Comes the Dark

by Celia Ashley

  Twenty minutes later, Dan pulled into Felicia Woodward’s driveway. He spotted the flicker of the television through the living room window. A massive shadow shifted across the wall, and his heart leapt into his chest. Quickly, he realized the shadow had been created by Felicia walking in front of a lamp. He got out of the car and strode up to the door where he rang the bell.

  The door opened. Felicia greeted him with a grin. “Detective Stauffer.”

  “Felicia Woodward,” he teased. They’d met the year before when she’d befriended another woman he’d known, one every bit as stubborn as Maris who’d been involved with a guy he’d had some professional involvement with out on the coastal highway. Last he’d heard, they were married. He’d doubted the longevity of that relationship, too, given the short time they’d known one another, but it appeared he was wrong. And now here he was, in the same position, falling hard for someone he barely knew.

  “Come in. Your lady has fallen asleep on the couch.”

  Dan walked into the living room to find Maris curled in a nearly fetal position on the sofa cushions, one of Felicia’s many crocheted throws draped over her body. He crouched on the floor and whispered her name. She opened her eyes.

  “Dan! I thought you were going to call.”

  “I forgot.”

  He studied her sleepy face, feeling his mouth turn up into a stupid, half-grin, not caring that Felicia stood nearby, watching. After a few seconds, the woman walked away, claiming something needed her attention in the kitchen.

  Maris sat up, the afghan falling with a thump to the floor at his knees. “What’s wrong?”

  He stood, restoring the blanket to the couch. “Nothing. Are you ready to go?”

  “I—yeah, I think so. Sure.” She looked around as if she’d forgotten something. “I have boots here somewhere.”

  Dan retrieved them for her and helped her put them on. He put his hand against the side of her face, pushing her hair back behind her ear. Leaning toward her, he pressed his lips to her forehead as an overwhelming tenderness rushed through him. “Come on. Let’s get you home.” He didn’t bother with a qualifier. Right now, his home felt like hers, too.

  “You’re quiet,” he said as they drove back toward town.

  “Tired. I’m fine. How was your day?”

  “Productive.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. A pair of headlights shone through the darkness behind him at a distance that had been maintained with precision since he’d pulled back out onto the highway. He recognized the one light blinking with an odd, strobe-like effect whenever the car hit a bump in the road. The same car had been behind him on his way out. “Is your seat belt on?”

  “Wha—yes.”

  “Hold on. I’m taking this next left.”

  He turned without benefit of signal or application of the brakes. Maris let out a squeak from her side of the car. Yanking beneath the shadow of trees encroaching on the lane, he braked quickly and shoved the car into park, shutting off the lights. Out on the highway, the car slowed down as it neared the side road before speeding up again. The model and make of the car were indistinguishable, the color a darker paint.

  “Son of a bitch. Somebody’s been following me.”

  Wheeling the car around, he turned the lights on when he hit the main road, but by that time the other car had gone and several more were approaching behind him. Dan drove home and hustled Maris inside. He secured the front door and made a call to the station asking for frequent checks through the night. More and more, he suspected Jamie was right. These were not separate incidents, but connected somehow. Sure, he pissed off many a criminal with arrest and prosecution, but he had a gut feeling Maris was the catalyst and not him. He refused to believe she was involved in any wrongdoing, so that could only mean one thing. She was a target. That might even explain the hit and run.

  The gaping hole in the puzzle seemed to have grown larger, threatening to suck him down.

  Chapter 20

  The threat to Dan, through her, was closing in. Sometimes she imagined she could push it away, like a blanket from her face. She woke up dreaming about danger and flailing out. Dan would always awaken beside her and whisper soothing words. He thought she was having nightmares about the car hitting her. She couldn’t tell him the truth. He had enough to worry about. She needed to keep her senses open to all nuances in the world and beyond if she was going to protect him. And even then, she possessed no guarantee she could. Some things were meant to happen. As viciously cruel as that might appear to people who lived normal lives, it was true.

  It had been three days since the car had followed Dan to and from Felicia’s home. After permission from the police department to dispose of Alva’s body, Maris had her great-aunt cremated. As soon as Maris felt up to the task, she would arrange a service. In the meantime, the mystery of her aunt’s demise remained.

  Jamie had approached Maris with the names of gas stations. She had picked two that sounded familiar. The detective had contacted a local police department to have someone there check out her story, to review video surveillance, or so Dan told her. She wasn’t sure how he knew. He wasn’t supposed to be privy to any information. She supposed Jamie allowed him a few select tidbits, enough to keep him satisfied.

  Regarding Alva’s Will, except for what Dan had let slip, Maris had heard nothing. The attorney had probably been told to hold off on contacting her as long as she remained a suspect. Because that was the gist of the department’s motive, wasn’t it? Guilt by greed.

  Who would kill for a house? Alva Mabry couldn’t have owned anything other than the old Victorian. Although if Jamie Rogers suspected Maris had killed Alva for her estate, her aunt must have possessed substantially more.

  “God, I’m sick of this!”

