Gingerbread Man (24 page)

She leaned closer and pressed her mouth
against his. As kisses went, it wasn't much. Hard, cool, all too
brief.

He looked at her, but he didn't scold. He
sighed, instead, and rose to his full height. "I have some things I
need to do."

"What kinds of things?"

"Come on, babe, I'm a detective. What kinds
do you think?"

She sent him a scowl.

"Research. Background checks on... some of
the players."

"Can I help?"

He shook his head. "No. You need to be here,
with your mother. Besides, I need to concentrate on what I'm
doing."

"You can't concentrate when I'm around?"

"No."

"Why not?"

He grimaced at her. "If you need me, use the
cell phone. I'll be in and out of the cabin, but I'll have it with
me, either way. Okay?"

"Okay."

He moved to the sliding doors that led to the
living room, then paused. "I want you to call if you feel the
slightest unease, Holly. Don't doubt your instincts at this point.
Call if you need me."

"I thought you didn't want me to need
you."

He closed his eyes slowly. "You know what I
meant."

"Yeah. Don't worry. I'll call. Go."

So he went. She watched him move through the
house, stop to speak with Chief Mallory, and then the two of them
left together. Seconds after the sounds of their cars pulling away,
Holly heard another vehicle come to a stop out front. She went
inside, crossed the living room and looked outside. It was one of
the local officers. Bill, she thought, glimpsing his blond hair
through the windows of the police cruiser. She waved. He waved
back.

Holly let the curtain fall closed, and went
to her mother's bedroom. Vince said to let her have some time
alone. Holly wasn't so sure that was a good idea. She tried the
door. It was still locked, but she'd locked herself out of her own
room any number of times. The standard locks on the mass-produced
door knobs were meant for privacy, not security. She went to the
kitchen for a butter knife, put it into the groove in the center of
the doorknob, and twisted. Then she opened the door and went
inside.

Her mother was curled up on the bed, sobbing
softly.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm sorry. Holly. I'm sorry," her mother
said. Her voice was thick, and muffled by the pillows. "Look at me.
God, I'm such a mess, and goodness knows you don't need this from
me. Not now."

She rolled onto her back, and Holly almost
gasped at the change in her mother's face. It was like looking back
in time. The starkness in her eyes. The color of her skin, sickly
pale. The tears had added their marks as well.

Holly blinked her own eyes dry, straightened
her spine. "Be back in a second, Mom."

Her mother nodded, and Holly left the room,
crossed the hall, and went to her own. In her bathroom, in her
medicine cabinet, were several bottles of tranquilizers in various
forms and doses. Some nearly empty, some all but full. She chose
the Valium, a mild dose, and filled a glass with water, carrying
both back to her mother's bedroom. Then she sat on the edge of the
bed.

"Here. I want you take this, and no
arguments."

Her mother took the pill obediently, which
surprised Holly. She'd expected an argument. She slugged down half
the glass of water, then handed it back to Holly, and curled up in
the bed. "Remember how you and Ivy used to burrow right in between
Dad and me when you couldn't sleep?" she asked.

Holly didn't want to remember. It hurt too
much. She lay down, though. She wrapped her mother in her arms just
the way her mom used to do for her when she was going through the
worst of it. And the way she used to hold both of them, when they
were afraid at night, after a scary movie or a bad dream. Ivy, with
her big blue eyes and those pale lashes, and the chubby cheeks she
still hadn't outgrown. Tiny little baby teeth. That was one of the
images Holly carried with her. Those tiny teeth when Ivy smiled.
And the dimples. And the way her eyes would scrunch when she really
laughed hard. It had been a long time since she'd allowed that
beautiful baby face to haunt her mind. A long time since thoughts
of how Ivy's pretty, innocent face must have looked while some
monster had tortured and raped and killed her. The terror.

She mustn't think of those things. She had to
take care of her mother.

