Gingerbread Man

by Maggie Shayne

  "They're damn near identical." He lifted his gaze to Vince's.

  Vince swallowed hard and felt the blood drain from his face.

  "Exactly," the nurse went on. "I had the lab double-check. They swear the results are right, but it's obvious they must have mislabeled the samples, or tested the same one twice. For two adults to test this way they would practically have to be—"

  "Siblings," Doc said.

  Vince shut his eyes tight. "My God."

  "Thank you for the information nurse. I'll, uh, I'll take it from here," Graycloud muttered, and the nurse left them with an odd look.

  "We can't breathe a word of this," Vince said. "Not to anyone, not until we're absolutely sure. I don't think Doris could take the shock, much less the heartbreak if it turns out we're wrong. And as for Holly..." He shook his head slowly. "I don't know how she'll take this, but I do know we have to be sure. I don't want to hurt those two—those three—any more than they've already been hurt by all of this."

  “I’ll have further tests run," Doc said. "We'll need fresh samples from the two women. We'll get this confirmed and—" He was turning as he spoke, walking quickly, but he stopped all at once, braced a hand on the wall to keep him upright. His head dropped forward.

  Vince quickly gripped his arm. "Whoa, hold on."

  The doctor hung there a moment, closed his eyes. "My God, O'Mally, what if I took part in keeping a secret that should never have been kept? What if I'm partly to blame for what that family went through?" He opened his eyes, and they were wet. "I thought I was saving her. Not hiding her from a loving family! I swear I did."

  The man looked stricken. And Vince felt sorry for him. He could imagine making the same choices, if he'd believed what they had that night. "Look, you did what you thought you had to do. And who the hell knows, maybe you did save her. You said yourself, she told you and Reggie her daddy had been the one who hurt her."

  Lifting his brows and his head at once, Doc paled. "You think Holly's father—then, what about her? What about Holly?"

  "I don't know," Vince admitted. But it galled him to think she may have been a victim of the same thing.

  "No. No, Vince, it wasn't him," Dr. Graycloud said. "I knew the man. And, besides, if it were him, that would mean he was the one who took Bethany. And those children in Syracuse, he would have done that as well. But he couldn't have. He's dead. He's been dead for seven years."

  "Let's not get carried away. Maybe this really was just a mistake in the hospital lab."

  Doc nodded. "We'd better get those samples from Holly and Amanda."

  Vince headed for the elevator, and thought about Holly. About Amanda. He kept putting their faces side by side in his mind, and seeing similarities. Or was that wishful thinking? Why hadn't he noticed before if there was a resemblance?

  * * *

  DORIS NEWMAN STOPPED walking when she heard the two men arguing outside Mr. D'.Voe's room. She'd been on her way to look in on him, since she couldn't sleep anyway. He seemed like such a kind man, and she honestly hoped he was going to be all right

  But the words of the two men brought her up short.

  "Look, I'm sorry I got you into trouble," one man was saying. "I shouldn't have done that. I just don't want to wait until morning to question this guy."

  "I know," the younger man said. He was the one who seemed to be guarding the door. "The idea of protecting a child killer makes me sick. But are you sure he's the one?”

  "As sure as I need to be. He took that kid last night. Near as we can figure he's been killing little girls for eighteen years. Maybe longer. There's a guy in prison right now for one of those deaths."

  The guard sighed deeply. "Still, we'd better stick with procedure."

  "We will kid. I'll question him in the morning, with the doctor standing there protecting him. The piece of shit."

  Doris's eyes were frozen wide open, and her heart was skipping beats and swelling. Reginald D'Voe? A killer? Was it possible? Was he the man who had murdered her precious little girl? She felt herself sinking to her knees, one hand pressed to the wall, the other to her heart.

  "Ma'am? Are you all right ma'am?" someone asked.

  She ignored her. Ignored the hands pulling her to her feet, the chair she was eased into. Someone looked at her wristband, and said, "Mrs. Newman? Doris, can you hear me? Honey, what are you doing down here? You belong up on the third floor."

  She blinked, lifted her head, and tried to see through swimming eyes. But she couldn't. "I was just going to look in on Mr. D'Voe," she said. "He's a neighbor of mine."

