The Darkest Hour

by Anina Collins

  “Ok, Dad. Thanks for listening. I’m sure you didn’t call to hear today’s episode of true confessions, but thanks.”

  “Nonsense. I call my daughter to hear whatever she has to say, good or bad. I just hope you’ll listen to me, which you so rarely do,” he said with a teasing lilt to his voice that told me no matter what I thought of myself, he still saw me as the best daughter in the world.

  “I’m going to go watch about some monster storm in Florida on the Weather Channel and just let my mind relax for a while until Alex calls me. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

  “Okay, honey. Call me if you need anything. I’m here with both ears open if you want to talk.”

  “Thanks, Dad. Love you.”

  I ended the call after he told me like always that he loved me too. Once again, my finger twitched to press Alex’s name in my contact list, but I didn’t and tossed my phone on the couch next to me. He’d call when he was ready. Until then, I’d watch more disasters from Mother Nature and hope the Weather Channel’s obsession with death and destruction would take my mind off my real life problems.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The current episode featured a breakdown of the storms Florida had suffered through in the spring of 2011 to show how what was going on now in January five years later was so similar. Torrential rains, high winds, and even tornado outbreaks had ravaged the entire state back then, and the way it was looking with the forecast for the rest of this month, Florida would be going through much of the same horrific weather patterns it had that spring of 2011.

  Halfway through the program, the hosts began talking about highs and lows and other weather features I wasn’t really interested in, so my mind turned on again and I began to think about what that clue my father had mentioned could be. Then I remembered that book with the bloody fingerprint I’d found in Bethany’s that night Derek and I had gone there. Now that Alex was cleared by the DNA tests, the fingerprint could be the solution to this whole case.

  Throwing off the blanket, I tore up to my bedroom to get the book from between my mattress and box spring, excited about what I believed would be the clue Alex and I would need to find Bethany’s killer. I found it right where I left it in that space below my head where I slept each night and took it back downstairs examine it once again. I knew it had one fingerprint the police would be able to use, but maybe it held other clues too.

  As I sat on my couch literally on the edge of my seat, I slowly flipped through the pages, looking for anything that might shine even the tiniest bit of light on who had hidden in that car and slit Bethany’s throat that night. In the margins, I saw scribbles she had made on some of the self-help ideas the author suggested, but none of them seemed to have anything to do with much more than her work at The Eagle. I reached the end of the book to find a few more insignificant words jotted down on the inside back cover, but there were no more fingerprints left and no other clues I could see.

  I needed to get it to the police, but instead of taking it to Alex, I decided to ask John St. Clair for help. My gut told me to keep this from my partner and anyone in the Sunset Ridge police department for now. Derek would likely read me the riot act about touching his crime scene when he found out, so it was a better choice to ask St. Clair for help and give Derek the answer to who the killer was when I found out. Even he wouldn’t be able to reprimand me when he had that in his hands, so better to go with the fait accompli instead.

  I called St. Clair hoping he would be willing to help me, even though I wasn’t following procedure. “I’m sorry to bother you, John, but I was wondering if you could help me with something. Alex doesn’t know about this, and I’d like it if he didn’t know.”

  St. Clair chuckled in that deep way only a big man like him could. “I knew there was more to you than the small town girl. What can I help you with?”

  Looking down at the dried bloody fingerprint on Bethany’s book, I said, “I need you to help me figure out whose fingerprint is on a book I have. It has to do with the case.”

  “And you don’t want Alex to know? I’m not sure I like where this is going.”

  I knew what St. Clair was thinking and quickly explained about what Donny and his guys had found. “No, no, it’s not that I think it’s Alex’s. We got the DNA results back from the coroner. Alex is in the clear.”

  Relieved, St. Clair returned to his usual jovial self. “Good to hear. Well, if you want, you can come into the city and we can see if we can do it tonight. I’m working for a few more hours, so come on down.”

  “Okay! I’ll be there as soon as I can. See you soon!”

  Excited, I jumped off the couch to put my shoes and coat on. If luck was on my side, I’d have the killer’s identity by the time Alex came on duty.

  St. Clair waved me toward him as the uniformed officer escorting me into the station pointed in his direction to let me know where to go. Clutching the book tightly in my right hand, I hurried over to his desk and sat down in the chair next to it.

  “Thanks so much for helping me. It really means the world to me.”

  He smiled and squeezed my left hand. “I just hope you aren’t too disappointed by the reality compared to what you’ve seen on TV. Fingerprints don’t exactly work like they would have you believe in Hollywood.”

  I chuckled at the way he pronounced that as Hollaywood. “Well, I’m just hoping it leads us to something that could give us a break in this case. That Michael Thompson lead turned out to be a dead end.”

  St. Clair shook his head and frowned. “I had a feeling it didn’t turn out well when I called Alex to see what happened and he didn’t answer.”

  “He’s pretty down about this whole case, so I’m hoping this fingerprint will give us something to go on.” I lifted the book for him to see. “It’s on the first page of this book.”

