Gingerbread Man (20 page)

THE STORM WAS brutal, and there wasn't a damn
thing he could do to protect Holly from its fury. Pounding rain
soaked the carpet of fallen leaves, making them slick. He carried
her as fast as he could manage without falling and dumping them
both. She was no longer conscious. But he was pretty sure she was
alive. Bending over her as well as he could, he trudged toward the
house. Yellow light spilled from its myopic windows, and the house
seemed to hunch against the rain like an old man, dressed in fading
goth. It tried to be imposing, like something out of one of its
owner's old films, but instead it was just sad. The wind sucked up
piles of leaves, then coughed them out again in great gusts. And he
bowed into it and walked onward, uphill, to the pinnacle, the
crown.

He'd heard sounds again and again in the dark
woods, before the storm had cut loose. Footsteps, maybe. Maybe just
deer and rabbits having a laugh at his expense. Who the hell knew?
There could be an army trailing his ass now and he wouldn't know
it.

Finally, he was at the top of the large, wet
hill. Face-to-face, in fact, with the wrought-iron fence that
surrounded the place. Every four feet, like clockwork, a
rabid-looking iron bat perched atop a fence pole, snarling down at
would-be intruders. Christ. It was supposed to be intimidating, but
the effect was ruined by sections that no longer stood perfectly
upright. They tilted inward here, outward there. He grabbed hold of
a bar, gave it a shake, but, despite its lopsidedness, the fence
was solid. Thirty yards of weed-choked lawn stood between it and
the back door. He looked at the length of the damn fence he was
going to have to walk to get to the front. Holly slid lower and he
hiked her up, kept on walking.

Rain beaded on her face, and dripped steadily
from her hair. It was pelting her cheeks, her eyes, while the wind
whipped her hair, and it didn't even faze her. She didn't even
flinch. Vince was cold right to his bones. His feet had morphed
into frozen concrete blocks. He couldn't feel anything from them
except their weight. His knuckles— those he felt. They throbbed and
howled. His face burned and he thought maybe the wind had razed all
the skin from his nose and cheeks and had gone to work now on the
bones.

The fence turned to the right. The wind
sliced him from the side now, and it had teeth. Even the leeward
side of his face burned with cold. Anyone seeing him from a
distance, he thought, slogging along on leaden stumps, carrying a
lifeless-looking virgin toward the sagging Gothic mansion, would
probably think Reginald D'Voe was filming his great comeback piece.
He half expected to hear a wolf howling backup vocals to the
storm.

Finally, he made it to the gate.

Closed. The fucking thing was closed, and
apparently locked. Shit. Vince tipped his head back, aimed his fury
beyond the gate, at the house's slab of a front door with its black
iron knocker, and he let out a howl that belonged in one of Reggie
D'Voe's death scenes. Swinging one of the cinderblocks he'd been
using for feet, Vince kicked the gate so hard one of the gargoyle
bats toppled and fell. Then he crouched, snagged the ugly little
demon in one hand, and managed to hurl it at the house, all without
dropping Holly. The impact made a satisfying thud, audible even in
the chaos of the storm.

A minute ticked past, then another. Finally,
the front door opened. Yellow light filled the crevice, and shot
out in a feeble effort to penetrate the gloom. "Who's there?"
Reginald D'Voe called, using his most menacing silver screen
villain tone.

"I need help." Vince grunted the words. His
foot was starting to register pain from the impact with the fence,
and he was losing the feeling in his arms.

The man vanished inside, the door banged
shut. Vince fell to his knees, partly in abject disappointment, and
partly because the cinderblock effect had moved up to include his
lower legs, knees, and the better part of his thighs.

But then the door opened again. That slit of
yellow light, followed by a round white one. Flashlight, his mind
told him. And behind it, a yellow rain slicker. And slicker and
slicker, he thought, almost laughing aloud as the thing bobbed
closer like some shiny, yellow, headlight-equipped ghost.

One arm went numb, started to droop, and
Holly with it. Gritting his teeth he lifted her again, grunting
like a goddamn caveman with the effort it took. Yellow Slicker
unlatched the gate, opened it. The flashlight beam took a shot at
burning out Vince's retinas. He squinted back at it and said, "The
monster fucking lives." Then he was gone.

