by K. J. Emrick
Jon nodded, his tone guarded. "Mario Elustro, you mean. Her boss. There should have been lots of articles to find. It was all over the news. For months."
"Yes, it was," she agreed. "And I found lots of them. I read each one carefully."
"Darcy…"
"I found something, Jon. Something you need to hear."
He sat back a little further from her, gesturing with an open hand. "What? What could you possibly have found, Darcy? I know half a dozen police officers who have been over the whole case from every angle. I went over it myself back when it first happened. How do you think you could have found something that everyone else missed?"
"Because no one else had the chance to talk to Aimee directly about that night. I did."
She waited for that to sink in. Jon's eyes widened as his jaw dropped. "You did what?"
"I had to know, Jon. Just listen. Okay? Please? You'll understand in a—"
"I can't believe you went and talked to my sister without talking to me first!" he interrupted, not bothering to hide his annoyance. "After I had already spoken to you about going into the Chartrand house without permission? Darcy, what were you thinking? She's still in our custody until we get Richard officially charged and arraigned! Darcy, you could wreck this whole entire case!"
She tried to let his words wash over her, but they found their mark in her heart anyway. She had to tell him what she had found out quickly, or he'd shut down and stop listening to her altogether.
"Aimee told me," she said in a rush, "that she had an alibi for the night of her boss's murder. She said she was at a movie from nine-thirty til after midnight."
"Well," he said to her, a little more calmly, "that's a pretty good story, don't you think? It doesn't mean anything, though. Remember how I told you that people can make up really good stories about anything, if you give them enough time to think about it? And Aimee's had years to make up an alibi for herself."
Darcy nodded. "Yes, I remember what you said. That's why I had to check on this. See, running a bookstore I have a lot of time to read. That's how I know that in a mystery, sometimes the best alibis are the ones that trip you up in the end."
"What do you mean?" he asked sharply. "Darcy, you're the one who said she wasn't a murderer."
"I said she didn't kill Vivica Chartrand. And," she couldn't help add, "I was right. There was still blood on her hands, Jon, and we both wondered why. It was old, and it was dried, but it was there. The crime she committed is an old one, and a serious one. She hasn't gotten rid of the guilt yet. It's from this murder of her boss. She killed him."
He jumped off the couch and began pacing, his hands waving animatedly. "Darcy! How can you know that? Tell me that, will you? When all of us actual and for real police officers missed it, how did you find the one piece of evidence that proves her guilt? What can possibly prove she did that murder beyond any doubt?"
"Because," Darcy told him as gently as she could over the pain in her heart. "None of the articles or police reports mention what time Mario Elustro was killed. That was one of the details the police held back. How could Aimee know that fact, unless she was the one who killed him?"
Chapter Fourteen
Jon sat in the interview room tapping the eraser end of his pencil against the metal table. Darcy sat in the same chair over in the corner that she had been in the first time they had interviewed Aimee.
This time was just as awkward and uncomfortable as the first time had been.
"So you believe me now, right?" Aimee asked Jon, although her eyes strayed over to Darcy several times for support. "You believe I'm not a killer?"
"You should have come to see me when you first came to Misty Hollow," Jon said to her, not exactly answering her question. "Things might have gone very differently."
Aimee sneered at him. "You would have arrested me as soon as you saw me."
He didn't argue the point. Instead he opened up the beige manila folder at his left hand and took out a single sheet of paper. Turning it around on the tabletop, he pushed it across to her.
"What's this?" she asked.
"It's the statement of your bank account. Your off shore bank account, as Darcy pointed out to me. I'm guessing you printed it off from Vivica Chartrand's computer once you settled in there?" He took her surprised look for an answer. "Right. So. It says here that you have five thousand, three hundred and sixty-two dollars in your bank account."
He pointed with the pencil, circling the number.
"So?" Aimee asked him. "What does this have to do with anything?"
Darcy could hear the defensive tone in Aimee's voice. She had argued with Jon that they should just confront his sister with the lie she had told Darcy, but Jon had said this would be better. Approaching her indirectly, one step at a time, was how he wanted to play it.
It looked like he was right.
"That's a lot of money for a girl who's been on the run for years," Jon pointed out to her. "I'd like to know where you got it."
Aimee pushed the paper away. Her hands were still in handcuffs, but she managed to look down her nose at Jon anyway. "Don't you have to read me my rights before you can ask me any questions?"
"You want me to treat you like a criminal, sis?"
"Isn't that exactly how you treat me?" she asked him with a hard look. "How you always treated me? Me and dad both?"
Darcy saw the little twitch of Jon's left eye. His shoulders slumped, a motion that was only just noticeable, but Darcy knew Jon's moods better than most. What she saw now surprised her. Jon was upset. He had started to believe his sister might not be a criminal, thanks to Darcy. Then she had gone and pulled that rug out from under him again. He had dared to have hope for Aimee. Now, his defenses were coming back up to wall off his emotions so it wouldn't hurt so much.
She almost reached out to hold his hand, but she didn't know how he would respond to that gesture.
"You were read your rights the last time we interviewed you," Jon reminded Aimee. "You still have all those rights. You need me to read them to you again or do you want to just answer my question?"
