by K. J. Emrick
He didn’t say anything to that. He just stood up with her, silently waiting for her to finish.
“You know I’m right, Jon. He’s always getting out. That note doesn’t mean anything!”
She wanted it to be true. She hoped it was true. She prayed with all her might that the ransom note with its demands and its threats was a lie.
But she knew it wasn’t, and when Jon finally shook his head in answer to her pleading, she crumpled inside.
“We’ll find him,” he promised. “We’ll get him back.”
Darcy fell into his arms, angry and scared and sad all at the same time.
Someone had taken Smudge, and midnight was the deadline to get him back.
***
“Thanks, Grace. I’ll meet you guys here.”
Jon hung up the house phone on the wall and came back to sit with Darcy and Ellen at the kitchen table. “Your sister will be here soon with a couple of our officers. We’ll go over the house, look for evidence, fingerprints and whatever else we can find.”
“Do you think you’ll find anything?” Ellen asked when Darcy stayed silent.
“Honestly?” Jon hesitated. Darcy felt his eyes on her. “No, I don’t. We can always hope whoever did this got sloppy, but I doubt we’ll find anything here.”
“Why not?”
Darcy wanted to hear him say it, too, even though she already knew the answer.
“Because,” Jon said, “you told me the door was locked when you went for your walk, right?”
“Of course,” Ellen told him, her tone sharp. “I never leave it unlocked. Not even for that short amount of time. I’m not stupid.”
“That’s one thing I’ve never accused you of being. So, you have the door locked and you’re sure that Smudge was inside when you left.”
“Right. Asleep on the couch.”
“So, unless he got up and ran out of the house just as soon as you left, he was still in here. So the kidnapper got in and took him while you were on your walk, and then left this note, but there wasn’t any sign of forced entry. No broken glass, no signs that the locks were picked and really no time to pick them anyway. So. The kidnapper came in the house. How did he get in?”
“We have a key outside in the knothole of that one tree remember,” Darcy said, knowing where Jon was going with this. “We keep it there for emergencies.”
“Right. Now. How many people know we do that?”
She threw her arms up in the air. “Everyone in town, practically. We’ve never had to keep our doors locked from our friends.”
Jon waited.
Darcy blew out a breath and slumped in her chair. “Which means whoever did this knew us. They knew where the spare key was. And even if they were dumb enough to leave fingerprints, it will be fingerprints of someone we know and who has probably been in our house before.”
Ellen closed her eyes tightly shut. “Guess we start locking our doors on our friends now, don’t we?”
“And change the locks,” Darcy added. She wanted to be out in town, looking for Smudge, but Jon had pointed out how useless that would be. They didn’t have the first clue where to look and they only had until midnight to find him. They couldn’t just run around aimlessly. She just felt so frustrated! “Someone we know did this to us.”
“Right.” Jon drummed his fingers on the table. “So they used the key. Probably waited for you to leave, Ellen, or just lucked out that you weren’t home when they got here. They came inside, looked around quickly for the journal, and when they couldn’t find it they went to plan B.”
“Kidnap Smudge,” Darcy growled.
“Darcy,” Ellen said, again, “I’m so sorry…”
“Just shut up, Ellen. I don’t blame you, I really don’t, but I keep wanting to shout at you because you were supposed to be here and you weren’t and if you keep telling me how sorry you are then so help me, I’m going to claw your eyes out!”
No one was more surprised by her outburst than Darcy was herself. She never lashed out like that. Ever. Especially not at a friend. It really wasn’t Ellen’s fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. That’s what made it so hard. Every mystery she had ever solved, every request for help by a ghostly presence reaching out from beyond the grave, in every one of those there had been someone to blame. Someone she could point a finger at and say, it’s your fault!
There wasn’t anyone to do that to here except Ellen. She should have been here.
She should have been here!
Ellen set her lips in a firm line, and slowly got up from the table.
“Ellen,” Jon said to her, with a helpless expression.
“No, Jon.” Ellen swallowed, and nodded her head, once. “I understand. I’d want to yell at someone, too. Even if it was a good friend of mine.”
Then she stalked out of the kitchen. A moment later they heard her stomping up the stairs to her room.
Jon reached out for Darcy’s hand. “Hey. Talk to me.”
She yanked her hand back. “Don’t, Jon. Just don’t. I’ll apologize to her later. For right now let’s just figure this out. How do you know they went through the house looking for the journal?”
He hesitated like he wanted to say more, but instead he hooked a thumb towards the living room. “Go take a look at your bookshelf.”
Darcy did, feeling like each of her steps was weighted down with cement. She tried to remember all the stages of grief. She felt like she was experiencing all of them at once.
In the living room she looked at the bookshelf, then looked at it harder. She had several paperback books lined up here, her personal reading collection, along with a few reference books and how-to manuals on the paranormal arts. She always kept them lined up in a specific way so she could find them when she wanted them.
None of them were where they were supposed to be.
She swallowed back a lump in her throat and looked all around the living room, feeling little prickly crawlers walking up and down her arms. Other things were out of place, too. It creeped her out to see. She knew there was no one in the house now except for them. Just her and Jon and Ellen and Connor. No one else.
Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling of being violated. Someone had come in here, in her house, and gone through her personal things, and then left with one of her best friends. Smudge was a cat, sure, but he was family.
She folded her arms over herself, physically holding herself together. She was shaking. It wasn’t cold. It was all just…wrong.
Jon wrapped his arms around her from behind and Darcy let herself ease into his comfort. “Where’s Smudge, Jon?” she asked softly.
“I don’t know,” he answered, honestly. “We’ll find him. I think our suspect walked here, because I think Ellen would have noticed a car on this road. So if we’re really lucky we’ll find a shoeprint outside. Other than that, we’ve only got that note to go on, and your aunt’s journal. We can’t even do a handwriting analysis because the note was typed.”
“There’s something different about this journal,” she confided. “Millie almost sounds…scared. Like she knew someone was trying to hurt her.”
“Does she say who?”
“No. At least, not that I’ve found out yet. I didn’t start reading it until today, what with us just getting back from our honeymoon and everything else I just didn’t have the time and now…now…”
It hit her, all of a sudden, that if she’d come home early like she’d planned she might have been here when this guy came to the house. She might have been able to keep Smudge from being taken. If she’d only been here, right here where she was supposed to be.
She shivered, and her angry shout came out like a strangled squeak.
“Shh, I understand. Hey, there was no way you could have known how important that journal was. It’s strange though, don’t you think?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he said, turning her around in his arms to face her, “you’ve had that journal since before we went to A
ustralia, right? Yet, this guy, or this woman, or whoever it was, didn’t demand you turn it over to him until the day you started reading it.”
Ellen came walking back down the stairs, slowly, and sat on one of the risers halfway down. “Am I allowed to join the conversation again?”
Jon shot her a look. Darcy just nodded. It was all she could manage for now.
“Anyway,” Jon continued, “it was like they didn’t even know about the journal until today. That’s something. That’s something right there.”
“Why?” Darcy asked.
“It means something happened today to let our kidnapper know the journal was here. That you had it.”
“What’s that mean as far as suspects?” Ellen asked.
“Hey, as far as I’m concerned,” Jon said, “everyone in town is a suspect until we prove otherwise. Everyone except me and Darcy and Izzy, and only because she was with you when this happened, Darcy.”
“Hey,” Ellen protested from the stairs. “What about me, Mister Police Man?”
“Fine, and you too, Ellen,” he closed his eyes for a moment and kissed Darcy’s forehead gently. “I know you didn’t do this, Ellen. You’d never do anything like that to Darcy.”
“Thanks,” she said, simply, even though there was a world of meaning behind that one word. Jon and she had been a long time coming to a mutual ground. The police chief and the ex-hitman. This was what life in Misty Hollow could do for someone, Darcy reflected. Every newcomer had the chance to become a friend.
That didn’t mean she was ready to forgive Ellen. Not yet.
Jon held her closer. “So, let’s figure this out. Who even knew you had that book?”
“Nobody!” All the frustration came back to her all at once and she felt like she was drowning. “I haven’t told anyone about it at all. Except you, and Ellen.”
Ellen looked at both of them with one dark eyebrow quirked. “Don’t look at me. I don’t do stuff like that anymore. Well. Not that I ever kidnapped cats in the first place…”
“Not helping,” Jon barked.
“Wait,” Darcy said, cutting off whatever sharp-tongued retort Ellen was about to snipe back with. “I was talking about the journal. In the café. Helen’s café. I was talking to Helen about it.”
Jon stared at her. “You don’t think Helen…?”
“No, but there was someone else there when I mentioned the journal.” Darcy scrunched her brows together, thinking back. “Blake Underwood!”
“Our mailman?” Jon asked, his eyes looking off into the distance, trying to make that fit.
“No, wait.” Darcy remembered now. “Blake left before I started talking to Helen. He didn’t hear any of that. Someone else…Roland Baskin! He was there. He heard the whole thing!”
“That grump?” Ellen pulled a sour face. “But why? What could he possibly want with your aunt’s journal? Especially bad enough to…do this.”
Darcy didn’t know the answer to that either. Roland was older than her aunt would have been. They must have known each other, back in the day.
What did it mean?
“All right.” Jon nodded, his eyes more focused. “We have a suspect. That’s a place to start.”
“What about Smudge?” Darcy asked, feeling herself start to shake again. “I don’t want to just leave him out there somewhere.”
“We won’t. Darcy, I promise you we’ll find him. We’ll get Smudge back. I’m going to put the department on this full time. Breaking and entering, theft, those are serious crimes and I don’t know what someone like that will do next. Especially with what’s in that note.”
“Are we going to turn over the journal?” Ellen asked, voicing the words all of them had avoided saying out loud.
“I…think we should,” Darcy said, even though the words tasted like ashes in her mouth.
It was their only bargaining chip. Their only leverage. If they gave it away, then where would they be?
“Darcy?” Jon left it at that, making it her decision.
