Gingerbread Man

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