But somehow, she couldn't stop the memories.
She heard her baby sister's screams, the last sounds she'd ever
heard her make, echoing in her mind, over and over. And she
couldn't erase the sound. She closed her eyes to drown it out,
tried to hear anything else, think of anything else. And then she
found something to focus on, and aimed her entire attention at it.
The soft, steady
tick, tick, tick
of the clock beside her
mother's bed. Yes. Yes, she thought silently. And inside her mind,
she whispered, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight...

***

VINCE LEFT. HE didn’t want to, but there was
work to be done, and he couldn't do it sitting around Holly's house
watching her struggle with her demons.

Mostly because he didn't
want
to watch
her struggle. He wanted to take her demons, slay them for her, fix
everything, make it okay, make
her
okay. And he knew that if
he tried he'd end up letting her down, and kicking himself for it
for the rest of his life. He might be tempted to try all the same.
But, damn, he didn't think she could survive another
disappointment

She had to do this on her own.

Rescue did not work with problems this
big.

"You were right about the light at the dock,
Vince. It looks as if it's been tampered with." Mallory sighed,
waited for a reply, didn't get one. "You all right?" the chief
asked.

Vince shook off his thoughts and turned to
face the older man. "Just thinking."

"About Holly?"

"No," he lied. "About how quick my ass will
be roasted when I call my boss today."

The chief shook his head a little. "You
withheld evidence?"

"Nah. I turned over everything I had. The
problem is, I was taken off this case. My leave of absence wasn't
by choice."

"I see. So you kept right on working it. And
now you're close to flushing out a child killer." He shook his
head. "Yep, they'll hate you for that. Probably even pin a medal on
you just to teach you a lesson."

"You don't know my boss."

"You weren't thinking about your boss."

He glanced sideways. "Holly has problems that
I can't fix for her."

"Holly has ghosts. She's also strong, sharp,
intelligent, and stubborn as they come. And if you tried fixing
things for her, she'd likely club you upside the head. She's fixing
things for herself. Doing just fine until all this cropped up, and
she'll be doing fine again once we get past it. So what's your
problem, son?"

Vince shot the man an impatient glare.

"You're afraid she's gonna fuck
you
up, is what it is. You don't want to risk it. You're scared to
death of that woman."

"You don't know a thing about it, Chief."

The chief shrugged, unoffended. "Listen. Let
me call your boss for you, huh?"

Vince shook his head. "It's my mess. I'll
clean it up. But expect a call later on. He's gonna want to get
your end of this, and more than likely there will be Feds crawling
all over town by this time tomorrow. Be ready."

"Will do." He pulled into the curving drive
and stopped. Vince got out of the car, held the door open and
leaned down. "You're gonna keep a man on Holly's place today?"

"Only when I can't be there myself."

"Good."

"You know, you can set up in the office, if
you want," the chief said before Vince could close the door. "Work
from there, if you think it'll help."

"By tomorrow, they'll probably have
commandeered any space you have for a base of operations. No, I'll
be okay right here."

"All right. Call if you need anything."

"Actually—"

"Yeah?"

Vince sighed. "Chief, how well do you know
Reginald D'Voe?”

The chief's eyes clouded over. "He's got
nothing to do with any of this."

"How can you be so sure?"

"You gotta trust me on this, son. Reggie has
secrets, sure. But digging around in his past will only dredge up
unnecessary pain for innocent folks. He's a good man."

"Okay. If you say so," Vince said, because it
was clearly the only thing to say. He didn't believe it though.
D'Voe had warned him off. And now the chief seemed to be doing the
same. The old actor had something to hide, and Vince had a sick
feeling in his belly that maybe he was starting to get an inkling
of what it was.

***

DORIS HAD FALLEN into a heavy sleep within a
few minutes, so Holly had slipped quietly out of the bed, run
herself a long, steaming bath, and spent a good hour soaking in it.
It eased her aching muscles. God, last night had beaten her up
pretty good. She had bruises on her that she'd been unaware of. On
her rib cage, her side, high on her thigh. Her head still ached,
but it was a dull ache. Most of her distress was emotional, not
physical. And the hot bath wasn't much help for that.

