Gingerbread Man (31 page)

"Jesus! Call an ambulance—and get hold of
Graycloud!" Vince shouted.

"He's already here. Just pulled up out
front," Jerry said.

"Uncle Reggie?" Amanda came running, and in a
moment she was on the floor beside the old man, bent over him,
crying her heart out.

Holly tugged her gently away when Dr.
Graycloud burst through the doors. She turned into Holly's arms,
sobbing. "He's all I have," she moaned. "Oh, God, please don't let
him die."

***

BETHANY HUDDLED IN the darkness, hugging her
arms as she shook. At first she'd thought it was just a game. Just
a part of Mr. D'Voe's Halloween party tricks. The large arms had
snapped around her from out of the darkness, and pulled her through
the fence and into the woods. She screamed. But then, everyone was
shrieking with every ghost or ghoul that popped up on the parade
around the lawn. Who would notice one more scream? Something smelly
and damp was pressed to her face. It burned. She thought there had
been some kind of hole in the ground but then everything went dark.
She knew it was the smelly stuff on the cloth at her face that made
her go to sleep.

Until now. She woke up in darkness so
complete she couldn't see a thing. She could feel only the wall at
her back and the floor beneath her. Metallic, and cold. When she
moved, something jangled and tugged tight. She reached down and
felt cold metal clasped tight around her ankle, and a heavy chain
attached. She closed her hands around that chain, yanked on it with
all her might, but it didn't give. It was attached to something. If
there had ever been a hole in the ground, she wasn't in it now.
This area felt large. As big as a room, but not a room,
somehow.

Oh, gosh. She didn't know where she was, or
who had brought her here. But she knew this was bad. This was very
bad. She was in serious trouble. Hot tears ran down Bethany's face.
She pounded on the wall, shouted for her mother, but she had a
feeling no one could hear her. Her voice bounced off the walls of
the big dark room. No one answered. Nothing moved.

She sank to the floor, sobbing softly. She
thought about how she had missed trick-or-treating this year. She
thought about how worried her mom must be. And Daddy was out of
town. Mommy would probably call him, though. He would rush home,
and then he would come and find her.

She hoped he would hurry.

***

IT WASN'T A large hospital, it was the size
of a small Holiday Inn, only four floors, and a total of three
treatment rooms in the E.R. They wheeled Reginald D'Voe through the
hall, a comet's tail of onlookers trailing right behind. The gurney
slid through the doors of a treatment room. Doc Graycloud passed
through, as well. Then one nurse, who appeared to have drawn
crowd-control duty, stepped into the doorway, effectively cutting
off the comet's tail. She moved forward into the sea of bodies,
closed the door firmly behind her, and crossed her arms over her
chest. She was dark skinned, with a cap of gleaming curls that
should have softened her harsh expression, but didn't. "Does this
look
like a circus to you?" she asked them.

Vince was the first one to pull out a badge.
"I'm a police officer, and that man needs to be under guard."

She tipped her head to one side, looked at
him as if he were drooling when he talked.
"That man
is
having a heart attack. I assure you, he's not going anywhere."

Beyond her, through the glass in the closed
door, Vince saw others: white coats, latex gloves, working over
Reggie. He felt responsible and weighed like lead on his shoulders.
"Is this the only way in or out?"

"Umm-hmm," she said.

"Can I post someone outside the door?"

She puckered, but finally nodded. "One man.
And he'd best stand to the side if he doesn't want to get knocked
flat on his fanny." Her frown grew as an orderly pushing a cart had
to fight his way through all of them to get into the treatment
room. "The rest of you, get your badges and your backsides to the
waiting room.
Now."
The nurse pointed. It was ten feet away,
around a corner to the right, and it was small. Close enough,
though. Vince nodded, and, turning, did his best to herd everyone
back there. The chief, his officers, the handful of state cops
who'd heard the call and come on their heels, Jerry, Holly, and
Amanda...

Wait a minute, he'd lost Holly and
Amanda.

"Vince?"

He turned at the sound of her voice, and saw
Holly holding Amanda's shoulders. Amanda was bent double, trying to
catch the breaths that rushed in and out of her lungs at breakneck
speed. That same nurse reached the two at the same moment Vince
did. She moved fast, locating a wheelchair, then easing Amanda down
into it. She had her seated and breathing into a paper bag within
seconds.

