Gingerbread Man

by Maggie Shayne

  Praise for Maggie Shayne

  “Rich, sensual, and bewitching.” — Publisher’s Weekly

  “THE GINGERBREAD MAN is an exciting non-stop thriller that fans of police investigations, serial killers, and romantic suspense will read in one sitting. Maggie Shayne deserves wider recognition for her strong portrayal of the trauma left with survivors struggling to overcome tragedy.” — Harriet Klausner, The Best Reviews

  “THE GINGERBREAD MAN is a first-rate romantic suspense that I enjoyed from beginning to end. I am looking forward to Maggie Shayne’s next foray into the romantic suspense field.” — Marilyn Heyman, The Best Reviews

  “This pulse-pounding thriller will keep readers superglued to their seats. Ms. Shayne does an amazing job depicting the terrors, fears and emotional trauma that can stalk survivors of tragedy. An utterly gripping story.” — Jill M. Smith, RT Book Reviews

  “This was an EXCELLENT story from Maggie Shayne! This book kept me totally absorbed in the story until the very end. The ending was a surprise shocker!! I read this book within a day for I couldn’t stop reading.I would highly recommended reading this book!” — Deborah H, Paperback Swap

  “There, there, who says there’s no such thing as a good romantic suspense? Maggie Shayne’s The Gingerbread Man…is one of the better thrillers I’ve read.” – Mrs. Giggles

  The Gingerbread Man

  BY MAGGIE SHAYNE

  Copyright 2001 by Margaret Benson

  Originally Published by Jove

  Smashwords Edition Copyright 2013 by Maggie Shayne

  http://www.MaggieShayne.com

  E-book and Cover Formatted by Jessica Lewis

  http://authorslifesaver.com

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your online retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Author’s Note

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Extended Excerpt of SLEEP WITH THE LIGHTS ON

  Maggie Shayne Classics

  About the Author

  Author's Note

  In New York State, the death penalty was abolished in 1972, then reinstated in September of 1995. For the purposes of this novel, I have pushed that date of reinstatement back in my fictional world to 1993. For the record, NY’s highest court ruled in June 2004 that capital punishment violated the state’s constitution and successive attempts to replace it have failed. The last actual use of the death penalty in NY was in 1963.

  This novel deals with issues of child abuse. If you would like more information on how you can help protect our children, visit the Center for Missing and Exploited Children at www.missingkids.com.

  ONE

  ARE MY CHILDREN still alive?" Sara Prague asked the question in a quiet, steady voice that he heard very clearly despite the noise around her. Cops coming and going, keyboards clicking, phones ringing. She looked haggard. Hard. She hadn't always, Vince figured. The worry lines bracketing her eyes, her mouth, the dry skin, the chapped lips, the sense that she really didn't give a damn what she looked like—those things had been strangers to her that first day. The day her kids hadn't come home from school. Now those lines, that hardness, had made themselves at home. It looked as if they planned to stay awhile. This shouldn't have happened to Sara Prague, a PTA mom whose world revolved around her kids. It shouldn't have happened to her husband. Mike, full-time plumber and part-time Little League coach. It shouldn't happen to anyone. Ever.

  Vince walked around his desk and eased Sara Prague into a cracked vinyl chair, ignoring the chaos around them. He poured her some stale coffee from the pot on the nearby stand, just as he had every day for the past three weeks. She came in here like clockwork—something the Center for Missing and Exploited Children had probably told her to do. He thought she would keep doing it, too. For years, if necessary.

  It wouldn't be necessary, though.

  She took the foam cup and sipped automatically. It was all part of their daily ritual. ''You haven't answered my question. Detective. Are Bobby and Kara still alive?"

  "Mrs. Prague, we're doing everything we possibly can." He walked back around his gray metal desk, pulled out his chair, sat down. It gave him a chance to school his face. It gave him a chance not to look at hers. She was just... bleak. Looking into the woman's eyes was like looking into a black hole. Nothing left. "Every lead is being meticulously followed. We're pursuing every avenue of—"

  "I don't want the party line you give to the press, Detective O'Mally. I want the truth."

  Things crossed his mind. Things every cop knew—like the fact that, in most cases, kids abducted by strangers are either found in the first twenty-four hours or not found at all. Not alive, at any rate. He shook the thought away. It was irrelevant. This was his case. The outcome would be different this time. He wouldn't fail.

  He forced himself to look her in the eye and managed not to shiver at the dead gray chill of her gaze. "I do think they're alive," he told her. "And I'll keep thinking it until and unless I have a reason to think otherwise." He painted his face with a hopeful expression, reached across the desk, and squeezed her cool, limp hand. "Try to hold on to hope, Mrs. Prague."

  "I have to. Detective. I don't have anything else left." Pulling her hand away, she set her coffee cup on his desk, adding a new ring to a file folder already covered with them. She reached inside her purse.

  Vince bit back a groan. God, here came more pictures. He couldn't take much more of this daily torture. Then again, he didn't imagine it even began to compare to hers.

