by K. J. Emrick
She walked down a line of numbered doors, some open, some closed, most of them with patients lying in their beds. At room number two-fifteen, she stopped. Her skin practically shivered and she knew she was supposed to see who was in this room.
She entered slowly, carefully stepping closer to the sleeping form of a man on the hospital gurney. His leg was in a cast and held up by a sling suspended from the ceiling. Machines beeped as they monitored his condition.
His face was turned away from Darcy. One step at a time, she walked around the bed, closer to the room’s window, to look at him from the other side.
Darcy stopped still, not even daring to breathe. The wide face had a bruise around the right eye. His messy red hair was even more mussed now from lying in bed.
There was no mistaking it. This was Ray Stephenson.
Chapter Thirteen
Back down the stairs Darcy raced. In the waiting room she scanned for Jon. He wasn’t there. The same hospital worker at her desk caught Darcy’s eye and nodded her head toward the Emergency Department door. “He went in there, honey,” she said to Darcy. “Your sister’s awake now. Go on in.”
In her room, Grace was sitting up, her eyes sad and her smile weak. “Hey, Darcy. Guess I really did myself in there, didn’t I?”
“It’s not that bad,” Jon said for her. He was sitting on the edge of Grace’s bed, one leg folded up over the other. “You just need to rest and get your strength back. I have to tell you, I wouldn’t be doing any better in your spot.”
Darcy grabbed Jon’s arm. “I found Ray Stephenson.”
“You…wait, what?” Jon stood up, searching her face. “You mean with, uh, your abilities?”
“No, no not that. He’s here. He’s here in the hospital, Jon!”
Grace was watching them intently. “You mean, that teller who got taken with Aaron? He’s in the hospital? We need to go question him. Right now!”
She struggled to get out of from under the sheet on her bed. It was obvious how hard it was for her. Jon reached over and easily put her back down. Grace was furious, and she slapped at Jon’s arm, but she didn’t have the strength to fight him. “Jon, stop it!”
“Grace. Let me and Darcy take care of this, okay? You need to rest. For the baby. And for Aaron, too.”
Grace looked like she wanted to murder Jon where he sat, but she nodded and laid her head back down, staring fixedly at the ceiling.
Jon motioned Darcy out into the hallway and when the door to Grace’s room was closed behind them, he asked her, “What did you see?”
Darcy filled him in on what she had found upstairs in room two-fifteen. “I don’t understand,” Jon said when she was done. “How come nobody told us about this? We put out the message to all the local hospitals that first night.”
“You put out the information about Aaron,” Darcy reminded him. “We didn’t know anything about Ray Stephenson until today.”
“Yesterday, you mean,” Jon corrected her. “It’s after midnight now.”
“Well, I’m not waiting another day to find out what’s going on,” she said to him. “Let’s find somebody who can tell us what’s going on.”
They went up to the work station in the center of the Emergency Department. Behind the rectangular outline of the desk were three nurses and a doctor chatting quietly.
“Excuse me, doctor?” Jon said. He displayed his badge to them. Darcy could tell it got their attention. “My name is Detective Jon Tinker. I’m with the Misty Hollow Police Department. I need to talk to you about one of your patients. There’s a man in room two-fifteen who we believe was kidnapped during a robbery in Oak Hollow.”
The doctor, an older man with thick wire-rimmed glasses, blinked repeatedly and scratched at his ear. “Ah yes,” he said. “I’m familiar with that patient. I saw him when he came in yesterday. John Doe. Could barely speak. Mild concussion, broken leg. Suffering from amnesia and unable to tell us anything including his name. You know him?”
“We’re sure his name is Ray Stephenson. The city police in Oak Hollow should have sent you out a message by now.”
The doctor looked at one of the nurses, who shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
“Doctor, we need to guard this man. When can we interview him?”
“Well, you can interview him in the morning, I’m sure, but I can’t guarantee what he’ll be able to tell you. Is there some urgency?”
