Gingerbread Man

by Maggie Shayne

  "Primer colored?"

  She nodded. "Yes. I remember darker patches. I thought it was spotted then, but it must have been where rust had been sanded off, and something applied to it under the primer."

  "That's good. That's very good. Keep going. What about the windows? Was there anything... ?"

  She frowned. "I... can't be sure."

  "What?"

  "Well... they might have been kind of curved outward. Just a little."

  "Like in a Volkswagon van?" he asked, all but holding his breath.

  "I remember that its shape reminded me of the Mystery Machine."

  Vince went blank, shaking his head, searching his mind. “I don't—"

  "Scooby Doo," she said. "The cartoon? That was the van they drove. All this one needed was pink paint and psychedelic flowers and it would have fit." She drew her focus back to the present and stared at him. "My God, that's more than I've ever remembered before."

  "Maybe that's because you're ready to remember it now."

  Her eyes lowered. "Or maybe it's because of you."

  A little alarm bell went off in his mind. He didn't want her to think that way, that he was the one to fix things for her. That he could be some kind of hero. That was the last thing he wanted. "I've got nothing to do with it, Red. This is all you. Go on now. What happened next?"

  She breathed long and deeply. Her shoulders rose and fell with it. She lifted her chin. "The van stopped. A man got out. He—he—he—"

  "No, no. Slow down. Freeze-frame." He held her upper arms, squeezed to remind her he was there. "Breathe slow, and just take that one image. The man got out."

  She took a deep breath, then another, then nodded twice, firmly. "He was very tall. Of course, all grown-ups seemed very tall to me then. He ... wore jeans, a blue shirt. A denim jacket. His belly hung over the top of the jeans, I remembered that much in therapy. He wore a ski mask, so all I could see of his face were his eyes. I know he was Caucasian."

  "Blue eyes, you said. Anything else? Unusual shape? Any scarring? What about his lashes or brows, was there anything there?"

  "Blue eyes. Icy blue." She shook her head. "Other than that, I only remember being terrified. He grabbed us both. Ivy with one hand, me with the other."

  "Bare-handed or was he wearing gloves?"

  She lifted her head slowly. She wasn't aware, Vince thought, of rubbing her right arm above the elbow. "Gloves," she whispered. "He hurt my arm, he held on so tight. I screamed. Ivy did, too. I twisted and he lost his grip on me. I fell on the sidewalk. He gave me this look. This look. And Ivy—she was screaming and reaching for me. Her eyes were so huge and so blue. And she was so afraid. He just shoved her into the van and crammed himself in after her. And then they were gone."

  Tears were rolling down both her cheeks now. Her body shivering gently.

  He wanted to move onto the seat beside her, pull her snugly against him. He was, in fact, actively and determinedly resisting the urge to do so.

  "Are you all right?" he asked instead.

  She sniffed, nodded. "Mom fell apart. Dad retreated into himself. He tried so hard to be strong for us, you know. He didn't let any of it out, not at all. I think that had a lot to do with the cancer. It was only a couple of years before the symptoms set in, and one more before the diagnosis."

  "And what about you, Holly? What happened to you?"

  She lifted her big eyes to his. He felt a tremor in his belly. "I never veered from my route again. Not from school to home. Not from my locker to my classroom. Not from my bed to my shower to my closet. Everything in my life suddenly had to be regimented. I developed specific patterns for everything I did, and I couldn't function if I missed a single step. The therapists called it O.C.D."

  He nodded. "Obsessive Compulsive Disorder."

  "Yeah. And then of course there were the night terrors. The panic attacks. The phobias. I was terrified of everything from heights to being outdoors to strangers to going to school. Mom finally had to pull me out, hire tutors."

  "But you got better."

  She looked at him. "I got to the point where I could function. With extreme effort. I wasn't a hell of a lot better. I was in therapy and on several medications for a long, long time."

  "Until when?"

