by K. J. Emrick
“Thank you,” Darcy breathed, feeling like she’d won a small battle, for Jon’s sake.
“No killing,” Ellen repeated herself. “We’ll do it your way. For now.”
Chapter Seven
Wellingford had been a town on the verge of disappearing before the casino was built. Now, there was one hotel already completed, just off the main highway, and another under construction right next door to the expansive parking lot on the casino grounds. Then there was the rest of the town, a mixed collection of rundown homes and small business and empty storefronts. Most of the houses that hadn’t been bought up to clear space for the Brick Road had ‘For Sale’ signs in their front yards. A few empty lots had signs declaring big businesses planned on building there, soon.
Darcy shook her head at what she was seeing. The town might survive because of the income from the new businesses, but it would never be the same as it had been.
It felt like they were entering a different world as they pulled up to the casino. The stone fences around the casino blocked away the rest of the town. The bright aura from safety lights on tall metal poles spread across the parking lot made it impossible to see past the casino grounds, even blocking out the stars in the night sky overhead.
In spite of herself, Darcy was impressed at what she was seeing.
“Ever been here to the casino before?” Ellen asked Darcy as they found a space to park the Fiero.
“No,” Darcy said. “Never.”
“Well. I’ll have to give you the nickel tour, then.”
Darcy didn’t have to ask why Ellen would be so familiar with the casino. Ellen’s latest job probably brought her here a lot.
Their parking space wasn’t too far away from the main entrance. The place was still plenty busy even now, in the middle of the night. There would most likely be more people here on the weekend, but Darcy saw plenty of cars here as it was. She stopped counting at forty.
“This area really needed something like this casino,” Ellen said, seeing the mystified look on Darcy’s face. “Sure, it’s all about spending money and gambling, but this place brings jobs and revenue to a town where the liquor store used to be the busiest shop in town. Don’t judge them too harshly.”
“I’m not judging them,” Darcy argued, although she knew she kind of was. Casinos had a bad reputation. Especially if they were connected to organized crime, like Ferguson Gorsky thought this one was. “Let’s just go in and snoop around.”
“Sounds good to me.”
The Brick Road Casino rose four stories high, and the electronic billboards out front advertised rooms for rent above the gaming floors. Probably for the high rollers, Darcy thought to herself, amused that she even knew that term. A wide strip of inlaid yellow bricks wound their way across the pavement, from the parking lot to the tall front doors. A wide canopy over the front created a carport for party buses and limousines and taxis. Bright lights lit up stone walkways winding around the building, passing by bubbling fountains and trees that had been trimmed into the shapes of animals. It was all very new, and very fancy.
Above the front canopy, a ridiculous neon display, taller than the building itself flashed through a series of images that created a moving picture of a hand waving a hundred dollar bill through the air. The arm was outlined in blue and yellow. The money was outlined in green. Flash, flash, flash. The arm went up, the arm came down, waving that money enticingly at everyone looking to try their luck. Only, part of the neon was out in the last image. As the arm competed its wave, the hundred-dollar bill suddenly disappeared, so the image looked more like the money was being taken away from some unsuspecting gambler.
Fitting, Darcy thought to herself. Truth in advertising.
They followed the yellow bricks right up to the casino itself, joining some other latecomers looking to have a little fun at the local gambling establishment. When the automatic front doors slid open, the noise from inside washed over them. People talking, machines clanging and dinging, the distinctive sound of plastic chips being piled loosely on tables. Darcy blinked into the bright glow that filled the room around her. The walls were covered in wavy panels of beaten copper which added reflections of gold light from irregular angles.
People roamed around everywhere. Workers in red vests and black ties smiled at everyone. Drinks in short, heavy glasses appeared on trays carried in servers’ hands to be delivered to the patrons. Snack trays circulated in the same way. Cards were dealt at tables by men and women in those same red vests. In one corner, Darcy saw a roulette wheel with people gathered around, watching it spin.
“Interesting place,” Darcy commented.
“This is only the main room.” Ellen had to raise her voice above the din. “This is for the tourists and the old folks who only come in with a few hundred dollars to spend. The real action happens on the second floor. This out here is just for show, mainly.”
“I can tell. Did you see the yellow brick road outside?”
Ellen flashed a smile. “Yup. Anything to draw a crowd.”
Well, they got that part right, Darcy had to admit. There might be more people in here, in this one expansive room, than she usually saw in a day. She found the whole thing gaudy. The gold painted squares on the wall. The neon signs and electronic billboards flashing their messages out front. The painted yellow bricks in the parking lot showing a path to the front doors.
Wait.
There was something to what she’d just been thinking. Something important.
One of the casino employees, a girl in her twenties with a too-wide smile, came over to them, handing Ellen a brochure that contained information on the casino, and the games they offered, as well as a voucher for free chips.
“If you need anything else,” she said to Ellen and Darcy, “feel free to ask any of our staff. Enjoy your stay!”
“Guess that’s our cue.” Ellen started into the casino, and then stopped when she noticed Darcy wasn’t following. “Darcy? What is it?”
Something. She’d been thinking about this place. How fake it looked. With the bricks, and the neon…
The neon!
