The Darkest Hour

by Anina Collins

  “Well, we’ve come a long way since then, thankfully. It’s an interesting first meeting story, though, don’t you think?”

  He chuckled, and I heard the forced happiness in his voice when he said, “It is. I’m hoping it’s not going to be replaced by one about how you had to stand there and watch Derek arrest me for your friend’s murder.”

  “Alex, I won’t let that happen. Derek has nothing but suspicions that you had something to do with this, and that has more to do with things other than this case than what he really thinks you may have done.”

  Another chuckle and then he said, “You mean his jealousy over my seeing you?”

  Surprised he knew about that since I hadn’t thought Derek knew about us before I told him that day, I said, “Wait a minute. He acted like he had no idea we had begun to date each other when I said something about it today. You’re saying he’s known? Since when?”

  “We never actually talked about it, but a few months ago he started being difficult with me. I started getting more overnight shifts, remember? I think that was his way of dealing with his jealousy over us.”

  Alex had been scheduled for the overnights more than ever before after we started seeing each other. I hadn’t thought anything of it since he was the second to last hire on the force. I just figured being a lower man on the totem pole meant he had to pay his dues, regardless of how much experience he brought to the job since he’d been a detective in Baltimore.

  Now it all made sense, though. Derek was jealous and had been for months.

  “I don’t know how I didn’t pick up on that. I’m sorry you’re paying for his silliness, Alex. He and I have never been anything more than friends, so I don’t know why he’s acting this way. It’s not like he’s asked me out every week for years and I said no only to say yes to you the first time you came calling. It’s not like that.”

  “I don’t think it is, to be honest. I just don’t think he likes us together. I don’t care what he likes, though. Do you?”

  The insecurity in his question came from what he’d been through that day. I knew that. Never before had he bothered to think about what anyone else thought of us together. That wasn’t the kind of man he was.

  “You know the answer to that. He better stop this nonsense, though, or he’s going to lose me as a friend if he isn’t careful,” I joked halfheartedly, hoping Alex understood how much I’d give up for him.

  “Poppy, I want you to keep close to Derek,” he said, his voice suddenly deathly serious.

  A sudden gust of wind roared across my porch, sending chills through my body. Huddling under my coat, I lowered my head. “Why? What’s wrong? Why do I need to stay close to him?”

  “I just want you to,” he answered, his voice somber.

  Now I needed to know. “Why are you saying it like that? You’re frightening me. What is it?”

  Another sharp gust of wind bit at the tips of my ears sticking out of my collar as I listened for his answer to my questions. I wasn’t going to let him just give me some vague, spooky response.

  “Poppy, do you believe me when I say I didn’t kill Bethany?”

  I’d never heard him so serious in all the time I’d known him. Without even thinking how best to answer, I said, “I believe you, Alex. You aren’t a murderer.”

  “Then there’s a murderer walking free out there. They’re not above killing someone, especially someone who’s trying to prove their patsy didn’t do it. I don’t believe for second Bethany’s killer didn’t know I’d be the prime suspect right off the bat. They knew. I’d bet they banked on it. You trying to find proof that I didn’t do it puts them in danger. It threatens to expose them. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if you got hurt trying to clear my name.”

  The dread in his voice settled into my brain, suddenly making me realize I might be a target if I got too close to the truth. I couldn’t let that scare me off, though. With Alex branded the main suspect, the only person committed to seeing him keep his freedom was me.

  “Okay, I’ll stick close to him, but I’m not giving up just because this might get dangerous, so don’t even think of asking me to.”

  The phone fell silent for a long moment, and then he finally said in a low voice barely above a whisper, “As much as I hate possibly putting you in harm’s way, I can’t ask you to give up. You’re all I have, Poppy. If anyone is going to show that I didn’t do this, it’s you.”

  “I promise you I won’t let you down, Alex.”

