by K. J. Emrick
He laid down across her lap, yawning widely and stretching out his front paws, extending claws tipped in dark, red blood. “How am I supposed to know?” he said when the yawn was done. “I’m just a cat.”
“We took the blood off your claws, you know.” She scratched between his ears while he nudged his head into her hand. “You don’t have to show it to me again.”
“Maybe I’m trying to remind you of something,” he said. “Oh, that feels really good. Scratch harder. Right there.”
“Remind me of what?”
“That you’ve already seen the answer.”
She let out a sigh through her nose. “You’re beginning to sound like Aunt Millie.”
“She does rub off on you after a while.”
“Smudge?”
“Yes, Darcy?”
“I really need to get back to sleep.”
“Yes, you do. We’re all exhausted, I think.”
Darcy moved her hand around his neck, settling down further on her elbow. “Do you know where you were when you were kidnapped? Do you know who took you?”
“It was dark, Darcy. I escaped. I’m back.”
His claws snicked out again, and then retracted back in. Out. In.
“I’m glad you’re back.” She could feel herself drifting, sleep making her eyes and her voice and her thoughts heavy.
“I’m glad I’m back, too,” he told her. “There’s no place I’d rather be.”
“Why can’t we talk like this all the time?”
“Because,” he said, with a kitty cat smile, “I’m a cat.”
She laid down, careful to keep him in his nice warm spot between her and Jon. “You still didn’t tell me the answer to the poem.”
“I don’t have to,” he told her, closing his own eyes and curling into a ball. “You’ve already seen the answer. Pay attention to what your aunt wrote. You’ve already seen the answer.”
“Did I?”
“Yes, you did.”
Her eyes wouldn’t stay open. “Are you sure?”
He started purring against her, and it was the last thing she remembered before falling back asleep.
Chapter Nine
The ringing of Jon’s cell phone was the next thing she remembered.
Light streaked in through the bedroom window and she clamped her eyelids shut tighter against it, groaning and wishing she could sleep for another week.
Then Jon’s body was laying across hers as he reached for the phone on bedside table.
“Erngh,” she said to him, or something like it. Very articulate, she thought, considering she was still half asleep.
“Sorry,” he whispered, then braced himself up on one elbow so he was still on top of her, just not with his full weight.
She wasn’t complaining.
He stared at the ringing phone for a moment, all squinty-eyed, and then hastily thumbed the screen to accept the call. “Hello? Yes, this is Chief Tinker.” A short pause, and then, “Yes, I submitted the request. Already? Wow, you guys work fast.”
Sleepily, Darcy traced one of her hands up his side, feeling the taut muscles there. He needed a good back massage to relieve some of his tension. Maybe she’d offer to do it in exchange for a foot rub. Of course, whenever they started trading massages it always ended the same way…
Not that she’d mind that, either.
Especially if he was ready to start trying for a baby.
He shifted until he was sitting up next to her, rubbing a hand through his bed-messed dark hair. “Yes, you can send it to that address. Any chance I can get the preliminary details over the phone?”
He was silent for a moment as he listened, and she watched his eyebrows knit themselves together. “I see. Thank you. I’ll look for the report when it arrives. You guys did us a big favor up there.”
There was a little more conversation but Darcy was yawning, stretching her body out, and didn’t catch what was said. She was still in her shirt, she realized, just like she’d gone to bed last night. Scrubbing at her face she tried to wake up.
Smudge meowed and lifted his head up to glare at her from the foot of the bed. He’d been comfortable where he was and now she’d moved him out of his spot. Standing and stretching himself, he jumped off the bed and sauntered out of the room.
She remembered her dream with him from last night, all the conversation they’d shared. It might have been just her subconscious working through the details of their investigation. Or, maybe the special connection she and Smudge shared had allowed him to actually talk to her. Maybe cats could enter people’s dreams. They could see ghosts, after all, so why not?