  He took it out of my hand and opened the cover to see the dried, red fingerprint. “Let’s see. It’s a good one. Whoever it was, they gave us pretty much a full print. Let me take it to the lab and see what they can find. I’ll be back in a couple and we can talk about how we’re going to get my good friend out of the funk he’s in.”

  St. Clair returned less than ten minutes later with the promise that the lab guys would put a rush on the identification. “Just so you know, it can take a couple hours. As I said, it’s not like on TV and in the movies.”

  “That’s okay,” I said as I shifted to get comfortable in the chair beside his desk. “It’s not like I was going to be able to do much tonight anyway. My mind is too full of this case.”

  Nodding, he leaned back in his chair and folded his arms behind his head. Everything about the man exuded confidence and strength. As I sat there studying him, I understood why Alex and he had been drawn to each other to become friends.

  “I think Alex has the same thing, but he has the added problem of not being able to forget the past. It’s a hard thing to be saddled with that.”

  St. Clair probably knew better than I how much of the past weighed on Alex every day. For me, it always felt like he couldn’t escape what had happened to his life that night when someone took Helena from him. He had opened himself up to me as much as he could, but there was still that part of him that remained hidden away with that past he never let go.

  “It’s his nature, I guess.”

  “No, that’s where you’re wrong,” St. Clair said, correcting me. “Alex isn’t sullen and quiet by nature. You’ve never seen the lighter side of him?”

  I tried to think of one time when I could describe Alex as light. I couldn’t. No matter how much he smiled at the funny things I said or did, never had he ever seemed truly lighthearted.

  “No, I guess I haven’t. I just naturally assumed he was serious by nature and the death of Helena had made that part of him the only part he showed.”

  John shook his head and leaned forward to take his wallet out of his pocket. He opened it up and pulled out a picture of Alex and himself from years ago and handed it to me. Insta
ntly, my eye was drawn to how happy Alex looked, his face full of happiness as he and St. Clair posed for a picture in front of an Inner Harbor bar.

  They both looked so young and so carefree that I couldn’t help but be envious of St. Clair for knowing that man back then. In all the months I’d known Alex, I’d never seen him like that.

  “That was Alex before he got shot. We used to joke around all the time that life was good, and we believed it. Then in one night it all changed for him. Gone was the carefree guy who loved life, and in his place came the guy you know. I wish you could have known him back then, though. You would have loved him.”

  Smiling, I thought about how much I loved him just the way he was, but to know that he wasn’t quiet and withdrawn because of his wife’s death somehow made me feel better about us. I didn’t need him to be the life of the party like he’d been when he was younger. I just wished he wasn’t so burdened by that past.

  “I love hearing he was happy was like that once.”

  “I miss that guy,” St. Clair said wistfully. “I haven’t seen him in a long time. I can say this, though. He’s happier when you’re around than he’s been since he lost her. You bring out that smile I only saw when he was with her.”

  “That’s good to hear, but I’m not sure he’s ever going to be able to move on from that time in his life, and this case has brought it all back, I think. I’m worried that finding Bethany’s killer won’t be enough because even though he hasn’t said anything, I think the fact that Helena’s killer is still out there is something he can’t deal with.”

  St. Clair’s furrowed brow told me he worried about that too, even as he tried to ease my mind. “It’s true he never did find who took her away, but I think he could be happy again with the right person. Don’t let yourself get trapped in the idea that Helena was some perfect woman. She was great, but you are too, Poppy.”

  I thought back to how Ken Bryer had described Helena to me just a few days before and was struck by the difference between the way he spoke about her and how St. Clair did. A lot of time had passed, though, and he had been closer to Alex than Helena, so it wasn’t entirely surprising that he would see her more realistically. Ken had been friends with her before Alex met her.

  And I couldn’t forget what I knew to be true—men rarely read people well.

  “I was sorry to hear they were having problems before Helena was killed. I’m sure that weighs on Alex’s mind still to this day.”

  A look of confusion settled into St. Clair’s features, and he shook his head before I even finished my sentence. “They weren’t having any problems. Who told you that?”

  “Ken. He told me they’d been having problems ever since he got shot because Alex didn’t want to have any children and Helena did.”

  St. Clair waved away everything Ken said. “Don’t listen to a word that guy has to say about Alex and Helena. He had no idea what was going on. Alex wanted children as much or more than she did. He loved her and wanted to have a family with her. They were trying to start one when she was murdered.”

  “Really?” I asked, baffled how these two men who called themselves Alex’s friends could be so different in their opinions about Alex and Helena’s marriage. Maybe Ken had been privy to more intimate knowledge of their relationship because he was closer to Helena than St. Clair. Whatever it was that made the two men think so contrarily, I had a feeling it didn’t really matter which one was right.

  All that mattered was Alex had been in love with her and someone brutally took her life and altered his forever.

  I changed the subject to lighten our conversation since nothing he or anyone could say would change what happened. We talked for over an hour more, mostly about life in Sunset Ridge and how I was sure even a guy who loved the city life like he did could find some good in a small town like the one I’d grown up in. Whatever he wanted to believe, I still was that small town girl, maybe just with a different outlook on the world than most of my fellow citizens possessed.

