Gingerbread Man (34 page)

"So you wanted to talk to me?" Vince reminded
the doctor as he watched the man's friend being wheeled away.

Graycloud looked up at him as if he'd
forgotten, then gave a nod. "Yes. My office will do." He led Vince
back up the hall, past the elevator doors that closed on three
nurses, two federal agents, and Reggie on his rolling bed. Around a
corner, the doctor opened a door, flipped on a light switch, and
then stood aside for Vince to enter before closing it. Moving
behind a large desk, he sank into his chair, as if he were
exhausted, and Vince sank into one in front of the desk just like
it.

"Been a hell of a night, huh?"

Dr. Graycloud nodded wearily.
"Hell
of
a night. You get nights like this around here every now and
then."

"Around Dilmun, you mean?" Vince asked.

"Nah. Around an emergency room. Oh, nothing
this dark. Farming accidents, hunting accidents, drunk drivers,
that sort of thing. But death is a tough combatant, no matter the
form he takes or the victims he comes for. Fighting him off is
exhausting." He gestured at the room around him. "That's why I keep
a little haven for myself in here."

Vince looked around. It was a cozy space.
Coffee pot, hot cocoa in a canister beside a tiny microwave. A cup
tree held mugs with nature scenes painted on them. Deer, birds,
mountains. The chairs were overstuffed and cozy, and there was a
cot around a corner in a spot that might once have been a
closet.

"I think it's time I told you what I know
about Amanda and Reggie. I think maybe Reg would want me to, at
this point. I don't like that Selkirk character, and I think the
chief already knows, or at least suspects."

Vince sat forward in his seat.

"I don't believe Reggie's guilty of anything
at all, you know. Most certainly not of harming children."

Vince nodded slowly. "I don't think he is
either, Doc, but I gotta tell you, it's gonna be tough to find
someone who looks more guilty than he does right now."

"Unless we find the real culprit you
mean."

Vince sighed, not answering that one.

The doctor leaned forward in his chair,
taking keys from a pocket and unlocking a file drawer in his desk.
He pulled it open, took out a folder, and closed the drawer again.
Then he tossed the file down on the desk.

Vince saw the name "Amanda" across the top,
and frowned. "That's an odd way to mark her file. No last
name?"

Doc shrugged. "I didn't see any need. I knew
who I meant. The fact is, we didn't know her last name. We didn't
even know
her first
name when Amanda came to us."

Vince took the file, flipped through it.
"Maybe you'd better start at the beginning, Doc."

Graycloud nodded, leaning back again, getting
comfortable. "It was late fall, 1983. The exact date is in the
folder there. It was in November, as I recall. Close to
Thanksgiving. I remember it was storming. Made that thunderstorm we
had the other night look like child's play. Blew up a real banger
that night. No snow just then, but it moved in by week's end, as I
recall. But this, this was a thunderstorm, and it was blowing full
throttle when I got a phone call from Reggie. Said to come to his
house right away. Said not to say a word to anyone about where I
was going."

Vince was fully alert now. Weariness no
longer held a candle to anticipation. "So, you went."

"Of course I went. When I got there, I found
Reggie pacing. And there sitting by the fire, was this little girl.
Skinny as a rail, pale, soaked to the bone." He hesitated for a
moment. "She was bruised, and there were these ..." He lifted a
hand, ran his thumb around his wrist. "These red rings around her
little wrists. Like she'd been bound, but not with rope. Cuffs of
some kind, was my best guess. Metal. She wouldn't let Reggie near
her. Wouldn't let either one of us near her for a time. And her
eyes, they were just..." Sighing, he shook his head slowly. "I
don't know. Hollow. Empty. I don't know how to describe it. She
looked ... bleak."

Vince was on the edge of his chair. "What did
you do?"

"We got her some food, warm milk to drink.
Reg had already given her blankets to wrap up in. She reacted well
to the food. Like she hadn't eaten in days. And I think that was
when she started to trust us just a little. We finally got her calm
enough to sleep, and I managed to examine her. Once she was out,
I'll tell you, she was out."

"And what did you find?"

