by K. J. Emrick
This made no sense.
The curse of her gift, the real thorn in her side, was that she couldn’t tell anyone about what she could do. Not her sister Grace. Grace knew a little bit but not all of what she could do. Not her good friend and business partner Izzy McIntosh. Although Izzy knew about Great Aunt Millie’s ghost hanging around the bookstore, she had never asked to know more, and Darcy had never volunteered much else. Jon knew, but only most of it. There were parts she kept even from her husband, not that it mattered now, because he wasn’t here to hold her and make it better. He wasn’t here at all.
She was alone.
Talking to ghosts was the sort of thing that got you sent to the loony bin. Right now, Darcy thought sourly, she might be willing to check herself in voluntarily.
After a few more minutes spent with her sister it had become clear to Darcy that what she feared was, in fact, true. Grace didn’t know anything about Jon being dead. Darcy had excused herself and promised to come back later but she couldn’t stay in that room one second longer. Everything that had happened this morning rolled back through her mind and she needed somewhere quiet to think. The hospital’s chapel would have been perfect, but this was as far as she’d made it before her legs gave out, and she had to sit down.
As best as she could remember, she went over everything Sean Fitzwallis had told her this morning. He had never once mentioned Jon. He hadn’t said anything to Darcy about him. Not even to offer his condolences. At the time, she chalked that up to him not wanting to add to her grief. He hadn’t wanted to heap on more sadness, was what she’d been thinking.
Looking back on it now, she realized she’d been wrong. Sean hadn’t mentioned Jon, because just like Grace, he didn’t know Jon was dead. No one did.
Except her.
“We know he’s missing,” Sean said to her, standing at her elbow. “That’s all we know at this point.”
She hadn’t even heard the old desk sergeant coming. He was a stealthy man for someone his age. Keeping her glare directed at the floor, Darcy spun her aunt’s ring around her finger. She was constantly surprised by how Sean Fitzwallis could seem to know exactly what she was thinking. Like just now, when he’d spoken directly to the question on her mind. “Reading my thoughts again, Sean?”
Arching a gray eyebrow, spinning his policeman’s hat in his hands, he sat in the chair next to hers. “Now, that would be impossible, wouldn’t it? Not that the impossible doesn’t pop up a bit more in Misty Hollow than other places. No. I was just in there talking to Grace. She told me you seemed to think Jon was dead.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Sure wish you’d told me about that, Darcy. I would’ve said something on the ride over here.”
Now she turned to him. He frowned at what he saw in her face. Darcy didn’t try to soften her expression. “Well, if you think he’s missing, Sean, why didn’t you say something to me? I’m his wife. Don’t you think that would have been the right thing to do? Maybe let me know that my husband is in danger?”
He held up a hand, leaning away from the anger in her voice. “I didn’t want to tell you anything until we knew for sure, is all. Soon as we found Grace in that wreck this morning outside of town, we tried to contact Jon. He hasn’t been answering his cell phone.”
Darcy knew why, even if Sean wasn’t ready to accept that she did. “He and Grace were supposed to be together at this conference, Sean. What happened?”
He shrugged. “They ended up driving separate cars.”
“No,” Darcy shook her head. “Jon told me they were riding together.”
“Changed his mind, I guess. Or more like Grace changed it for him. Grace knew she wasn’t going to stay the whole time. She left to come back yesterday morning because… now how’d she put it?” He tilted his head as he pitched his voice to sound like Grace’s. “She wasn’t going to stick around there and be bored to tears when there’s real work to do. Her words, not mine. Apparently Jon wanted to stay at least one more day. Grace says he called you yesterday?”
“Yes.” He hadn’t mentioned anything about Grace coming home early, but then again why would he? Darcy didn’t keep tabs on her sister. “He called just after lunch. He sounded happy. We… we were joking about my birthday coming up and just silly things like that.”
Sean nodded, almost like he was taking notes in his head. “And he was at the hotel when you two talked?”
Darcy thought back. “Yes. He called from there. The next part of the seminar was supposed to start in like, a half hour so he said he had to go…”
And told her he loved her, and hung up the phone.
Was that the last time she’d ever hear his voice?
Another nod from Sean. “Well. We’ve got the police from over that way going to check his hotel room. Any luck, he slept in through his alarm.”
Luck had nothing to do with this. “Grace says she was targeted by the other driver in her accident. That he attacked her on purpose. Do we know who did it?”
He hesitated, but then shook his head. “No. Afraid not. They’ve got some leads they’re working on, Darcy, but that’s all I can really say.”
“Sean, this is my husband and my sister we’re talking about. Don’t clam up on me now.”
She bit her tongue before she added, don’t clam up like you did about Millie. That whole investigation involving Millie’s murder, and Sean’s role in it, had nearly ended his career. She wasn’t trying to threaten the man, but if he held out on her again when he knew something that could help, she wouldn’t rest until he got bounced so far off the police force that somebody would need a GPS unit to find where he landed.
His pale eyes watched her, like he was listening to every thought. Good, she thought. If he can really read my mind, then he’ll know how important this is.
