Gingerbread Man

by Maggie Shayne

  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 entra
nce 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.

  Selkirk lifted his brows. "That's something we didn't know."

  "His father beat the hell out of him back in England," Vince said. "Reggie ran away young, came to the States, grew up to be a famous horror star."

  "Any of his films involve torturing kids?"

  Vince shook his head. "No. Believe me, I checked. As far as anyone around here can tell, the guy loves kids. He used to throw this big Halloween party for them every year. Moved away for a while, came back the year before last, and this year, he reinstated the tradition. Candy, prizes, special effects."

  "And one kid doesn't get to go home."

  Vince looked up fast. “This is the first time anything bad has happened to a kid in connection with D'Voe or the party."

  "Except maybe for his niece. The niece who's not a niece. You saw the fax?"

  "I saw it."

  "So what have you got on Amanda D'Voe?"

  "Reggie says he was more an honorary uncle. Got real upset when we asked him to prove it."

  "So Chief Mallory told me. Have you asked her?"

  Vince nodded. "She said she couldn't talk about it." When Selkirk frowned at him, Vince went on. "She's fragile. Was in the middle of an anxiety attack at the time. Maybe it's just a painful memory."

  "Or maybe she was his first victim."

  Vince narrowed his eyes. "What, and he decided to keep her?"

  "It's more common than you would believe. They don't start out killing, you know. They molest. They rape. They even fall in love with their victims, at least it's love in their sick, twisted minds. It's the closest thing to it for them. He may very well have decided to keep her. Raise her. Especially if she was his first. God knows there are enough missing kids on the books who've never been found."

  Vince blinked, frowned hard.

  "What?"

  "Nothing." He gave his head a shake. "Nothing, never mind." He focused on the crisis at hand again. "Listen, don't you think she would know? I mean, if she were kidnaped, assaulted, abused that way, do you really think she would have grown up utterly devoted to the guy?"

  Selkirk heaved a sigh. "It's possible. It happens. Been documented." He took a long drag on his cigarette, then tossed it to the ground, crushed it with his toe as he blew the smoke out into the night. "One way to find out"

  "How's that?"

  "Check her for the mark. That four-leaf-clover brand. It's probably something he's been doing for a while. Maybe even from the very first time. If she has it, he's our man. We oughtta get a blood sample, too, find out once and for all if she's related to D'Voe."

  "He already admitted she wasn't," Vince said. "Why would he do that if she were a blood relative?"

  "You never know. Maybe he started out snatching kids related to him. Most of these guys warm up molesting their own before they start in with the kids of strangers, you know."

  Vince lowered his head, wondering how the hell he was going to explain any of this to Amanda without sending her into hysterics. But there was no getting around it. It had to be done.

  EIGHTEEN

  THEY'RE GOING TO be a while," Holly said, about the fourth time Amanda peeked out the door down the hall toward where they'd taken her uncle. "Sitting in here isn't doing you any good."

  "I can't leave."

  Holly took her hand. "We won't go far. My mother's upstairs. I'd like to check in on her."

  "Your mother?" Amanda met her eyes. She was still pale, still shaky, but she had control now.

  "Yeah. She... this has brought back some memories. Bad ones." Holly looked away. "I'm sure you've heard the story. Dr. Graycloud... thought Mom needed to rest."

  Blinking slowly, Amanda seemed to forget her panic for a moment. "I've only heard rumors. You... had a sister.
"

  Holly nodded, felt her eyes heating, welling up. "Yeah. She was taken—just like Bethany."

  "And you never got her back?"

  Holly gave a quick, sharp shake of her head. "It was a long, long time ago."

  “I’m sorry, Holly." Amanda touched her arm.

  "It won't be the same for Bethany. We'll find her."

  "We will," Amanda agreed with a nod. Holly started for the door, opened it, and Amanda hesitated. "What if Reggie needs me?"

  "We can leave a note for that nurse. We won't be gone long. I just... I don't really want to go by myself."

  Eyes lowering, Amanda rubbed her arms. "I know what you mean. All right. If we leave a note."

  Holly nodded, then rummaged in the room, finding a paper and pen, scribbling a note. She left it on the table, face up. “There. Okay?"

  She took Amanda's hand, opened the door, and they stepped into the hall. To the right, they could see through the window of the treatment room, where doctors and nurses still surrounded Reggie. To the left and across the hall was the waiting room, but Holly didn't see Vince there. To the immediate left, there were elevators. That was where she turned, only to be stopped by Nurse Sally, carrying a little tray by its center handle. Test tubes filled small square sections. "Can I bother you two for just a minute?"

  Amanda's eyes widened. "Is it Uncle Reggie? Is he—?"

  "No, no. It's related, though. There's a slim chance— but a possibility—that he may need a transfusion before this is over. We're short on blood so Dr. Graycloud asked me to get some samples typed and cross-matched, just to see if we have a donor on hand should we need one."

  "Oh." Amanda sighed, nodded. "I'm afraid I won't be much use," she said. "We're not really blood relatives."

  Holly glanced at her. "You're not? I didn't realize."

  "Oh, that doesn't matter," the nurse said. "Anyone might be a match, related or not. We can do it right in here. Come on." She walked back into the break room, and set Amanda in a chair. Amanda rolled up her sleeve, and Sally tied a large rubber band around her bicep. She flicked her finger against the crook of Amanda's elbow. "Ah, that's a nice one. You ready, hon?"