  “I just wish I wasn’t stuck here instead of being out there helping you find the evidence we need. Did Derek check Bethany’s phone and laptop?”

  As much as I knew he was going stir crazy waiting out there for something to happen, good or bad, I knew he needed something to hold onto, so I said, “I’ll be sure to ask him about them. I want you to know I went to see your friend Ken in Baltimore to see if there was anything he could tell me that would help with this case.”

  “Why would Ken be able to help you? He’s not the coroner on Bethany’s case, for sure, so what would he have to say that could help?” Alex asked sharply.

  I didn’t know what I’d said to upset him. Trying to diffuse his anger, I said, “I just hoped to find out something that would help.”

  “You went to him because Bethany’s case is just like my wife’s, didn’t you?” When I didn’t answer, he barked, “Didn’t you? You think there’s something to this. You weren’t sure the two murders weren’t too close to be connected. Oh my God, you aren’t sure I’m innocent, are you, Poppy?”

  Derek’s car pulled up to the curb in front of my house, and I waved to him. “It’s not like that, Alex. I was just hoping he might be able to tell me something about either case to show you didn’t kill Bethany.”

  “You think I killed my wife and now Bethany, don’t you?” he roared into the phone.

  “No! Alex, I would never think that. Why would I be helping you prove your innocence if I thought for a moment that you were guilty?” I pleaded, hoping to fix the mistake I’d made by telling him about my visit to Ken Bryer.

  But it was no use. He said nothing, and when I pulled the phone away to make sure he was still there, he was gone.

  I slowly walked to the car and got in as my tears threatened to spill down my cheeks. I’d done the one thing I had never intended to do. All I wanted was to hear his voice, but now as he sat out at his house waiting for something to happen, he thought I believed he was a killer.

  “I want you to know I shouldn’t be doing this, but I know that if I don’t, you’ll just keep nagging at me until I do, so I figure I might as well give in sooner than later,” Derek said with a smile as I slipped the seatbelt around me.

  Nodding, I turned to look out the window so he couldn’t see me crying, but it was no use. As my tears came, so did my sobs shaking my body. After a full day of everything being terrible—my friend murdered, the man I loved the prime suspect, and my efforts amounting to nothing—I couldn’t hold my emotions together anymore. All the sadness and fear I’d been carrying around all day poured out of me right there in the passenger seat of Derek’s car.

  He gently touched my shoulder. “Poppy, what’s wrong? I was just trying to lighten things up a little. I didn’t mean anything by that.”

  Wiping my eyes, I willed myself to stop crying like some foolish girl. I turned to look at him staring at me with so much concern written all over his face, and I almost burst into tears again. God, I was a mess!

  “I’m okay. It’s just been a long day. I don’t have to tell you that, though, right?” I said, hoping my attempt to downplay my emotional outburst would work. I really didn’t want to sit there with Derek and discuss the mess I’d made of my relationship with Alex.

  He said nothing for a long time, so long that I wondered if I should fill in the dead space with more of my pretending to be okay. I knew he was probably thinking taking me to Bethany’s apartment was a huge mistake, compounded by the fact that I clearly wasn’t in th
e right emotional state to do much of anything tonight. I couldn’t let him think that, though.

  “Really, I’m good, Derek. Ready to go?”

  “You don’t look it.”

  I seized on his proclamation to change the subject to something far less serious. Sure I could get him to focus less on how I was feeling, I smiled and joked, “That’s a lovely thing to say to a girl. You don’t look good. Nice. I can’t imagine why you’re still single, Derek.”

  For a second, he looked worried, like he thought I’d really interpreted what he said that way. Then it dawned on him that I wasn’t being serious, and he rolled his eyes in typical Derek fashion.

  As he put the car into drive and we began rolling down Barn Street, he said, “You’re going to drive me to drink, you know that? You look beautiful, like you always do. I just meant…forget what I meant. Let’s just go. Any chance you want to tell me what you’re looking for when we get to Bethany’s?”