“There’s only so much I can say,” he said after another moment. “If you want to know more, well, I suppose you’d have to go up the chain of command.”
Up the chain… Sean was a sergeant at the department. Grace was a detective. Jon was the Chief. Who was she supposed to turn to for answers if those three…
“You’re not suggesting I go to the mayor?” Darcy asked. “For Pete’s sake, Sean, I’m not looking to go over anyone’s head—yet. I just want some simple answers!”
He shook his head slowly from side to side. “Those answers you’re looking for might not be all that simple. Seems to me you don’t do simple.”
“It’s not like I go looking for trouble,” she grumbled.
“No you don’t, and that’s a fact. Thing is, folks like you and me—that husband of yours too—trouble seems to find us. The world needs people who can handle the tough trouble. It needs people like Darcy Sweet.”
She was torn between screaming at him that she didn’t want to be tough, and laughing at him for putting her unusual brand of trouble in such a nice light. Either of those choices were going to lead her to tears, though, so she settled for bringing the conversation back to where it had started.
“It needs people like my husband, too,” she said through clenched teeth. “It needs Jon Tinker.”
“No arguments from me,” Sean said gently. “Listen. Let me run you back to the station in Misty Hollow. I’m sure the police over in Windy Point have checked on his hotel room by now. Uh, have you tried calling him this morning?”
No. She hadn’t. There wasn’t any sense in trying to leave a voicemail for him on the other side. Jon was dead. There was no calling area for that particular zip code. Anger threatened to overtake her again and she had to stuff it back down deep to keep functioning. “No,” she finally admitted as he continued to stare at her. “I haven’t called Jon.”
Although… there was one way she could call her husband.
Her way.
The mounting anger was replaced with a wave of exhaustion. Even taking her next breath seemed like too much. What she wanted to do was just go into a corner somewhere, curl up, and stop living. Jon was dead. Jon, the anchor of her life. Jon,
her better half. The man who was everything to her. He was dead.
How could she possibly go on?
Nodding to herself, not to Sean or his questions, she answered her own thoughts. She would go on, because she had to. Because nobody else could do what she could do, and Sean was right in a way. She couldn’t care less if the world needed Darcy Sweet, but right now her husband needed her. Jon needed her to find him, and find out what happened to him.
And, she reminded herself, her daughter needed her. She would go on for Colby.
She would get up from this stupid, uncomfortable chair that made a noise every time she moved and keep going, because Grace had told her that someone had deliberately tried to kill her in that car accident. Darcy believed her sister was right. Someone out there who had tried to kill Grace.
That same someone had probably killed Jon, and Darcy was going to find out who it was.
This morning, after being absent for years, the mists had rolled back into town like some kind of horrible messenger. The mists only came when there was going to be trouble. They shrouded the town in mysteries sometimes too deep and too awful to even think about.
This was the most horrible one yet.
She needed to find out what had happened to Jon.
That wasn’t going to happen, sitting in this chair feeling sorry for herself.
When she jumped up to her feet, it surprised Sean. She could see it in his faded gray eyes. Then he smiled like this was exactly what he had expected from her in the first place.
“You said you were going back to the police station, right?” she asked him, dabbing at a few final tears with her thumbs.
“That I did,” he said, getting to his feet himself. “Want a lift?”
“I would appreciate that, yes.” Then she remembered his suggestion from earlier. “What did you mean when you said I should go up the chain of command if I wanted to ask questions?”
“Not the mayor,” he told her, waving that thought away with a hand. “You need to ask the guy who gets left in charge of the department when your husband and sister aren’t around.”
Darcy puzzled it out quickly enough. There was no assistant chief’s position in Misty Hollow. No lieutenants either. The town budget wasn’t big enough for that many supervisor positions. Chief Daleson, the man that Jon had replaced, had caught all kinds of trouble from the town council members just for promoting a third detective from within the ranks.
“That’s who you mean,” Darcy said, realizing where Sean was pointing her. “The detectives are in charge when the chief is away. Grace is here. Jon is… missing.” The word hurt in her throat. “So that leaves Detective Wilson Barton in charge.”
“Right you are,” Sean agreed, laying a finger to the side of his nose. “The man in charge is the one to talk to.”
“Sean… please. If you know something about what happened to Jon, please just tell me.”
He settled one hand on her shoulder as he smiled down at her. “You always were a smart one, Darcy Sweet. Your Aunt Millie always thought so. I did, too. Watched you grow up. Watched you become the strong woman you are now. I couldn’t be more proud of you than if you’d been my own daughter. Well. Granddaughter, I guess in my case. Either way, I’m proud of you. Lots of folks are.”
Her frown tightened. Not that she didn’t like hearing him say she’d made a difference in people’s lives. Every girl liked to hear that. It just wasn’t an answer to her question. “Sean, please. What do you know?”
There was one more awkward silence between them, and then Sean let go of her and put his hat back on his head. “What I know is that Jon doesn’t just go missing. Known the man for years. I’ve never known him to just go off the grid.”
“So you think he… you think he might be…?”
