Gingerbread Man
Authors: Maggie Shayne
Tags: #thriller, #kidnapping, #ptsd, #romantic thriller, #missing child, #maggie shayne, #romantic suspesne
Praise for Maggie Shayne
“Rich, sensual, and bewitching.” — Publisher’s
Weekly
“
THE GINGERBREAD MAN
is an exciting
non-stop thriller that fans of police investigations, serial
killers, and romantic suspense will read in one sitting. Maggie
Shayne deserves wider recognition for her strong portrayal of the
trauma left with survivors struggling to overcome tragedy.” —
Harriet Klausner, The Best Reviews
“
THE GINGERBREAD MAN
is a
first-rate romantic suspense that I enjoyed from beginning to end.
I am looking forward to Maggie Shayne’s next foray into the
romantic suspense field.” — Marilyn Heyman, The Best
Reviews
“This pulse-pounding thriller will keep readers
superglued to their seats. Ms. Shayne does an amazing job depicting
the terrors, fears and emotional trauma that can stalk survivors of
tragedy. An utterly gripping story.” — Jill M. Smith, RT Book
Reviews
“This was an EXCELLENT story from Maggie Shayne! This
book kept me totally absorbed in the story until the very end. The
ending was a surprise shocker!! I read this book within a day for I
couldn’t stop reading.I would highly recommended reading this
book!” — Deborah H, Paperback Swap
“There, there, who says there’s no such thing as a
good romantic suspense? Maggie Shayne’s
The
Gingerbread Man…
is one of the better thrillers I’ve read.”
– Mrs. Giggles
Man
BY MAGGIE SHAYNE
Copyright 2001 by Margaret
Benson
Originally Published by Jove
Smashwords Edition Copyright 2013
by Maggie Shayne
E-book and Cover Formatted by
Jessica Lewis
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Extended Excerpt of SLEEP WITH THE
LIGHTS ON
In New York State, the death penalty was
abolished in 1972, then reinstated in September of 1995. For the
purposes of this novel, I have pushed that date of reinstatement
back in my fictional world to 1993. For the record, NY’s highest
court ruled in June 2004 that capital punishment violated the
state’s constitution and successive attempts to replace it have
failed. The last actual use of the death penalty in NY was in
1963.
This novel deals with issues of child abuse. If you would like more
information on how you can help protect our children, visit the
Center for Missing and Exploited Children at
www.missingkids.com
.
ARE MY CHILDREN still alive?" Sara Prague
asked the question in a quiet, steady voice that he heard very
clearly despite the noise around her. Cops coming and going,
keyboards clicking, phones ringing. She looked haggard. Hard. She
hadn't always, Vince figured. The worry lines bracketing her eyes,
her mouth, the dry skin, the chapped lips, the sense that she
really didn't give a damn what she looked like—those things had
been strangers to her that first day. The day her kids hadn't come
home from school. Now those lines, that hardness, had made
themselves at home. It looked as if they planned to stay awhile.
This shouldn't have happened to Sara Prague, a PTA mom whose world
revolved around her kids. It shouldn't have happened to her
husband. Mike, full-time plumber and part-time Little League coach.
It shouldn't happen to anyone. Ever.
Vince walked around his desk and eased Sara
Prague into a cracked vinyl chair, ignoring the chaos around them.
He poured her some stale coffee from the pot on the nearby stand,
just as he had every day for the past three weeks. She came in here
like clockwork—something the Center for Missing and Exploited
Children had probably told her to do. He thought she would keep
doing it, too. For years, if necessary.
It wouldn't be necessary, though.
She took the foam cup and sipped
automatically. It was all part of their daily ritual. ''You haven't
answered my question. Detective. Are Bobby and Kara still
alive?"
"Mrs. Prague, we're doing everything we
possibly can." He walked back around his gray metal desk, pulled
out his chair, sat down. It gave him a chance to school his face.
It gave him a chance not to look at hers. She was just... bleak.
Looking into the woman's eyes was like looking into a black hole.
Nothing left. "Every lead is being meticulously followed. We're
pursuing every avenue of—"
"I don't want the party line you give to the
press, Detective O'Mally. I want the truth."
Things crossed his mind. Things every cop
knew—like the fact that, in most cases, kids abducted by strangers
are either found in the first twenty-four hours or not found at
all. Not alive, at any rate. He shook the thought away. It was
irrelevant. This was
his
case. The outcome would be
different this time. He wouldn't fail.