It came to her in a rush, and without explaining herself to Ellen she turned and ran back outside. She saw the yellow paving bricks, and ignored them. She saw the billboard advertising bingo nights on Tuesdays, and ignored them.
She was only interested in the gigantic waving arm with the money that disappeared and then came back as the image reset itself. Back. Forth.
Back.
Forth.
A small fortune, there and then gone again.
Fortunes come.
Fortunes go.
This is what Jon had been trying to tell her.
Ellen caught up to her, turning to stare with Darcy up at the larger than life sign. “Sure, it’s big,” she joked, “but what it lacks in subtlety it makes up for with ugly. Do you want to tell me what’s going on now?”
“Jon’s here,” she said, barely loud enough to be heard.
Shifting her feet, Ellen looked down at her feet uncomfortably. “You mean, Jon died here, right?”
Darcy blinked at herself. She’d done it again. Talked about Jon as if he was still alive and just waiting to be found. She’d read how it could take a widow months, sometimes even years, before she was comfortable talking about her deceased husband in the past tense.
When she didn’t answer, Ellen cleared her throat. “All right. So this is the place. Darcy Sweet’s sixth sense strikes again. Wow. Say that five times fast. Seriously, though, if everything you know so far is pointing to this casino, where do we start looking?”
The swelling sense of hope that Darcy had been feeling began to deflate. That was a good point. The casino was huge. Maybe it was time to call on Jon’s spirit again. Now that they were here, maybe he could give them more to go on.
“So, Ellen,” she said, starting back to the car so she could get her backpack. “You’re the expert. How much does it cost to rent a room here?”
&nbs
p; ***
She had more than Ferguson Gorsky’s casefile in her backpack.
Ellen had paid for the room with a credit card that was completely black. No logo on it. No company name. Just the string of numbers and the security chip. The guy working the registration desk had looked at the card, and then looked at Ellen a little oddly, and then completed the transaction without another word. Ellen had just smiled and leaned in to get a selfie with the man. It was the first of several photos they had taken of employees so far.
Ellen took pictures of security guards with Darcy posed nearby to make it less obvious. They got a picture of a room where a private card game was taking place and then apologized with giddy laughter saying they thought it was the bachelorette party they had come for. All told, they had pictures of twenty-eight people to show Gorsky by the time they made it to their room on the third floor.
If Gorsky identified anyone from those photos, then she would have to bring everything they’d learned to Wilson and let him know about it. The police would have to be involved. This was more than a simple fraud case now.
Right now, she didn’t care about any of that.
With trembling hands, Darcy took out the other thing that she had brought with her in her backpack. Her emergency communication kit in its elaborate wooden box was heavy as she set it on the bed. Jon’s spirit had led her here. To this casino. Just like Ferguson Gorsky’s mystery had led her here.
For a moment, she allowed herself to wonder if the two things were connected. Could The Hand be involved in the attacks on Grace and Jon?
She didn’t know. Hopefully, she was about to talk to the person who could tell her.
“Darcy Sweet and her mystical, magical gifts,” Ellen said, lounging in an overstuffed chair over by the desk in the corner. “Always a pleasure to watch you work.”
Darcy started setting her things out in the middle of the floor space between the beds and the large screen television. The room wasn’t exactly spacious, but it was bigger than most hotel rooms Darcy had ever stayed in. It should be, considering how much Ellen had paid to rent it for a day. The twin queen sized beds looked comfortable, though, and she wouldn’t mind spending an hour or two in that enormous tub in the bathroom. Just to work the tension out of her muscles. If only she had that kind of time.
Because somehow, she had the feeling that time was running out.
She’d learned over the years to trust her feelings. It was more than intuition. There were always things she just knew, without being able to explain why or how. Right now, she knew she had to get to Jon.
Candle holders and candles went into their circular formation. Sometimes she used a line of salt to form the circle, but after several experiments she’d found out that the salt didn’t help her in a communication one little bit. It just made a mess on the floor that she had to clean up later. Salt was useful for keeping out evil spirits, like the ghosts who went insane from being caught in the space between here and the afterlife for too long. Or like the ghosts of people who were truly bad to begin with, even before they died. She’d had her experiences with those, to be sure.
At any rate, all she needed now was the candles and her love for Jon. Just like before.
“You sure this is going to work?” Ellen asked her.
“Jon was always there for me,” Darcy insisted. “Even when we broke up for what turned out to be completely stupid reasons. He was still there for me when I needed him. He’ll be there for me now. I trust him.”
Ellen hooked a foot in its sock over the arm of the chair. “Yeah. Me and him never saw eye to eye, exactly, but I trusted him too.”
Taking out a stick match from the box in her kit, Darcy went to light it. Then she hesitated. The idea of seeing Jon again thrilled her. Terrified her. Made her sad and excited and anxious, all at once.
“You miss him a lot,” Ellen said. It wasn’t a question.
Darcy managed a nod.
“Then let’s do this for him, Darcy. If I could reach across to the other side and drag him back for you I would.” She shook her head, her tough-girl façade slipping just a bit. “I can’t reach him, but you can. So, do your thing, Darcy Sweet.”
