Gingerbread Man

by Maggie Shayne

  Holly went back into the room, and saw Amanda on her feet, putting on her coat

  "What are you doing?"

  "We have to get out of here," Amanda said. "I'll never remember anything here, and they aren't going to leave me alone. Dr. Graycloud will order meds. The nurses will be in with them soon. Will you help me, Holly? Will you help me go to where I can remember?"

  Holding the other woman's gaze, Holly nodded. "You're damn right I will."

  NINETEEN

  “DID YOU GET a blood sample from Amanda?" Vince asked, as he and Dr. Graycloud rode the elevator down two levels.

  "Yes, though I can't imagine why you need it. Reggie has already admitted to you that she's not a blood relative."

  "Yeah, well that begs the question of just who the hell she is, then, doesn't it?"

  The doctor grunted as the doors opened, and they headed down the hall toward the E.R. Halfway there, Chief Mallory met them, Selkirk on his heels. "They're ready to move Reggie to a regular room. I think you should be there when they go in to question him, but Selkirk and his cohorts disagree."

  "It's our case now," Selkirk said. "O'Mally has no jurisdiction."

  "Well I do." The aging doctor straightened to his full height and looked Selkirk right in the eye. "And I don't want you or your men anywhere near him until I give the okay. Good God, if I won't allow you to question Amanda when she's on the verge of emotional collapse, what makes you think I'd let you grill a man who's just suffered a coronary?"

  "We need to question him as soon as possible," the agent said, his tone dismissive. "There's a little girl's life at stake, Doctor. I suggest you keep that in mind."

  “I’m keeping it firmly in mind, Agent Selkirk. What you need to keep in mind is that if you push Mr. D'Voe into another heart attack, you'll never get the chance to question him at all. And any information he might have that could help save that little girl will be gone with him."

  That brought Selkirk to attention, and the doctor rose a notch in Vince's eyes. He was holding his own and then some with the imposing federal agents, and looked as proud and powerful as a tribal chieftain. Then he delivered the clincher. "The man won't be conscious for several hours anyway. You couldn't question him if you wanted to until then."

  "Fine. We'll wait," Selkirk said grudgingly. "But we'll post a guard at his door. One of ours," he added with a meaningful look at Vince, and then the chief.

  Jim Mallory nodded. "Fine by me. I'm shorthanded as it is."

  Several attendants rolled the gurney out of the treatment room, and the men stopped speaking to watch. Reggie's skin was nearly indistinguishable from the sheets around him. He was chalk white, except for the blue veins showing through his thin eyelids, and ghostly gray of his lips.

  "So you wanted to talk to me?" Vince reminded the doctor as he watched the man's friend being wheeled away.

  Graycloud looked up at him as if he'd forgotten, then gave a nod. "Yes. My office will do." He led Vince back up the hall, past the elevator doors that closed on three nurses, two federal agents, and Reggie on his rolling bed. Around a corner, the doctor opened a door, flipped on a light switch, and then stood aside for Vince to enter before closing it. Moving behind a large desk, he sank into his chair, as if he were exhausted, and Vince sank into one in front of the desk just like it.

  "Been a hell of a night, huh?"

  Dr. Graycloud nodded wearily. "Hell of a night. You get nights like this around here every now and then."

  "Around Dilmun, you mean?" Vince asked.

  "Nah. Around an emergency room. Oh, nothing this dark. Farming accidents, hunting accidents, drunk drivers, that sort of thing. But death is a tough combatant, no matter the form he takes or the victims he comes for. Fighting him off is exhausting." He gestured at the room around him. "That's why I keep a little haven for myself in here."

  Vince looked around. It was a cozy space. Coffee pot, hot cocoa in a canister beside a tiny microwave. A cup tree held mugs with nature scenes painted on them. Deer, birds, mountains. The chairs were overstuffed and cozy, and there was a cot around a corner in a spot that might once have been a closet.

  "I think it's time I told you what I know about Amanda and Reggie. I think maybe Reg would want me to, at this point. I don't like that Selkirk character, and I think the chief already knows, or at least suspects."

  Vince sat forward in his seat.