  A neighbor. A neighbor, who had stolen her baby. Who'd killed her, and nearly driven Holly insane with grief and guilt. Him. He'd done it. But why? She'd never even met D'Voe until she and Holly had moved here. She'd known of him, even driven the girls past his house a few times when they visited every summer. But D'Voe had always summered elsewhere. The Keys, she'd once heard someone say. He'd never even been in town when she and the girls had been here. Why had he targeted her Ivy? Why?

  They pushed her chair into an elevator. She was shaking. Too much, it was too much to feel all at once.

  The doors opened, and the nurse pushed her back toward her room, as one of the nurses at the desk came forward to take over. "What happened? Doris? I thought you were doing better?" the nurse said. "I'll take it from here," she told the other nurse. Then she leaned over Doris again. "God, hon, you're white as a sheet."

  She shook her head. "Just tired. I... need to rest."

  "Well, we'll see to that. I've put Mrs. Stevens back in her own room for now. She'll be out till morning. Do you need anything to help you sleep?"

  What she needed, she thought, was a gun. Or a knife. Or a vat of deadly poison. Reginald D'Voe had taken her baby, and God only knew what he'd done to her before he'd finally killed her. He'd put Holly through hell, and he'd caused the cancer that had killed her husband. She had no doubt about that. Never had. The man had all but destroyed her family. He couldn't get away with that. He couldn't.

  He wouldn't.

  As the nurse pushed her toward her room past the nurse’s desk, she saw a large pair of shiny silver sheers on a tray. She bumped the tray with her foot, knocking some of the lighter items to the floor. When the nurse bent to pick them up, Doris grabbed the sheers and hid them in the folds of her hospital gown.

  TWENTY

  “YOU DID IT!" the woman shrieked from the middle of the trashed kitchen. Every drawer was opened, every cupboard. Papers, photos, old notebooks were strewn over the table and counters. She'd been searching for something. Evidence of his guilt, he supposed. "You did, didn't you? Didn't you?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about, honey. Why don't you calm down and stop looking at me like that?"

  His wife was wild-eyed. Her eyes were red and bulging and her hair a mess, as if she'd been repeatedly running tear-dampened hands through it. He'd never meant for her to find out. But he supposed, deep down, he'd always known she would. How could she not?

  The truck was in the back driveway, behind the house, its precious cargo bound and gagged and drugged and frightened. God, he loved it when they were frightened. It made it so much better. He'd only come home for a bite to eat, a change of clothes. Hadn't intended to stay long. Hadn't expected her to be home. God knew how little time he could take with his girls these days. It was getting shorter and shorter every time.

  "Our own daughters," his wife sobbed. "You did it to our own daughters."

  "Don't be ridiculous." He reached out for her but she backed away fast. Past the little round table, one hand dragging over it, knocking papers and old news clippings to the floor.

  "Our own daughters," she said again, shaking her head while new tears welled and rolled. "They tried to tell me what you were doing to them. And I didn't believe them. I chose you over our own daughters. That's why they ran away. That's why they left us. Because I wouldn't believe them."

  He tried to look stricken as he moved closer to her. One
step, then another on the little square tiles. She was still backing up, but his steps covered more ground. "How can you even think something like that?" he asked softly.

  "And then, when little Ivy was taken—it hit me then, that maybe it was you. Maybe the girls had been telling the truth and I'd been blind—but then that other man confessed. I was so relieved. God, I was so relieved to know it wasn't you!"

  "He confessed because he was guilty," he said reasonably. "That proves it wasn't me. It was never me."

  She didn't just shake her head this time, she flung it from side to side so fiercely he thought she would wrench her neck. Not that it mattered. Not now. "No! No, he didn't confess because he was guilty. Doris told me he only confessed to cop a plea. He didn't kill Ivy. Someone else did. You did! And I could have saved her. I could have saved Ivy if only I hadn't wanted so badly to believe you!"

  "Oh, honey, come on. You're upset. This whole incident with little Bethany has you thinking crazy." He was close now. He reached out and caught her upper arm.

