Gingerbread Man (16 page)

Vince kept looking at her, searching her face
with worry in his. He kept asking if she was okay. She didn't
really know how to answer that.

As they rounded the corner toward Holly's
house, a shadow caught Holly's attention, from the corner of her
eye, and she felt an old dread in the pit of her stomach as she
jerked her head toward it.

It was there, and then gone, all in the space
of a heartbeat. The dark shape of the van had vanished around the
bend just as she turned to look at it.

Her heartbeat slammed against her chest "Did
you see that?" she asked Vince.

He glanced at her. "See what?"

Holly closed her eyes. Hell, she'd seen the
van in her dreams. Maybe it hadn't even been there. Maybe she'd
just...

"The front door is open. Vince, the front
door is open!" Holly was wrenching her passenger door open before
the vehicle had even come to a complete stop. She lunged out of the
car and ran toward the house, with her heart in her throat. She
surged up the steps, ran through the open front door, and saw her
mother, lying on the sofa, one arm dangling limply, hand dragging
the floor. She took a step toward her, then stopped when her foot
hit paper. She looked down.

A copy of her sister's missing-child poster
lay on the floor, face up.

Holly yanked it up, bit back a scream, and
lunged across the room to where her mother lay. "Mom!" She fell to
her knees, skidding on the carpet and grabbed her mother's
shoulder. .

Doris's eyes flew open, and she blinked at
her daughter. "What's wrong, Holly? My goodness, hon, you look like
you've seen a ghost."

"You ... you're okay." Holly sank back onto
her heels, her hand still clasping her mother's shoulder. "You're
okay."

"Well, of course I'm okay. Why wouldn't I be?
You're the one I've been worried about."

"I... the door. The front door. Was open, and
..." Holly still held the poster in one hand. She drew that hand
downward slowly, slid the sheet of paper underneath her blouse, so
her mother wouldn't see it.

"It was?" Doris sat up the rest of the way,
frowning toward the door. "It was open?"

"Yeah, it was."

"Well, of all the... I'm sure it was closed
when I curled up here." Then she gave her head a shake and smiled.
"Hello, Vince."

"Hello. Doris. So, you don't know how the
door got open?" He came up behind where Holly was crouching. She
straightened, suddenly embarrassed by her instant and apparently
needless panic.

"Well, no. I have no idea," her mother was
saying. "I... oh, I'll bet I know! It was probably Bethany. I told
her she could come by today to finish up the leftover cookies. She
must have come while I was napping."

Holly stiffened. Again, the images played
through her mind. The gray van, crawling closer. Ivy being snatched
up and pulled inside. The gray van she'd thought she'd glimpsed
just now, vanishing around the corner like a shark into the depths.
"B-Bethany was here?"

"Look in the kitchen. She may have just come
in and helped herself, you know she thinks of our house just like
home."

Holly turned slowly to look into the kitchen.
The lid was off the cookie jar, sitting beside it on the counter.
There were some crumbs. An empty glass, with a film of milk coating
the inside. She had been here. So had the van. And the front door
...

"Bethany," she whispered.

Vince put a hand on her shoulder. "Holly,
what—?"

"I'll be back in just a second." Holly went
out the front door, closed it behind her, then she ran across the
lawn, her heart pounding. She heard Vince calling after her, but
she didn't pause. Not until she was at the Stevens's front door,
pounding on it "Bethany! Bethany, where are you?"

The door opened, and Bethany stood there,
looking up at Holly with wide, frightened eyes. Her mother stood
right behind her. "Holly? What's wrong?"

Holly almost wept in relief. Would have, in
fact, if she hadn't felt a pair of strong hands close on her
shoulders, and a deep strong voice speak from behind her. She tried
to stop shaking. Instead, she dropped to her knees, and hugged
Bethany as gently as she could manage under the circumstances.
"Nothing's wrong," she whispered. "I just... I'm glad to see you,
kiddo."

"You're so silly, Holly." Bethany squeezed
her neck, and when she let go, Holly straightened, and hoped her
terror didn't show. But Valerie Stevens was looking at her
oddly.