Holly said, “The man we just brought in is
her uncle."

The nurse nodded, addressing Amanda, not
Holly. "Well, no wonder you're upset, all this fuss." She gripped
the wheelchair from behind, pushing it down the hall, leaning close
to speak. "Let's just get you out of all this chaos for starters."
She wheeled Amanda into a small room, out of the way.

Vince slid an arm around Holly's waist as
they followed. He glanced down at her. "You all right?"

Her eyes were steady and clear when they met
his. She nodded once. He wasn't sure he believed her. But she
looked
all right

"What's your name, child?" the nurse
asked.

Amanda didn't answer. "Amanda D'Voe," Holly
answered for her, while Amanda continued inflating the paper bag
over and over again.

"I'm Sally," the nurse said. "Now you rest
assured, your uncle is in very good hands. And he didn't look all
that bad to me when they brought him in. Hell, I've seen 'em come
in way worse off than him, and walk out again in a few days."

Amanda's breathing slowed still more. She
lifted her head, moved the bag away from her face. "Really?"

"Yes. Really."

"You... you think he's going to be all
right?"

“I’ll bring you out a report just as soon as
we know anything, okay?"

Amanda nodded. Sally glanced up at Vince.
"You keep all those cops off her case, you hear me? And you," she
said, looking at Holly. "You stay with her. You two ought to be all
right in here for a while. Anyone gives you any crap, you tell 'em
to take it up with Sally. All right?"

Amanda nodded. Vince thanked the woman for
her help and glanced at the room. It was a break room for the
staff, from the looks of it. There was a sofa, a couple of chairs,
a large cafeteria-type table with benches attached, a coffee pot,
fridge, and some vending machines.

As Nurse Sally left, Vince glanced through
the open door, down the hall to the waiting room, caught the
chief's eye. Assured Mallory knew where to find him should he need
to, Vince closed the door. Then he went to Amanda, knelt in front
of the chair. "Are you better now?"

She met his eyes. "I will be, when they tell
me Uncle Reggie is going to be all right." She licked her lips.
"What happened, Detective?"

He shook his head. He couldn't bring himself
to tell Amanda that her beloved uncle was looking more and more
like a suspect in a string of brutal child murders. He didn't find
it all that believable himself. How the hell could he suggest it to
her? "I think it was my fault. I asked him about you, your past I
mean, before you came to live with him, and he became extremely
agitated."

Amanda lowered her head. "He's very
protective of me. And he was already upset over..." She closed her
eyes. "Poor little Bethany."

"Yes, I know." Vince got to his feet, took a
seat on the edge of the bench nearest her. He thought before he
spoke. He was half afraid to talk to her at all and risk bringing
on another episode. But, hell, it was his job. "Maybe you can help
me, Amanda. Answer the questions that your uncle didn't."

Slowly, she looked at him. "I can't."

"Why not?"

"Vince, don't," Holly urged. "Please, she's
been through enough. And how relevant can something like that be,
anyway?"

Vince met Holly's eyes. "I'm afraid it might
be very relevant." Then, turning to Amanda, he tried to speak as
gently as he could. "Now isn't the best time, Amanda, I realize
that. But sooner or later, you're going to have to tell someone
about your past."

She only shook her head from side to side.
"It's impossible."

Vince's brows pulled tight, and he started to
ask why, but a tap on the door interrupted, and he got to his feet
again. When he opened the door, Chief Mallory was standing on the
other side, and he jerked his head toward the waiting room. Vince
looked that way, saw the new arrivals. Dark suits, stiff jaws,
shined shoes. Feds. He glanced back at Holly. "You two stay here,
okay? I’ll be back."

Holly nodded, and he took just a second to
notice how together she seemed. A far cry from the mess she'd been
a few hours ago. He held her eyes for a moment. "You're doing
great, you know."

"That's what you think," she told him with a
ghost of a smile.

He left her there, headed back out to the
waiting area.

