Gingerbread Man

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."
    "That's bullshit"
    "Is it?" Jerry shoved a stack of file folders aside, and perched on the edge of Vince's desk. He wore a white shirt that could've been whiter, and a striped tie that he'd tugged loose. His belly hung two inches over his shiny black belt, and he had less hair on his head every day. "So, what else are you working on, Vince?"
    Vince shook his head, ignoring his partner.
    "You're not working on anything else, are you? Nothing but this."
    "Get off my back, Jerry."
    "I heard you just now."
    That brought Vince's gaze up. Jerry looked worried— a little scared, even. "Why the hell would you make a promise like that? You know better."
    "It helped. The woman is barely standing these days."
    "Yeah? And what do you suppose it's gonna do to you if you can't keep it?"
    Vince's fist clenched. "We'll never know, because that's not gonna happen."
    "Vince—"
    "I'm gonna find those kids, Jare."
    Jerry sighed, studying his friend's face for a long moment. But when he spoke again, his tone was closer to normal than it had been before. "Still following up on registered sex offenders?"
    "Only the pedophiles. And, hell, I've only made it through the first five hundred or so. You know how many convicted perverts we got living like normal people in this city?"
    "No, but I'm sure you're gonna tell me."
    Vince just looked at him. "I meant what I said. I'm gonna find them."
    "Because you're Detective Vincent frigging O'Mally. Decorated supercop who