Gingerbread Man

softly.
    "Are you all right?"
    "I'm sorry. Holly. I'm sorry," her mother said. Her voice was thick, and muffled by the pillows. "Look at me. God, I'm such a mess, and goodness knows you don't need this from me. Not now."
    She rolled onto her back, and Holly almost gasped at the change in her mother's face. It was like looking back in time. The starkness in her eyes. The color of her skin, sickly pale. The tears had added their marks as well.
    Holly blinked her own eyes dry, straightened her spine. "Be back in a second, Mom."
    Her mother nodded, and Holly left the room, crossed the hall, and went to her own. In her bathroom, in her medicine cabinet, were several bottles of tranquilizers in various forms and doses. Some nearly empty, some all but full. She chose the Valium, a mild dose, and filled a glass with water, carrying both back to her mother's bedroom. Then she sat on the edge of the bed.
    "Here. I want you take this, and no arguments."
    Her mother took the pill obediently, which surprised Holly. She'd expected an argument. She slugged down half the glass of water, then handed it back to Holly, and curled up in the bed. "Remember how you and Ivy used to burrow right in between Dad and me when you couldn't sleep?" she asked.
    Holly didn't want to remember. It hurt too much. She lay down, though. She wrapped her mother in her arms just the way her mom used to do for her when she was going through the worst of it. And the way she used to hold both of them, when they were afraid at night, after a scary movie or a bad dream. Ivy, with her big blue eyes and those pale lashes, and the chubby cheeks she still hadn't outgrown. Tiny little baby teeth. That was one of the images Holly carried with her. Those tiny teeth when Ivy smiled. And the dimples. And the way her eyes would scrunch when she really laughed hard. It had been a long time since she'd allowed that beautiful baby face to haunt her mind. A long time since thoughts of how Ivy's pretty, innocent face must have looked while some monster had tortured and raped and killed her. The terror.
    She mustn't think of those things. She had to take care of her mother.
    But somehow, she couldn't stop the memories. She heard her baby sister's screams, the last sounds she'd ever heard her make, echoing in her mind, over and over. And she couldn't erase the sound. She closed her eyes to drown it out, tried to hear anything else, think of anything else. And then she found something to focus on, and aimed her entire attention at it. The soft, steady
tick, tick, tick
of the clock beside her mother's bed. Yes. Yes, she thought silently. And inside her mind, she whispered, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight...
    * * *
    VINCE LEFT. HE didn’t want to, but there was work to be done, and he couldn't do it sitting around Holly's house watching her struggle with her demons.
    Mostly because he didn't
want
to watch her struggle. He wanted to take her demons, slay them for her, fix everything, make it okay, make
her
okay. And he knew that if he tried he'd end up letting her down, and kicking himself for it for the rest of his life. He might be tempted to try all the same. But, damn, he didn't think she could survive another disappointment
    She had to do this on her own.
    Rescue did not work with problems this big.
    "You were right about the light at the dock, Vince. It looks as if it's been tampered with." Mallory sighed, waited for a reply, didn't get one. "You all right?" the chief asked.
    Vince shook off his thoughts and turned to face the older man. "Just thinking."
    "About Holly?"
    "No," he lied. "About how quick my ass will be roasted when I call my boss today."
    The chief shook his head a little. "You withheld evidence?"
    "Nah. I turned over everything I had. The problem is, I was taken off this case. My leave of absence wasn't by choice."
    "I see. So you kept right on working it. And now you're close to flushing out a child killer." He shook his head. "Yep, they'll hate you for that. Probably even pin a medal on you just to teach you a lesson."
    "You don't know my boss."
    "You weren't thinking about your boss."
    He glanced sideways. "Holly has problems that I can't fix for her."
    "Holly has ghosts. She's also strong, sharp, intelligent, and stubborn as they come. And if you tried fixing things for her, she'd likely club you upside the head. She's fixing things for herself. Doing just fine until all this cropped up, and she'll be doing fine again once we get past it.