  She drew a breath, sighed. "Hubey Welles confessed and went to prison. My father died the day after his sentencing. He held on all that time—by sheer will, I think. Mom put the house on the market and started looking for a place out here. Uncle Marty and Aunt Jen helped. We never would have survived that time without them. It took a while, but, once the house sold and we closed on the new one, we came out here. We hadn't been back here since before Ivy was taken. But back then, this town was our haven. It was a place where only happy memories existed for us. And I guess Mom thought, with Dad gone, and Ivy's case finally closed, we might be able to heal out here. So we came."

  The night wind lifted her hair, danced with it. "And was she right?"

  Holly nodded. "I started seeing Doc Graycloud. He weaned me from my meds within the first year. Put me on herbal supplements and teas, and after a while I didn't even need those. Hell, up until just a couple of weeks ago, I hadn't had a symptom. Then all of the sudden they started coming back."

  "When I came to town."

  "No," she said, tipping her head to one side. "No, that's not exactly true. It started before you got here. I don't know what triggered them."

  "That's something to think about. Something must have triggered them, Holly. If we can pinpoint what it was, we might have a clue. Try to think back. What was the first symptom to return?"

  She hesitated for a moment. "I started dreaming about Ivy."

  "And when was the first dream?"

  She shook her head. "I made a note of it in my journal. I can look it up when I get home tonight."

  "Do that," he said. "And while you're at it, see if you can recall anything else unusual that happened within a day or two of that date. Anyone you talked to, saw, even in passing, anything that happened that wasn't a part of your normal daily routine."

  "You really think that's going to help?"

  "I think it's going to help."

  "All right, then. But what about right now?"

  He frowned, a little trill of alarm sounding. Because without realizing it his hands had moved down her arm to her hands. Her hands had turned in his, and were clasping them now, and he didn't like that. "What about right now?"

  She lowered her eyes, then raised them again. She looked at him squarely. "You're trying very hard not to let me too close, aren't you?"

  He averted his eyes. "I'm a cop, Holly. We're trained not to get too close."

  "And you already got too close to this entire case, once," she added.

  "I did, yeah."

  She covered his hands with hers. "Do you have any idea how much I need you right now?" she whispered. "How alone I feel in this nightmare?"

  He stared into her eyes. "That's what Sara Prague said. Oh, not in so many words. But it was in her eyes. That same pleading look I see in yours. You want me to promise you that I'll make this right again. Just like I promised her. But I can't get past the memory of having to face that woman—the mother—and tell her my promise was a lie. That I'd found her kids, and that they were dead."

  She nodded slowly, as if she were understanding every word.

  "I don't want you to promise me anything," she whispered finally. "But, could you at least... at least...”

  "At least...”

  "Hold me." The words emerged as a bare croak. A plea wrenched from the depths of her hell.

  He knew damn well he was going to kiss her. Bad idea. Very Bad Idea, he told himself. Yet, he leaned forward, sliding off his seat until he knelt in the bottom of the boat, and slid his hands slowly up her arms to her shoulders. Then he tugged her down, until she knelt as well. He leaned closer, saw her tongue dart out to moisten her lips, and her eyes fall closed in expectation.

  He was going to do it. In spite
of everything his mind was telling him, he was going to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her. Possibly more than he wanted to take another breath.

  A low rumble in the distance distracted him. By the time he let it interfere with his intent, his lips were already brushing hers, just barely. He felt her breath on his mouth and he tasted the merest sample of her, when the rumble became more insistent. He popped his eyes open, his hands still on her shoulders, his mouth almost touching hers. Her eyes opened, too, in response to the sound, which rumbled again, louder this time.

  Sighing, she leaned into his arms as he closed them around her, held her, just as she'd asked him to. And he whispered, "Is that thunder?"

  "Yeah," she murmured. "And not a moment too soon, hmm?"

  "It's just as well." He stroked her hair, set her upright. "It's not a good idea, you and me, Red."

  She refused to meet his eyes. "We ought to start back, before we get rained on."

  He took a look around as he reached for the oars. "I, um ... I'm probably just distracted here, but I don't see our guiding light."