  Dan looked up from the newspaper. “Sick of what?”

  Maris sighed. “A lack of resolution, I guess. Of suspicion and doubt. At some point, do you people—”

  “Us people?”

  “Police. Law enforcement. At some point, do you accept the fact you must be wrong even if you don’t have somebody else to blame?”

  He turned the page. “More often than we’d like.”

  Maris flopped back down on the couch. “I’m sorry I’m grouchy this morning.”

  “You had a restless night. I’m not surprised you’re grouchy. Should we go get some breakfast?”

  “Don’t you ever cook at home?”

  He smiled. “Not if I can help it.”

  “Doesn’t it feel weird to you?”

  “What’s that?” He flipped another page.

  “The two of us and the routine we’ve fallen into. Like this is our life. I’ve slipped into yours, yes, but I still have mine, and it’s hung up in limbo.”

  Dan folded the newspaper onto his lap. “Once your doctor clears you medically, you can drive home, return to work. I don’t think Jamie has enough to keep you here. At least, he’s made no mention of bringing anything before the District Attorney. And he wouldn’t. There’s absolutely no evidence.”

  The flat delivery of his words indicated the depth of his hurt. She hadn’t meant to offend. If she hadn’t been able to read the emotion behind his statements, she would have been wounded herself by what appeared on the surface a brusque dismissal. Yes, Maris, go home, go back to work as soon as you get the doctor’s say-so. I won’t miss you, not one little bit.

  She touched his hand. “I don’t mean that. I feel like I’m teetering on a fence, and there’s something frightening on both sides of it, but I can’t see what awaits me in either direction.”

  “You can’t see? The woman with the—what do you call it? The Sight. Why can’t you see?”

  Maris clasped her hands in her lap, rocking forward once and then back, as if she could rid herself of a tingling premonition with the movement. “I don’t know, Dan. I don’t know, and I’m frightened.”

  His expression altered, eyes focusing, jaw set. “What are you f
rightened of? Tell me.”

  “Oh, Dan, you care so much.”

  “Yes.” Cautious, his agreement, both wary and defiant.

  “People like us, we shouldn’t fall in love.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you have such a concrete sense of duty and I…I have a sense of things I never should. I had half-hoped the injury to my head might rid me of it, but it hasn’t.”

  “Maris.”

  She shook her head. “No, you’re right. Let’s go to breakfast. Where shall we go? The Timeless?”

  Maris left him on the sofa and went back upstairs to dress. She combed her hair in the bathroom mirror, then fingered the short length of hair growing out where the bandage had been. If not for the scar showing beneath, angry still, raw and shining pink, it might have looked like she had shaved it for fashion.

  With a sudden, astonishing clarity, she remembered the moment when she felt death in the hospital emergency room and Alva’s voice telling her to hold on, to not give in. That had happened, hadn’t it? It hadn’t been an illusion created by the building pressure of hemorrhaging blood against her brain. How had she forgotten?

  She tapped the mirrored glass with her fingernail. “Because, you idiot, you nearly died. A lot of things have slipped your mind.”

  Be strong, Maris. Always be strong.

  Yes, she was remembering that, too—Alva’s voice in life, instructing, molding, urging her to accept what she was and to do right by it.

  Dan appeared in the mirror behind her. He slid his arms around her waist and pulled her back against his chest. He kissed the side of her head, the scarred side, with tenderness. “Are you sure you’re good?”

  She reached up behind and stroked his jaw, resting her hand against his face after. “There may come a time when I will tell you to do something, and you must do it, without question. You will know the moment when it arrives.”

  His chest rose and fell against her spine with only a small hitch in his respiration. He pressed his mouth into the cup of her palm. “Okay.”

  Simple. Trusting. Her stomach plummeted.

  When they arrived at the Timeless, there was a ten-minute wait for a table due to normal Saturday morning business. Dan gave his name and then suggested a walk in the back garden. Maris readily agreed. She loved gardens. The act of gardening in her own small plot kept her sane and balanced. She noted with delight the plantings had been well thought out, sun-loving blossoms giving way to the hardier blooms of shorter days and cooler nights with no glaring break between. Delicate fragrance perfumed the air, unlike summer’s heady scents.

  “This place grows less familiar to me each time we come here. I expect it wouldn’t have been the same even if your friends hadn’t made so many changes. Twenty years is a long time.”

  She sat on a nearby bench. Instead of joining her, Dan continued down the crushed stone path, idly checking out the flora, hands folded behind his back. He paused beneath the spreading branches of a maple tree large enough to have been original to the yard she’d played in as a child. After a moment, he took a step back, looking from side to side and out toward the street beyond the white, wooden fence. Then his gaze returned to a study of the tree itself. He glanced at her over his shoulder.

  Maris rose. “What is it?”

  He strode back in her direction. “I think ten minutes is up. We should head back inside. We don’t want to lose our table.”

  Oh, Dan, you’re a horribly poor liar. Had he seen someone out in the street to cause alarm? But he didn’t appear nervous or on the alert. Besides, wouldn’t he have dealt with such a person immediately? Maris tucked her hand into his arm. “A penny for your thoughts.”