"How's it feel, big brother," Aimee asked him, "to be all high and mighty like you are? Wish I could be that awesome."
He didn't rise to her bait. "Tell me where you got the money, Aimee."
"I've been running from this for six years." Aimee twirled her fingers in the air. "You think I haven't had a few jobs to make some money?"
"No," he told her. "I don't. Like I told you, people don't change and you're still the same selfish and lazy girl you were when you ran away from home. I wanted to believe you had turned your life around. That you had become a better person." He looked over at Darcy, for just a tiny moment, and then turned back to Aimee. "But I was wrong. You haven't changed. So. Where'd this money come from?"
"I don't want to tell you." She sat back, folding her hands in her lap and glaring at him.
"Let me remind you, Chief Daleson already called the State Police to come and pick you up. This is your last chance to talk to anyone." He hesitated for a split second before he added, "It's your last chance to talk to me."
Aimee's eyes softened. They were the same blue color as Jon's. Darcy could see the resemblance between them strongly now, here in this room.
"Jon, just let it go," Aimee said quietly to him. "You never had any faith in me anyway."
"Whether I had faith in you or not has nothing to do with where that money came from," he told her, pointing to the paper she had tossed aside. "Let me take a stab at this. This is money left over from what you stole from Mario Elustro. Money you stole when you killed him."
"You can't access offshore accounts, big brother," Aimee said in a smug tone. "Guess you'll never know."
"It's true," he admitted with a nod, "that it's hard to get bank records from other countries. Especially ones like where this account of yours is. But it isn't impossible. It just takes time and patience and knowing the right person in the Attorney General's Office. Like I do."
"A very convenient alibi," Jon said, answering for Darcy. They had finally led up to this part, and this was Jon's show. "It covers the time of death very nicely. Problem is, no one knew the time of Mario Elustro's death except the police investigating the crime, and the killer. Which are you?"
Darcy winced at the sarcasm in Jon's voice. Aimee didn't react to it at all, other than to go perfectly, unnaturally still.
"Nothing to say?" Jon pressed. Darcy saw her swallow a few times as if she wanted to tell them something, but still she sat there, immovable as a statue. Jon nodded when Aimee remained silent.
Jon nodded as if he'd expected that from Aimee. "Then let me say it for you. You killed your boss. You stole money from the company and then you ran. Even after you knew there was a warrant for your arrest, even after you knew what it was doing to mom, you ran. You hid out for as long as you could, but this money's getting low, isn't it? That much won't last more than a few months, or a year at most, before you had to come running to someone. That's where I came in. You thought you'd come here and try to con me into helping you. Too bad for you that Vivica Chartrand got herself killed before you could spring your con job on me."
She looked at him then, her eyes wet.
Jon collected everything back into the folder and went to stand up. "You're just like dad," he growled at her. "You don't care about anyone but yourself. Come on, Darcy. We're done here."
"You don't know what it was like!" Aimee was suddenly yelling. "Mario wasn't paying me half of what I was worth! I had bills, and no money to cover them. So yeah, big brother, I went to the company meaning to steal some money. Transfer it to an offshore account where no one would even notice it was gone. I was going to pay him back, I swear it!"
Jon paused at the door out of the room, his reflection in the one-way mirror sad and weary.
"I didn't mean to kill him!" Aimee blurted. "He came into the building late when he wasn't supposed to be there and then…and then…"
She stopped, realizing what she had just said. She'd just confessed to a murder.
"The State Police will be here soon," he repeated to her, holding the door open for Darcy. "Goodbye, Aimee."
Chapter Fifteen
Darcy finally understood the dream that she'd had where Great Aunt Millie had been putting together the jigsaw puzzle.
Millie had written a whole book about the gift she and Darcy shared. Her aunt had wanted anyone with the same abilities to know they weren't alone, to have some guidance, to know their abilities were truly a gift and not a curse. She had written out how to make use of premonitions and talking with the dead and things like that. At the time Millie had been writing the book, she'd been sure of every single word.
It turned out, she'd been wrong on a few things. Just like the picture in that jigsaw puzzle had surprised her. Millie had expected it to be one way, and it had turned out to be something else.
Darcy had used the technique Millie had laid out to find a person's guilt, the spiritual guilt on their hands. It had worked just fine, and had showed Darcy old and dried blood staining Aimee's hands and fingers. In Millie's book, that meant a person had just committed a pretty serious crime.
Apparently, Millie had never considered the possibility that a serious crime like murder could leave guilt on a person's hands for years. The blood on Aimee's hands had been old. Mario Elustro had been killed six years ago, and still the blood of it showed up on Aimee's hands. That's what Darcy had seen. Millie had gotten it wrong, and in that dream she'd told Darcy so.
Ghosts never told the living anything directly. There was always symbolism and hidden meanings. Darcy had gotten used to it, although it still drove her mad sometimes.
"I'm sorry, Jon," she said to him. They were back home now, sitting in the living room. They had waited at the station long enough to see the two State Police officers leading Aimee Tinker, still in her jogging pant pajamas, to their patrol car. Darcy could tell that Jon had been hoping Aimee would talk to him one more time, say goodbye or wave or maybe even curse him out. Anything. She kept her eyes fixed on the patrol car, though, and then the Troopers were slamming the back door and driving away.