Instead of answering that question Jon asked to use the phone behind the desk so he could contact the Meadwood PD to provide protection for Ray, and then he promised Darcy he would call Ray’s wife to let her know where he was.
“I’m also going to have to call the Oak Hollow PD. The robbery took place in their city. I’m sure they’ll want to send some people over to speak to Ray in the morning.”
Darcy hugged him briefly. “You’re going to be busy. Can I borrow your car again? I need to go back to Misty Hollow for something.”
He looked puzzled but just nodded and handed her his keys. “I’m guessing you’ll explain it to me later?”
“Of course,” she said with a smile. Things were finally looking up. They knew where Ray Stephenson was. That was a start. The smile faded quickly, though, when she remembered that Aaron was still out there, somewhere, missing and possibly still in the hands of three men in ski masks.
***
When Darcy arrived back in Misty Hollow she headed straight for her book store. Turning the lights on inside, she went to the back office. She had tried using her gift to contact Aaron and Ray, and for obvious reasons it hadn’t worked. Ray was still alive. Aaron must be still alive as well. That didn’t mean she didn’t have other resources to try.
“Millie, I need your help,” she called out.
From the shelf above the desk in the office, her great aunt’s journal fell. It thumped against the desk, popping open to lay on its spine. As Darcy watched, the pages turned, as if a strong wind had caught them. She knew better. It was her aunt’s hands turning the pages to find the passage Darcy needed. The passage she had suddenly remembered at the hospital when the doctor was talking about how Ray Stephenson couldn’t remember anything.
When the pages stopped, Darcy sat and scanned the neatly written paragraphs. It was instructions for helping ghosts who were too old to remember the lives they had lived before their deaths. If a ghost remained on this earth for too long without passing over, their connection to who they were became so weak that their memories actually faded.
Not unlike what had happened to Ray Stephenson.
If it worked for the ghosts, Darcy reasoned, then it might actually work for Ray too, even though he was still alive.
She read through the whole thing twice. The actual technique didn’t sound that difficult. It involved settling her mind into a peaceful state, reaching out to the ghost, and then carefully remembering the details of her own life. The act of visualizing her own memories was supposed to help the ghost remember how to do the same thing for themselves.
Could it work for the living? She didn’t see why not. The essence, or spirit, or whatever one chose to call the spark of life inside a person was released with death. Darcy could commune with those spirits because of her gift. But a living person held that spirit within them still. She should be able to reach out to it in much the same way.
Closing the journal she put it back up on the shelf. “Thank you, Millie,” she whispered. On her way out she turned the store’s lights off again, leaving darkness in her wake.
Chapter Fourteen
Back at the hospital in Meadowood Darcy went back into the Emergency Department. Grace was asleep now. Jon was in the room with her, in a chair in the corner. He put a finger to his lips meaningfully and waved her over to him. Curling up into his lap felt good. She was beginning to feel very tired, and the night wasn’t over yet.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Jon asked her quietly.
“I hope so. I’m going to go up and talk to Ray now. I might be able t
o help him pull his memories back up. Did you get in touch with the local police?”
He nodded, his hands gently rubbing her back. It felt good. “They’ve sent two officers over to guard Ray’s door until the Oak Hollow boys can get here. I’ll come up with you and let the officers know it’s okay for you to talk to Ray.”
She nodded. “Um. Can you keep them out of the room while I do this?”
“I’m sure I can. This is going to be one of those kinds of conversations?”
“Yes,” she said, and she left it at that.
The officers at Ray’s door talked it over with Jon but ultimately they deferred to him, since it was more his case than theirs anyway. So Darcy found herself inside Ray’s room, alone with the sound of the beeping machines and Ray’s gentle snoring.
She shook his arm gently until his eyes popped open. “Oh, hello,” he said to her. “Are you a doctor?”
“My name is Darcy Sweet,” she explained. “I’m actually working with the police. I guess you’d say I’m a consultant. I understand that you have a touch of amnesia. If you’re willing, I think I can help you get your memory back.”