Whatever it was, Darcy picked apart the things Smudge had said to her. Pay attention to what Millie wrote, because she’d already seen the answer to the Deseret poem.
The only way that could have happened was if she’d read it in the journal…
What Millie wrote.
“Jon the answer’s in the journal,” Darcy blurted out, holding her hands out from her face, understanding what Smudge meant at last. “The other stuff. The stories she wrote into the journal. Of course! That’s it. Why would she put a mysterious poem at the bottom of every page if she wasn’t going to put the answer in the same book?”
He kissed the side of her neck, and an involuntary shiver went down her spine. “Good morning.”
“Uh, yeah, good morning to you, too.” She wrapped her hand behind his neck and pulled him in for a proper good morning kiss. “I liked last night,” she told him. “Why did you come home so late?”
“Late?” He looked confused. “I got here maybe an hour after you did, according to what Ellen told me. I got something quick to eat and helped Connor answer a math question on his homeschooling test, and then I crawled up here to bed with you. It was like, noon. I think. It’s all kind of a blur.”
Darcy stared at him. She remembered him coming to bed and waking her up in the dark. If he didn’t do that…then that was just part of the dream, too.
Which meant all the things he’d said about having children last night were also just a dream.
Disappointment swept through her. Jon had been right on the edge of saying he was ready to start a family yesterday, in the bookstore. She was sure that last night he’d finally committed but it hadn’t been him. Not really. It was just a dream version of him that had been holding her and being…very, very intimate with her, talking so freely about having children.
And then Smudge had come into the dream, and said now she knew for sure Jon was ready for a family.
Well, that was all well and good to know it in a dream. It wasn’t the same thing as him really saying it.
She looked into his eyes, searching their special shade of blue, and decided if she wanted to make the dream a reality, now was a good time to start.
“Jon? Last night I, uh, dreamt that you wanted a boy. Um. How many children do you think we should have?”
His expression never changed, but he took her hand up, and kissed her palm, and a slow heat built up in his eyes. “At least two,” he answered. “A boy. Yeah, I would like that. I was going to tell you when I got home that I know it’s time for us to start but like I said, you were asleep.”
She cozied up to him, undoing buttons on her shirt with one hand. “So…we should start now?”
His eyes drifted down to what her hand was doing, and the heat in his gaze burned. “Now would be perfect.”
Helping her take the shirt off he kissed the slope of her shoulder while she explored his back, his arms, his chest with the tips of her fingers. When he went to lay her down she noticed the open door to the bedroom. “Jon, the door’s not closed.”
“Hmm,” he sighed. “Wait here. I’ll get it.”
He put a kiss right against her breastbone, and she tangled her hands in his hair. This was officially how she wanted to spend the whole day.
What time was it, anyway?
When he slid his way off the bed, accidentally-on-purpose running a hand down the
length of her one leg, Darcy giggled and turned to the clock.
Eleven-sixteen.
“Jon! Do you know what time it is?”
“Yes,” he answered, locking the door behind him and leaning against his dresser, giving her a very nice view of the long, lean man of her dreams. “I checked the time just now when the lab called.”
“Wait, that was the lab?” Her unbuttoned shirt slipped down her arms as Darcy sat up on her knees. “The crime lab? What did they say?”
His eyes had trouble staying on her face. “They ran the blood through as soon as they got it yesterday because it’s associated with an official murder case now.”
Millie. He meant Millie. Darcy held her hands out to him, and he took them, sitting down on the bed next to her. They folded into each other, lying down on the bed in each other’s arms. “You can tell me the rest of it,” she told him, wanting him to undress the rest of her for real, the way his eyes were doing, but wanting to know the results from the lab at the same time. “It’s all right, Jon. I’m sort of over the shock from learning Millie was murdered.”
His hand was resting on a very sensitive spot on her side, near her hip. “Well. They got a match from the blood sample. That’s the good news.”
“So there’s bad news?”
“Are you kidding? This is us, Darcy. There’s always bad news.”