  I remembered what Alex had asked about finding anything on her phone or laptop, so I casually said, “I was thinking that we might be able to find something on her computer. Has it been checked yet?”

  “Been talking to your boyfriend, huh?” he said with a sideways glance as he stopped the car at a stop sign.

  “You don’t think I’d naturally ask about that? I’m not a newbie, Derek.”

  That I hadn’t thought about Bethany’s laptop not once all day I chalked up to the fact that my brain had been preoccupied with about a million other ideas and emotions whirling through it for hours. I didn’t want Derek to know that, though.

  “Well, you didn’t ask me about it all day, so I just figured he was prompting you just now when I pulled up.”

  We turned onto Main Street and headed toward the apartment complex where Bethany lived as I silently pledged to pay more attention to the case. The laptop detail shouldn’t have slipped my mind.

  “So did your guy find anything on it or not?”

  Derek parked in front of Bethany’s front door and shut the car off. Turning to face me, he shook his head. “Nothing of note. Her recent search history included some sites about clubs in Baltimore and some employment recruiting site, and there was a search for florists. It looks like she was thinking of switching jobs. That might be an interesting lead.”

  I sat stunned at Derek’s ability to be so completely obtuse. When my brain could function without sending a stream of insults flying out of my mouth, I said in my calmest tone, “So you think it’s perfectly normal that a woman who has lived in this town for years would go searching for florists when we have one right here in town? That doesn’t sound a bit strange to you?”

  “Well…”

  “Well nothing, Derek! Bethany wouldn’t be bothering to look for florists online since Carson’s is less than a mile away and she’d used them before. She sent me flowers when I lost my job last spring. Trust me, she knew all she needed to know about Carson’s. And why the hell would she be looking at all? Are you thinking she sent those flowers to herself?”

  His face sort of fell, like what I was saying to him had ruined a perfectly formed theory and now he had to start back at square one. “Now that you mention it, I guess it doesn’t make a lot of sense for someone who knew about Maria’s shop to go online for information about it, but what if she wanted to send flowers to someone? Maybe she wanted to ask for details on the person who sent her flowers. Either of those seem pretty likely.”

  Sometimes the way he made things more difficult than they had to be could frustrate me to the point where I wanted to smack him. As my blood pressure rose, I tried to slow walk him to where he should be. “I’m sure your guys have checked out her credit card purchases recently. Did she order flowers online at any point?”

  Frowning, he shook his head. “No. All we’ve found that she bought within the past month or so were a few new outfits at some shop in Baltimore and new tires for her car.”

  “So she didn’t buy flowers online, but you think she’d be searching for florists on her laptop within the last few days of her life? This doesn’t sound odd to you?”

  Clearly frustrated himself, Derek turned away and opened his car door as he mumbled something about this case being a monkey on his back. I wanted to shake him since he obviously hadn’t made it to where I had already gone.

  That it wasn’t Bethany who had been searching online for florists at all.

  My bet was her sister had been the one to check out where to get flowers on Bethany’s computer. Mariah wasn’t from Sunset Ridge and had visited only a few times in all the time her sister had lived here, according to what Bethany herself had told me when she mentioned Mariah was coming to visit. Practically a stranger in town, she’d have to either ask someone like her sister where to find a florist or search online.

  Now I just needed to find some proof to back up my theory. Without being able to get my hands on that laptop, it was going to be difficult, but maybe I’d find something inside the apartment.

  Chapter Nine

  I caught up to Derek as he opened the front door to Bethany’s apartment, still grumbling about our conversation in the car. Knowing I had to keep on his good side if I wanted to remain in the loop on this case, I tapped him on the shoulder just before he pushed the door open and apologized.

  “I’m sorry, Derek. I didn’t mean to sound so overzealous about the whole florist thing. Are we okay?”

