Gingerbread Man (37 page)

Holly looked, just in time to see the
taillights of the familiar bakery truck drive away. It was her
uncle's truck. He'd driven it for years. The familiarity of it now
seemed ominous rather than comforting.

"I was in the truck!" Amanda shouted. "Holly,
he's getting away!"

"I know, I know. But we'll never catch him on
foot." Holly ran to the phone in the kitchen, yanked it up. Silence
greeted her. She looked at the line, saw it cut cleanly in two.
"Damn!" Then her gaze hit the key rack hanging beside the phone.
Aunt Jen's car keys, or God she hoped they were. She snatched them.
"Come on, Amanda! We'll take my aunt's car. We have to stop
him."

Amanda nodded, running into the kitchen. They
ran through the door at the far end that led to the attached
garage, and Holly hit the button to raise the overhead door as she
passed.

She got behind the wheel. Amanda grabbed
something off the workbench in the garage as she passed, before
diving into the passenger side, while Holly frantically jammed keys
into the switch until one fit. She twisted it. The car started.
"Thank God." As she shoved it into gear and pulled out into the
pouring rain, she glanced sideways at Amanda.

In her lap were a hammer and a tire iron.

* * *

HOLLY'S HOUSE HAD been empty, and Vince saw
no signs that anyone had been near it. But at Reginald D'Voe's, it
was a different story. The gate was unlocked, closed, but unlocked.
Amanda's car was in the driveway. No one in it, though. And the
house was pitch dark.

He went to the door, rang the bell, pounded
on the wood. "Amanda! Holly, open up, it's Vince!"

No answer. He tried only once more before
drawing his gun, breaking the glass, and reaching through it to
unlock the door.

"Jesus, Vince, you don't have a warrant,"
Jerry said.

He said nothing, just ducked inside, Jerry
right on his heels. He paused there, flipping on the lights, and
looking around. Wet footprints still dampened the floor in the
foyer. "They've been here. But why the hell would they leave on
foot?" He crept through the darkened mausoleum, calling, but there
was no reply.

* * *

HOLLY STEERED THE car in the direction Uncle
Marty's bakery truck had gone.

"What if we've lost him?" Amanda asked,
knuckles flexing and releasing on the tire iron, eyes wide and
fixed straight ahead.

"We won't. There are no turns off this road
for miles, and the truck can only go so fast." She hit a pothole as
if to emphasize her point.

"Where does it go?" Amanda asked.

"It hugs the lake, most of the way around it.
Passes through some towns farther north, but it's damn barren up to
that point." She glanced sideways at Amanda. She was rocking now,
slowly, steadily back and forth in her seat "Amanda?"

Amanda gave her head a shake, pressed the
heels of her hands to her temples. "It's coming back. It's all
coming back, and I don't want it. Dammit, I don't want it."

"I'm sorry, Amanda." Holly reached out to
stroke the girl's hair, but Amanda pulled away from her touch.

"There was a room. In a house. He kept me
there. Oh, God, for so long, I don't know. It seemed forever.
Chains. My wrists." She rubbed at the phantom marks that must have
once been on her wrists. "Water, once in a while. Hardly any food.
And I was alone a lot of the time. All alone, in the dark. No
lights. It was so cold there at night. But it was worse when he was
there. It was so much worse."

"Amanda..."

"He
...hurt
me."

Those three words, spoken so softly, carried
more pain in them than Holly had ever heard before.

"If I could make the memories stop, I
would."

Amanda turned toward Holly. "You can't."

"I know."

Thunder cracked like a rifle shot and Amanda
cringed, closed her eyes. "It was just like this. There was a
storm, and I was so afraid in the dark, with the thunder and
lightning crashing, that I pulled, and I pulled. And my wrist
slipped right through the metal bands." She looked down at her own
hands in wonder.

"You'd probably lost enough weight that it
made the difference," Holly said.

