“I’ll have a lemonade, I guess.” Dani accepted a glass from him, took a sip, and then exclaimed, “It is pretty good.”
“It’s 90% sugar, but I love it,” he grinned. “On summer days, when I used to mow your lawn, your mom would often pour me a glass of her pink lemonade. I can’t remember anything that’s tasted as good before or since. I guess maybe I enjoyed it so much because my body lost half a gallon of water to sweat each time I mowed.”
Dani smiled politely. “Maybe.”
“You don’t remember that I used to mow your lawns, do you?” He smiled. “Rich kid syndrome. No memories of us lesser beings.”
“I remember perfectly well,” Dani said, surprising him. “You’d be blasting music by AC/DC and Pink Floyd all the time. Thunderstruck became one of my favorite songs thanks to you. Until my father asked you to start wearing headphones.”
“So you do remember,” he smiled. “That is a really good song, by the way.” He mimed the opening riffs, playing air guitar.
Dani didn’t know what had possessed her to come here. If she was honest, part of it was fear. Fear of being alone in Hedley House. Sharon had insisted on staying the night in the hospital with their father and the nurse refused to let Dani stay, too. So that left her wandering around alone in the old mansion, jumping at every creak. She’d finally decided to take a walk around the block, and the walk had become longer and longer as her feet somehow found themselves heading towards Darwin’s house.
“How did you know where my house was anyway?” Darwin asked. “How come you’re here?”
“I…you used to live across from my friend, Natalie.” Dani said. “I was walking by this neighborhood, and I saw that the post still had your name on it. So, here I am.”
“Here you are.” Darwin sipped his lemonade, and looked at her. He remained silent, letting her get more and more uncomfortable. Whatever her ulterior motives were, she’d soon come out with them. A normal woman would have cracked by the time he counted to ten. Dani just looked grateful to be left alone in silence. The only sound he could hear was a clock ticking in the background and the gentle shifting of the house as it settled for the night.
Finally, he broke the silence. “Why are you here, again?” he asked. “Not to be rude, but if the neighbors saw you, they’d suspect me of… fraternizing with the enemy!”
“That’s how you see me?” Dani asked, “An enemy?”
“Just a joke.” He smiled, but the warmth still didn’t reach his eyes.
“Don’t lie, Darwin. Doesn’t suit you.”
“Fine, then. You’re here for a reason, and I’d like to know it,” Darwin said. “I’m not in the business of being unnecessarily polite. What do you want, Dani?”
“I wanted a friend,” she said, getting up. “You were the only one I could think of, but I guess I made a mistake.”
“Now that just makes me feel guilty,” he said.
“Good,” Dani said. “Considering that putting an innocent woman in a jail cell certainly doesn’t!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know exactly what it’s supposed to mean.” She set her glass down on the table. “Thank you for this excellent lemonade, Darwin. Ellie’s a fine young woman.”
“Hey, come on.” Darwin felt a little ashamed. “I was rude, and I’m sorry. Your sister’s in jail, and I thought maybe you’re just here to pump me for information.”
She paused, but her shoulders were stiff. Darwin itched to go to her, and massage the tension right out of them. He shouldn’t have been so harsh on her.
“Must be tough for you,” he said out loud. “Coming back home after ten years, only to find history repeating itself.”
She swung around. “What do you know about it?”
“I know how unhappy you were after your mother vanished,” he said. “I was one of the people who helped search for her. I was only 23 then, just a rookie. But I knew something was off.”
“I remember now,” Dani said. “That was you? I didn’t think of you as… you. You were just a quiet sidekick as Sheriff Mackenzie investigated. You just sat quietly beside Sheriff Mackenzie as she talked to my dad, then my sisters, then me. But you were observing us carefully all along, weren’t you?”
“I was,” he said. He remembered how scared Dani had looked. And how guilty. He hadn’t been able to figure out the guilt in her eyes for a while. Not until she talked one on one with the sheriff.