“I want Smudge back,” she answered. “And we don’t know what else this person will do if he doesn’t get the journal.”
“We don’t know why he wants it, either,” he pointed out. “Or even if it is a him. Might be a woman.”
“Must be a pretty big secret,” Ellen offered. “Darcy, think. We don’t know if he, she, whatever, will let Smudge go even if they do get the journal. They might take the book and come after you next.”
“Of course you would know about stuff like that, wouldn’t you?” Darcy snapped at her. “From your vast experience in kidnappings and murder, right?”
Ellen looked away, biting her lower lip. That had been her life, once. Darcy’s words had struck home.
“Darcy,” Jon said her name gently. “Ellen isn’t the enemy. We’ll find the people responsible. All right? We will. For right now, for tonight, you need to read through as much of the journal as you can. See if you can find out why someone wants it so badly. Did your aunt know something that would be worth committing these kinds of acts? Did she have those kinds of a secrets?”
“Not that I know of.” She and Millie had shared all of their secrets. Only, no, they hadn’t. It was only a few months back when she found out that Millie had authored books that would have helped her understand her abilities better. She’d written books to help people who could see ghosts, like Darcy could. Only she never mentioned it to Darcy. She had to find out about it after the fact.
That wasn’t a big secret. It hadn’t changed what she thought of her aunt, for instance, but at the same time it meant there might have been other, bigger secrets that Millie had kept hidden, too.
Every woman had a few secrets. Some secrets she kept out of pride. Some she kept for vanity. Sometimes to save the feelings of her friends and family.
Some secrets were kept secret because they were dangerous.
What secrets had her aunt kept from Darcy, she had to wonder?
“How did she die?” Ellen asked, just like that.
“What?” Darcy raised a hand to her temple, thinking back. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, come on.” From the stairs, Ellen looked from Jon to Darcy. “You guys didn’t think of that first? Your aunt died suddenly, right? Unexpectedly? You don’t think maybe there’s a mystery there?”
“She died in her bed,” Darcy grated out between her clenched teeth. Why wouldn’t Ellen just shut up? It was bad enough that someone had taken Smudge to hold for ransom. She didn’t need Ellen trying to dig up her aunt’s death all over again and make it into something obscene. “It was terrible, and it was horrible, but it was just her time to go.”
Ellen settled back a little further until her shoulders were against the wall and settled her hands in her lap as she looked away from Darcy’s rising anger. “I was just asking.”
“Well, don’t! You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jon folded her back into his arms, tucking her head into his shoulder. “Neither do we,” he reminded her. “But we need to find out. You need to read as much of that journal tonight as you can. Learn everything you can from it. Then we’ll make photocopies to keep here.”
“Jon that book is brittle and falling apart as it is,” Darcy reminded him. “I don’t know if the pages will survive exposure to that kind of bright light. It might fade the ink away altogether. Or worse.”
“It’s a chance we’ll have to take.” He said it with such finality that she knew what he was planning.
“You are going to give the kidnapper the journal. That’s the plan now?”
He nodded, stroking her long dark hair. “I agree with you. We need to catch this guy. What better way to do it than to use his own ploy against him. We’ll bait him with the book, then catch him when he steps out to get it.”
“You think that will work?”
“Hey, when have my plans ever failed?”
Darcy laughed at that, and she hated him for making her feel better, because she felt like she wa
s betraying Smudge with her smile.
“There,” he said, lifting her chin up to smile back at her. “It will be all right.”
“Because you’re promising me?”
“Because it’s true,” he told her. “That’s why.”
There was the sound of a car braking hard out front, and then a hard knock on the door was followed by Grace sweeping into the house. Darcy’s sister wasn’t wearing her work clothes. She had on a pair of old jeans and a t-shirt. She’d already been home from work, apparently, with her husband and their toddler. Darcy didn’t know what they’d pulled Grace away from, but her short dark hair had been hastily brushed out and her socks were two different colors. Details only another woman would pick out.
Grace took Darcy by her hands and led her over to the couch. Hazel eyes a few shades darker than Darcy’s own were intense as she said, “We’ll get him back, sis. Don’t worry.”
Darcy still wasn’t sure what order the stages of grief went through, but she very suddenly stepped from grief, to anger.
She was angry. Whoever had done this was going to answer for it.
To her.
Chapter Three
Jon took charge of the officers that arrived right after Grace. A couple of the regular nightshift officers in their dark blue uniforms along with Detective Wilson Barton. Wilson had been made junior detective when Grace had gone off on maternity leave, and then Jon had been promoted to police chief leaving a position open for Wilson to move into. He was a smart guy, and he’d taken more than his fair share of injuries protecting and serving the people of Misty Hollow. With Grace as his supervising detective Wilson had proven himself more than once.
Darcy liked him, and trusted him, and she knew he’d do everything he could to solve this crime just like Grace and Jon were doing. Dust for fingerprints. Check for shoe impressions. Talk to the businesses in town to see if any of them had surveillance cameras facing the street that might help. Darcy listened to all of it with half an ear as she went upstairs to the bedroom she shared with her husband, her aunt’s journal in hand.