by K. J. Emrick
What if one of them was Elizabeth Archer?
Dropping the rest of her coffee in a trashcan along the sidewalk, Darcy reversed her route, and went to the police station. Jon should still be there.
Chapter Eight
The department was back to regular staffing today, which meant just a few officers in the building. Darcy tried not to think about Sean Fitzwallis being sent home last night. He’d done what he thought was best to try to protect Darcy and help a dear friend, but that didn’t make it right. How much of this could have been avoided if they’d known all along that Millie had been murdered?
On the other hand, the thought suddenly occurred to her that things could have been worse if she had known. If she had, then whoever had killed Millie would have come after her, too, back when she was in her early twenties and still trying to find her way in life. Back when she hadn’t known how to use her sixth sense so well. Would her first husband, Jeff, have been able to support her through something like that? Could he have kept her safe?
Considering he’d been cheating on her during their marriage…she highly doubted it.
She had traded up, in so many ways, when she married Jon.
However angry she might be that all of these things had been kept secret from her by first Millie and then by Sean Fitzwallis, she had to admit the slimmest possibility that they’d been right to do it this way. If the bad guys came after her now, she’d have Jon there to protect her, and Smudge, and Ellen Gless, and a much stronger understanding of her own abilities.
Bring it on, she thought, as one of the officers led her down the hallway to Jon’s office, where he sat behind his desk.
He looked surprised to see her standing there. “I thought you were going home?”
The officer left her there and she and Jon were alone, but she closed his door anyway. She wanted this to be a private conversation.
“I was. I am, I mean.” She sat down in the chair across the desk from him. She was so, so tired. She could see it in his eyes, too, and in the way he rubbed at the back of his neck. “But I just realized something. Roland Baskin wasn’t the only person in Helen’s café when I was there. Elizabeth Archer was there.”
“Well, of course. She works there.”
“Not today. She didn’t come in. Helen was there all by herself.” She twisted her aunt’s ring on her finger. “Now, why do you think she’d do that?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I think I know where you’re going with this but let me ask you the question instead. Why do you think Elizabeth missed work today?”
“It all fits, Jon,” she insisted. “She would have heard me describing the beehive journal. Smudge scratched whoever took him and now Elizabeth isn’t showing her face at work. I think we at least need to go have a talk with her! She just lives over on Sullivan Drive.”
“I know where she lives.” He sat back in his chair, honestly considering what Darcy was saying, before shaking his head. “It’s all guesswork. I think we should wait until the bloodwork is back. That way, we’ll have something definite to show her. Evidence to confront her with.”
“We didn’t wait to go talk to Roland Baskin,” she pointed out.
“No, we didn’t, and look where that got us. At the time we were worried about finding Smudge before the deadline and we didn’t have time to be subtle. Now we’ve got Smudge back. He’s safe at home with Ellen. Who happens to be worried sick about you, by the way.”
“Does she know…?”
“I gave her the big picture.” He rubbed at his eyes, stifling a yawn. “You might want to fill in the broad strokes for her.”
“Okay, but what about Elizabeth?”
“I admit, it all fits, but it’s definitely not enough to bring to a judge. We’ll have a talk with her and see what she says, but we’ll do it after the blood evidence comes back and we know more. I don’t want to falsely accuse anyone else in town.”
“Especially a good friend,” Darcy admitted, leaning back in the chair. “You’re right. I know you’re right. I still can’t help but think she’s involved. At least, she might be the accomplice.”
“If there is an accomplice.”
Darcy nodded. If there was an accomplice, Elizabeth fit all the facts. If there wasn’t an accomplice, and there was only the one guy who had killed her aunt, and kidnapped Smudge, and assaulted Grace…then Elizabeth wasn’t involved at all.
Round and round her mind went, weighing the possibilities.
She’d never been so tired in her life.
“Why is this one so hard?” she asked, bringing her gaze down from the ceiling. “It feels like we aren’t any closer to knowing who did this today than we were yesterday.”
“It’s the way investigations go sometimes. Remember the case of the phantom driver? How long did it take to puzzle that one out? And don’t forget when the Town Hall burned down around our heads.”
Each one of those cases evoked a flood of memories, some of them good, some of them sad. “Or the time we almost got our heads taken off over in Ryansburg.”
“And your ex-husband kept showing up?”
“Yeah.” She laughed, and then sighed. Jeff had been a ghost, already dead and murdered, but he’d been there to help. Darcy turned the bittersweet memories over in her head, realizing she and Jon had been through a lot of tough spots.
They’d make it through this one, too.
“All right, so we’ll wait,” she relented. “I don’t like it, but I’ll wait.”
“That’s my girl. Was Elizabeth’s family name even in that history book your aunt showed us?”
“Um.” She had to think about it. “No. I don’t remember it being there. She moved here from somewhere else, though. Her family might not be one of the original families in town.”
“Hmm,” Jon mused. “Well, anyway, whoever’s behind this has the journal. Our mystery man doesn’t know about us photocopying it first, and he doesn’t have any reason to think we know the secrets in the book. So, he doesn’t have any reason to come after you, and no reason to go anywhere. Leaving town would make him look suspicious so he’ll be right here when we’re ready to pounce on him. Elizabeth Archer will be, too.”