*****
That was ten years ago, but he still remembered the day clearly. It had been late afternoon then, and Sheriff Mackenzie had just finished asking her father about Angela’s disappearance. Dani had been led into the interrogation room, and Darwin had been watching her from behind the one way mirror, taking notes.
Until that interview, the sheriff had been working on Angela’s case as though Angela were the victim of a kidnapping or murder. Dani’s testimony, however, changed everything.
“Anything that you can tell us about your mother will help,” Sheriff Mackenzie had said to Dani. She’d been much younger then, slimmer, with bob-cut hair and no wrinkles around her eyes. The wrinkles would come later, as the years on the force wore her out slowly, piling stress on her shoulders.
As for Dani, she had been little more than a kid. A delicate teen with large brown eyes, twisting a single strand of hair over and over around her finger.
“I want to help find your mother, Dani,” Sheriff Mackenzie had said. “That’s our first priority.”
“If that’s the truth,” Dani hesitated, “and I tell you something, will you promise not to tell my father?”
“I won’t tell him a thing,” Sheriff Mackenzie had said, leaning forward.
Dani’s breathing strained a little, and her voice broke. “Two days before she left us, that Monday, I heard something strange.”
“What did you hear?” The sheriff couldn’t keep her eagerness out of her voice.
“I heard her on the phone with someone,” Dani said. “It was 4 pm. I picked up the extension upstairs to call my friend, and to my surprise someone was already on the line…my mom. She was speaking. Saying, ‘I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep on being in love with the man who broke me.’”
The sheriff’s eyes, which had been cold and flat, professional, suddenly lit up with a spark at this potential lead. “Did the person on the other end of the line reply?”
Dani nodded. “I just heard them say, ‘You have to do it. You promised! You can’t back out!’ I would have heard more, but my mother said that she thought someone else was on the line and I got frightened. I hung up.”
“Do you have any idea who she was talking to?” Sheriff asked.
Dani shook her head again.
“Dani, what did you think was happening? Who do you think your mother was speaking to?”
Dani’s shoulders began to shake a little as she shivered. She caught herself, and shook her head.
“Please, Dani. Help me out here. Who do you think your mother was talking to?”
Dani’s eyes had begun to fill with tears. “I don’t know!” she exclaimed. “I wish I did, but I don’t!”
“You suspected something, though.”
Dani nodded. “I suspected… an affair,” she said. Her face had an expression of disgust on it as the word slipped out of her mouth.
“You suspected that your mother was having an affair.” Sheriff Mackenzie nodded. “I understand this must be hard on you. But do you really have no idea who it was with?”
“I don’t,” Dani said. “I was kind of shell-shocked. I just hung up immediately. I wish-I wish I’d stayed on the line and heard her talk. I wish I’d confronted her about it. But I didn’t. I just didn’t. Every time I wanted to, I felt so afraid, like my insides were going to melt and then…”
“And then, two days later, she’s gone,” Sheriff Mackenzie sighed. “Vanished.”
Dani nodded. “I’m sorry I can’t help more than that.”
“You’ve hel
ped enough already,” Sheriff Mackenzie said.
“Promise you won’t tell my dad?” Dani asked. “If he knew that I had an idea and that I didn’t tell him, he’d hate me forever.”
The sheriff had patted her on the shoulder as they walked out of the room. “I promise. This stays between you and me.”
After that, they’d investigated the case with renewed vigor. The sheriff had been convinced that Angela and her boyfriend could be found. But, somehow, every break seemed to lead to a dead end. They’d never found a trace of Angela. No trace of her lover, either. Just a lot of very angry townspeople whose money had been embezzled and was gone forever.
For some time, the Hedleys were social outcasts. When Dani left town, no one was surprised. Darwin was actually surprised that Harry Hedley had stayed and faced all the outrage that the town had thrown on him. Especially because Darwin strongly suspected that Harry had murdered his wife. So did a lot of others.
He’d told Sheriff Mackenzie this theory almost immediately after hearing Dani’s statement about Angela’s affair.