He forced himself to look her in the eye and
managed not to shiver at the dead gray chill of her gaze. "I do
think they're alive," he told her. "And I'll keep thinking it until
and unless I have a reason to think otherwise." He painted his face
with a hopeful expression, reached across the desk, and squeezed
her cool, limp hand. "Try to hold on to hope, Mrs. Prague."
"I have to. Detective. I don't have anything
else left." Pulling her hand away, she set her coffee cup on his
desk, adding a new ring to a file folder already covered with them.
She reached inside her purse.
Vince bit back a groan. God, here came more
pictures. He couldn't take much more of this daily torture. Then
again, he didn't imagine it even began to compare to hers.
"I brought this for you." She pulled it out—a
silver frame that folded in half, like a book. With her free hand
she pushed aside some papers—the ring-marked file folder, the
wrapper from his mc-breakfast—making a single bare spot on his
desk. Then she set the frame there so that it faced him. One side
held a photo of five-year-old Kara. Dimples. Freckles.
Carrot-colored pigtails and sky-blue eyes. She held a scrawny tiger
kitten in her lap. The other side of the frame held a photo of
seven-year-old Bobby, posing in his Little League uniform, bat at
the ready.
Keeping a professional distance had never
been what Vince O'Mally did best. Hell, it was the one thing he
wished he
could
do by the book. But he wasn't a by-the-book
kind of a cop. His methods were more instinct than science. His gut
had gotten him further than any procedural manual or training
course ever would. He trusted it. But sometimes it got him too
close.
And this was one of those times.
This woman—coming in here every day, with her
photos and her red, puffy, lifeless eyes—was dragging him into her
anguish. He barely slept nights anymore. Every spare second, on
duty or off, he was working this case. It gripped him in a way
nothing ever had.
Sara Prague was a needy woman. Not a weak
woman, but needy. He didn't do well with needy women. He tended to
want to save them. Always a mistake.
"Mrs. Prague ..." he began.
"I notice the other photos I've brought
aren't on your desk anymore. What do you do with them after I
leave?"
He got up and paced away from her, pushing a
hand through his hair. "I keep them. Just... in a drawer. It's too
distracting to have them on the desk like that." Turning, he faced
her again. "I understand what you're trying to do, but I need to
focus on the case. On chasing down leads and analyzing evidence.
Not on how ..." His gaze strayed to the photo against his will, and
his throat closed up. "Not on how goddamn bad I'd like to come to a
game next spring, and see Bobby hit a homer."
Sara Prague nodded, her huge haunted eyes
never leaving his. "I suppose it seems cruel of me to keep bringing
photos. Please understand, I need to know you won't forget that
these arc my children, Detective O'Mally.'" Her hand moved to the
largest pile of paperwork on his desk, settling atop it. "They
aren't in these files. They aren't a case number or a statistic or
an investigation. They're Bobby and Kara Prague." She moved her
hand to the photo, forcing his gaze to it again. To Kara's baby
teeth. To Bobby's unevenly trimmed bangs. “They're
my
children.”
He tried to look away from her, from the
need, the plea in her eyes. But he couldn't. She didn't speak, but
he heard her anyway. Her eyes said it all.
Tell me it's going to
be all right. Tell me you 're going to find my babies safe and
sound, and put them back in my arms where they belong.
He knew better. He knew damn well better.
Tears welled in her eyes. Something deep
inside him quaked. He said, "It's going to be all right, Mrs.
Prague. I'll find your kids. I promise you."
He saw a hint of light come into her eyes,
dull, dim, flickering, but fighting its way through the fog of
despair. He'd given her hope. It would help her get through the
day. Maybe even a couple more beyond that. But at what cost?
Vince O'Mally didn't make promises he
couldn't keep. How the hell was he going to keep this one? The
photograph dragged his gaze back to it, like a supercharged magnet
pulling shards of metal.
She reached across the desk, squeezed his
hand. "Thank you for that." Then she got up and left him standing
there staring at the photo. He heard the door swing closed when she
left, and he still couldn't look away. Even when his vision
blurred, he kept staring at those little faces staring back at
him.
Then a big hand swung into his line of
vision, and swiped the frame off his desk in one brisk motion.
“That woman isn't gonna let up until she
drives you right over the edge, is she? Dammit, Vince, you're
letting her get to you. I can see it."
Vince sank into his chair, cleared his throat
and tried to shake off the grimness that squatted on his shoulders
like a lead demon. "Hell, no, I'm not letting her get to me," he
told his partner. "I know better." It was a lie and he knew it.
"I used to think so." Jerry tossed the frame
onto his own desk, leaving it folded closed. "But look at you, pal.
You haven't been right since they handed us this case, and you're
getting steadily worse."