Jon had turned away coldly and gone back in the police station to finish his paperwork.
Now they sat on the couch together, and they may as well have been worlds apart. He had his elbows resting on his knees, his hands dangling out in front of him like he was waiting to receive some heavy weight that only he could carry. "I know you're sorry, Darcy. And, thanks for that, I guess. It's not your fault."
"It's not your fault, either, Jon. Aimee made her bed years ago when all this started."
She reached out to him, and put her hand on his shoulder. He let her do it, didn't try to pull away, but didn't react to her touch either.
"I should call my mom," he said after a while. "She'll need to know about this."
"Can that wait?" Darcy heard herself ask. "I mean, we need to talk, too."
His shoulders sagged more. "Yes, we do. I've made a decision. I'm going to take the job in Oak Hollow."
Her heart thumped hard in her chest. "Jon, please, let's talk—"
"I'm sorry. Darcy, I'm so sorry. I just really need to get out of this town. I need to get away for a while. My sister showing up here, and everything it dredged up, it's just too much. I need some time to think things through."
"Time away from me?"
The question was abrupt and harsh, but Darcy had the feeling she wasn't going to get the chance to say much to him if she didn't say it quickly.
He swallowed and threw his hands up in the air. "No. I mean, not like that. You are an amazing woman, Darcy. I think I fell in love with you the first day we met."
That was saying something, Darcy thought to herself, considering the first day they met Jon acted like she was something nasty that was stuck to the bottom of his shoe.
"The things you can do," he said, "are amazing. They're just…hard to take. Sometimes. I mean, that whole thing with your ex-boyfriend's ghost hanging around us? And now this thing with Aimee…"
"I only told the truth," Darcy said defensively.
"I know. I know, and I shouldn't hold it against you but still it's all part of what's tangled up inside of me right now and I swear to you I feel like I can't even breathe."
Darcy pulled her hand back. She began twisting the antique ring on her finger so hard it made the skin behind it burn. "So now I'm smothering you."
He stood up, pacing, looking anywhere in the room but at her. "It's not like that. I just can't be here anymore. Not now, I mean. And this opportunity won't come along again. I need to take it now or I'll miss out."
Darcy took a shaky breath. She could see how things were going to end. She didn’t need to be psychic or be able to talk to ghosts, to see that. "This explains your answer to me when I asked you to marry me," she told him, her voice bitter.
He stopped, still looking down at the carpet. "I didn't say I wouldn't marry you."
"You didn't say yes, either," she reminded him.
"What I said, was that I'd say yes when the time was right." He shrugged. "I just don't know anymore when that will be."
The air between them began to feel like a solid barrier to Darcy. They couldn't get through it to reach one another. Standing not twenty feet apart in the same room, they had become so distant that Darcy knew it was hopeless to say anything more. Words couldn't fix this.
At least, not for now. Jon was hurting, and she knew she had to give him time to feel that hurt. Maybe he'd find his way back to her. Maybe she'd have to be the one to bridge the gap between them again at some point in the future. She loved Jon, probably more than any man she had ever loved before. She would never have agreed to move in with him otherwise.
Sometimes when you love someone it meant letting them go.
She sat t
here, looking at him, until he finally moved his eyes up to hers. There was a lifetime's worth of conversation in that single glance. "You better go pack," she said to him. "I understand they want you to start in Oak Hollow next week."
He nodded, looking almost relieved, and turned to walk away. He stopped at the stairs and turned back to her, one hand on the railing, one foot on the first step. She waited for him to say something. Just like he had waited for Aimee to say something to him on the way to that State Police car.
And just like his sister had nothing to say then, he kept his silence now, and went on up the stairs. A few seconds later she could hear him in their room opening and closing drawers.
Darcy kept the tears back, but just barely. She thought that she should leave while Jon finished packing. If they started having the same conversation all over again she didn't think she could stand it.
Her bicycle took her into town. Misty Hollow at dusk in the spring was a pretty sight. The last dying light from the sun painted the buildings with yellows and golds and reds, and people ambled leisurely around the sidewalks of the town center, going nowhere at all and taking their time about it. It was a nice place to live. She liked it here.
That was only part of the reason she had decided not to go with Jon. There were dozens of others. None of them, in that moment, seemed to make her feel better.
Without really meaning to she ended up at her bookstore. It was closed at this hour, of course, the sign in the window of the front door turned to "CLOSED, THE END." Taking the key from her pocket she opened it to herself but kept the closed sign where it was.
It was silent inside. The clock in the back office ticked and water gurgled in a pipe, and those were the only sounds. She sat down at one of the round reading tables to look around at the shelves of books and the display of electronic readers. She loved this place. She always had.
A shadow raced across the floor and jumped up at her before she could do more than gasp.
Smudge, her big black and white tom cat, landed softly on his paws. He pushed his head up against her hand and then curled around into her lap. Somehow, the cat always found a way into the store when he wanted to, even after hours with the doors closed and locked.