Doc looked away. "She'd been raped. More than
once. There was internal damage. I doubt she'll ever be able to
have children of her own. She was malnourished and suffering from
exposure and post-traumatic stress. Nothing life threatening. She'd
been drugged. Sedated. I wanted to call in authorities. And that's
when Reggie started lying."

"What do you mean?"

"When I first arrived, he'd told me this
little thing had just shown up at his front gate, in the middle of
the night, right in the full brunt of that storm, not wearing a
stitch of clothes. That he just got up and looked out the window
and saw her out by the gate. But the minute I wanted to report this
to the police and Social Services, his story changed. He said he
knew who she was. He said she was the child of a relative of his,
and he made up the name. Amanda, he called her. Hell, I knew he was
lying. And he knew I knew it."

“Why? Why would he lie, Doc?"

The doctor looked Vince squarely in the eye.
"Reggie ran away from his father six times, Vince. The first time
he was only seven years old. Every time he was found by police or
social workers, no matter how many burns or broken bones or bruises
they found on that kid's little body, the authorities sent him
right back. And every time they sent him back, he got beaten ten
times worse than he had before he'd run. Every time, he would wait
until he was healed up, strong, and then he'd try again. Five times
they sent him back for more. The sixth time, he made his escape."
Doc shook his head. "Why do you think he lied?"

"He was afraid she would be sent back to
whomever hurt her."

Doc nodded. "She wouldn't talk much that
first night. Barely at all. Wouldn't tell us her name, her age,
anything. But the one thing she did say was all it took to convince
Reg to do whatever it took to keep her with him."

"And what was that?"

"When we asked her who hurt her this way, she
replied, ‘Daddy.’"

Vince closed his eyes, got to his feet, and
leaned over to flip open the file folder. Inside were photos of a
little girl who looked haunted, skinny, ill. He fought against
waves of nausea as he studied the snapshots.

"I went along with the lie," Doc went on. "I
knew what he was doing, but I pretended not to. It was the best
thing for the child. I believed that at the time, and I still do.
Look, flip the pages. There's a photo taken six months later."

Vince did, and found the snapshot of a
beautiful light-haired girl, smiling, with dimples, having what
looked like a birthday party. Her eyes were still shadowed by the
past, but she looked about a thousand percent better than in the
first photos.

"Reg had no idea when her birthday was, of
course. He just picked a date. Just like he picked a name. And even
after Amanda's body healed, she couldn't remember what happened
before Reggie found her. Except that her daddy had hurt her. The
idea of going back sent her into hysterics."

Vince nodded, closed the file. "When you
examined her that first night, did she have a mark on her
back?"

Doc looked up fast. "Yes. A burn, seared into
her flesh, right between the shoulder blades. Four-leaf clover.
There's a photo of it in the file."

Vince bent his head, thinking that if this
version of the story was true, they needed to know who Amanda's
abusive father had been. Because he might very well be the killer
they sought. If it was true. "Thank you, Doc. Thanks a lot."

"Amanda still doesn't remember what came
before, Vince. Hell, it's probably better that way."

Vince picked up the file, tucked it under his
arm. "Maybe you're right." But deep down he knew these revelations
didn't prove a thing. Not really. Doc hadn't seen the child arrive.
Vince knew the way a good prosecutor's mind would work. Doc's
testimony only went so far. For all he knew, Reg could have had the
girl captive for weeks, and only called the doctor in when she
seemed too ill to survive without help. Perhaps Reggie was a sick
child molester who had decided to keep the girl and raise her as
his own. How could anyone know for sure, if Amanda herself couldn't
even remember?

* * *

HOLLY AND AMANDA ran from the hospital's side
entrance, through gathering rain and utter slick, shiny darkness,
to Amanda's car. "You drive," Amanda said. "I'm still too
shaky."

Holly nodded, taking the keys and getting
into the driver's side. Amanda slid in the passenger side and
brushed the droplets from her hair, as Holly started the engine and
turned on the wipers and the heat.

"Where do you want to go?"

"Back home. To Reggie's house."

Holly wiped a hole in the fogged-up
windshield and pulled out of the parking lot. "You realize that's
the first place they'll look, don't you, Amanda?"