Amanda nodded. "I heard him coming. So I ran.
I found my way out of the house. I was so weak. And so cold. And
then I saw a truck. It was parked down the street. I just wanted to
get in out of the rain, and I thought it was safe. Something about
the truck... told me it would be safe. I couldn't reach the doors
in the front, but the back wasn't shut tight. And I could smell the
bread. It smelled so good. I crawled inside. I ate and ate. And
then I wrapped up in a piece of canvas or something I found back
there, and I went to sleep." She looked at Holly again, eyes wide.
"I didn't know it was
his
truck. When I woke up it was
moving. And when it stopped again, I peered out through the crack
where the back door was still open just a little. And I saw your
aunt's house. And I saw
him
going into it."

"You recognized him?" Holly asked.

"Not his face. I'd never seen his face. He
always wore a mask when he was with me."

Holly's memory flashed back to the man in the
mask, tearing her sister from her life. And suddenly those ice blue
eyes were familiar. They were her own uncle's eyes.

"But I knew it was him," Amanda went on. "His
walk. His shape. His way. I just knew. And it was still storming.
But I realized I still wasn't safe—the truck I thought would be my
escape was his truck. It was his truck, and I had to get away. So,
as soon as he went inside the house, I climbed out, and I ran away
from the truck, away from the house."

"Into the woods," Holly said softly. "And you
wound up at Reggie's."

Nodding, Amanda sniffed and swiped at her
tears. "Reggie never hurt me."

"I never thought he did."

Amanda nodded, lifting her head. Then she
froze. "Look. Taillights."

Holly looked ahead and saw them. She quickly
turned off the car's headlights so Marty wouldn't see them coming.
"Uncle Marty and Aunt Jen have two daughters," she told Amanda.
"Kelly and Tara. Five and seven years older than me. When I was a
little girl I thought they were the wisest, the coolest girls in
the world." She sighed, shaking her head. "When Kelly turned
eighteen she dropped out of high school, took Tara, and ran away.
They turned up months later, living on the west coast, making their
own way. I never knew why." She bit her lip at the inevitable
conclusion.

"They must have been his first victims."

Holly nodded. "And my sister was his
next."

"Oh, God. Holly, I'm so sorry." Amanda's
hand, cool and soft, smoothed back a lock of Holly's hair, and
stroked a path down her cheek. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have told
you all I did. It was cruel."

Holly looked at her, her own eyes welling
with tears. "At least you got away. I'm so glad of that."

Amanda nodded hard. "And Bethany will, too.
We'll see to it."

Suddenly a soft tone beeped.

"What was that?" Amanda looked around, her
eyes wide. Holly checked the lights on the dashboard.

"None of the warning lights are on. Oil,
gas—"

It beeped again.

“It's in here." Amanda popped open the glove
compartment Then she released a loud breath. "Oh, God, it's a
phone!" She yanked it out, looking at its face. "It's the low
battery signal."

"Pray there's enough for one call," Holly
said.

Amanda looked at her. "Who should we call.
Nine-one-one? Chief Mallory? The hospital?"

Holly met her eyes. There was only one person
she wanted to call right now. "Vince," she said. "We have to call
Vince."

Amanda's lids lowered quickly.

"I know you don't trust him, Amanda, but I
do. And you trust me, don't you?"

Lifting her gaze again, Amanda hesitated,
then finally, she nodded. "What's the number?"

Holly rattled it off and Amanda punched the
buttons, then handed her the phone. She heard Vince's cell phone
ring once. Then again.

"He'd better answer fast," Amanda said. "The
bakery truck is stopping."

Holly hit the brakes, pulling off to the side
of the road as much as she could, as the truck did the same a short
distance ahead. She drove into the darkest, most shadowy section of
the roadside she could see. Then she cut the engine, staring dead
ahead.

"Answer, Vince. Dammit, pick up your
phone!"

VINCE'S CELL PHONE bleated as he was
wandering around a make-believe Halloween graveyard in the pouring
rain in the dead of night. Which explained why he jumped out of his
skin, fumbled for the phone, and then dropped it.

It had rung three more times by the time he
fished it out of the mud, wiped it on his coat, and punched the
right button.

"Hello?" he said, when he brought it to his
ear.

"Vince! We need help."

"Holly, where the hell are you? What's going
on?"

A static buzz hit his ear. Then, "It was
Uncle Marty. Aunt—
zzz
—house—
zzz
—dead."

"What? Holly I can barely hear you. Are you
all right?"

"Lake Road," she said, between further
buzzing. "—ing north."

