Gingerbread Man

Machine."
    Vince went blank, shaking his head, searching his mind. "I don't—"
    "Scooby Doo,"
she said. "The cartoon? That was the van they drove. All this one needed was pink paint and psychedelic flowers and it would have fit." She drew her focus back to the present and stared at him. "My God, that's more than I've ever remembered before."
    "Maybe that's because you're ready to remember it now."
    Her eyes lowered. "Or maybe it's because of you."
    A little alarm bell went off in his mind. He didn't want her to think that way, that he was the one to fix things for her. That he could be some kind of hero. That was the last thing he wanted. "I've got nothing to do with it, Red. This is all you. Go on now. What happened next?"
    She breathed long and deeply. Her shoulders rose and fell with it. She lifted her chin. "The van stopped. A man got out. He—he—he—"
    "No, no. Slow down. Freeze-frame." He held her upper arms, squeezed to remind her he was there. "Breathe slow, and just take that one image. The man got out."
    She took a deep breath, then another, then nodded twice, firmly. "He was very tall. Of course, all grown-ups seemed very tall to me then. He ... wore jeans, a blue shirt. A denim jacket. His belly hung over the top of the jeans, I remembered that much in therapy. He wore a ski mask, so all I could see of his face were his eyes. I know he was Caucasian."
    "Blue eyes, you said. Anything else? Unusual shape? Any scarring? What about his lashes or brows, was there anything there?"
    "Blue eyes. Icy blue." She shook her head. "Other than that, I only remember being terrified. He grabbed us both. Ivy with one hand, me with the other."
    "Bare-handed or was he wearing gloves?"
    She lifted her head slowly. She wasn't aware, Vince thought, of rubbing her right arm above the elbow. "Gloves," she whispered. "He hurt my arm, he held on so tight. I screamed. Ivy did, too. I twisted and he lost his grip on me. I fell on the sidewalk. He gave me this look. This
look.
And Ivy—she was screaming and reaching for me. Her eyes were so huge and so blue. And she was so afraid. He just shoved her into the van and crammed himself in after her. And then they were gone."
    Tears were rolling down both her cheeks now. Her body shivering gently.
    He wanted to move onto the seat beside her, pull her snugly against him. He was, in fact, actively and determinedly resisting the urge to do so.
    "Are you all right?" he asked instead.
    She sniffed, nodded. "Mom fell apart. Dad retreated into himself. He tried so hard to be strong for us, you know. He didn't let any of it out, not at all. I think that had a lot to do with the cancer. It was only a couple of years before the symptoms set in, and one more before the diagnosis."
    "And what about you, Holly? What happened to you?"
    She lifted her big eyes to his. He felt a tremor in his belly. "I never veered from my route again. Not from school to home. Not from my locker to my classroom. Not from my bed to my shower to my closet. Everything in my life suddenly had to be regimented. I developed specific patterns for everything I did, and I couldn't function if I missed a single step. The therapists called it O.C.D."
    He nodded. "Obsessive Compulsive Disorder."
    "Yeah. And then of course there were the night terrors. The panic attacks. The phobias. I was terrified of everything from heights to being outdoors to strangers to going to school. Mom finally had to pull me out, hire tutors."
    "But you got better."
    She looked at him. "I got to the point where I could function. With extreme effort. I wasn't a hell of a lot better. I was in therapy and on several medications for a long, long time."
    "Until when?"
    She drew a breath, sighed. "Hubey Welles confessed and went to prison. My father died the day after his sentencing. He held on all that time—by sheer will, I think. Mom put the house on the market and started looking for a place out here. Uncle Marty and Aunt Jen helped. We never would have survived that time without them. It took a while, but, once the house sold and we closed on the new one, we came out here. We hadn't been back here since before Ivy was taken. But back then, this town was our haven. It was a place where only happy memories existed for us. And I guess Mom thought, with Dad gone, and Ivy's case finally closed, we might be able to heal out here. So we came."
    The night wind lifted her hair, danced with it. "And was she right?"
    Holly nodded. "I started seeing Doc