"Mommy bought the material for my Halloween
costume today, and the pattern and stuff," Bethany announced.

"Oh, that's great," Holly murmured. "I can't
wait to get started."

"Me neither."

"It's... awfully good of you Holly," Valerie
said softly. "Sewing has never been my strong suit."

"I'm glad to help. We're going to have fun
doing it, aren't we Bethany?"

Bethany nodded. “I’ll bring it over later and
show you everything."

"Good, good, I can't wait to see it."

Vince closed his hand around one of Holly's,
and spoke. "Actually the reason we came over was to ask if you had
been at Holly's house today."

"Umm-hmm," Bethany said with a proud nod.
"Mrs. Newman said to help myself to the cookies, and so I did." She
looked up at Holly. "She was sleepin' so I didn't wake her up. It's
okay, isn't it?"

"Of course it's okay. I just wanted to make
sure it was you and not some crazed cookie bandit." Holly bent, and
deliberately arched one eyebrow. "Or maybe you
are
a crazed
cookie bandit?" She grabbed Bethany's middle and tickled her until
the child squealed. Then she let her go. "I'd better get back."

"Bye, Holly. See you later," Bethany
said.

Holly turned with Vince to leave, but Valerie
cleared her throat, stopping her. Val had stepped out onto the
porch, and pulled the door closed behind her. "Holly, something
frightened you, didn't it?"

Meeting her neighbor's eyes, Holly nodded. "I
thought I saw something."

"Holly, you don't have to—"

"She's Bethany's mom, Vince." Holly faced the
woman again. "The van, the one that took Ivy away. I thought I saw
it, and then my door was open, and then I realized Bethany had been
by, and it just all—it brought it all back. I'm sorry. Val, I
didn't mean to freak out like that."

Valerie blinked a little too fast. "Oh,
Holly. You sweet girl. Don't you apologize for looking out for
Bethany. Not ever. I'm sorry this is still... so hard for you."

"If you don't mind, can we keep it between
us? I don't want to worry Mom."

"Sure. Sure, hon, that's fine. You take care,
okay?"

Holly nodded, and Val went back inside.

Vince drew Holly down the steps, turned her
back toward her own home. They went a few steps, before the shaking
that had begun deep in the core of her made its way to the surface,
and her breaths came faster.

He led her around the house, toward the back
yard. Out of a direct line of sight from either home. "Don't let it
get you, Holly. Come on, it's all right."

"I swear I saw that van, Vince. I swear I
did. Just out of the corner of my eye, when we first pulled in. And
I thought... I thought—"

"I know. But Bethany's safe, she's fine.
Everything's fine."

She leaned back against the side of her
house. Vince kept his hands on her shoulders as if to steady her,
and she lifted her head. “It's not fine, Vince.
I'm
not
fine. You know what's going on here as well as I do. That bastard
who killed my sister isn't just free. He's here. He's right here in
Dilmun."

He stared into her eyes, and she felt him
searching them. What he might be looking for, she didn't know. "We
have no evidence of that. None."

"Don't we?" She shook her head. "Well, it's
either that, or I'm losing my mind. Imagining things. Seeing
shadows that aren't there. Vans that don't exist." She pulled the
sheet of paper from underneath her blouse. "This was on the living
room floor, Vince."

She saw him pale when he realized what the
paper was. "We could have dropped it. Remember, it was in the files
the other night."

"You think we dropped it? You think something
like this has been lying around my living room and I didn't see it?
And Mom didn't see it?"

"It could have slipped underneath a piece of
furniture. Maybe the door being open made a breeze, and it..." He
didn't finish. He had to know how lame his words sounded.

"Either I'm completely insane," she said
slowly, "or he's here. Messing with my head."

"Or it's just coincidence, combined with
incredible stress..."

"You don't believe me."

"I don't know what to believe right now."

Holly pushed away from the house, away from
his hands. “I’ll tell you what I believe. I'm through letting that
bastard fuck with my family, with my mind."

"Holly?"

She turned, glaring at him. Her hands curled
into fists at her sides, clenching so tightly her nails dug into
her palms. "I'm not going to take it anymore." She looked beyond
him, toward the road, and she shouted, "Do you hear me, you son of
a bitch! It's over!"