  She slapped him. Her hand whipped his face so hard he rocked backward, releasing her arm in the process. "Where is that little girl? What have you done to her? Tell me!"

  He didn't speak this time. Just stared at her and felt his cheek heating, reddening. She had never hit him. In all their years of marriage, she had never once hit him.

  Her voice came broken now, softer, her body shaking. "How could you do it? How could you kill a child? How?"

  He sighed deeply. Damn, he hadn't wanted it to come to this. He knew he shouldn't have made a move on the Stevens girl so soon. Not until he'd gotten that nosy cop the hell out of town, at least. But he'd planned this for so long. He'd never taken a child from Dilmun before—but this one was special. He'd been watching her for two years. Soon she would have been too old.

  He'd been planning for Bethany for months. Then things started going wrong. They'd seen his old van, the one no one knew he kept. So he had to use his work truck. They found his hideaway in the city. The place where he liked to use them and keep them. It was where he'd kept Ivy. But he'd kept her too long. She'd been an important lesson in his education. You couldn't keep them too long.

  Then that cop had shown up in town—and now this. His wife knew. She knew.

  She looked at his eyes as he started toward her again, and she backed up still more. Through the arching doorway into the dining room. He paused in the kitchen, near the counter. She was halfway across the dining room now—she couldn't see. Reaching out with one hand, he drew the meat cleaver from its rack, brought it behind his back so smoothly she never noticed.

  "How could you? How could you murder a child?" she kept asking.

  "Hell, honey, it isn't like I wanted to. It's just—well, if you give them what they want—oh, yeah, they want it. They all want it. I never touched a girl that didn't—but once you give it to them, they talk. Our girls, for example. Ungrateful little..."

  She brought her hand to her lips, eyes going even wider. "Oh, my God..."

  "So you go younger, and you take 'em someplace where you can keep 'em quiet, use 'em till they're all used up. Shoot, I was still trying to decide how to finish it all when the first one got away." Sighing, he shook his head slowly. "See, it's their fault. You have to kill 'em, or they run away. You can only keep 'em for a short while at the most. And then you have to kill 'em. It's the only way."

  "No," she whispered. "No, no, no." She closed her eyes, backing into the hallway now, and turning, stumbling into the bedroom, slamming the door.

  "Yes," he told her, raising his voice enough so she could still hear, through the closed door. "I've been doing this awhile. You can trust me on it, there's no other way." He stepped into the hallway, too. She'd thrown the locks. He slammed his hip against the door, and it popped open easily enough. She whirled to face him, cowering. "Tell you what, though, honey. They die happy. Those little girls die just squirming with pleasure. I make sure of that."

  She made a face and gripped her stomach as if she were ill. "Where is she?" she asked. "Where is Bethany Stevens?"

  He licked his lips. "You don't think I'm gonna share, now, do you?"

  "God, you're insane!" She tried to duck past him, toward the door, but he punched her in the belly. Gave her such a blow that she doubled over, stumbled away from him. She fell to her knees, hunched, gagging. He walked up behind her. Lifted the cleaver. "I'll tell you the real trick to the whole process," he said, keeping his tone conversational. "Keep the bodies around until all the commotion dies down. Then you bury 'em far from where you use them. And never, ever leave any witnesses. That's really the main thing."

  * * *

  THE RAIN WAS falling harder than before. Amanda opened the gates in front of Reginald D'Voe's place, still wearing its Halloween decor, only now there was crime scene tape added to the mix. Holly drove the car through. Then Amanda took her inside, where they gathered up what they needed. Raincoats. Flashlights. Amanda ran from room to room, gathering the items, bringing them to Holly. They were ready now. It was to be on foot from there on. It was understood. Holly didn't need to ask why. It made perfect sense to her, though she supposed it wouldn't have to most normal people.

  Holly was worried about Amanda. She didn't look steady on her feet physically, much less emotionally steady. They walked back outside in the pouring rain, down the path to the open gate, and stepped through it. Amanda closed the gate, then they just stood there, with the rain pounding down on their yellow hoods, on their backs and shoulders. Facing the mansion, Amanda stood staring for a long moment. And then she nodded, and turned to the left, and said, "I came from this way."