  "I brought this for you." She pulled it out—a silver frame that folded in half, like a book. With her free hand she pushed aside some papers—the ring-marked file folder, the wrapper from his mc-breakfast—making a single bare spot on his desk. Then she set the frame there so that it faced him. One side held a photo of five-year-old Kara. Dimples. Freckles. Carrot-colored pigtails and sky-blue eyes. She held a scrawny tiger kitten in her lap. The other side of the frame held a photo of seven-year-old Bobby, posing in his Little League uniform, bat at the ready.

  Keeping a professional distance had never been what Vince O'Mally did best. Hell, it was the one thing he wished he could do by the book. But he wasn't a by-the-book kind of a cop. His methods were more instinct than science. His gut had gotten him further than any procedural manual or training course ever would. He trusted it. But sometimes it got him too close.

  And this was one of those times.

  This woman—coming in here every day, with her photos and her red, puffy, lifeless eyes—was dragging him into her anguish. He barely slept nights anymore. Every spare second, on duty or off, he was working this case. It gripped him in a way nothing ever had.

  Sara Prague was a needy woman. Not a weak woman, but needy. He didn't do well with needy women. He tended to want to save them. Always a mistake.

  "Mrs. Prague ..." he began.

  "I notice the other photos I've brought aren't on your desk anymore. What do you do
with them after I leave?"

  He got up and paced away from her, pushing a hand through his hair. "I keep them. Just... in a drawer. It's too distracting to have them on the desk like that." Turning, he faced her again. "I understand what you're trying to do, but I need to focus on the case. On chasing down leads and analyzing evidence. Not on how ..." His gaze strayed to the photo against his will, and his throat closed up. "Not on how goddamn bad I'd like to come to a game next spring, and see Bobby hit a homer."

  Sara Prague nodded, her huge haunted eyes never leaving his. "I suppose it seems cruel of me to keep bringing photos. Please understand, I need to know you won't forget that these arc my children, Detective O'Mally.'" Her hand moved to the largest pile of paperwork on his desk, settling atop it. "They aren't in these files. They aren't a case number or a statistic or an investigation. They're Bobby and Kara Prague." She moved her hand to the photo, forcing his gaze to it again. To Kara's baby teeth. To Bobby's unevenly trimmed bangs. “They're my children.”

  He tried to look away from her, from the need, the plea in her eyes. But he couldn't. She didn't speak, but he heard her anyway. Her eyes said it all. Tell me it's going to be all right. Tell me you 're going to find my babies safe and sound, and put them back in my arms where they belong.

  He knew better. He knew damn well better.

  Tears welled in her eyes. Something deep inside him quaked. He said, "It's going to be all right, Mrs. Prague. I'll find your kids. I promise you."

  He saw a hint of light come into her eyes, dull, dim, flickering, but fighting its way through the fog of despair. He'd given her hope. It would help her get through the day. Maybe even a couple more beyond that. But at what cost?

  Vince O'Mally didn't make promises he couldn't keep. How the hell was he going to keep this one? The photograph dragged his gaze back to it, like a supercharged magnet pulling shards of metal.

  She reached across the desk, squeezed his hand. "Thank you for that." Then she got up and left him standing there staring at the photo. He heard the door swing closed when she left, and he still couldn't look away. Even when his vision blurred, he kept staring at those little faces staring back at him.

  Then a big hand swung into his line of vision, and swiped the frame off his desk in one brisk motion.

  “That woman isn't gonna let up until she drives you right over the edge, is she? Dammit, Vince, you're letting her get to you. I can see it."

  Vince sank into his chair, cleared his throat and tried to shake off the grimness that squatted on his shoulders like a lead demon. "Hell, no, I'm not letting her get to me," he told his partner. "I know better." It was a lie and he knew it.

  "I used to think so." Jerry tossed the frame onto his own desk, leaving it folded closed. "But look at you, pal. You haven't been right since they handed us this case, and you're getting steadily worse."

  "That's bullshit"

  "Is it?" Jerry shoved a stack of file folders aside, and perched on the edge of Vince's desk. He wore a white shirt that could've been whiter, and a striped tie that he'd tugged loose. His belly hung two inches over his shiny black belt, and he had less hair on his head every day. "So, what else are you working on, Vince?"

  Vince shook his head, ignoring his partner.

  "You're not working on anything else, are you? Nothing but this."

  "Get off my back, Jerry."

  "I heard you just now."

  That brought Vince's gaze up. Jerry looked worried— a little scared, even. "Why the hell would you make a promise like that? You know better."

  "It helped. The woman is barely standing these days."

  "Yeah? And what do you suppose it's gonna do to you if you can't keep it?"

  Vince's fist clenched. "We'll never know, because that's not gonna happen."

  "Vince—"

  "I'm gonna find those kids, Jare."

  Jerry sighed, studying his friend's face for a long moment. But when he spoke again, his tone was closer to normal than it had been before. "Still following up on registered sex offenders?"

  "Only the pedophiles. And, hell, I've only made it through the first five hundred or so. You know how many convicted perverts we got living like normal people in this city?"

  "No, but I'm sure you're gonna tell me."