  "I don't believe Reggie's guilty of anything at all, you know. Most certainly not of harming children."

  Vince nodded slowly. "I don't think he is either, Doc, but I gotta tell you, it's gonna be tough to find someone who looks more guilty than he does right now."

  "Unless we find the real culprit you mean."

  Vince sighed, not answering that one.

  The doctor leaned forward in his chair, taking keys from a pocket and unlocking a file drawer in his desk. He pulled it open, took out a folder, and closed the drawer again. Then he tossed the file down on the desk.

  Vince saw the name "Amanda" across the top, and frowned. "That's an odd way to mark her file. No last name?"

  Doc shrugged. "I didn't see any need. I knew who I meant. The fact is, we didn't know her last name. We didn't even know her first name when Amanda came to us."

  Vince took the file, flipped through it. "Maybe you'd better start at the beginning, Doc."

  Graycloud nodded, leaning back again, getting comfortable. "It was late fall, 1983. The exact date is in the folder there. It was in November, as I recall. Close to Thanksgiving. I remember it was storming. Made that thunderstorm we had the other night look like child's play. Blew up a real banger that night. No snow just then, but it moved in by week's end, as I recall. But this, this was a thunderstorm, and it was blowing full throttle when I got a phone call from Reggie. Said to come to his house right away. Said not to say a word to anyone about where I was going."

  Vince was fully alert now. Weariness no longer held a candle to anticipation. "So, you went."

  "Of course I went. When I got there, I found Reggie pacing. And there sitting by the fire, was this little girl. Skinny as a rail, pale, soaked to the bone." He hesitated for a moment. "She was bruised, and there were these ..." He lifted a hand, ran his thumb around his wrist. "These red rings around her little wrists. Like she'd been bound, but not with rope. Cuffs of some kind, was my best guess. Metal. She wouldn't let Reggie near her. Wouldn't let either one of us near her for a time. And her eyes, they were just..." Sighing, he shook his head slowly. "I don't know. Hollow. Empty. I don't know how to describe it. She looked ... bleak."

  Vince was on the edge of his chair. "What did you do?"

  "We got her some food, warm milk to drink. Reg had already given her blankets to wrap up in. She reacted well to the food. Like she hadn't eaten in days. And I think that was when she started to trust us just a little. We finally got her calm enough to sleep, and I managed to examine her. Once she was out, I'll tell you, she was out."

  "And what did you find?"

  Doc looked away. "She'd been raped. More than once. There was internal damage. I doubt she'll ever be able to have children of her own. She was malnourished and suffering from exposure and post-traumatic stress. Nothing life threatening. She'd been drugged. Sedated. I wanted to call in authorities. And that's when Reggie started lying."

  "What do you mean?"

  "When I first arrived, he'd told me this little thing had just shown up at his front gate, in the middle of the night, right in the full brunt of that storm, not wearing a stitch of clothes. That he just got up and looked out the window and saw her out by the gate. But the minute I wanted to report this to the police and Social Services, his story changed. He said he knew who she was. He said she was the child of a relative of his, and he made up the name. Amanda, he called her. Hell, I knew he was lying. And he knew I knew it."

  “Why? Why would he lie, Doc?"

  The doctor looked Vince squarely in the eye. "Reggie ran away from his father six times, Vince. The first time he was o
nly seven years old. Every time he was found by police or social workers, no matter how many burns or broken bones or bruises they found on that kid's little body, the authorities sent him right back. And every time they sent him back, he got beaten ten times worse than he had before he'd run. Every time, he would wait until he was healed up, strong, and then he'd try again. Five times they sent him back for more. The sixth time, he made his escape." Doc shook his head. "Why do you think he lied?"

  "He was afraid she would be sent back to whomever hurt her."

  Doc nodded. "She wouldn't talk much that first night. Barely at all. Wouldn't tell us her name, her age, anything. But the one thing she did say was all it took to convince Reg to do whatever it took to keep her with him."

  "And what was that?"

  "When we asked her who hurt her this way, she replied, ‘Daddy.’"

  Vince closed his eyes, got to his feet, and leaned over to flip open the file folder. Inside were photos of a little girl who looked haunted, skinny, ill. He fought against waves of nausea as he studied the snapshots.