A tall, dour-faced man with steel gray hair
and eyes to match watched him all the way in. "Well, Detective
Vince O'Mally," he said. "Been a long time."

"Not long enough, Selkirk. How are you?"

“I’m considering whether to let you keep you
badge or have you brought up on charges of impeding a federal
investigation, to be blunt." He walked back out through the
entrance doors. They opened automatically with a whoosh of
Halloween night air so cold it was like the breath of the
Reaper.

Vince followed. He could see his breath in
the tall goosenecked streetlights that lined the parking lot.
Beyond their reach, the night was a black abyss. Sighing, he turned
toward the special agent. "So...
"

"So what?"

"So if you think you have the grounds and the
balls to go after my badge, be my guest."

Selkirk jammed his hands into his pockets.
Hunched a little against the cold. "If you think I don't, keep on
pushing, Detective."

"Right. So you wanna tell me what your
problem is, Selkirk? That I stepped on a few toes and bent a few
regs, or that I got to the bottom of this case before you did?"

"I don't give a rat's ass who solves this
case, so long as it gets solved."

"No?" Vince blew a sigh. "Then why are you
breathing fire at me, Selkirk? I followed a hunch and came down
here on my own time. The hunch panned out and we're closer than
ever to catching this asshole. End of story."

"Not quite the end. You forgot the part where
another kid gets snatched
before
we catch this asshole."

Vince stiffened because the guy hit him in
his raw spot. "Are you implying that's my fault? The perp lives
here, for crying out loud."

"If he does, he's never hunted in his
hometown before, O'Mally. He was pressured into it—your presence
pushed him too far."

"And you're what, reading his mind now? You
ever think maybe it was something else that pushed him? Like us
finding the Prague kids' bodies before he dumped them—when we've
never recovered the bodies of this guy's victims before? Maybe that
was what threw him. You ever think of that, Selkirk?"

Selkirk hesitated, rather than shooting right
back. Vince frowned, looked at him, wondering why.

"Actually, we have," he said at length.

That bought Vince up short. "Have what?"

"Found the bodies before. Two in
Pennsylvania, one in Jersey, another in Massachusetts."

Vince backed off a step. Lowered his head.
His righteous indignation drained slowly. "All identified?"

"Yeah."

"And how do you know they were all his?"

"All female blue-eyed blondes, small for
their age, five to seven years old. All the bodies were moved after
death. All sexually assaulted. Same M.O. He keeps them for anywhere
from a few days to a couple of weeks, before he kills them. Keeps
the bodies around awhile before he hides them. Almost like he's
daring us to find them. The sick son of a bitch."

Vince watched Selkirk's shuttered face as he
spoke. "There's more."

"Look, this is a federal case now. I've said
all I can say." Selkirk paced away from Vince a few steps, stared
out over the parking lot. "What's the story on D'Voe?"

"I don't think he's our guy."

"Why not?"

Vince shrugged. "Give me the common
denominator on the victims, and I'll give you what I know about
D'Voe."

For a long moment Selkirk stood there with
his back to Vince. Then, slowly, he turned. "I want this guy,
O'Mally. Not for the collar. For the kids."

"Sure you do."

"Hey, I've seen some of them. Same as you.
I've been working this case for three years. You think it's pushed
you to the edge? What the hell do you think it's done to me?"

Vince held the man's eyes steadily. In them
he saw his own frustration and rage, mirrored right back at him. He
saw the same hell he'd fallen into when he'd walked into that room
to find Kara and Bobby Prague.

He sighed. "You're right. We want the same
thing here."

Selkirk nodded. "He marks them," he told
Vince. His voice had gone softer, lower. As if he were speaking of
something that shouldn't be said aloud. "Every one of them had a
brand burned into their backs. Right between the shoulder blades.
Four-leaf clover. Probably made by a heated piece of jewelry. Ring
or a pendant, that sort of thing."

"Jesus Christ." He wanted to ask if the kids
were branded before or after death. But he didn't really want to
know. He didn't know if he could stand knowing.

Turning now, Selkirk reached into his pocket
for a cigarette, lit it. "Your turn."

"You already know most of it. I dug around in
D'Voe's past as deeply as I could. He comes from an abusive family
himself," Vince told him.