Dead. She couldn’t make herself say the word.
“No. Oh, Darcy, no. Of course not. He’ll be around in no time. With some story to tell, no doubt.”
Sean said it like he meant it, but Darcy could see the shadows collecting in his eyes, something like uncertainty mixed with disbelief. He was putting on a brave face for her, but she could tell. If he didn’t completely believe her when she told him that Jon was dead, he at least knew it was a possibility.
Darcy knew it for a fact, because she’d seen Jon’s ghost. For a man who had been a police officer for as many years as Sean Fitzwallis, there was no way he shouldn’t be making that logical leap himself.
Because someone had tried to kill Grace, and now Jon was nowhere to be found.
She hugged him, holding back the tears again.
Chapter Three
Darcy remembered the moment when it all became real to her.
Not that she hadn’t already accepted what she had seen with her own eyes. Jon’s ghost, sitting there like he was just home from work, playing with their little girl and giving his wife that special smile of his. But, when she had seen him there, it was like a part of her mind had shut down. It was like she’d been wrapped in cotton ever since, running on autopilot. She had known Jon was dead in the same way that she knew water was wet. It was just a fact to be memorized and accepted.
Only, then it hit her.
She was in Sean’s patrol car, on the ride back to Misty Hollow, and her vision blurred behind rivers of tears. She couldn’t breathe. A giant’s fingers clamped with sudden, intense pressure around her heart.
Her husband was gone.
How could he do that to her?
Anger made her tears hot. Despair made her stomach clench and twist until she had to bend over against the seatbelt with her arms wrapped around her belly just to hold herself together. She wanted to shout, she wanted to scream, she wanted to beat her fists into the dashboard until something broke and she didn’t really care whether it was the car or her hands. She wanted to have the biggest raging fit in her life so she could tell God exactly what she thought of His plan for the life of Darcy Sweet up to this point.
Instead she just sat there, and wept heavy tears.
“Darcy?” Sean finally asked her. He reached out to touch her shoulder as the car sped them back home. “Are you all right?”
No. She would never be all right again.
Her husband was dead.
She could find the person who killed him. She could make them pay. She could, and she would.
But that wouldn’t bring Jon back.
No.
She would never be all right again.
Chapter Four
The police station had never seemed so cold and lonely to Darcy Sweet.
Officers crowded around desks in the patrol area, fielding phone calls and passing folders back and forth. Darcy sat at her sister Grace’s desk, staring down at her folded hands, waiting for someone to come and talk to her.
A cup of coffee was growing cold on the desk in front of her. She didn’t want coffee. She wanted to reset the clocks back a day so she could start over. If she closed her eyes and tried really hard, maybe she could make that happen.
She did try. For only a moment, but she tried. It didn’t work.
There were dozens of files on Grace’s desk. Each of them had a name and a file number printed in her sister’s neat handwriting on their tabs. Thinking about what Grace had said from her hospital bed, she wondered if the answer to who had attacked her sister—and her husband—might be right here in front of her.
What was it Grace had said? The other car had intentionally run into hers. Like she was targeted. That sounded like someone with a grudge. Darcy felt a ghost of a smile try to settle across her lips before it quickly faded away. Grace might not be the most soft-spoken woman in the world, and she might not back down from anything, but she led a decent life as a mother and a friend to everyone she knew. If someone had a grudge against her, it had to be related to her work.
The files in front of Darcy represented her sister’s current work-related activities. Would anyone notice if she just read through them a little?
Close by the desk,
someone cleared their throat.
She looked up to find Wilson Barton standing there, his serious eyes softened by a frown. In his usual brown suit and tie he was the very model of a professional police detective. His blonde hair was buzzed short, like always, but the blonde goatee definitely went against his usually strict adherence to policy and procedure. It was a recent addition for him. She suspected that the change had been encouraged by Lindsay, his fiancé. He was a dear, sweet man under all the by-the-book hard sell. Darcy had always known it. Finally, he was letting someone else see it, too.
What he had to say to her now wouldn’t be the least bit sweet, judging by the look on his face.
He took a chair on the other side of Grace’s desk, carefully picking up folders and sorting them out into piles. He was giving himself something to do, Darcy realized. Something that kept him from having to launch right into the subject at hand.
“So,” he finally said, “it looks like I’m the acting chief. Just for now, I mean.”
“You’re the highest ranking member of Misty Hollow’s Police Department, Wilson. It had to be you.”
He shrugged, staring at a folder for a long moment before setting it into the pile on the left. “It didn’t have to be. Mayor Turner could have appointed someone else to fill the gap. Until we find Jon,” he added quickly, but still a beat too late for Darcy not to notice.
She chose to ignore the slip. She knew the truth. Why was everyone pussyfooting around it? “Helen Turner is a great mayor. She would never replace you,” she told Wilson. Darcy knew Helen Nelson—now Helen Turner—well enough to be sure of that. In all the time that Helen had been mayor, even after she remarried a year ago, she had stayed a true friend. “She just wouldn’t do that. Not with Jon and Grace, um, out of action. What was it you wanted to tell me?”