"Holly!" Vince reached out and grabbed her
shoulders.

The tears exploded from her. She fell into
his arms and she let them come. Vince held her hard against him,
his hands in her hair, his mouth near her ear. "It's all right.
It's okay," he kept saying it over and over again. But it wasn't
okay. She didn't think it would ever be okay again.

VINCE HAD SEEN the change. In the car, she'd
been feeling panicky, frightened. In the house, when she thought
another child might be at risk, her entire demeanor had changed.
She found her anger.

It was good. Healthy. Oh, he didn't want her
shouting challenges to a killer in the streets, but he was glad
she'd found her strength. Maybe that was selfish, because it
verified what he'd begun to suspect about her. He'd sensed that
inner strength she hadn't tapped. Now he saw her finding it,
grabbing hold.

She was something, all right. He couldn't
take his eyes off her. And when she collapsed, sobbing in his arms,
he found himself feeling way more than he ought to. In fact he
caught her face between his palms, turned it up to his, and came
within a hair's breadth of kissing her.

It was that close.

Damn.

He didn't know if she'd seen that van, or
just imagined it. But he had to give her the benefit of the
doubt.

Though he thought some others might not be so
inclined. In fact a short while later the chief showed up in
response to Holly's call, and he looked downright skeptical. But he
still promised to stay the night, just in case Holly's fears proved
true.

That settled, she led Vince outside, one hand
on his arm, her emotional storm long past. "Chief Mallory promised
to spend the night, and to keep a close eye on Bethany next door as
well," she said. "Mom will be fine."

"So, where are we going?"

"We need to talk."

He didn't realize there was more she wanted
to say. "About what?"

"Look, you told me you needed me to tell you
everything about that day. The things that didn't make it into the
report. I'm ready to do that. I'll rip my chest open and let you
wade around in my blood, if it'll help us figure out who he is so
we can put him away, once and for all. But we need to be
alone.
I don't want phones and faxes interrupting every five
minutes. All right?"

He nodded. "All right. I'm with you."

"No you're not. But you're all I've got right
now."

He blinked, not sure what she meant. She got
into the car. "Your place," she told him. And he drove.

***

"EVERYTHING HAS TO be just perfect for the
children," Reggie said as he knelt beside one of the fake
tombstones on his lawn, rigging yet another special effect for the
party. "I love to give them a good scare on Halloween."

"I never would have believed such a true
demon lurked under your gentle exterior, Uncle Reggie." Amanda was
unrolling strips of artificial turf over the various extension
cords that crisscrossed the lawn. She secured them to the soil with
small stakes. It wouldn't do to have anyone tripping. She didn't
want to see any of the children get hurt.

"Oh, it's good for them," Reggie insisted.
"What child doesn't want to be frightened on Halloween?"

"Me," she answered.

He sent her a trademark scowl and made claws
of his hands. Then he knelt again. "Is this one all plugged
in?"

"All set, Reg."

"Ahh, good." He tugged a remote control from
his pocket and thumbed a button. The ground in front of the
tombstone seemed to crumble and open, and a gnarled hand rose
slowly up from the earth. In truth there was a black box there,
sitting in a perfectly square hole, with a patch of turf over the
top. Slices precut in the turf allowed the hand to claw its way
through. "In the dark it's going to look fantastic. Sound effects
for this one?"

"Another scream, perhaps?" Amanda asked. She
reached to the portable CD player clipped to a belt at her waist
and pressed a button. An ear-splitting shriek filled the air,
coming from several speakers spaced around the lawn, all of them
hidden.

"Hmm, maybe not," Reggie mused. "The little
ones will probably be shrieking enough all by themselves.
Especially the little girls."

"You always did like us best."

"Lucky for you, brat."

She smiled at him and hit another button.
"Rattling chains?" she said, as the sound effect played. "Moaning
wind?" She played that one. Then added, "Howling wolves?"

"That's it. The wolves. Children of the
night!"

She rolled her eyes, smiling wider. "I swear,
Uncle Reggie, I've never seen you this excited. You're like a kid
at Christmas."