  "I went along with the lie," Doc went on. "I knew what he was doing, but I pretended not to. It was the best thing for the child. I believed that at the time, and I still do. Look, flip the pages. There's a photo taken six months later."

  Vince did, and found the snapshot of a beautiful light-haired girl, smiling, with dimples, having what looked like a birthday party. Her eyes were still shadowed by the past, but she looked about a thousand percent better than in the first photos.

  "Reg had no idea when her birthday was, of course. He just picked a date. Just like he picked a name. And even after Amanda's body healed, she couldn't remember what happened before Reggie found her. Except that her daddy had hurt her. The idea of going back sent her into hysterics."

  Vince nodded, closed the file. "When you examined her that first night, did she have a mark on her back?"

  Doc looked up fast. "Yes. A burn, seared into her flesh, right between the shoulder blades. Four-leaf clover. There's a photo of it in the file."

  Vince bent his head, thinking that if this version of the story was true, they needed to know who Amanda's abusive father had been. Because he might very well be the killer they sought. If it was true. "Thank you, Doc. Thanks a lot."

  "Amanda still doesn't remember what came before, Vince. Hell, it's probably better that way."

  Vince picked up the file, tucked it under his arm. "Maybe you're right." But deep down he knew these revelations didn't prove a thing. Not really. Doc hadn't seen the child arrive. Vince knew the way a good prosecutor's mind would work. Doc's testimony only went so far. For all he knew, Reg could have had the girl captive for weeks, and only called the doctor in when she seemed too ill to survive without help. Perhaps Reggie was a sick child molester who had decided to keep the girl and raise her as his own. How could anyone know for sure, if Amanda herself couldn't even remember?

  * * *

  HOLLY AND AMANDA ran from the hospital's side entrance, through gathering rain and utter slick, shiny darkness, to Amanda's car. "You drive," Amanda said. "I'm still too shaky."

  Holly nodded, taking the keys and getting into the driver's side. Amanda slid in the passenger side and brushed the droplets from her hair, as Holly started the engine and turned on the wipers and the heat.

  "Where do you want to go?"

  "Back home. To Reggie's house."

  Holly wiped a hole in the fogged-up windshield and pulled out of the parking lot. "You realize that's the first place they'll look, don't you, Amanda?"

  “It's all right. We won't be there long." She glanced at Holly. "I mean, I won't. You can do whatever you want. I don't want to pull you any further into my nightmare. You helped me get back here, that's all I can ask you to do."

  Holly reached across the seat, closed her hand around Amanda's. "It's everyone's nightmare now. And I want to—I need to help you through to the end of this thing, Amanda. But, I'm not sure I understand."

  "I need to remember," Amanda said. "It's time for me to remember."

  "The time before you came to live with Reggie."

  Amanda nodded.

  "How much do you remember, Amanda? You never got the chance to tell me back at the hospital."

  Amanda closed her eyes. "I remember pain."

  "And nothing else?"

  "No, there's more. Fear. Darkness, and rain, and thunder, and cold. Those are the things I remember, the only things I remember when I try to think of the time before Reggie. The things I was feeling. Mostly the cold and the fear. I was so cold I couldn't feel my bare feet anymore. And the thunder kept getting louder."

  Holly waited for her to continue, but she didn't. "You were outside, in your bare feet, in the middle of a thunderstorm?"

  Amanda nodded. "At night. I don't think I knew where I was."

  "So, you were not in a town you knew, or at least not a neighborhood you knew," Holly suggested. Then she bit her lip. “Then again, to a small child, any neighborhood would probably seem foreign in the dark, in the rain."

  "Yes." Amanda's brows knitted in concentration. "I saw light, and I went toward it, but then I couldn't go anymore, and I just sank to the ground. I remember looking up and into the kindest eyes I thought I had ever seen. I was ... yes, I was curled up on the wet ground, outside the front gate of Reggie's place. He picked me up, and he carried me inside, and he wrapped me in warm blankets."

  "And then what happened?"