She laughed and let her hands wander down the back of his leg. “That’s true. But they got a match, right? Even if it belongs to one of our friends we can deal with it. I just need to know.”
“See, that’s the thing. The blood belonged to someone I’ve never heard of. Bradley Scarston was the name they gave me. Wanted in connection with grand larceny and assault from a case that’s fifteen years old. They’re going to send me a photo and all the information on him along with the full report. I should have it by tomorrow. For now, I have something else to do.”
His fingers moved on her, and she trembled, her lips parting to accept his, her body wanting him to touch her more.
Her mind, on the other hand, was distracted by what he’d just said.
Who was Bradley Scarston? What did he have to do with this whole mystery?
They needed to go see Elizabeth Archer now. They needed to ask her if she knew anyone by that name.
She bit her lip when his wet trail of kisses found their way down her collarbone. Um. They could talk to Elizabeth…later.
Right now she and Jon were going to steal some time for themselves.
***
It was hours later when they were showered and ready to leave the house. By then the day was mostly over.
Ellen gave her a knowing look on her way down the stairs, sitting on the couch in her bare feet and jeans and old sweatshirt, one arm hooked over the back of the cushions. Darcy just rolled her eyes and tried her best not to blush.
Jon ruffled Connor’s blonde hair and sat with him for a few minutes on the floor where the eleven year old was reading a book on American history. Darcy admired Ellen for being able to homeschool her son. She just wished the poor kid could go to a regular school. Maybe someday, when his mother didn’t need to hide from old enemies who wanted her dead.
“So I’ll be back in a few hours,” Jon told her at the front door. He’d dressed in black slacks and a fresh white button-up shirt, and that had been Darcy’s first clue he was going into the office in spite of how late in the afternoon it was. “I want to check on things and I’ll swing round to see Grace and find out how she is, too.”
He kissed her on the cheek with a whispered, “You should call your mother.”
She whispered back, “You could do it for me.”
With a wink that said ‘not a chance,’ he stepped out the door. Darcy watched him get into his car and drive away.
Closing the door with a sigh, she went straight to the refrigerator and peeked inside to see what they had for leftovers. She had put on her flannel pajamas after her shower and she didn’t want to get dressed to go out. It was too late for lunch, but an early supper sounded good. She hadn’t eaten much of anything in over twenty-four hours now, and after the workout upstairs with Jon…well. Hungry didn’t quite cover it.
“Want us to pick something up for you?” Ellen offered, coming into the kitchen after hearing Darcy rifling through the contents of the fridge. “I was going to take Connor for another walk. Actually,” she added, a bit sheepishly, “I was going to take him to the pizza place at the end of Main Street for supper. I’ve kept him locked up in this house way too long. I figure it’s time to let him out in the world. A little bit. At first.”
Darcy closed the refrigerator door. “Good for you, Ellen. You know you’re safe here in Misty Hollow, right?”
“Well, as safe as anyone can be in this town,” she said with wry humor. “It’ll be good for me to get out more. I know that.”
“It’ll be good for Connor, too. I thought the pizza place closed down?”
“No, they opened it back up again. Just last week, when you were still away on your honeymoon. I guess popular demand convinced them. I’ve had better pizza, but Connor likes it.”
“Well in that case bring me back something with pepperoni.”
“Mushrooms?” Ellen asked.
“Yuck. No. Jon’s the one who likes mushrooms. I can’t stand them.”
“Me either. Guess that’s something else we have in common.” She hesitated, and Darcy could tell she had something else she wanted to say. “You know I was watching Jon in there with Connor just now. It reminded me a lot of my Audie…Connor’s dad. Jon is really good with kids.”
“We were just talking about that this morning,” Darcy confided. “We both agreed it was time for us to start a family.”
Ellen smiled, genuinely happy for her friends. “Took him long enough.”