"Holly—"

"Hurry.'"

And that was it. The connection was dead.

"Jesus Christ," Jerry said. "Look at
this."

Vince turned, and looked beyond the broken
section of fence, just inside the woods. Jerry was there, holding
up what seemed to be a rectangle of the ground, like a door. "It's
some kind of old root cellar. The top was completely covered in
soil and leaves." Jerry flipped the door all the way over and left
it open.

Gabbing Jerry's arm, Vince started back to
the car. "Ten to one that's how he got the kid," Vince said. "He
slipped away from the party, came out here, and waited. Grabbed her
when she passed closely enough. Drugged her, hid her there in that
freaking tomb, and rejoined the party. It would have only taken a
few minutes. Then he came back for her later, after the party was
over, and the searchers had moved farther out into the woods."

"And when he did, he left the top, slightly
askew. Otherwise I'd have never seen it. But how do you know he was
at the party?"

Vince looked at the phone. "I'm pretty sure
Holly just told me it was her uncle Marty."

“The guy you rented the cabin from?" Jerry
asked, hurrying to keep up with Vince.

“The same." He was thumbing the buttons of
the cell phone even as he opened the car door and got behind the
wheel. "Mallory? It's Vince. Holly's in trouble. It was a bad
connection, but I got 'Lake Road' and 'North.' How do I get there
fastest from the D'Voe place?"

The chief gave directions as Vince drove,
back wheels slipping sideways in the mud.

"Meet me out there," Vince said. "Bring
everyone you can muster. Feds included. And some ambulances. God
only knows what we'll find when we catch up to them."

He hung up and looked at Jerry as he
negotiated the rain-wet, unpaved road, and turned onto the one
called Lake Road. No one would ever know it. It didn't bear a sign.
"Mallory says this road runs for seventy miles, around the lake.
God only knows how far ahead of us they are."

"Just don't kill us before we get there,"
Jerry suggested.

* * *

HOLLY WAS STILL speaking into the cell phone
when she realized that Vince was no longer replying. Twisting the
phone in her hand, she scowled at the panel that had gone dark.
"Damn, damn, damn." She punched buttons to no avail. The thing lit
up only once, just long enough to flicker "low battery" on its face
before it died again. Holly flung it into the back seat.

A hand clutched her arm. "Look."

She glanced at Amanda, then toward where
Amanda was staring. The taillights on the bakery truck went out,
leaving the deserted road almost pitch dark. Then the truck's door
opened, and an interior light spilled out just enough to illuminate
Uncle Marty as he got out.

He hopped from the step, down to the road,
then slammed the truck's door closed. Pausing a moment, he looked
up and down the wood-lined road, then he came walking straight
toward Holly and Amanda.

"Oh, God, he sees us!" Amanda said. She
reached for the door handle.

"No." Grabbing Amanda's hand, Holly dug the
nails of her free hand into the car's upholstery. "I don't think
so. We're in the shadow of the pines. Just wait."

They sat there, frozen, and Holly swore she
could hear both their heartbeats pounding in her ears. He kept
coming, kept coming, all the way to the back end of the truck. And
then he turned away from them to open the truck's rear door. It
slid upward when he yanked on it.

"He's going after Bethany," Amanda whispered.
"She's in the back of the truck—just like I was. Only when I was in
there, he didn't know it."

"He probably still doesn't know what ever
happened to you," Holly said softly.

"We can't let him hurt that little girl."

"I know."

Marty grabbed a handhold, stepped up onto the
back of the truck, and was swallowed up by the darker shadows
within. Holly grabbed her door handle.

Amanda touched her shoulder. "Wait." Then she
pulled the keys from the switch.

Holly sighed with relief that she hadn't
opened the door and caused the car's "door ajar" tone to sound in
the silence of this deserted place. "Good thinking, Amanda." As an
afterthought she reached above their heads, moved the switch on the
overhead light to off, so it wouldn't come on when she opened the
door and give them away.

"That, too." Amanda clasped Holly's hand
once. Then she pushed something into it. The hammer she'd taken
from the garage. The implication made Holly's stomach lurch. But
she closed her hand around the thing anyway. "Ready?" Amanda
asked.