Gingerbread Man

who else to check out. I've been running background checks on every male over thirty in this town, and so far the only person who stands out is D'Voe."
    "Why? What did you find on him?" The smell of popcorn accompanied the sound of its popping.
    "He was abused as a child."
    "Oh, my God. I didn't know."
    "I don't think many people do. I found an article about it in some fan magazine's archives on the Net. Thing was at least twenty years old. It said D'Voe ran away from his home outside London when he was twelve years old, after his father beat him bloody over a bad school report. The piece quotes D'Voe as saying that he was sure his father would have killed him, had he stayed. When he left, he said his face was purple with bruises, he had a broken arm, and a few broken ribs as well. It was the worst beating ever, though he claimed he'd had plenty."
    Holly lowered her head, closed her eyes. "Poor Reggie."
    Vince sighed.
    Her head came up again. "What?"
    He turned, walked into the kitchen, and took the popcorn out of the microwave. Opening the hot bag with two fingers, he poured it into a big bowl, brought it back with him, and sat down beside her. "I don't have to tell you that survivors of that kind of abuse often grow up to be abusers themselves."
    "Not always, though. Surely not in Reggie's case."
    He shrugged. "I hope not. But I've checked out practically everyone in town, and this is the first red flag to go up. If it doesn't lead us to something, I don't know where else to start digging."
    Holly shook her head, but leaned back on the sofa, took a handful of popcorn, and watched the film begin to unfold. "What do you hope to find in the movies?"
    "I don't know. A clue. A pattern. Maybe something similar to one of the crimes. I don't know."
    "How much time do you figure we have?"
    "Ah, the Feds won't get around to coming out here before nightfall."
    "Well, that gives us time, then."
    "Yeah."
    * * *
    VlNCE WATCHED HER watching the TV screen. He couldn't have told anyone much about the plots of any of the movies if he hadn't already seen most of them, but he would pick up on anything interesting. He had that extra sense on alert. That cop sense an officer developed over time. The ear that isn't listening, but hears every word when it's important. The eye that can filter all but vital images. The mind that can seem to zone out, but turns razor sharp when it needs to. He trusted his cop senses. They hadn't let him down yet.
    At least, not until the Prague kids. He thought again that if he'd only found the book the first time he'd been in that house ...
    He shook the thought away, focused again on Holly. She pretended to watch the movies, and maybe she was, a little bit. But mostly she was distracted. Worried for her mother, wondering about her sister's last hours—thoughts on that subject had to be nightmarish at best. And she was scared. She would be foolish not to be.
    But there was, overlying all of that, something else. A mask. She was deliberately, stubbornly trying to hide everything else behind it. And since he was the only other person in sight, he could only deduce that she was trying to hide it from him.
    What he couldn't figure out was why.
    As the ending credits rolled, she got to her feet, rubbed her arms as if they were chilled. "This stuff still holds up," she commented.
    "They knew how to make movies back then. Now all they seem able to come up with is gore. Pour a pail of blood on a barely dressed actress and rev up a chainsaw. That's not horror."
    She sent him a smile of agreement. It was an utterly false smile. "What's next?"
    "I've watched all but a few of them now. There was nothing there." He nodded at the much smaller pile of DVDs yet to be viewed.
    "So what do you want to do?"
    He didn't want to have this conversation. He wanted to take her by the shoulders and give her a shake, make her tell him what the hell was wrong with her. But he wasn't going to do that because he wasn't supposed to care that much. And he'd best remember that. "Damned if I know."
    She went to the phone on the counter, picked it up, and dialed. While she waited for an answer she put a hand over the mouthpiece. "I'm calling the hospital."
    He nodded. He'd expected to hear from either Doc or Jim Mallory by now, but no calls had come in. He worried about that for a minute. Then Holly was speaking to someone, asking about her mother, nodding as if reassured. He was entirely too jumpy over things, he realized. His objectivity