She lay back in the water, looked up, saw the
medicine cabinet, still open wide, and the row of little brown
plastic bottles on the shelf inside. They would help. She could pop
a few pills and put herself on level ground again.

She'd been off her meds for a while now. A
long while, and she'd been proud of it. It meant she could survive
without them. But maybe she wasn't as free of them as she'd
thought. After all, she'd needed to keep them nearby. Dr. Graycloud
disapproved, of course, nagged her about it constantly. He'd even
told her mother to keep track of the contents of the little brown
bottles so he would know if she started using any of them again.
But she hadn't. They were a crutch she kept around in case she
needed one. She was still terrified of being without the wide array
of pills.

And, now, now maybe it was a good thing they
were here. Old friends. Maybe she would need them before this was
all over.

There was a noise in the hall. Movement. Fear
jumped in her heart, and she got up fast, water sluicing down her
body. Was someone out there? How long had they been in the house?
God, she'd stayed too long in the tub. Her mother was alone, across
the hall. She reached blindly, found a big towel, pulled it to her
and stepped onto the floor, dripping, leaving little puddles.
Rivulets ran from her hair down her back as she anchored the towel
around her. She ignored the trickling water and stepped slowly out
of the bathroom, into her bedroom, toward the door. Someone was
moving around out there in the hallway, or maybe the kitchen.

She needed a weapon. Didn't have one. She had
locked the doors after Vince and the chief left. Bill was still
outside, wasn't he?

Softly, she went to the bedroom door, gripped
the knob, turned it slowly, pulled just a little.

In the hall, her mother strode past with a
big box in her arms.

"Mom?" Holly flung the door wider, then
followed her mother down the hall. "What are you doing up?"

“I couldn't sleep. But, Holly, look. Look
what I found."

She emerged into the small kitchen and set
the box on a chair. It was the only free spot. Holly stopped cold,
and looked around her. Ivy was everywhere. Photos of her smiling,
those dimples, the blue eyes. Soft blonde hair. Holly's own hair
had been that same golden color when she was a baby, her mother had
often told her. That color didn't last. It faded, like innocence.
Like Ivy. Photos were everywhere, framed, unframed, hanging,
standing, propped up. And clothes. Little-girl dresses, hung from
the backs of chairs. Hair ribbons dangled atop them. On the table,
Ivy's favorite doll lay looking forlorn and abandoned. Its hair had
been cut off, so only little nubs stuck out the holes in the top of
its head. One eye was stuck open. It wore no clothes. A tea set was
beside the doll. A puzzle. Some coloring books, open, with sloppily
colored pages and Ivy's name scrawled in kindergarten penmanship
across the tops.

She could almost hear her baby sister's
laughter. She could almost see her standing there, defiantly, the
baby doll in one hand, the scissors in the other, blonde locks on
the floor around her chubby bare feet. She could almost hear her
little voice. "Real babies don't have hair!"

"Oh, God, Mom..."

"I was just... remembering. We don't do that
enough."

Holly swallowed hard. "We stopped doing that.
We decided it was too painful. That's why we packed all this stuff
away."

"That was before."

Holly shuddered. Jesus, she couldn't take
this. Not without help. She turned back to the hallway, having made
up her mind. A Valium. Maybe something stronger. Anything, just to
dull reality.

"She's not at rest. She'll never be at rest
until her killer pays, Holly, and if Ivy isn't at peace, we can't
be either. We can't forget her. We can't pack her things away. We
can't—"

Holly took a single step into the hallway,
toward her room, her pills, her crutch, and the phone rang. It
froze her in her tracks. Doris grabbed it up before it could ring
again, and immediately said, "Hello? Jim, is it you? Have you
caught the man yet?"

"Mom, hon, it's okay," Holly said, turning
around, going back.

"Vince?" Doris said, then she shot Holly a
look. "It's Vince, dear. Vince, have you caught the man yet? Have
you?"

"Mom, please …"

Holly had her hand out. Her mother listened
to whatever Vince said, then blinking back tears, handed the phone
to Holly. "He hasn't arrested anyone yet. But he will. It won't be
long now. Your Vince is a good man, I can see that."