Daphne heard a twig snap inside the woods. She peered into the darkness but couldn’t see anything. She was about to ask Stephanie to check when the mudroom door opened and Chris stepped out.
“What are you doing out here?” He asked Daphne.
“Talking to Stephanie.”
“She’s here?” His smile was warm and excited. “Where is she?”
Daphne was about to direct him to her, but Stephanie saved her the trouble by bouncing over and standing directly in front of him. “She’s right in front of you. Put out your hand.” Chris did so and Stephanie put her hand into his.
Chris shivered. “I think I can feel her. My hand is colder, and it tingles. Is that her?”
“It is.”
“Oh, Steph. I miss you. I’m so sorry we didn’t get spend our lives together like we planned.”
They were both crying, making Daphne feel like a voyeur watching their grief. But she knew that Stephanie had wanted to say goodbye, and Chris wouldn’t be able to hear her without Daphne translating for her.
“Can you tell him that I will always love him and that I wish things had been different?” Stephanie asked. Daphne repeated the question to Chris out loud so he could hear.
“I don’t know how I can go on without you.” Chris replied.
“What does that mean? That he wants to kill himself?” Stephanie asked. Daphne’s opinion of her increased with her next comment. “Tell him no, to not even think about it. He needs to forget me and find someone else, someone who will love him and give him happiness.”
Daphne repeated the plea and added her own. “Chris,” she said, “just because you lost Stephanie doesn’t mean that you can’t find happiness or that you aren’t meant to do something great with your life. You can’t just give up. Stephanie will be there when it is your time to cross over.”
“But I miss her, and I want to be with her.” Chris cried. “It just hurts so much to be without her.”
Daphne heard more twigs breaking in the woods, she was getting concerned that it was an animal looking for a midnight snack. “Chris, you need to give it some time. You’re never going to forget Stephanie, but one day you’ll be able to think of her without so much pain. She doesn’t want you to give up your life just because someone took hers.”
“Tell him, that if he does harm to himself, I will never forgive him.”
Daphne repeated the threat and was relieved to see Chris release a sad laugh. “That sounds like her.” He closed his other hand over hers and whispered, “I’ll try to do as you ask. I do love you and I will never get over you, but I will try to become someone you would be proud of, ok?”
Stephanie reached up and brushed her hand over his cheek. He forced a smile. Then she was gone.
“She’s gone, isn’t she?” He asked Daphne.
“Yes.”
“Do you think she’s gone for good?”
“I don’t know. She may have decided to cross over or she may decide to come back and make sure you’re keeping your promise.”
“Yeah, I think she’ll check up on me. That sounds like her too.” He turned to Daphne and stretched out his hand. “Come on, come inside, it’s freezing out here.”
Daphne forgot about the sounds in the woods and walked into the house with Chris. She really hoped he would decide to keep living and that he would one day find happiness. She knew it wasn’t going to be her, but that was alright. She had wanted to help Chris discover what had really happened to Stephanie and she had managed to give him that. They may not know who had killed her, but that was for the sheriff to uncover. She was going to call her Brandon in the morning and beg him to pick her up, unless she could convince Eric to give her a ride back home.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Daphne slept the rest of the night without interruption and woke up wanting more than ever to go home. Her work in Dunning’s Landing was done, and she felt free to leave. She stepped into the shower thinking of what she could use to barter with Brandon to drive all the way here to get her. After breakfast she would pack and then figure out how she was getting home.
She stepped into her room and stifled a scream. An old man stood in the center of her room. He was wearing a hospital gown and he looked very thin and frail. He didn’t say anything, but stared at her. If it wasn’t for the fact she could see through him to the window beyond, she would have thought he was real. He took a step toward her, reaching his hand out to touch her. She backed away, trying to put distance between them. A knock on the door had him disappearing.
“Daphne, the sheriff is here, and he has some questions for you and Chris.”
“I’ll be right there.” She took in several deep breaths before getting dressed. She assumed the old man was Chris’s grandfather, the one who had shown her how he had been murdered. Another ghost looking for closure. She felt a twinge of guilt knowing that this was one murder that probably wasn’t going to come to light. Maybe she could have a word with the sheriff and tell him what she had witnessed. Although, he wasn’t convinced of her gift, even after she was proven right about Stephanie. No, maybe not the sheriff; Becky would be a better bet. She knew the diminutive deputy believed in her ability. Thinking of the deputy, she remembered that she had wanted a favor from Daphne. Hopefully the favor wouldn’t take long. She still needed to call Brandon. Considering what Becky had risked to help them find Stephanie’s body, the least she could do for Becky was try and fulfill the favor. She’d wait to call Brandon later.
Daphne went down the stairs and found the sheriff along with four deputies standing in the sitting area. Becky was not one of them. “Sheriff,” Daphne said as she reached the bottom step. He nodded at her. She could hear someone following down behind her and glanced back up to see Chris. Once he was downstairs and standing next to her the sheriff pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to Kevin.
“This is a warrant to search your house.” He nodded to the deputies and they spread out, one went toward the kitchen, one toward Kevin’s den and two went upstairs.