  He raised his eyebrows as if he didn’t believe a word of my effort to be contrite, but he smiled nonetheless. “You would have made a great lawyer, Poppy. There’s no denying you’re smart. Just try to remember not everyone’s brain works the same as yours. I get to the truth the same as you. It’s just that I might take a little longer and get there by a different route.”

  I looked up into his brown eyes and saw that I’d offended him. “I know, and I’m sorry. It’s only that I feel like I’m fighting against you on this case. You’ve suspected Alex since the minute Mallory Michaels, the nosy neighbor there, told her story. It’s like you want it to be Alex who killed Bethany.”

  Derek looked over my head toward Mallory’s apartment and grimaced. “It’s not that, Poppy. I just can’t overlook the fact that a suspect in this case has had the same thing happen to another woman in his life.”

  Nodding, I chose not to suggest what had popped into my head more than once that day. That the same person had killed both Bethany and Helena, but it wasn’t Alex and whoever it was, they chose those women intentionally to hurt him. That theory sounded great, but the possibilities of who could have been behind both crimes immediately became staggering in light of how many criminals Alex had been responsible for putting away in his time working as a cop in Baltimore and then Sunset Ridge.

  I knew it was a longshot, but so far, it was all I had. I didn’t have a choice. I had to believe it was possible, no matter how outrageous it all sounded every time the thought entered my mind.

  He opened the door and flipped on the light switch, turning back to say, “The crime scene team has been through here, but try to keep from touching things, okay?”

  With a smile, I pulled out the gloves I always wore when Alex and I investigated a scene. “Again with the newbie insults. Man, a girl can’t get any respect with you, can she?”

  We stepped into the apartment, and Derek took his place by the door after closing it. “Remember your promise to tell me about anything you find, although I can’t imagine you’d stumble upon anything that the guys who are trained to do this didn’t.”

  I walked toward Bethany’s bedroom shaking my head. “No respect. No respect at all.”

  Making a beeline to her closet, I set to checking for any hint of where Mariah had gone to. I pushed hanger after hanger to the right side of the metal bar, checking the pockets of every pair of pants and each coat, until there wasn’t a piece of clothing left. I found nothing, but even more interesting, I found nothing to indicate Mariah had ever been there.

  Had something happened to change h
er plans and she had to cancel her trip? I hadn’t spoken to Bethany since before Christmas, so it was possible.

  “I think you rummaging through her clothes might be disrespectful to the dead,” Derek said from the doorway. “What are you looking for?”

  I closed the closet door and walked past him into the living room. Looking around, I asked, “Derek, have you ever been here before Bethany was murdered?”

  He smiled and took a seat on a red upholstered chair. “Once when she first moved to Sunset Ridge years ago. Why?”

  The memory of Derek with Bethany for about fifteen seconds right after she came to Sunset Ridge raced through my head, and I smiled at how she’d told me she decided not to see him after only one date because he was too much a player.

  “That’s right. You two got together. Well, tell me, does it look like anyone but Bethany was here recently?”

  He looked around and shrugged. “I don’t remember what the place looked like when I was here then. I’m not sure what you’re going for, Poppy.”

  I walked into the kitchen and didn’t find even a dirty glass in the sink. The place looked like no one, including Bethany, had been there recently, even though her next door neighbor claimed she saw not only her but a man here.

  Turning back to join Derek, I said, “I have no basis for this, but something tells me her killer was in here.”

  The look of surprise on Derek’s face told me how ridiculous my claim sounded. Not that I needed him to tell me that. I already knew before I said it that even the mere thought was bizarre. The murderer killed her in her car, not in her apartment, so why would they have any reason to come inside?

  There was only one reason—to make sure there was nothing to tie them to the murder. And at that moment, to my mind only one person seemed to fit that description.

  Mariah Lewis, the sister of the victim and a woman whose whereabouts were currently unknown, and someone who had means, opportunity, and if she didn’t feel the same way as Bethany did about patching up their differences, motive too.