***

VOICES BLURTED WORDS in clipped fragments. As
if someone were turning the radio dial back and forth, just passing
the station each time.

"—but why here?"

"—sn't look to me... had much choice, Reg.
Hell, look... em."

"—tective ... up to somethi... he...
suspects—"

"Quiet!"

That one came through loud and clear. It was
a bark that silenced the other man midsentence. No one had turned
the dial that time. Vince struggled to focus, to listen.

"He's coming around." A hand, an old hand,
callused and dry, but warm, touched his face. "Detective O'Mally?
Can you hear me?"

His eyes were open. Vince didn't remember
opening them, but now he saw they were by the hazy blur of a human
being, leaning over him. He licked his parched lips, parted them.
"Yeah."

The blur smiled. A flash of white where the
teeth should be. "Good. Good. I'm Ernie Graycloud. Remember? We met
at the bonfire?"

He came a little clearer. Long silver and
black hair, copper skin, lined with age. "You're the doctor," he
muttered. "But medical or witch?"

"A little bit of both. My license to practice
is from the State of New York. Most of what I know about healing, I
learned from the Iroquois. You got any other smart-ass questions
you want answered while I'm here?"

He swallowed hard, knowing he'd insulted the
man, wondering where the hell his brain was sleeping. "Yeah. What
have you done with my redhead?"

"She's over here, Detective," a female voice
called.

Vince turned his head toward it, saw Amanda
D'Voe in a white, floor-length satin robe, sitting beside a big
white bed. In the bed, dwarfed by pillows and comforters pulled
clear to her chin, Holly lay still and pale. "Is she okay?"

"Exposure, a mild concussion," Ernie
Graycloud explained. "We can't tell much more until she comes
around."

Vince sat up, winced, fell back down on the
pillows. "She needs to be in a hospital."

"She's not in immediate danger, Detective.
There's nothing wrong with her that can't wait for this storm to
pass."

"The doctor's right," Amanda said softly, in
that gentle way she had. "You'd be risking her life to try to
travel in this. There are trees down, power lines, too, and the
phones are all out. We were lucky Ernie came by tonight, or who
knows what we would have done?"

Vince frowned, processing her words, tucking
them away in that mental file he kept for things that made no sense
whatsoever and yet tripped his silent alarm. There was something
there.

He turned back to the doctor. "Thanks. I
didn't mean to insult you before. I feel like I've been on a
three-day drunk." His vision cleared more and he realized he was
lying on what appeared to be a chaise lounge covered in furry
leopard print. Or maybe he was the one with the head injury.

"You have a bruised rib or two, by my best
guess," Graycloud said, neither accepting nor rejecting Vince's
pseudo-apology. "We'll need X-rays to confirm that nothing's
broken. Besides that and a mild case of exposure, you seem
okay."

"Yes, and now that we have your diagnosis out
of the way..." Reginald D'Voe rose to his feet as gracefully and
deliberately as if someone had yelled "action!" He wore exactly
what Vince would have expected him to wear. A kimono-style silk
smoking jacket, red with a gold dragon pattern writhing all over
it, and slippers that matched it exactly. His walking stick,
gleaming hardwood under layers of shellac with a brass
something
on top, was clutched in his hand, and he leaned
heavily on it, and thumped it on the floor with every other step.
Vince noticed one leg stayed stiff, the foot almost dragging along
the floor as he walked. Stroke, he thought. No sign of it in his
face, though.

He stopped when he stood over Vince on the
chaise. "What are you doing here?" D'Voe asked. One brow crooked
higher than the other when he said it, and Vince couldn't help but
think there should have been an orchestra somewhere playing three
powerful chords to punctuate the line.

He wondered if Reginald D'Voe could be a
killer. A child killer. He looked at the man's eyes. If you asked a
kid what a stranger looked like, as in "don't talk to strangers,"
Vince figured they'd describe this guy to a T.

"Holly and I were out on the lake—"

"In this weather? Are you
mad!”