“Tell me about it.” Darcy put her hand up over her mouth to stifle another yawn. How could she possibly still be tired? “I’m going to sit down on the couch for a while, I think. Take Connor out and have a good time and don’t worry about when you come back. Just bring me a small pizza or a couple of slices when you do.”
“I think we can manage that. Hey, Connor,” she called into the living room. “How does pizza for dinner sound?”
They were gone shortly after that, and Darcy was left alone in the house. Well. Alone with Smudge. He found her on the couch sitting with the photocopied pages of Millie’s journal to read through. With a satisfied mrrowl and a lot of purring he curled up into her lap, even though he was a little too big for that now. It didn’t matter to Darcy. She let him sprawl there and idly stroked the fur along his belly. He was home with her again and everything would be all right now.
Would it? How could she be sure? The mystery just kept getting deeper and deeper the more they tried to unravel it. Someone had killed Millie ten years ago in an attempt to get something valuable from her. Obviously she’d hidden whatever it was. Somewhere. They knew the secret was in that beehive journal but she couldn’t find it. Whatever clue Smudge and Millie thought she should be able to find was buried too deep for her to see.
To get at the secret in the journal, the bad guy had kidnapped Smudge and orchestrated that whole thing in the library, hiding up in the ceiling tiles until he could snag the journal and the Deseret book. Then he and an accomplice had knocked Grace unconscious and gotten away.
The accomplice. Elizabeth Archer. They still needed to talk to her.
Smudge had given them a sample of the bad guy’s blood to analyze, but it came back to someone neither she nor Jon knew. Bradley Scarston. The name Scarston hadn’t been in the census Millie had shown them. That name didn’t mean anything to them. They still didn’t know who he was.
She shook her head as she read more of the journal. So they were absolutely nowhere with solving this whole mess, but if her subconscious wanted to believe that everything was going to be all right, then sure. Why not.
Reading around the ruined parts of each page, Darcy saw the f
amiliar thoughts and reflections of her Aunt Millie. She’d read this journal so many times now that she could probably recite parts of it by heart. And look, here was that story about meeting the little girl’s ghost in the Applegate Road Cemetery, about how the ghost had warned Millie she was in danger, from some unknown man…
Darcy read the passage again. It took up most of two pages, and the details were very specific, and suddenly things began to make sense.
The answer had been buried, too deep for Darcy to see.
Laid to rest for safekeeping, with the little girl left sleeping.
The poem. The one her aunt had left in the Deseret code. Next to the copied pages was the notebook with everything they knew so far, including the poem.
The little girl left sleeping. Somehow, Darcy knew this was the girl Millie had been talking about. This little ghost in the story. Of course! Smudge had told her to pay attention to Millie’s words because she had already seen the answer. Right here, in this story in the journal. This was where she’d seen the answer.
Whatever the bad guy was looking for, Millie had buried it in this girls’ grave for safekeeping. “Laid to rest” was another way of saying buried.
Crazy as it sounded, it wouldn’t be the first thing of value to be buried in that cemetery.
She scratched her sleeping cat behind his ears. “Thanks, Smudge.”
He huffed out a breath. You’re welcome.
But what was buried? Well, they might not know that until they went looking for it. Maybe then they could figure out who this Bradley Scarston was. If they found what he wanted so badly, it might just point them in his direction. Kidnapper. Thief. Murderer. Who was he?
Possibly, one of her neighbors.
Now that was a scary thought. Ellen was living here in Darcy’s house, hiding under an assumed name. Izzy from next door had come to town under a false name, too, running from a man who wanted to kill her. Could another resident of Misty Hollow be hiding in plain sight, but for a much more sinister reason?
She kept coming back to one of the other facts she had written in her notebook. The person who did all this only took Smudge after she had mentioned having the beehive journal, down at Helen’s café. Other than Izzy and Ellen and her and Jon, the only people who knew the book had been found were the people in the café that day. She knew Izzy and Ellen had nothing to do with this. That left the people at the café.