Ray’s green eyes widened, and he nodded enthusiastically. “I can’t explain how it feels to not know…anything. I’m willing to try whatever you want if you think it will help. There was a robbery, the cops said? At a bank? I just don’t remember.”
“That’s okay,” she said to him with a reassuring smile. “I’m going to help.”
Darcy sat down carefully on the bed beside him, making sure not to bump his injured leg, and took both of his hands in hers. “I need you to close your eyes, take deep breaths and focus on your breathing. Concentrate. This, uh, might feel a little weird.”
He looked skeptical but then he did as she asked and closed his eyes. Darcy took some deep breaths of her own and slipped into her meditative state. In her mind, she focused on images of mist, swirling and twisting, a neutral gray color that washed away her worry and anxiety. When she felt at peace she began to recall her own memories. She watched her childhood unfold, like images cast by an old time movie projector onto the wall of the mists. The scenes were a little distorted but with effort they became clear and crisp.
Childhood became her teenage years, and then adulthood. Her failed marriage, Millie’s death, the bookstore and finding Jon and her sister and Aaron. Her memories turned to the last few days, with Aaron’s disappearance and the robbery and—
“I remember!” Ray suddenly gasped. “Oh, dear God I remember. Ray. My name is Ray Stephenson. I work at the Three Twigs Federal Credit Union in Oak Hollow and there was a robbery and they took me.” He suddenly looked very frightened. “They took me and this other man…”
Darcy leaned forward, anxiety gripping her again. This was it. This was what they had needed. “Jon!” she called out. “Jon, come in here!”
He came through the door in a rush, looking from Ray to Darcy. “What is it?”
“He remembers,” Darcy told him in a rush. “Ray, tell us. Tell us what you remember.”
Ray screwed up his face and then said, “There was just the one customer, you know? Tall guy. Blonde. Anyway, three men in black clothes and masks came bursting into the bank. They had guns. They were yelling at me to give them money. I tried to tell them I only kept three hundred dollars in my drawer. It made them angry. They pulled me into the back where the vault was, and made me open it. They took nearly everything in there.”
Jon had pulled out a notebook from a pocket and was hastily writing down notes. “What happened then, Mister Stephenson?”
“They took me and the other guy to a car they had waiting out in back of the bank. They stuffed us both in the backseat and had guns pointed at us and then somewhere they tossed me out and I landed so hard and then…well, the next thing I remember is waking up here.”
Darcy felt her lip quivering as she asked her next question. “The man who the robbers took with you. His name is Aaron, and he’s my brother-in-law. Do you know what happened to him?”
Ray sadly shook his head. “No. I’m sorry, but I don’t know. He was still in the car when they tossed me out.”
She nodded. That was more than they had known an hour ago.
“Mister Stephenson,” Jon asked him, stepping closer. “Is there anything about the robbers you can remember that might help us? Did they use any names, did they have an accent? Did you see any of their faces?”
“No, they never took their masks off. I didn’t notice anything about their voices. I think at least one of them was white, though, from what I could see through the eye holes. Oh, right. The guy who pulled me over the counter, he had two different colored eyes. One was blue, one was brown. It was kind of creepy. Then there was…” He stopped, turning his eyes away and looking a little embarrassed. “There was a smell though. A sweet smell. Almost sickeningly sweet. I don’t know that I’ve ever smelled anything like that before.”
Jon looked at Darcy. He smiled at her in that way that let her know he was proud of her. “Good work,” he mouthed to her silently.
She hoped it was good enough to help them find Aaron.
Chapter Fifteen
“It’s actually good news,” Jon was telling Grace as they drove her home a few hours later. It had been three days now since Aaron’s disappearance. Good news was something they definitely needed. “If the robbers dumped Ray out of the car it means they aren’t interested in hostages, and they aren’t interested in hurting anyone. That’s cause for optimism.”