He got up, and came around to help her up from the chair. She could have fallen asleep right here in his arms, if he’d let her. “So we wait?” she asked.
“Time is actually on our side for a change. Let’s take advantage of it.”
“I don’t like waiting.”
He chuckled, and she felt it as a rumbling deep in his chest. “I tell you what,” he offered. “If the blood results don’t come back in tomorrow, then we’ll go talk to Elizabeth and at least see what she has to say for herself. But if they do come in tomorrow, then we’ll go wherever they lead us. Fair enough?”
“I guess so,” she said, with another yawn. “I think I’ll go find our bed now.”
“It’s right where you left it yesterday. Make it nice and warm for me?”
With a very sleepy goodbye, she left the department and started back up the street toward the turn that would lead her out of town to her own narrow road, and to her home, and to her bed to get some sleep.
Maybe not just yet.
When she passed by Helen’s café, she’d already made up her mind what she was going to do. Sleep was going to wait a little bit longer yet.
Time to take things into her own hands.
Helen was serving a long line of people when Darcy came in this time. She was rushing back and forth, pouring coffee and bagging up bagels and muffins and apologizing that she didn’t have this or that because she was so shorthanded. For the most part her customers were understanding but Darcy heard a few of them grumbling that they couldn’t have their favorite breakfast treat.
“Hi again, Darcy.” Helen handed a paper bag to the next person in line and made change quickly. “Sorry, I don’t have time to chat right now. Can we catch up later?”
“Actually,” Darcy said to her, “can I just leave a note for
Elizabeth? I had a question for her but I’m on my way home.”
Helen shrugged as she took the order from the next person in line. “Sure thing. There’s a notepad over by the register. I’m going to close up before lunch but you can leave it for her, I guess.”
“Thanks, Helen.”
She found the little rectangular pad of paper right where Helen had said it would be, and a pen lying beside it.
The note didn’t take long to write out. She knew what she wanted to say.
I know what you did, she wrote out. I know about the Deseret Code. I have what you want. My aunt kept it safe and I know where it is.
She tapped the top of the pen against the note a few times, then decided it was good enough. It was sufficiently vague and laid out enough bait to catch Elizabeth’s attention.
Part of her was hoping Elizabeth would throw the note back in her face and tell her she didn’t know what Darcy was talking about. That would be just Elizabeth’s style, too. Angry and surly.
But was she a criminal?
Hope for the best, she thought with a shrug, and prepare for the worst. She folded the note in half and wrote Elizabeth’s name on the outside, followed by “from Darcy.” Darcy understood why Jon wanted to wait, but she wanted to take some action. She needed to know.
Taking a thumbtack from the message board behind the counter she leaned over and pinned the note to an empty space. No way Elizabeth could miss that.
She smiled to Helen and waved on her way out, and then she finally headed for home.
Elizabeth wouldn’t see the note until tomorrow, if she came back to work. For now Jon was right. No one would know they had deciphered the Deseret code. That gave them the rest of today, at least, before anything would happen.
Not that deciphering the Deseret code had done them much good. What was that poem all about? Stars worth more than stones, laid to rest with a sleeping girl. Right. Her mind was running on fumes but she doubted those words would make sense even with a full night’s sleep. Obviously it was about something valuable. Something the guy who had killed Millie was looking for. Maybe it was even what had gotten her killed.
His identity was in that poem. She just had to figure it out.
Later. After some sleep.
Partway up the street to her house, a thought slipped into Darcy’s tired brain. What if the poem wasn’t about the man who killed Millie? What if…just if…the cryptic words were about something else. If Millie had these stars or whatever, and the bad guy wanted them…that would be a strong motive for murder.
And a strong reason to want the beehive journal. The poem could lead the shadowy bad guy to the hidden location of his stuff.
Her steps slowed as she considered the Deseret poem again in this new light. Something valuable. Laid to rest. With the sleeping girl.
Rest. Sleep. That’s what she wanted to be doing right now. She thought of lullabies that she knew from her childhood, rhymes and songs about going to sleep, but none of them seemed to be relevant. Twinkle, twinkle little star. Rock-a-bye baby. Ring around the Rosie. Nothing. None of them matched the lines from the journal.
She yawned, and blinked to bring the world back in focus. She had all the clues, and none of the answers. Maybe the journal told who Millie’s murderer was, and maybe it was a cryptic treasure map, and maybe it was something else entirely. She just didn’t know.
What she needed to do was talk to Millie. With a little smirk, she opened her front door and gratefully kicked her sneakers off inside. Maybe Millie would show up in another dream. Because bed was where she was headed, at long last. She was finally home.
A streak of black and white fur slid around the corner into the kitchen and barreled his way into her ankles, rubbing himself around and around her legs. She picked Smudge up, stroking his fur, listening to him purr, and promised to never let something like this happen to him again.