“It's all right. We won't be there long." She
glanced at Holly. "I mean, I won't. You can do whatever you want. I
don't want to pull you any further into my nightmare. You helped me
get back here, that's all I can ask you to do."

Holly reached across the seat, closed her
hand around Amanda's. "It's everyone's nightmare now. And I want
to—I need to help you through to the end of this thing, Amanda.
But, I'm not sure I understand."

"I need to remember," Amanda said. "It's time
for me to remember."

"The time before you came to live with
Reggie."

Amanda nodded.

"How much do you remember, Amanda? You never
got the chance to tell me back at the hospital."

Amanda closed her eyes. "I remember
pain."

"And nothing else?"

"No, there's more. Fear. Darkness, and rain,
and thunder, and cold. Those are the things I remember, the only
things I remember when I try to think of the time before Reggie.
The things I was feeling. Mostly the cold and the fear. I was so
cold I couldn't feel my bare feet anymore. And the thunder kept
getting louder."

Holly waited for her to continue, but she
didn't. "You were outside, in your bare feet, in the middle of a
thunderstorm?"

Amanda nodded. "At night. I don't think I
knew where I was."

"So, you were not in a town you knew, or at
least not a neighborhood you knew," Holly suggested. Then she bit
her lip. “Then again, to a small child, any neighborhood would
probably seem foreign in the dark, in the rain."

"Yes." Amanda's brows knitted in
concentration. "I saw light, and I went toward it, but then I
couldn't go anymore, and I just sank to the ground. I remember
looking up and into the kindest eyes I thought I had ever seen. I
was ... yes, I was curled up on the wet ground, outside the front
gate of Reggie's place. He picked me up, and he carried me inside,
and he wrapped me in warm blankets."

"And then what happened?"

"It gets clearer after that. The next thing I
remember is Dr. Graycloud and Reggie, feeding me warm, sweetened
milk and telling me that I was safe. That no one would hurt me
anymore. That I could trust them. They were warmth and light. And
after a while, they made the pain go away."

“They fed you, gave you a warm bed, promised
you they'd keep you safe."

"Yes," Amanda said. "Yes, and I needed to
believe that so badly that I did. I remember in the morning, Reggie
told me whatever happened before didn't matter. That I should try
to forget about it, because it couldn't hurt me ever again. That it
was gone, as if it had never been. That I was starting all over
again." She looked at Holly squarely. "And I think I took those
words to heart, I really do. Because I forgot everything. My name.
My history. Whatever horrible things had been done to me..."

"Have you tried therapy?"

Amanda sighed. "Therapy, hypnosis, drugs.
Uncle Reg got me the best doctors money could buy. Most of them
agreed that if I couldn't remember my past, it would be a bad idea
to try to force it." She sent Holly a worried look. "They said the
human mind knows what it can and cannot withstand. That if I'd
blocked something out that completely, maybe there was a
reason."

"Maybe you couldn't handle remembering."

Amanda swallowed hard. "Maybe. But that's no
longer relevant."

"Of course it's relevant!"

"No, it's not. If I don't remember now, that
little girl could end up dead. And I'll be responsible for it. No.
No, I have to remember. And I can only think of one way. I have to
go back. I have to go right back there, to the gate where Reggie
found me that night."

Holly frowned at her, shifting her gaze
rapidly from Amanda's determined face to the road and back again.
"And do what? Try to backtrack?"

Amanda nodded. "If I can retrace my steps,
make it as much like it was before as I possibly can, then
maybe..." Sighing, she lowered her head. "It's a long shot, I know,
but I just can't see any other way."

When thunder rumbled softly in the distance,
Holly said, "Sounds like the weather's going to cooperate."

Amanda looked up, eyes probing the black
depths of the sky. "Yeah." And she shivered. "God, I hate
thunderstorms."

* * *

"DR. GRAYCLOUD?"

The doctor held up a hand toward the nurse,
and kept on with his conversation with Vince and the federal agent
guarding Reggie's hospital room door. "I don't want to catch anyone
trying to get into this room again, do you understand me, young
man?"

"With all due respect, doctor. Special Agent
Selkirk is my superior."