  "It gets clearer after that. The next thing I remember is Dr. Graycloud and Reggie, feeding me warm, sweetened milk and telling me that I was safe. That no one would hurt me anymore. That I could trust them. They were warmth and light. And after a while, they made the pain go away."

  “They fed you, gave you a warm bed, promised you they'd keep you safe."

  "Yes," Amanda said. "Yes, and I needed to believe that so badly that I did. I remember in the morning, Reggie told me whatever happened before didn't matter. That I should try to forget about it, because it couldn't hurt me ever again. That it was gone, as if it had never been. That I was starting all over again." She looked at Holly squarely. "And I think I took those words to heart, I really do. Because I forgot everything. My name. My history. Whatever horrible things had been done to me..."

  "Have you tried therapy?"

  Amanda sighed. "Therapy, hypnosis, drugs. Uncle Reg got me the best doctors money could buy. Most of them agreed that if I couldn't remember my past, it would be a bad idea to try to force it." She sent Holly a worried look. "They said the human mind knows what it can and cannot withstand. That if I'd blocked something out that completely, maybe there was a reason."

  "Maybe you couldn't handle remembering."

  Amanda swallowed hard. "Maybe. But that's no longer relevant."

  "Of course it's relevant!"

  "No, it's not. If I don't remember now, that little girl could end up dead. And I'll be responsible for it. No. No, I have to remember. And I can only think of one way. I have to go back. I have to go right back there, to the gate where Reggie found me that night."

  Holly frowned at her, shifting her gaze rapidly from Amanda's determined face to the road and back again. "And do what? Try to backtrack?"

  Amanda nodded. "If I can retrace my steps, make it as much like it was before as I possibly can, then maybe..." Sighing, she lowered her head. "It's a long shot, I know, but I just can't see any other way."

  When thunder rumbled softly in the distance, Holly said, "Sounds like the weather's going to cooperate."

  Amanda looked up, eyes probing the black depths of the sky. "Yeah." And she shivered. "God, I hate thunderstorms."

  * * *

  "DR. GRAYCLOUD?"

  The doctor held up a hand toward the nurse, and kept on with his conversation with Vince and the federal agent guarding Reggie's hospital room door. "I don't want to catch anyone trying to get into this room again, do you understand me, young man?"

  "With all due respect, doctor. Special Agent Selkirk
is my superior."

  "But he has no right to put my patient's life at risk," Graycloud insisted.

  Vince cut in. "Listen, kid, if the suspect dies because you didn't do your job, it'll be your ass, not Selkirk's. You got that?" His own methods were a bit more direct, but he didn't have time to dick around with the rookie. He and the doctor had come along the hall to see Selkirk with his hand on the hospital room door, about to go inside, and the guard looking the other way. "If you're too scared of Selkirk to stand up to him, then just call one of us next time he tries to get into the room."

  "I'm not scared of Agent Selkirk, Detective."

  "Shoot, you wouldn't know it to look at you." Vince shook his head. "Can you do the job, kid, or should we ask for someone else?"

  "I can do it just fine, sir."

  "Good."

  "Doctor, please," the nurse said again.

  "Just a moment, will you? Listen, son, if we hadn't come by just as Agent Selkirk was heading in there, I can't even predict what would have happened. Now, I know what you're thinking—so he dies, no great loss. But keep in mind that we have no solid evidence of that man's guilt. But we have very good reason to believe he might be the only hope we have of finding little Bethany Stevens alive. So you think about that, all right? You're not protecting a suspected child killer. You're protecting the life of a little girl."

  "Yes, sir," the agent said, and he looked, for once, as if he meant it.

  Sighing, Graycloud nodded, turned away. "Now, what is it nurse?"

  She walked beside the doctor and Vince through the hallway, flipping open a folder as she did. "They messed up the blood samples you requested," she said. "Must have been a glitch in the hospital lab; either way, we're gonna have to do them over again."

  "Why's that?" Frowning hard, Doc pulled a pair of bifocals from a pocket and slipped them on, then took the chart from her, scowling at the pages inside.

  "Miss D'Voe's friend insisted on being tested as well. And as you can see, the results between her workup and Miss D'Voe's are, well they're..."