  His entire body shook from a deep belly laugh at the thought of him living in what he called “some Podunk town”, but we were interrupted by an older man with grey hair who appeared in an office doorway behind St. Clair and barked, “St. Clair, I need you in my office now!”

  Turning around, he quickly stood from his desk and answered, “Yes, Captain.” Turning to face me, he said, “Looks like my fan club wants to hear from me. I shouldn’t be long, and I told the tech to put a rush on those results, so it shouldn’t be too much longer you’ll have to wait. I’ll be back in a few.”

  I felt like I wanted to wish him good luck since his captain looked like a rabid dog thirsty for blood. He trotted into the man’s office, leaving me there to think about how much I hoped closing this case would ease Alex’s mind. No matter how serious we ended up being or if we ended up just as work partners, I wished for nothing more than for him to get some piece of mind. Solving this case wouldn’t change the fact that Helena’s murder remained unsolved, but at least it would mean this one wouldn’t end up plaguing him like hers had.

  As I sat there lost in thought, a man appeared in front of me dressed in street clothes like St. Clair and holding a file folder in his hand. “I’m looking for Detective St. Clair.”

  I pointed toward the captain’s office. “He’s in there getting chewed out, I think.”

  The man looked toward the office and then back at me. Hesitating for a moment, he lay the folder on St. Clair’s desk and said, “Tell him we rushed as fast as we could.”

  He left me sitting there with the file that contained the answer to my case, and even though I knew it was wrong to open it before St. Clair returned, I lifted the corner to take a peek and began to scan what the report said. What I saw made my chest feel like someone had slammed a sledgehammer into me. There, among a handful of other names, was one I knew like my own.

  Stunned, I sat in that chair in the middle of St. Clair’s precinct as my brain conjured up a million reasons why the report could be wrong and then it all dawned on me. The eagerness to see Alex in the worst light possible. The willingness to believe he had something to do with Helena’s murder. The ability to influence this case so we wouldn’t find Bethany’s killer.

  I needed to get to Alex and find out how this could be. Grabbing the folder from St. Clair’s desk, I yanked my coat off the back of the chair and ran out of the building as my mind swirled with fear that nothing had been as I’d thought.

  Every step of this case had been in error, but now that I had the proof I needed, finally it would come to an end.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  My foot jammed the gas pedal to the floor, sending my car tearing down the streets of Baltimore as my brain scrambled to remember the directions back to Sunset Ridge and my fingers fumbled with my cell phone to call Alex. Three, four, and then five times I called, but each one ended with his deep voice telling me to leave a message and he’d get back to me soon.

  “Alex! If you hear this message, I need you to call me now! Where are you? Call me!”

  Blowing through red light after red light, I drove as fast as I could out of the city, unsure if I would stop if I saw the red and blue lights of a police car behind me things were so desperate. I needed to get back home to see Alex before everything in my life blew up in my face. All I had to do was drive fast enough to reach him so he could see what I’d seen in that report.

  My palms dripped with sweat and made holding on to the steering wheel and my phone next to impossible. Shaky fingers pressed TWO on my speed dial to call Alex again, and as I raced down the highway toward home, I heard his voice once again intone that silky smooth command to leave him a message.

  I didn’t have any more to leave. Anything else needed to be said in person as he stood in front of me so I could see the look in his eyes when my words sunk in to his brain and he saw the results of the fingerprint analysis.

  With every exit, the numbers grew smaller and I made my way back to the person this whole ni
ghtmare had started with—the man I loved still more than I ever thought I could love someone. My mind filled with what I’d say when I saw him in front of me. What he’d say when he heard me tell him I now understood how every clue and every lead had been wrong in this case.

  I looked to the side of the road through bleary eyes full of tears and finally saw the green highway sign for my exit back to Sunset Ridge. I’d try the police station first and prayed to God I’d find him there.

  Jamming the car into park, I turned the engine off and leapt out from behind the wheel. My legs felt like every muscle in them had been tensed since I first read that fingerprint analysis report back at St. Clair’s desk, so now as I ran toward the police station, they cramped painfully making me slow down even as my brain screamed for them to push harder to let me run faster than I’d ever done before.

  I tore down the hallway to Alex’s office and found it dark and empty, like much of the police station was each night. Hoping beyond reason Derek might have decided to stay late for once since he’d become chief, I ran to his office, each step feeling like my thigh muscles would explode out of my skin. I found his dark just like Alex’s, and real panic settled into my brain.

  “Isn’t anyone in this damn police station after dinnertime?” I screamed as I ran toward the front door.

  “Hello?” a voice called out in response to my frantic yelling. “I’m in here.”

  I followed the sound to the dispatcher’s office and found Andie, the young woman recently hired to work at night. She looked at me with terror in her eyes as I struggled to catch my breath in her doorway, her big blue eyes opened wide with fear.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked as she looked around me for anyone to help her.