“What do you mean by this?” Kevin demanded.
Sheriff Blaine ignored the question and said, “You can stay down here or leave the house, but you can’t interfere with their search. Chris, I need you to empty your pockets. Put everything on the table.”
Chris looked from his parents to the sheriff and shrugged before emptying his pockets. On the table he placed his wallet, some coins and his key chain. Daphne sucked in her breath when the sheriff, using a pen from his pocket, lifted the keychain. “Where did you get this?”
He shrugged, “I don’t know. It was a gift.”
“You don’t know who gave it to you?” When Chris shook his head, the sheriff continued. “Do you know about when you got it?”
“I think it was for graduation, I remember having it when I left here for Stanford. Why?”
The sheriff didn’t respond, but put the keychain into an evidence bag. He ignored the rest of the items as he put the bag with the keychain into his pocket. “Stay here.” He then walked upstairs to join his other deputies.
Chris, Debbie, Kevin and Daphne sat on the couch. Daphne had a feeling she wasn’t going to be heading home soon. She knew why the sheriff had the keychain in an evidence bag. It was too much of a coincidence that the keychain Chris was carrying looked exactly like the one Stephanie had wrapped. And Stephanie had said that the gifts were not with her body. Whoever had killed her had kept the presents. Then they had given the keychain to Chris. She shuddered. Whoever could do that was cold. She stole a glance at Kevin, trying to see him as a murderer and as someone who could so callously give his son the gift bought by the person he murdered.
It seemed like hours before the sheriff and his deputies returned to the main room. Among them they carried about a dozen bags. In two of them she could see the pen and pencil set and in a third a ribboned pack of letters.
“What are you doing with those?” Chris demanded, indicating the letters.
“Taking them in as evidence,” The sheriff answered before holding up a sealed bag containing a single letter. “Is this the letter that you received after Stephanie disappeared?”
Chris crossed over and looked at it. “Yes, it’s the one I told you about yesterday.”
The sheriff nodded before handing a slip of paper to Kevin. “Here is the inventory of everything we’re taking. They will all be returned to you once they are no longer needed.”
Kevin snatched the paper from the sheriff. “Fine. Now get out.”
“In a minute.” The sheriff handed the bag back to one of his deputies before pulling out his handcuffs. “Chris, I’m arresting you for suspicion of murder. You have the right to remain silent.” He talked over the protests of Kevin and Debbie and completed giving Chris his rights. Chris didn’t say a word, but his pallor went from red to sickly white to green, when the sheriff clasped the handcuffs on him. Once he was done, he turned to Kevin and Debbie, “I don’t want to do this, but I have more than enough evidence to bring him in for questioning. Get him a lawyer. A good one.”
Daphne slowly sat down on the couch as the sheriff escorted Chris out of the room with Kevin and Debbie following. She could hear Kevin alternately reassuring his son that he’d get the best lawyer he could find and lambasting the sheriff for daring to believe his son could be capable of murder. Daphne felt ill. She had wanted to help Chris learn the truth about Stephanie, but now it seems she had landed him in jail. She knew Chris couldn’t have killed Stephanie. She had to help find the real murderer. It was the only way to make things right.
Chapter Twenty-Five
When Kevin closed the door, Debbie whirled on Daphne. “This is all your fault. If you hadn’t come here, none of this would be happening.”
“Debbie, this isn’t her fault.” Kevin said wearily as he rubbed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.
“Isn’t it? She came here insisting that Stephanie was dead, that she’d seen her ghost, and now they’ve arrested our son for her murder.”
“But she was right, Stephanie is dead.” Kevin said. “I still don’t believe in ghosts, don’t want to believe in them. But she was right about Stephanie being dead.”
“Maybe she killed her and framed my son.”
“She couldn’t have done that…” Kevin started.
“I didn’t even know Stephanie,” Daphne stated. “I don’t believe Chris killed her, they’ll figure it out. Chris would never have hurt her.”
“She’s right,” Kevin said. “I’m going to call a lawyer and then we’ll go to the station. We’ll get this straightened out. Come on.” He grabbed his wife’s hand and pulled her toward the door to this study. Debbie continued to glare at Daphne as she was led out of the room.
Daphne thought that at that moment, Debbie would happily kill her. She shuddered. She’d never seen anyone look at her with such hatred before. Daphne couldn’t really blame her, she probably needed to blame someone for her youngest son being arrested. Going up to her room, she considered her options. She wanted to pack her bags and leave, wanted to call Brandon and beg him to come get her. But Daphne felt responsible for Chris being arrested. She really didn’t believe that he could have killed her, but there was that keychain and the pen set. How did he get them? Daphne was certain that whoever killed Stephanie had kept the gifts and gave them to Chris. Whoever could kill that girl but make sure the gifts got to Chris was cold and unbalanced.
She looked out the window to see Kevin pull out of the driveway. Daphne headed downstairs. She wanted to find Eric and tell him what had happened. Maybe he could help figure out what to do next.