“Let’s go straight to the police station when we get back to Misty Hollow,” was all Grace said in response.
Darcy and Jon exchanged a look.
“Honestly, you two, I feel fine now.” Grace sat up a little straighter in the front passenger seat to prove her point. “I don’t need to be in bed any more. I won’t rest until we find Aaron. Just take me to the police station when we hit town.”
“Okay, whatever you say,” Jon said to her.
Darcy wasn’t convinced that it was the right thing for Grace to do but she also knew she couldn’t argue with her sister. It was exactly what Darcy would do if Jon was missing.
They were pulling into the police department parking lot when Jon said, “I’m not sure what the sweet smell would be that Ray remembered, but a robber with two different colored eyes? If he’s been arrested for anything before, that should stand out. Not too many guys with different colored eyes.”
Darcy had to agree and she hoped that would be the clue that would lead them to Aaron’s abductors. She got out of the car and then leaned through the driver’s side window to give Jon a quick kiss. “I need to go home and change. And shower. And maybe eat something. Make sure Grace takes it easy, will you?”
“Hey,” Grace said to her, “I’m right here, you know that, right?”
“Just take care of yourself, sis.”
Grace rolled her eyes, but Darcy could see the little wisp of a smile on her sister’s face.
As Darcy left the police station parking lot to start walking home, she looked over at the town square being transformed for the Valentine’s Day dance the next day. Everyone was hustling about, stringing red streamers and hanging heart shaped lights.
“Darcy, Darcy!”
Darcy looked back to see Helen running up to her. “Where have you been?” Helen asked in a panicked voice. “I’ve been running around trying to get everything organized and I couldn’t find you anywhere!”
Darcy realized that she hadn’t done any of the things that she promised to do for the dance. “Helen, I’m so sorry. There’s just been so much going on with Aaron’s disappearance and Grace taking ill and—”
“Wait,” Helen said, putting a hand on Darcy’s arm. “Aaron’s missing? I heard something about that but I thought it was just silly rumors. Oh, Darcy, I’m so sorry. How’s Grace?”
“As good as can be expected, I suppose. We’re working on finding Aaron now and we think we’re close. Are you set for the dance?”
<
br /> “Well, sort of. That cousin of yours has been a godsend. She and her band are all set for tomorrow. At least something’s going right!”
Helen looked a little embarrassed as she said it, as though she shouldn’t be happy about a dance when Grace’s husband was missing.
“Don’t worry about it, Helen,” Darcy reassured her friend. “I know that if you can do anything for us you will. I’ll let you know what happens, all right?”
The two women hugged and then Helen rushed off giving instructions to someone with a box full of roses.
Darcy turned away from the busy scene, wishing that all she had to think about was getting ready for a Valentine’s Day dance. It wasn’t long before she had made it home. A grateful Smudge rubbed up against her legs until she opened a can of cat food for him and set it next to a saucer of milk. “Sorry, boy,” she said to him as she scratched behind his ears and let him scarf down his food. “I know I haven’t been here much. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
She quickly showered and changed. While she was showering, the idea of what she should get Jon for Valentine’s Day finally popped into her head. She knew it was such a low priority right now, and she wished her brain could just turn off, but she finally knew what she would give him. She hoped that he would like it. One less thing on her mind, she finished getting dressed and quickly headed back to the police department.
She had hoped that in the time she was gone, Jon and Grace and everyone else crowding the desks at the police department would have figured out who the robbers were. Jon scowled when she came in, though, and shook his head.
“Not a single criminal in all the databases we can access has two different colored eyes.” He smacked his palm down on his desk. “I really thought that would give us something.”
Grace sat miserably at her desk next to Jon’s. Her hands kept playing with the papers on her desk like she didn’t quite know what to do with them. Darcy watched her write something out, then shake the pen as it ran dry, and then angrily throw it away and continue writing with a different pen. The colors of the ink didn’t match. The first pen had been black, and this one was blue…