“He’s been antsy all morning,” Ellen said to her, leaning against the doorway to the living room. She was in her pajamas still, fluffy white bottoms with cartoon images of black sheep on them and an oversized baseball jersey.
Darcy was incredibly jealous. She probably wouldn’t even get changed out of the clothes she’d been wearing for two days before she fell into bed.
“He’s probably still jumpy from being kidnapped.” Darcy gave her tomcat a gentle hug and then set him down on the floor again. He raced off into the house, bounding upstairs, probably headed for her bedroom ahead of her. “I know I’d be upset after an ordeal like he’s gone through.”
“You know, back when I was…doing my old profession,” Ellen said, meaning her days as a hired killer, “that’s one thing I never did. I never kidnapped anyone. Or their pet. I just can’t imagine.”
Darcy tossed her jean jacket over the back of one of the chairs at the kitchen table. “How much did Jon tell you?”
“He told me enough.” Ellen shrugged and one slender shoulder slid out of her pajama top. Her mop of dark hair fell against the side of her face and she tried without success to hook it behind her ear. “I hope Grace will be okay.”
It said a lot about Ellen that out of everything that was happening, the first thing on her mind was Grace. There was a time not too long ago when she would have been talking about how to get vengeance on the people responsible for this, along with a few very vivid plans to make her revenge both memorable and painful. She really wasn’t the same woman who had once upon a time killed people for a living. Not anymore.
Now she was Darcy’s very good friend.
“Ellen, look—”
“You’re sorry,” Ellen finished for her. “You were upset and you were angry and if you had it to do all over again you’d probably act the very same way because after all, Darcy Sweet, you’re human.”
Then she came over to Darcy and hugged her. “Apology accepted. I don’t want to hear any more about it, got it? You’ve got a million other things to worry about right now. You and me ain’t one of them. Go upstairs. Get some sleep.”
Darcy eyed her friend skeptically. “You’re sure we’re okay?”
“Are you kicking me and Connor out of your house?”
“No, of course not!”
“Then we’re good.”
They laughed at that, and Darcy decided to do exactly what Ellen had suggested. No more distractions. She went upstairs to bed. She got as far as taking off her socks and jeans before throwing herself under the covers.
As soon as she hit the pillow she was asleep.
Until Jon woke her up.
Her eyes opened to the darkness of full night, the lighted numbers from the bedside clock casting an eerie red glow over Jon’s face. “Hi, Sweet Baby. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
She slid her arms up around his neck and pulled him down into the bed beside her. “Yes you did,” she said in a sleepy voice. “You think I can’t see through your little games?”
His fingers touched her face so softly, so gently, that she felt chills. Then his lips found hers in the darkness, and they spent several long moments expressing their love without saying a single word.
“How long have I been asleep?” she asked him after a last, sweet taste of his mouth.
“Longer than me.”
“I’m sorry, I was just so tired.”
“How are you ever going to stay awake when our baby cries out for his mother?” he asked her.
She tried to read his expression, there in the dark, but it was like trying to see the face of a shadow. “Are you serious?” she asked.
When he didn’t answer, she placed her hand against his broad chest, feeling his slow and rhythmic breathing. He was asleep.
She thought about waking him up but decided they both needed their rest, and she’d already gotten some of her own, so now it could be his turn.
Children. He’d just asked her what she would do when they had children. Not if, but when. She laid back on her pillow, staring at the ceiling, smiling and biting the tip of her tongue to keep
from shouting out her joy.
She closed her eyes, letting herself drift slowly back towards sleep, too. It had taken Jon a while to come around to admitting it but she’d always known he would make a great father. Kids had always been in their future, as far as she was concerned.
“And now you know for sure,” Smudge said to her, sitting up at the foot of her bed, his long tail wrapped around his feet.
Darcy sat bolt upright in bed, staring at him. She and her cat had always been able to understand each other, more or less, but it had never been this direct. This only happened…
In her dreams.
Of course. Smudge the cat had come to impart his wisdom to her.
“All right, you. So this is going to be one of those dreams, is it?” she asked him. “Where’s Millie? I’ve got some questions for her.”
“She’s, uh, not here this time,” Smudge told her, half-closing his eyes and looking away into a corner of the room. “Millie’s afraid you’re still mad at her.”
“That’s because I am still mad at her. Not showing up when I need answers from her isn’t going to win her any brownie points, either.”
“Darcy, you have to give her some slack.” Smudge stood up and padded closer to her, standing between her and Jon’s sleeping form. “Your aunt was trying to keep you safe. Yes, she waited too long to tell you all of this. That’s why I took matters into my own paws and brought you a page of the journal. You needed to see it.”
“Yes, I did.” The words were flat and a little bitter. “Now I know why Millie’s spirit is still here, anyway. Maybe once all of this is done she can go on to her final rest. She’s more than earned it.”
“Maybe,” Smudge agreed, flicking an ear. “In the meantime, go easy on her. And pay attention to the words in the journal.”
“I’ve already translated the Deseret writing. It was pretty smart of Millie to hide the information in plain sight like that, but I have no idea what the poem means. I don’t suppose you want to tell me, do you?”