Selkirk started to speak, but Holly spoke first. "You're not going to charge anyone with any crimes here, Agent Selkirk." Her gaze shot to Vince's, fiercely protective. "I'll say I did it. You try to prosecute Vince for Marty's death, and I'll take the blame myself, do you understand?"
Vince's stomach knotted up. "Holly—"
Selkirk said, "We'll take your statements inside where it's warm and dry. But I honestly don't know what you're talking about, Ms. Newman. It's clear from what I've seen that the man was killed in self-defense." He met Vince's eyes. "And that's exactly what will be going into my report."
"There'll be an autopsy," Vince said softly.
"It'll be handled."
The man meant it. Vince had told his version of things out there, briefly, and he'd known full well Selkirk saw right through it. The truth had been all over the front of Amanda D'Voe's raincoat. But the Fed wasn't going to push that. Maybe he was a decent human being after all.
Vince thrust out a hand, and shook Frank Selkirk's. "Thanks."
Selkirk nodded and turned to go to a car, where he pulled out a microphone and spoke into a radio.
"Run, run, run, fast as you can," Amanda half whispered, her voice a low monotone, and utterly chilling. Her eyes were still glued to the bakery truck.
Holly went stiff, and turned slowly. "Amanda?"
"Can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man."
Holly followed Amanda's gaze to the side of Marty's truck. There a brown gingerbread man with pink icing smiled back at her in the flashing lights.
"It was always my favorite story," Amanda said softly. She frowned, and tilted her head. "I lost my book you know. But then I saw the picture on the side of the truck. That's why I went to it when I got away. That's why I got inside. 'Run, run, run, fast as you can.' I thought I could run, that he'd never catch me if I could run with the gingerbread man."
Holly was staring at the woman. Her lips were parted, and her eyes riveted. She reached out a hand, then drew it back without touching. Almost as if she were afraid.
"Amanda?" Holly whispered. "Amanda this is very important."
Amanda's eyes flickered, and she looked at Holly.
"Where did you get the book? The one you lost?"
Amanda frowned hard. "I... my sister got it for me. From the library." She shook her head. "I promised I'd take care of it, and then I lost it. God, Holly's going to be so mad when I..." she let her voice trail off, and fixed her gaze on Holly.
"Ivy?" Holly lifted a hand. "Is it... are you ... ?" Holly turned her stunned eyes to Vince.
He spoke softly, slowly, choosing his words with care.
"At the hospital, they said your blood and hers were too close a match not to be siblings. Doc thought it might be a mistake. We wanted to run another test to be sure before we said anything, but..."
Amanda's face twisted, lips pulled tight. "I... remember ... oh, God, I remember. Mom and Dad and ... and... Holly?"
"Ivy?"
"Holly!" She launched herself at her sister, and the two clung, held, fell to their knees still locked together sobbing, holding tight and sobbing softly.
Vince looked on, and tried to wipe the dampness from his cheeks without drawing undue attention.
TWENTY-TWO
DORIS NEWMAN DIDN'T know where everyone had gone. Dr. Graycloud had come and taken Mrs. Stevens off someplace. All the police who had been milling around earlier had gone, and the guard was no longer at Reginald D'Voe's door.
It was early in the morning, not even daylight yet. The hospital was eerily quiet.
She slipped out of her room without drawing any notice, took the elevator down, and held tightly to the large pair of scissors she had taken earlier.
Reggie D'Voe had been the man who had taken her little girl so long ago. And the system had let him get away with it all this time. She wasn't going to leave justice to the system any longer.
She crept up to his room, opened the door, and slipped silently inside.
Then she saw that girl, Amanda, sitting beside Reggie's bed, holding his hand, and her face was wet with tears.
Reggie lifted his head off the pillows. His eyes were tear-stained as well. "Mrs. Newman... Doris," he said. And his lips were compressed tightly as if in pain. His eyes welled with fresh tears. "I won't even ask if you can forgive me for the wrong I have done you and your family. There is no way I can ever make it up to you."
