He wore a mask."

"But you could see his eyes, couldn't
you?"

"No."

"How about the van? What color was it?"

She pressed a hand to her stomach as if
remembering made her queasy. "No, no more. I can't." Her breathing
changed, starting to get shorter and faster. "Ivy must have been so
scared. It kills me to think of how afraid she must have been, how
terrified. She was so little. I hope he killed her fast. Right
away. I have to hope that. I can't bear to think—"

"Okay, that's enough, Holly," he said. And he
said it firmly. He understood now—why she couldn't go too deep.
This was what she found when she did. "It's over now. It's not
happening now. She's at peace now." Holly met his eyes, and his
conscience pricked him when he saw the tortured anguish in them.
"Breathe deep and slow."

She did. He took the coffee away from her and
poured it down the sink. Then he rinsed the cup, refilled it with
water, and set it down in front of her before taking his own seat
again.

"Okay?" He watched her face.

She sipped the water and nodded. "Okay. But
no more, Vince. Not about that day. I can't remember, and I don't
want to go over it anymore."

He sighed in resignation. "What about the
book? Did your sister have the book with her when he took her?"

Holly nodded again. "It was her favorite. We
used to spend a few weeks of every summer down here, in one of
Uncle Marty's cabins. He never charged us. We loved it here. Loved
hanging around with our cousins, even though they were so much
older."

"Cousins? I haven't met them, have I?" Vince
asked.