“It’s no coincidence, is it?” Darwin had asked the sheriff. “Angela could have vanished with the money. Or maybe, just maybe, the person she was talking to on the phone wasn’t a lover, but her husband. Maybe Harry was in on the embezzlement all along and when Angela said she couldn’t do it anymore, Harry murdered her, and made it look as though she had vanished.”
Sheriff Mackenzie sighed. “I like the theory, Darwin, but we don’t have a shred of proof backing it up. No body, no case.”
Ten years on, Darwin still remembered that case with sharp clarity. Looking at Dani now, he wondered if she had ever suspected her own father. No, he decided, as he looked at her. The loss of her mother had been hard enough to bear. To lose trust in her father would probably have killed her.
*****
Chapter 10
Mona & Leo
Dani woke up on the couch again. Only, this time, it was Darwin’s couch. She blinked, as she took in her unfamiliar surroundings. Disoriented for a minute, she wondered if she’d woken up from a long, horrible dream. Then reality set in. None of it was a dream. Her father was in the hospital, her sister was in jail and all the things she’d taken for granted two days ago had popped like a bubble.
She got up, rubbing her eyes, and found a gap toothed Ellie smiling at her from the armchair.
“Morning,” Ellie said.
“Morning.” Dani groaned. “What time is it?”
“Seven am. Dad’s working out upstairs.”
“Why are you up so early?”
“I got hungry,” Ellie said. She had a striped bowl in her hand and she pushed a box of cereal toward Dani. “Want some cocoa puffs?”
To Dani’s surprise, her stomach rumbled. “I’d be glad to have some, actually.”
“There’s an extra toothbrush in the downstairs bathroom,” Ellie said. “Dad left it out for you.”
“Thanks.” She finished brushing, then walked to the kitchen, hunted out a bowl, and joined Ellie in the living room, fixing her own bowl of cocoa puffs. She hadn’t eaten cereal this sugary since she was twelve and, on a normal day, she would have preferred corn flakes or muesli. But her rumbling stomach appreciated the food she shovelled into it.
“So,” Ellie said. “You’re dating my dad, right? What are your intentions?”
Dani nearly spat out her puffs. She choked and coughed, taking a while to recover. “My intentions?” she asked weakly.
“Yeah. Do you want to marry him, or what?”
“Um. He’s a really nice guy, Ellie, but I’m not dating your dad. I have no...intentions.”
“You stayed the night,” Ellie pointed out. “Nobody’s ever done that before.”
“This is different,” Dani said. “You know my sister? She’s in trouble.”
“Because Jess Thorne got murdered?”
“You know her?” Dani blinked.
Ellie nodded. “She used to work with my Dad. She was the receptionist down at the police station. She quit about six months ago. Got another job. I sat with her sometimes after school, when I was waiting for dad. She was a nice lady. She had real handcuffs in her desk drawers and she let me play with them.”
“Oh,” Dani didn’t know what to say. “I- I hope you weren’t hurt too badly when you heard about her.”
Ellie shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re supposed to cry when someone dies. I felt really bad, but I didn’t cry. Does that mean I’m not very nice?”
Dani felt her heart melt a little. Ellie was so sincere when she asked this. “I think you’re very nice,” Dani said. “You can’t always predict what form grief will take. You know, when my own mom ran away, I didn’t cry at all. I just…I coped in other ways. My sister cried a lot more. Doesn’t mean that I loved my mom less.”
“I loved my mom a lot,” Ellie said. “I cried for a week when she left.”
Dani didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry,” she said, finally.
Ellie shrugged. “Dad said she just had other priorities.”
Dani felt a familiar rage inside her at the thought of the woman who had abandoned Ellie. How could she do that? How could a mother ever do that? How could they be so selfish, and not think of the destruction they left behind?
“Don’t get mad at her,” Ellie shrugged, seeing the expression on Dani’s face. “I’m over it now. I love Dad, and he’ll never leave.”
“I’m sure he won’t,” Dani said. “But, Ellie, I promise your Dad and I are not dating. I felt scared in my house last night because I was alone and he let me sleep over.”