“Then you admit it?" she asked, rage welling inside.
He blinked, frowned, glanced at Amanda. Amanda said, "She doesn't know, Reg. Holly and Vince went to find her, but she must have already left her room. She still doesn't know what really happened to Ivy."
Reginald gasped and turned even paler. "Oh. Oh, God, you poor woman."
"It's okay. It's okay, Mrs. Newman," Amanda said, rising slowly to her feet. "I know what you must be thinking right now. But we know the truth, finally. Holly knows. So does Vince. Reggie didn't do any of this."
Doris narrowed her eyes on the girl. "How do you know?"
Amanda looked at her in an odd way. Her blue eyes seemed to move constantly over Doris's face, as if trying to memorize every line. "Because Ivy escaped from her abductor. He didn't kill her. He never killed her. She got away."
Doris's knees weakened. The scissors fell from her hands to the floor, and she lifted a hand to her trembling lips. "Are you telling me ... my baby ... is still alive?"
Amanda nodded. A tear ran slowly down her cheek. "She got away," the girl went on. "And wound up wandering, lost and alone in a storm."
"And that's where I found her," Reginald D'Voe said softly.
Doris frowned, her gaze shifting from him to his niece and back again. "You—you found her?"
"She was delirious," Amanda said. "She told Reggie that her father was the one who hurt her. Her abductor was a sick man, who used to make her call him 'Daddy.' She was confused, and she'd been drugged a lot of the time. So her mind was muddled. She didn't remember who she really was."
"She couldn't even remember her real name," Reginald went on. "I thought I was protecting her from an abusive parent, like the one who tortured me as a boy. I claimed her as my own niece, and I raised her. I swear to God, Mrs. Newman, I didn't know she was your daughter. I didn't know."
"You saved me, Reggie," the girl said. "You saved me, and you cherished me, and you helped me to heal."
Doris blinked, her eyes sliding to the young woman, who was moving slowly closer to her. She looked at the blue, blue eyes. The soft, light-brown hair that had once been blonde. The shape of her nose and chin. And she saw ... what she was almost afraid to believe she was seeing. "Ivy?"
The girl nodded. "Mommy." She moved into Doris's arms, and hugged her as Doris closed her eyes and started weeping, holding her daughter as if she'd never let go, ever again.
* * *
VlNCE AND HOLLY opened the door to Reg's room, saw what was going on inside, and withdrew quietly. "Let's give them some time," Holly whispered. "They've lost so much time. They need it. God, I just want to sit down. I'm so tired."
Vince held Holly to his side, led her to the nearest place he could think of where they could find quiet, which turned out to be Dr. Graycloud's office. He knew the man wouldn't mind. He set her down in a comfortable chair, knelt in front of her, and peeled off her shoes.
"How many bodies?" she asked. She was drained, emotionally, physically, mentally.
"I don't know."
"Come on Vince, someone's counted the mounds by now. You've been on your phone ten times since we got back here. And it'll be in the papers by tomorrow anyway. How many?"
He sighed, not wanting to tell her. He had hoped for a lighter moment, but maybe it was impossible, given the circumstances. "Fifteen is the best guess so far. Seventeen when you add in the two most recent victims in Syracuse. He'd have probably buried them here as well, but I found them before he moved them. Selkirk said there were four others whose bodies were found before Marty had buried them."
“Twenty girls. One was a boy. Bobby Prague." Vince shook his head. "He must have got in the way, seen too much, something. Marty never took boys."
Holly winced. "And how many more victims did dear Uncle Marty leave scarred and damaged, who lived to tell the tale?"
"No one's even begun to count yet." Vince tugged a blanket off a gurney in the hall, just outside the door, then came back in and draped it over her. "But, he did have a prior conviction."
She sat up in the chair. "He what?”
