Gingerbread Man

leading edge of Lake-view Road. Her home, her safe, comfortable haven, was five houses ahead on the right.
    So why did her eyes keep wandering along Shoreline Drive's beach-hugging loop? Why was her body turning to take that stretch of road, even though it meant turning right into the brisk, chilly wind? And why on earth were her feet carrying her amid the rustling leaves, along the gravel road that was all but deserted at this time of the year?
    She didn't know. She did know that it was a mistake. Disaster always followed when you took the long way home, she'd learned. You just didn't veer from your routine. You stuck to a plan, and in that way you could be in control.
    She wasn't in control right now. And that scared her.
    The lake was dotted with dancing whitecaps, and the wind nipped at her nose and cheeks, grazing them. The closer she walked, sneakers crunching over gravel, the more intense that wind became. Trees lined the left side of the road, their limbs shedding any remaining leaves rapidly, their colors fading like the color of an old man's eyes. Tall reeds, cattails, and muck stretched for several yards along the roadside. As she passed those waving, whispering rushes, the sky seemed to darken by degrees. It was as if every breath of wind blew a little more of the daylight away. It was completely unlike her not to go straight home. And she hadn't gone through all those years of therapy not to know why that was, but she refused to think about it. She'd come this far. She might as well keep going.
    She needed to find out what the weary, craggy Syracuse cop was really doing in her town.
    She finally passed by the marshy area to where the ground became firm and dry and green with tall, lush grasses as it sloped gently down toward the lake. The water was dark today. Every whitecap seemed designed to contrast with the midnight hue of the water. The chill wind that had kicked up with the stranger's arrival only grew stronger.
    She rounded a curve, and the grasses stopped standing tall and lush and became neatly clipped. Crewcut lawns on duty, and every fifty feet or so a small square log cabin at the ready. Each had a narrow gravel driveway, and a small wooden dock of its own. Each had a porch. She knew the cabins well. She had spent a few weeks of every summer in one of them as a child.
    She'd always loved the way they smelled, and she inhaled that same scent now. Aging cedar touched by freshwater and a hint of fishiness.
    Holly sighed. "So get on with it, already," she muttered. She veered off the road onto the private drive that lined the row of lakefront cabins. Most of them were obviously vacant. One or two were occupied by fishermen out for a long weekend. Those were the cabins with oversized, four-wheel-drive SUVs parked in their gravel driveways, and small motorboats tied to their docks.
    She knew which cabin Vince O'Mally had rented the second it came into view. The very last one at the end of the row. The most private one, out of plain sight of the others because of a curve in the drive. Its curtains were all drawn tight, not a bit of light coming from within. His car was nowhere in sight, either. Nor was there a boat at the dock.
    Holly bit her lip and took a quick look up and down the driveway. No one was around. Swallowing hard, she cut across the lawn, and ducked around to the rear of the building. Nothing back there but weeds, a giant propane tank, and a stack of nicely seasoned firewood. Squatting low in the weeds, she waited, listened. Her heart was pounding so hard she couldn't hear much else, and it wasn't from exertion. Hell.
    She caught her breath eventually and, gathering her courage, rose. She still didn't see anyone. Standing on her toes, she leaned close to the nearest window, and tried to find a spot where the curtains parted enough to give her a glimpse inside.
    Something moved in there. The barest shadow among the shadows.
    She jerked backward so fast she lost her balance, and fell, hitting the ground hard, then scrambling to her feet again, her heart pounding as her mind sought answers. What had she seen, exactly? A dark form, a man, or was he the nightmare that kept replaying in her mind? She stood motionless, listening, waiting. The woods were at her back, the lake to her left, and the road to safety, right. Straight ahead was the house, and she didn't know if the shadow man was even now coming around it after her, or if he was, which way he would come, or if he were even real. So