She let herself out of the house and entered the woods where she had seen Craig enter the previous day. Had it really just been one day? She hoped she didn’t get lost. No one knew where she was going, and, she thought humorlessly, it was unlikely Debbie or Kevin would bother to look for her. She felt if she could reach the cabin, she should be able to find her way to the park and then Eric’s house. She pushed forward, finding the path easy to follow. Even if it lead her to the greenhouses, she knew she could make her way into town from there. The silence of the woods was unsettling. The only sounds were of branches breaking and snow falling in clumps. She felt the onset of panic as she wondered if she had taken the right path, but then she heard the wonderful sound of voices coming from the direction she was headed.
She broke through the trees and found herself in the clearing and only a few feet from the cabin. Coming from the opposite direction was Eric along with his mother. They looked over when she stepped through.
“Hi Daphne, I was just showing Mom where we found Stephanie’s body,” Eric said.
“Daphne, is everything ok?” Nicole asked.
“No, the sheriff has arrested Chris for Stephanie’s murder.”
“That’s not possible,” Nicole said, “what is he thinking? There is no way that boy killed my baby.”
“Did he say why?” Eric asked.
Daphne shook her head. “He had enough to get a warrant to search the house. He had four deputies with him and they searched through his room and the rest of the house. They bagged quite a bit of evidence and took it all with them. Kevin and Debbie are getting him a lawyer and have gone to the station.”
Nicole said, “Let’s go back to the house, I want to call the station and talk to Martin.”
Daphne gratefully accepted their invitation. She didn’t want to go back to the Dunning house and wait alone. She wanted to do something, She wanted to help fix the mess that she felt guilty for causing.
Daphne and Eric sat at the table watching Nicole have a conversation with the sheriff. They could only hear one side of the conversation which was frustrating.
“How could you possibly think Chris had anything to do with Stephanie’s death?”
Silence followed. Then…
“I don’t care how much evidence you have, you cannot convince me that he would hurt her.”
More silence, then…
“When you’re done questioning him, you need to come over here and explain this all to me.”
“Is this what it’s like when I’m talking to a ghost?” Daphne asked Eric.
He nodded and smiled. “When you do it, it’s spookier, because you don’t have a phone to your ear.”
Nicole hung up and sat down heavily at the table.
“This is ridiculous. He said he has found overwhelming evidence that Chris killed Stephanie. But I still don’t believe it.”
“What kind of evidence?” Eric asked.
“He wouldn’t say, just that it didn’t look good for Chris.”
“The day Stephanie died, she bought Chris a pen set and a keychain that matched.” Daphne said. “When I was connected to Stephanie, I saw those items through her eyes.”
“So?” Nicole asked.
“Chris’s keychain is the same as the one I saw her wrap and the sheriff had an evidence bag with a pen set that matched the one Stephanie bought and wrapped.” She paused, not sure if she should tell them about her nighttime chat with Stephanie, but decided she needed to share everything she knew. “I spoke with Stephanie again last night and she told me that she watched the sheriff and his men remove her body from the well. She said the gifts were gone and that they had even drudged the well and didn’t find them.”
“You think he killed her, then?” Eric asked.
“No, I think whoever killed her kept the gifts and gave them to Chris.”
“Someone would have to be heartless to do something like that.” Nicole said. “Did he remember who gave them to him?”
Daphne shook her head. “He told the sheriff that he thinks he got them as a graduation present because he knew he had the keychain when he left for Stanford.”
; “Maybe someone gave them to him to frame him for Stephanie’s murder,” Nicole suggested. “It would be a long shot, but not much of a risk. They could have made sure the gifts got delivered to him without a card so he wouldn’t know who sent them.”
“I’m calling Becky,” Eric said. “Maybe she can give us some information.”
As he made the call, Daphne turned to Nicole. “Stephanie wanted me to tell you that she wants you to be happy and not mourn for her.”
Tears formed in Nicole’s eyes but didn’t flow. “Thank you for that. Do you know if she’s seen her father yet?”
“She said no, she thinks he may have moved on.”
“Has she moved on?” Nicole asked as one tear managed to fall.
“I don’t know, she wanted to say goodbye to Chris first. He came out as we were talking. Chris hinted at suicide, but Stephanie made him promise not to do that. He thinks she may stay around for awhile to make sure he doesn’t.”
“I’ll keep an eye on him too. He should have his life.”
“I wish there was more I could do for him and for her.”
Nicole grabbed Daphne’s hand, “there is something you can do. You can help find out who really killed her. You can help make sure that Chris is exonerated.”
“I’m not sure I know how to do that.”
“Becky is coming over,” Eric said as he joined them. “She might have an idea on how we can help prove Chris is innocent.”
Eric brought her into the kitchen once she arrived. She wasn’t dressed in her uniform, but wore jeans, black boots and a black sweater. She looked softer and younger in plain clothes.
“What can you tell us about why Chris was arrested?” Eric asked.
“I’m not allowed to say.”
“Becky, you have to help us figure this out. Chris did not kill my daughter.”
“I know he didn’t, he couldn’t have, he loved her.” Becky said. She had her hands clasped in front of her on the table. She kept looking at Daphne and then glancing back down at her hands.
The Ghost Maker Page 16