"Before he married your aunt, he served two years for molesting three seven-year-old girls."
She narrowed her eyes. "Two years? And that's it? They just let him go after that?"
"Yep. Even though they knew full well he'd do it again."
She swallowed hard. "That's not right. Why didn't you know about it? You must have checked for convicted sex offenders in the area."
"He lived in a different state, used a different name. Local authorities are supposed to be notified when a convicted sex offender moves into their area, but it doesn't always happen. Marty fell through the cracks. A lot of them fall through the cracks." He shook his head. "What's even harder to take is that your cousins, when they were contacted by California State Police to be notified about all of this, said their father had molested them. They told their mother, and she refused to believe them."
"That's why they left home," Holly said softly. "I kind of pieced that together on my own over the past several hours."
“They found the gray van he used for the abductions, you know. He kept it in an old barn, outside town," Vince said. "This could have been prevented. All those kids could still be alive, if he had been taken out of society permanently the first time he was convicted. Or if his wife had believed her children and filed charges against him."
"What about Bethany?" Holly asked.
Vince shook his head. "Doc says she wasn't raped. You and your sister got to her in time."
"My sister." She sighed, settling back in the chair. "My sister. God, I like saying those words, hearing them. I just want to hold her for days on end, you know?"
"Your mother is probably feeling the same way about now."
"I remember now when all my symptoms started coming back. It was right after that day when Mom was late for lunch, and I had coffee with Amanda—with Ivy—in the cafe. Almost as if something in me knew ... I just wish the families of all those other children could have had the ending we did."
"So do I." He thought of Kara and Bobby Prague, the lifeless eyes of their mother, and his regret was bitter, despite that justice had finally been served.
"We should put a marker on that site." Holly said. "Something to honor those children. Something to remind us what can happen."
"I think it's a good idea." Vince got to his feet. By now he knew his way around Doc's office pretty well. He took cups from the rack, hot cocoa from the canister beside the coffeemaker. Added water, and put the mugs into the little microwave.
"So, it's over," she said. "You solved the case. You found the owner of that mysterious missing library book."
"Hell, you haven't seen the fine yet. You're gonna need to mortgage the house." As an effort to lighten the mood, he figured it was lame at best.
She smiled a little though. Softly, halfheartedly. The timer bell pinged, and he took the cocoa out, gave her cup a good stir, and put it into her hands. She sipped, and seemed to absorb the heat.
"You did this, you know," Holly said softly. "If you hadn't followed your instincts and that one silly book, and come out here and dug into my personal hell, I might never have known the truth. Marty might have gone on hurting kids for years to come, and I might never have found my sister again. You did this."
He shook his head. "You're the one who found Marty, rescued Bethany. I was just doing my job."
She narrowed her eyes. "No, you weren't. You disobeyed orders to come out here. I know you said you didn't want to be anyone's hero, Vince, but there are a lot of people in this town who think you are just that. And even though you didn't want to be, you're a hero to me, too."
He couldn't look at her when she said that. He didn't doubt that he wanted the job of being Holly Newman's personal hero. Hell, in retrospect, it had never been that he didn't want the job. It had been fear that he'd fail at it, and let her down.
"I've learned something about you in the time I've spent down here, Red," he told her.
"Really? What?"
"That you don't need a hero. You do just fine playing that role for yourself."
She let her lips curl up at the corners. "You know something? You're right, I do."
He smiled, glad she had reclaimed her power.
"So I suppose you'll be going back to Syracuse now. Back to the illustrious S.P.D."
He looked at her. "They'll probably give me a promotion."
"You deserve a medal."
"Hey, you get the medal for this one, not me. You and your sister. Hell of a team."
She shook her head. "Don't try to draft us, Detective. We're gonna stick around here, where life is usually slow and easy, and everyone knows everyone else. Nothing bad ever happens in Dilmun, you know."