Actually, she thought, they had stayed up all night, talking. None of it had been about the murder, or about their past. They’d talked, of all things, about music. Darwin had told her about all his favorite bands and they’d found, to their surprise and delight, that their tastes overlapped quite a bit. It had been exactly what she needed, a conversation to take her mind off the horrors of the day. The words had flowed as easily as wine and filled her with just as much warmth. She didn’t even remember when she’d slipped into sleep, but it was probably a little before dawn.
“Hey. You’re up.” Darwin appeared at the head of the stairs, and Dani’s heart skipped. He was wearing shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt and, even covered in sweat, he looked sexier than any other man she’d ever seen. His skin glowed and his hair stuck up in spikes around his head. His easy grin remained fixed on his face as he looked at her. “Cocoa puffs?” he asked.
“Don’t knock it till you try it.”
“You’re only supposed to eat those on Saturdays, Ellie.” Darwin gave her a disapproving look. “I was coming down to make you some scrambled eggs.”
Ellie gave him a charming, but blatantly shameless, smile. “Sorry dad, I got hungry.”
“Either that or you knew I wouldn’t scold you around a guest,” Darwin smiled. “Fine, monkey, you win this time. Extra broccoli for dinner.”
“Daaaad.”
“Go take your bath.” He gave her a kiss and sent her on her way.
“Bye, Dani!” Ellie called out as she ran upstairs.
He watched her go, and there was guilt all over his face when he turned to Dani.
“I really shouldn’t have let you sleep over,” he said. “Ellie probably asked you all sorts of questions and I’m not sure-”
“She’s fine,” Dani said. “We talked it out, woman to woman. She knows my intentions are pure.”
“Your what?”
“Intentions,” Dani smiled. “I’ll catch you later, Deputy. I’ve got to go check on my dad.”
“Can I give you a ride?”
“And have tongues wagging? No, thanks. I’m going to cut around back through the woods.” Dani smiled. “Darwin…” She paused, her hand on the doorknob.
“Yeah?” He looked up at her.
“Thanks.” She put as much feeling into that word as she possibly could, then opened the door and ran off.
She had been seriou
s when she said she didn’t want tongues wagging. Innocence was a small town, after all, and after the way he’d helped her last night, the last thing Dani wanted was to make Darwin the butt of all local gossip. It was irrational, but she knew he was right. If people saw them together, they might have doubts about how objective he was in regards to Jessica’s murder.
Then again, how objective could he be? He’d been working with this woman until six months ago - a fact that nobody else had bought up. Why? Was it one of those things that was so obvious that they’d overlooked it? If Jessica had worked at the police station, perhaps she’d made some enemies. There was always a possibility of that, wasn’t there?
She was idly thinking of this as she walked through the woods. Then a whisper had her alert, forgetting what she’d been thinking of.
“What do you mean, Mona?” A deep voice, and a familiar one, was speaking. Dani recognized it instantly - Leo Chadwick. Moving as quietly as she could, she hid behind a tree. The voices were approaching her.
“I’m telling you, it was my dress Jess was wearing.” Mona said in a hissed whisper.
“Well you have to tell the sheriff that!” Leo replied. “It could be a clue.”
“I don’t see how it would do anything except bring disrepute to my boutique,” Mona said. “It’s bad enough that Caro’s wedding is cancelled now. Not that you’re unhappy about that.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean,” Mona said.
“Hey, it wasn’t like that between me and Caro. Besides, I’ve moved on now.”
“Sure, I know that,” Mona said. “But did Jessica?”
Leo’s voice grew lower. His words came out in a growl. “What are you trying to say?”
“Just that I know you met her,” Mona said. “I know she came over.”
“That’s…what are you talking about?”
“I came over to drop off some soup in the evening, didn’t I?” Mona asked. “I saw her leaving your house. Ouch! Stop that! Let go of my wrist!”
Killer Dress: A Small Town Cozy Mystery (Shot & Framed Book 1) Page 7