  “Really? Do people still say that?”

  “I said it. I’m people.”

  “I have a lot on my mind, as you can imagine. But I want us to enjoy breakfast, so we won’t talk about any of it.”

  Summarily dismissed, Maris nodded agreement. “Do you like flowers?”

  “They’re all right.”

  “Yeah, the yard in front of your townhouse is pretty bland.”

  “Well, maybe you can remedy—never mind.”

  Right. Not the time of year and not her job. Springtime was for planting, or bulbs after the first frost of autumn, but with the undefined nature of their relationship and everything hanging over their heads, she certainly wouldn’t be around for either. Perhaps she could leave him detailed instructions and come back at some point to see how he’d gotten on. If, however, she ended up in jail…

  “I can’t be charged without real evidence, can I?”

  “Circumstantial cases have been made and even successfully prosecuted—”

  “Dan, that’s not making me feel any better.”

  “Sorry.”

  She shook his arm and released it to follow the hostess’s lead to a table. As Dan proceeded to the seat on the opposite side, his cell signaled the receipt of a text with a melodic three-note chime. He pulled the phone from his pocket, glanced at the screen, and tucked the instrument away.

  Maris nodded toward his hip. “You can take care of that.”

  “We’re eating. I’ll deal with it later.”

  They were each handed a list of breakfast specials by the hostess before she made her way back to the register. Maris noted a disclaimer on the bottom of her menu. “So, they’re only open for breakfast on Saturdays. Doesn’t having the restaurant attached ruin the homey bed-and-breakfast feel?”

  “There’s a dining room for the Inn’s guests inside.”

  He’d withdrawn. Maris began to suspect the recent text wasn’t his first, and perhaps he’d received one in the garden she hadn’t noticed. As if on cue, the cell rang in his pocket, muffled by denim.

  “Damn it. Maris, I’ll be right back.” Dan pushed away from the table and hurried out of the room. Maris held the menu sheet up as if reading but watched Dan through the wall of windows as he paced back and forth beyond the potted mums, the phone to his ear and his free hand clenched against his thigh.

  “Are you ready to order or are you waiting for your husband?”

  “He’s not—I’m waiting, thank you. Could I have a cup of coffee, though?” The server nodded and went to get the pot. Maris turned the dainty mug upright on the saucer, then returned her gaze to Dan. Spinning on his heel, his eyes searched the glazed reflection in front of him as if he sought her out.

  “Oh, shit.” Maris glanced quickly around to make sure her voice hadn’t carried. When she looked back, Dan had hung up and was making his way at a swift pace toward the door. He arrived at the table together with the waitress, who poured the coffee into Maris’s waiting cup.

  “And you, sir?”

  He nodded absently, taking his seat. Maris reached across and turned his cup over. “Dan?”

  “It’s all right. We’ll eat, and then we have to go to the station.”

  * * * *

  Dan walked Maris down the hall to the interview room where Jamie stood outside the open door. He nodded at Dan and took Maris’s arm, leading her inside. The door shut behind them.

  The on-duty officers were out of the station, leaving it strangely quiet. He used to like those days, when activity ebbed and waned with the stretches of silence in between. There weren’t many of them. Today, however, it made him feel alone.

  Dan turned away from the door and headed to his office to await the outcome of this latest interview. Passing Jamie’s office door, he noticed a pile of photo albums on the corner of the desk. Following a split second of indecision, he stepped inside and flipped the top one open. Yes, these had come from Alva Mabry’s place. With a keen ear to noises in the corridor, Dan began to flip through them. Without Maris beside him to explain, he had no idea who any of these people were with the exception of the younger Alva, due to the remarkable similarity between the woman and her grandniece. Even though nothing he was doing could compromise Jamie’s case, his heartbeat raced. He
’d been pulled from the investigation. He had no business—

  “What the fuck?” Dan whispered.

  With a quick check of the hallway, Dan returned to the album and flipped back and forth between several pages. Various photos had been pulled, whether recently or over the years he couldn’t tell. But the white squares on yellowed paper were obvious indication that a photo had once rested beneath the plastic. One or two more might not be missed. He couldn’t point these out to Jamie until he’d asked some questions, but he didn’t want his access to them cut off either. Dan slipped the photos into his breast pocket and restored the albums to their place. The topmost slid off. He caught it on the way down before the photo book hit the floor, pages falling open to a series of children’s images. A prickling chill danced between his shoulder blades. He yanked out another photograph from one of these and put the album back.

  Out in the corridor, he heard the rattle of a doorknob. He snatched a cup from the water cooler and placed it beneath the tap as an excuse for being outside Jamie’s office. The interview room door opened. Maris stepped out, her countenance pale as paper. Quickly Dan filled the cup and held it out to her as she walked stiffly toward him.

  “Thanks.” Her hand shook as she took the cup.

  “What’s happened?”

  Jamie exited the interview room. His eyes met Dan’s in silence and held as he strode along the hall to his office. Without a word, he went inside and closed the door.