With her friend’s support to bolster her, Darcy took a deeper breath, and lit the match.
When the candles were burning brightly she settled herself cross-legged in the center of them. She set her breathing. She pictured the empty space in her mind, roiling with the white background of thick mist. Then she called out to Jon.
There was no response.
She tried again.
Shadows hovered at the edges of her senses. Darcy felt them more than saw them. Figures watched her, or shifted away from her, or whispered into the mists. Some tried to fool her into calling them forth instead, but she knew that trick and she was ready for it. None of them were Jon. She didn’t have to see the shadowy figures clearly to know that. She knew the way Jon felt in her heart. None of these shades were Jon.
She called to him, and kept calling…
Darcy fluttered her eyes open, blinking into the room around her. Ellen still sat in the chair, now with both feet kicked up onto the desk and her hands interlaced behind her head. When she saw Darcy stir, she quirked an eyebrow. “Well? What did he say?”
“Nothing,” Darcy told her.
“Really? Huh. That doesn’t sound like him.”
“No, I mean…” Darcy was totally confused about what had just happened. Every communication was different, of course. Some had been harder than others and required more effort on her part. Sometimes she had to drag the ghost out, kicking and screaming, to make them talk. Sometimes it had taken more than one try to make the connection.
But why couldn’t she reach Jon? It wasn’t like he was trying to dodge her. There was no reason for him to do that. He still loved her, even from where he was, and he wanted her to find out what had happened to him. If he didn’t want her to be here, he wouldn’t have given her the clue about the flashing neon in front of the casino. He’d told her, in the best way he knew how, where to find him.
“How long was I in the trance?” she asked Ellen, twisting her aunt’s ring on her finger.
Ellen glanced over at the clock on the room’s nightstand. “Would you believe me if I said two hours and sixteen minutes? It’s after midnight now.”
The ache in her back would certainly believe that, but Darcy felt like she’d been trying for only a few minutes. If she’d been reaching into the void for over two hours, why hadn’t Jon answered?
Closing her eyes, she went through the steps again. Breathe in. Breathe out. Thread a bit of her life force into the exhaled breath, and call to Jon…
This time she bounced back out of the empty space between worlds like she’d ran into a physical wall. “Ow,” she said, squinting against the headache that spiked behind her eyes.
For Pete’s sake… what was she doing wrong? Her fingers worked over to her wedding ring, turning it around as she anxiously thought about Jon. Something was wrong. It was like Jon couldn’t reach through to her.
Couldn’t, or didn’t want to.
Her vision swam with tears. She needed to keep trying. This was too important to give up. Too much was riding on this. She had to find Jon. She had to reach him, had to get to him, had to know where he was…
Stop it, she told herself. Jon is dead. You aren’t looking for him. You’re looking for his killer. What you need, is to accept it. Make peace with it.
With the copper candle snuffer from her kit she put the candles out, one by one, as quickly as she could. When she stood up Ellen got to her feet as well, concern making little creases in her brow. “Darcy? What are you doing?”
“I need to get out of here,” Darcy heard herself saying. “I need… oh, Ellen, I don’t know what I need. I need all of this to be some sort of mistake. That’s what I need. I need it to have never happened. I need… I need Jon!”
Pushing her feet into her sneakers she went straight to the door that would
take her to the hallway and then… wherever it was she ended up after that.
“Darcy, where are you going?” Ellen called, fumbling to get her own shoes back on.
“I need some air!” Darcy shouted through her tears. Not waiting for Ellen she rushed down to the elevator and when the car arrived she got on and punched the button for the ground floor. She needed to be outside. Everything was pressing in on her and she just couldn’t stand to be in this place for another minute. This place where her husband’s ghost had led her.
His spirit had led her here, and then abandoned her.
Why?
Some of the employees in their red vests noticed her, but didn’t try to stop her as she ran for the front door. She guessed they were used to seeing people crying their eyes out in a place like this. None of the people gambling over cards or slot machines paid her any mind at all.
Outside, Darcy kept going until she was away from the landing-strip brightness of the neon signs and floodlights. At the edge of the parking lot, away from the fake yellow brick road, she found a patch of shadows to stand in.
She bent over, hands on her knees, concentrating on just breathing. That, and not throwing up. All this time, ever since she’d seen Jon’s ghost at the table, she’d been holding herself together with the mental equivalent of dental floss and duct tape. If no one asked her how she was, then she was fine. As soon as someone asked about Jon, or asked about her, she started to fall apart. So she had avoided talking about it to everyone except Ellen.
Now the box that she had carefully tucked her emotions into had sprung open, and every nerve in her body was raw and exposed.
She felt everything. She heard everything. Every single thought and every slithering doubt that whispered through her mind. The communication should have worked, but it didn’t. So where did that leave her.
Where did it leave Jon?
She looked back at the waving arm with the money in its hand, and then not in its hand. It rotated up, and then down. Up. Down. When it was up, it was pointing at the crescent moon hanging in the sky above, fighting to be seen over the lights of the casino below. When the arm was laying down, it pointed off into town. Into Wellingford.