He almost smiled. Damn, but it was such a
Reginald D'Voe thing to say. "No. We were out..." he glanced at his
watch, but the crystal was misted over and beaded with moisture.
Even if it was working, which he doubted, he couldn't see its face.
"I don't know. Hours before the rain started. It was clear when we
left, and we had every intention of heading in before the storm
hit. But the light on the dock went out, and it got foggy and dark.
We tried to head to the nearest shore, but by the time we got our
bearings the wind had kicked up, and the boat was being tossed
around pretty badly. It smashed into some rocks or something and
capsized. We made it to shore, and started walking."

"Where were you when this happened?" Doc
Graycloud asked, clearly alarmed.

Vince shook his head. "We weren't sure
ourselves, at first. But when the lightning flashed, Holly figured
we were on the shore opposite town. I don't know what the hell it's
called. Nothing but woods." He let his head rest back on the
pillows just for a moment, before the cop in him made him lift it
again. "What time is it?" he asked.

"A little after three A.M. It was midnight
when Uncle Reg found you outside the gate," Amanda said, leaving
Holly's bedside now to come across the room. "I have tea brewing
downstairs. I'll bring you a cup."

Vince didn't argue. He watched her go, then
he eyed the other two. "That light must have gone out around eight
p.m. Where were the two of you around that time?"

They looked at each other, then at him. D'Voe
put on his most intimidating glare. "Are you asking us to provide
you with an
alibi?
After we pulled you out of the storm,
took you in—?"

Vince held up one hand, noticing that his
fingers were throbbing as if they'd been pounded repeatedly with a
hammer. "I only want to know if you saw anyone messing around out
near the docks by the cabins. If you were in town, Dr. Graycloud,
passing by the docks around that time or you, Mr. D'Voe. This house
has a pretty good elevation. You must have a clear view of the
docks from here."

Reginald lifted one eyebrow higher than the
other. Trademark. He glanced at Graycloud, then back at Vince. "I
was here. So was Amanda. We spent most of the evening making
preparations for the Halloween party. We were far too involved in
that to notice someone on a dock on the other side of the lake. As
for the doctor, he didn't arrive here until around eleven thirty,
just after the storm hit."

Frowning, Vince glanced at the doctor. He
nodded in full agreement. "Eleven thirty-five, or close to that, if
you want to get precise. Before that I was home, watching
television. I did drive past the cabins on my way here, but it was
after eleven. I didn't see anyone then, for what it's worth." He
glanced at Reggie, then back at Vince. "You saying you think
someone put the light out on purpose?"

Vince shrugged. "Probably not."

"Then why did you ask?' Reggie asked.

"I'm a cop, Mr. D'Voe. It's in my nature to
be suspicious."

D'Voe didn't look convinced.

"So, why did you decide to come over here, in
the middle of the night in a storm like this, Doc?" he asked Ernie
Graycloud.

The man sent Reginald a look. One of those,
What do you want me to tell him?
looks that Vince had seen a
thousand times before. The look Reg returned was another familiar
one.
How the hell should I know?
Neither man answered the
question.

But a soft voice from the doorway, said, "I
can tell you why. He came over because of me."

Three heads turned to watch Amanda come into
the room, carrying a silver tea service with cups enough for all of
them, and a heaping tray of pastries beside the steaming pot. It
looked way too heavy for her, but Graycloud relieved her of it in
short order, and set it on a nearby stand.

"Get off your leg, Uncle Reggie. I can see
it's aching," she scolded gently. Taking the older man's arm as if
she were his mother, or his nurse, she urged him into the nearest
chair. Then she took a blanket from the back of that chair,
unfolded it, and draped it over his lap. She moved to the service,
began pouring tea, and putting pastries onto tiny silver plates. "I
have had a terrible fear of storms for as long as I can remember,"
she said. She carried a cup of tea, sweetened and creamy, and a
plate of pastries to her uncle. Then she went back, and fixed a cup
for Vince. "Dr. Graycloud knows I can still become quite upset. He
always calls to check in on me when it storms outside." She said
this with a gentle smile toward the doctor, even as she set a cup
of tea and a selection of goodies on the bedside stand. Bending
over Vince, her pale brown hair falling into his face, she urged
him to sit up, plumped his pillows high, then leaned him back
again. She put the tea and the plate in his lap, and returned to
her tray. "When he called to check on me tonight, the phones were
out. The storm got worse. He worries too much, so naturally he came
over here to check on me."