"So I've heard." He nodded. "I was thinking along the same lines myself, as a matter of fact."
Holly lifted her head, frowned at him over the coffee mug.
He pulled a chair up to face hers, and sat down in it. "I misjudged this town and the people in it from the start, Holly. It's tight, and close, and caring. I like that." He drew Holly's bare feet up off the floor along with the tail end of the blanket, which he tucked snugly around them. Then he set her feet in his lap and rubbed them warm again. "Most of all, though, I misjudged myself."
She tipped her head sideways. "About what, Vince?"
"Oh, you're gonna laugh at this one. I thought, I honestly thought, I could keep from falling in love with you."
She went very still, not quite meeting his eyes. "And you, um, you were wrong about that?"
"More wrong than I've ever been about anything."
He took her cup from her hands, set it aside on the doctor's desk. "So, what do you say, Red?" His stomach clenched tight. Leaning forward in his chair, he took both of her hands, held them in his own. "Jim Mallory says he could use another officer."
"You're saying—you want to stay?"
"I want to stay. I like it here. And I want to be where you are, where your family is."
Her eyes teared up again as she held his gaze. If she didn't say she loved him back pretty soon he was going to break something. But, damn, she looked so vulnerable right now. Her lips were trembling. Maybe it was too soon.
"Promise not to hurt me, Vince," she whispered. "And I'll promise not to hurt you. Not ever."
He closed his eyes, realizing she was still scared of the same old thing. Of losing the one you loved. That fear would probably never go away. He pulled her close and kissed her tenderly. He took his time about it, made it long, and slow, and gentle. It was a kiss of promise, and one of healing, he thought. For both of them.
When he lifted his head, he looked into her eyes, not blinking. "I won't hurt you, Red," he promised. "I swear to God, I will never, ever hurt you."
A sigh escaped her, along with a lot of tension, he thought. "I love you, Vince," she whispered against his lips as he tasted her tears on them. "I love you so much."
"I'm damn glad to hear that."
* * *
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Prologue
HE WATCHED THE body sink in slow motion through the murky green water. Tears blurred his eyes, obstructing his view, but he wiped them away. He liked to watch. It was peaceful, the way the long tendrils of dark seaweed seemed to reach up for the bodies. Like they were waiting, eager to welc
ome them home. They parted, those tendrils, as the body sank deeper and then closed up again as its descent continued. Like the fingers of a loving hand, embracing them, wrapping them in the liquid softness of death. He liked to think of them resting at the bottom, sinking into the deep, soft mud. Peaceful. Easy. When the seaweed fingers returned to their former positions, reaching toward the surface, waving gently in the currents, it was as if they’d never even been there.
As if he’d never killed them.
When the last ripple faded and the water returned to green stillness, Eric backhanded the new tears from his face and snuffled hard. It was done. Again. But this was it, it was over. This would be the last time.
You say that every time. But you know better.
Yeah, it was true, he’d said it before. Every time, with every lanky, brown-eyed young man he bludgeoned to death with his favorite framing hammer. It wasn’t that he took any pleasure in killing them. It was just that he couldn’t help himself. When he saw them, he got this persistent itch in the back of his brain. And it would get worse and worse. You couldn’t scratch that itch from the outside. It was inside. It scratched and it scratched, a rat on a wall, working until it broke clean through.
That other one inside him. He was the killer. And once he got his rocks off beating them to death, he crawled back into his rat hole, leaving Eric to clean up the mess, to plaster over the hole and cover up the crime, and pretend there were no rats in his house at all.
What rats? I don’t hear any rats. Look at me, I’m just a normal guy. And yeah, my eyes are red, but not because I’ve been sobbing over the poor fucking bastard I just dumped into the lake. It’s probably allergies. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m fine. Normal.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
Nothing could make the scratching stop except killing. And it was getting so the rat demanded to be fed more and more often. It was growing, that rat. It was almost too big to stay behind the wall at all anymore.
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