  Holly lifted her head, saw that he wasn't kidding, and looked around herself. Only darkness surrounded them. Darkness, and water. Clouds were rapidly obliterating the stars overhead, so that even they winked out. "The light's gone out," she said.

  Then she met his eyes, held them in the darkness. "Or someone put it out."

  The thunder rolled from the sky over the water. To Vince it sounded like demonic laughter.

  ELEVEN

  THE STORM ROLLED closer. The wind picked up, tossing the little boat more and more ruthlessly in its grip as Vince rowed. He figured if he were heading east, or west or south, he'd be all right They'd hit shore, if he could just keep going straight. But if he were heading north, they could row all night without reaching land.

  Frankly, he didn't think the little boat would hold up that long.

  The winds came harder, the waves jumping and rolling the little boat right up onto its side and back down again. They were both getting wet, and it wasn't even raining yet

  "We have to get to shore," Holly yelled. "Any shore."

  "I'd do that if I knew where the hell any shore was," he shouted back.

  She squinted in the distance, looking first one way and then another. "There," she yelled, pointing. "There's a light."

  "Our light?”

  She shook her head. "Looks like a window in someone's house. Just go that way, Vince."

  He went that way, rowing for all he was worth against the waves, and the wind. But they got considerably worse, until the nose of the boat was literally bounding up and down in the water. And on one downward beat they hit something hard. One side of the boat tipped up, the other down, and the next thing he knew the little boat flipped. There was a shockingly cold impact, and then his entire world consisted of icy, cold lake water, surrounding him, filling him, pulling him down.

  He'd have howled at the cold if he hadn't been underwater. As it was he swallowed a gallon of the stuff before he managed to struggle to the surface again. He blinked and swiped his eyes, looking around him in shock, for Holly...

  But Holly was nowhere in sight.

  ***

  SHE COULDN'T BREATHE. She was choking. Freezing. Ice entombed her and smothered her. She couldn't find air. Only ice.

  A mouth sealed itself over hers, warm, wet, and life giving. Warm breath pushed into her lungs, then soughed away when the mouth rose. But it came back even before her panic set in. It came back, and it filled her, again and again, until the water rose up in her chest, and she began to choke.

  Hands at her back, rolling her onto her side as she gagged and spewed water like a fountain. Hands, holding her shoulders until the spasms she thought would tear her apart finally passed. Hands, easing her down again, until her back rested against something solid. They touched her cheeks, those hands. They pushed her hair aside.

  "Come on, Red, look at me. Come on."

  She opened her eyes, found herself staring up at Vince O'Mally's face. His eyes were pained, worried. His hair, plastered to his head. She couldn't seem to stop shivering.

  "How badly are you hurt?"

  Blinking her vision clear, she looked past him, at the grim silhouettes of trees standing like demons in the darkness. Tall and hunching, watching them. Water lapped nearby, and she turned her head to the left, saw the lake, thought it was shaped wrong. And then she remembered and came upright. "The boat—"

  "We must have hit a rock. Capsized. It's gone, Holly. Anywhere we go from here will have to be on foot. Are you hurt?"

  She drew her gaze back to his face. "We were in the water. How did I—?"

  Rolling his eyes in impatience, Vince rocked back on his heels. "If I give you the full account will you focus for me, here?" His hands drew away from her shoulders as he began ticking off items on his fingers. "We were in the rowboat. The wind and waves threw us into a rock or something, and we flipped over. We both went into the drink. You were out cold, so I had to haul your ass in. Now will you please tell me if you're hurt?"

  She looked down at her body. "What happened to my life jacket?"

  "For the love of—I had to take it off you, okay? I couldn't very well do CPR through a life jacket"

  "Oh, my God," she whispered, her eyes welling as they locked with his. "CPR. Oh my God."

  His hands clasped her shoulders again, firmly. "Holly, it wasn't necessary, but I couldn't have known that in advance. A little mouth-to-mouth and you were back. Now, come on, focus. I need to know if you're hurt."