  “Then we go this way," Holly told her. She stayed close to Amanda as the two of them walked back along the road. The gravel was wet, shiny in the beams of their flashlights. Trees lined both sides. They walked for twenty yards, and then Amanda stopped, lifting her head so the rain peppered her face, looking left, then right. "Here," she said. "Here is where I found the road again. Before that, I'd wandered through—” lifting her head, she looked at the trees off the right "—woods."

  "You came through the woods? Here, are you sure?"

  She nodded, and plunged into the wetness of the trees with barely any hesitation. "Yes. Yes, this way. Look, the trail is still here."

  Holly shone her light ahead, saw the one area through the woods that was clear of brush and trees. Even the weeds on the three-foot-wide strip were trimmed low. There was a yellow pole with black stripes sticking up out of the ground. "It's where the natural gas line runs through, underground," Holly said. "They keep the brush trimmed off it, so they can get to it to dig it up for maintenance. Local kids use it as a shortcut to town. I use it myself."

  "It seemed like a trail to me." Amanda hurried onto the path and began walking at a brisk pace along the cleared section. Holly tried to keep up. She was freezing. Her hands were cold and wet, and she dearly wished she had grabbed a pair of gloves. She thought belatedly that they should have called Vince from the house, told him what they were doing. But Amanda didn't trust Vince right now. And Holly couldn't really say she blamed her after he'd convinced her to reveal her scar to the federal agent, knowing it would implicate Reggie.

  “This trail cuts through the woods, right along the south edge of the lake, and comes out at the edge of town, near the cabins," she explained to Amanda. "Does any of that sound familiar to you?"

  Amanda shook her head. "No, not town. There were no cabins." Her steps were slowing, until finally she stopped, and stood still, head tipped back to the rain, eyes closed. "There were more woods. Woods with no path. I came ... I came ..." She tugged off her hood, and let the rain pour onto her head until it darkened her hair. She turned in a slow circle. "I came from the woods. I came through the woods a little ways before I found the path. And when I found it I thought it was put there to help me. Like when Snow White ran through the woods to escape the wicked queen. I thought the animals—" She stopped there, turning to face Holly, he
r eyes wide. "I remember that! There was a deer—a deer—standing right on the path, that's how I found it. I went toward the deer. It ran off, but not until I had found the path."

  Holly moved closer, gently touching Amanda's arm. "That's good. It's good, Amanda, it's coming back to you now." She studied Amanda's wet face, reached out to tug her hood back up. Then she fastened the snap at her neck to keep it there. "Are you okay?"

  Amanda nodded, spinning away, jogging a few more yards along the path. Then she stopped again, looking around. "This way." She pointed.

  "Are you sure, Amanda? I mean, town is only another hundred yards or so that way. The cabins are less. The only thing up this way is ... Amanda? Wait up."

  Amanda was already hiking off the trail, angling away from it.

  And then lights shone through the trees, and she went faster. Holly tried to stop her, but she couldn't catch her as Amanda moved faster and faster. Then the trees ended at the edge of a nicely manicured lawn. And Amanda stopped, and stared at the red house with the white shutters.

  "Here," she said. "I came from here." Her eyes closed tight, Amanda pressed a hand to her head as if in great pain.

  "But, Amanda, that doesn't make any sense. This is my uncle Marty's house."

  * * *

  THE NURSES ON Doris Newman's floor hadn't seen Holly or Amanda. They were not in Doris's room. Mrs. Stevens was sleeping, though restlessly, thanks to the sedatives she'd been given. Reggie's guard said he'd had no visitors, and the doctor had searched the entire hospital.

  Vince, Jerry, Agent Selkirk, and Chief Mallory stood in the parking lot outside the hospital, in the rain, and Mallory said, "It's not here. Amanda D'Voe's car was parked out here earlier, right there." He pointed to an empty space. "She pulled in right behind me."

  "Still think she's an innocent in all of this, O'Mally?" Selkirk crossed his arms over his chest. "Panic attacks my ass. The bitch needs to be interrogated, and when we find her, you can bet I'll be the one doing it."