  Vince just looked at him. "I meant what I said. I'm gonna find them."

  "Because you're Detective Vincent frigging O'Mally. Decorated supercop who always gets his man. You know, my friend, this case might be easier on you if you'd ever once failed at anything in your entire life."

  "You don't know what the hell you're talking about."

  "I know this. You're not infallible, Vince. And if this one goes bad, it's not gonna be because you fucked up."

  "It's not going to go bad," Vince said, meeting his partner's eyes. "And I don't fuck up."

  The telephone on his desk rang. Jerry grabbed it up before Vince could, probably just to piss him off a little and distract him from the case.

  "Detective Donovan," Jerry intoned automatically. Then he listened, and his gaze shot to Vince's, and his face went pale. "Shit. Okay, yeah. We're on it."

  Jerry put the phone down. "Maybe you'll want to sit this one out, buddy."

  Vince got to his feet, grabbed his coat, and tried to fight the dread building in his belly.

  ***

  “THERE’S NOT GOING to be anything in here." Vince stood just outside the door of a dilapidated house on Syracuse's east side and said words he didn't really believe. Jerry was on the other side of the door. Their guns were raised, their backs to the outer wall. The light wasn't good. Overcast skies tinted everything in sepia. A stiff autumn wind rode herd on dried-out leaves, so they crackled over the sidewalk like rattling bones. "We checked this place out already."

  "The caller said there was a bad smell," Jerry said, keeping his voice low. "I don't smell anything, do you Vince?"

  Vince didn't really sniff the air. He couldn't make himself do it. He said, "No, I don't smell a damned thing. Probably the same neighbor who reported seeing that beat-up van near here the day the kids were taken. Probably just likes calling the cops. Makes her feel important."

  "We checked it out that day," Jerry said. "We didn't miss anything."

  Vince looked at his partner. "We didn't miss anything."

  Jerry nodded, and Vince turned and pushed the front door open, backed away, then entered cautiously. The place was falling down. Not a piece of glass remained in a single window, but plenty littered the splintered floors underneath thick layers of dust and plaster.

  There was a closed door on the far side of the room, its once-white paint peeling off it in great strips. Boards lay here and there, and the floor creaked under their feet Vince took another careful step. A floorboard broke and his foot went right through. He swore under his breath and yanked his foot free. Then he looked in the hole his foot had made, frowning. A child's storybook lay under the floor, its cardboard cover warped and bent, colors faded. It looked as if it had been lying there for years. Still, Vince carefully picked it up with two gloved fingers to take a closer look. A thick coat of dust covered the title. The Gingerbread Man. Odd place for a children's book. There were gaps in the floor all over the place. It must have fallen through one of them, who knew how long ago? Opening the cover carefully he saw a library card pocket. The words "Dilmun Public Library, Dilmun, NY" were stamped there, along with a series of dates. He yanked an evidence bag from his coat pocket—he always carried a handful of them—and dropped the book into it telling himself it was probably unnecessary, because this place had nothing to do with Bobby and Kara Prague. Nothing. He wasn't going to find a damn thing here.

  His instincts were disagreeing vehemently with his mind on that, but he refused to hear them. Still, he jotted a note about the book on his notepad.

  Stuffing the bagged book and the notepad into his coat pocket, he looked at the closed door, took a single step toward it. Then the pungent scent hit him and his entire soul recoiled.
<
br />   "Ah, shit," Jerry said, turning his nose into his collar. "Vince, the smell... it's coming from in there." Jerry nodded toward that same closed door at the far end of the place.

  Damn, he didn't want to do this. Everything in Vince was screaming at him not to go over there. Not to open that door. Just to turn around and leave. He stepped forward even as his partner reached for the broken door with a trembling hand.

  Vince put his own hand on Jerry's shoulder, stopping him. "Why don't you check the other rooms, partner?"

  Jerry frowned at him.

  "It's my case, Jerry."

  "It's our case."

  Vince lowered his hand. "You've got kids."

  "And I've got a partner. We'll go together."

  Finally, Vince nodded. Swallowing hard, Jerry pushed the door open. The odor sprung from the pitch darkness and hit them both like a physical blow. Jerry turned his back on it, a knee-jerk reaction. A second later Vince heard his partner's staggering footsteps as he headed back through the house and out the front door, then he heard him retching someplace beyond it. Hell, it looked like Vince would be doing this alone after all.

  Stiffening his spine, Vince pulled the lapel of his coat up over his nose and mouth, pulled out his flashlight, and flicked it on.

  The beam pierced the darkness, the floating dust specs, the invisible veil between blessed blindness and hell. The pale light spilled onto the bodies of Kara and Bobby Prague, and Vince turned away, but not before the image had burned itself into his brain. He lurched out of the room, and a second later he was outside, on his knees beside his partner. He wasn't puking. Just kneeling there, ice cold, his entire body rigid, eyes wide and unable to erase what they had seen. Unable to silence the voice in his mind telling him he had failed. He'd promised to find those kids—but not like this. Goddamn, not like this. He kept seeing Sara Prague's eyes, the hope he had put in them.