  Silently she took mental stock. "My head hurts. It hurts pretty bad. Other than that, I'm too cold to tell."

  "Yeah, I know the feeling. Can you get up?"

  She nodded, and he rose, taking her by her upper arms and helping her get to her feet She tested herself, putting weight on one leg, then the other, moving her arms, flexing her fingers: She was shivering with cold, but everything else seemed to be working. Vince was eyeing her oddly, then, without warning, he pushed her hair aside, and probed a spot on her head, above her left ear. She sucked in a breath, and he muttered a curse.

  "It's not bad," she said weakly.

  "You haven't seen the lump. You must have hit something on the way in. Probably the same rock the boat hit."

  She lifted her brows. But she wasn't thinking about the lump on her head. She was remembering what had almost happened in the boat—what had been about to happen when the wind had kicked up.

  "Why are you looking at me like that?"

  She shook her head, shoved the memory away, or tried to. "We'll freeze to death out here if we don't do something, Vince. We can't stay out here all night soaking wet."

  Vince met her eyes, then quickly looked away. "Let's start walking. We'll find a house, a road, something sooner or later." He took her arm, started off through the woods, picking his way.

  She walked beside him, but a new chill was settling over her now. "What if it was him? What if he's the one who put the light out on the shore, knowing this storm was about to kick up?"

  "We can't be sure of that." He laced his fingers with hers, and stepped over stumps and brush, between limbs. "You're borrowing trouble, Red. For all we know the light blew on its own."

  "That light hasn't gone out in five years, Vince."

  "Then it was due."

  "No. It was deliberate." She looked around. "And if the bastard saw us, he probably has a better idea where we are than we do right now."

  Vince picked up the pace a little. "It doesn't matter. Even if that was true, by the time he came looking, we'd be long gone. Holed up someplace warm and dry, I hope."

  She stopped walking. "Wait, there's lightning again."

  She climbed up on a stump, looking out toward the water, waiting for the lightning to flash a second time. When it did, her face was more intense than any he'd ever seen as she studied the lake in that instant. Reaching for his shoulder, she got back down. She wobbled a little, and he steadied her.

  Sh
e pointed. "That way's south. I'm afraid we're miles from anywhere, Vince. We came across the southern tip of the lake. To get back to town, we have to hike all the way around it." She started walking.

  Vince fell into pace beside her. "There's got to be something between here and there. A house, a hunting shack, anything."

  She shook her head. "The closest house is Reggie's place, and that's at least a few miles. If we make it that far, we can make it home. There's a shortcut through the woods past Reggie's place. From it we can get to Uncle Marty and Aunt Jen's, or keep going just a little farther to the cabins." Even as she finished saying it, her foot, numb with cold, hooked on a stump and she fell face first to the ground.

  Vince knelt beside her, helped her sit up. "You okay?"

  "Yeah, I just tripped. I'm fine." But she was shaking all over, and none too steady on her feet. She was worried about the pain in her head. She'd hit it hard in the lake, and she was still feeling dizzy and weak. It wasn't going away as she'd hoped it would.

  “To hell with this," Vince muttered. Before she knew what he was thinking, he scooped her up into his arms. Then he resumed walking through the woods, carrying her now.

  "Vince, that's really chivalrous and all, but come on... put me down."

  "You're injured."

  "I'm freezing. At least walking will warm me up."

  "I will warm you up." He tightened his arms around her as he said it, and she felt his body heat slowly seeping through their wet clothes, into her skin where her body rested against his. She couldn't help snuggling closer. She didn't feel the least bit embarrassed about pressing as close to him as she could manage. She wrapped her arms around his neck to anchor herself as he walked. And his body grew warmer as they progressed through the trees.

  "Do you really think there's a chance that light went out by accident, Vince? Or are you just trying not to frighten me?"

  "Good question. I'm not real sure myself right now."

  She closed her eyes, opened them again slowly. "You were... giving me mouth-to-mouth when I came around."

  "Best part of the whole trip." He said it lightly, like a teasing joke between friends, but the words made her stomach clench into a knot.