Darcy Sweet Mystery Box 1

by K. J. Emrick

  “You should go home and rest,” Jon said to her. He came around the desk and held out his hand. When she took it he pulled her in for a quick hug and then risked a kiss on her forehead. She didn’t know what was going to happen between them, but he was right to keep it private, for now. At least in public.

  Back at her house Darcy found she couldn’t sleep even though she was exhausted. She was sitting at her table trying to read a book, tapping her foot rhythmically against the table leg. She was so jittery and couldn’t settle her mind. She kept reading the same sentence over and over.

  She could feel Smudge looking at her. “I can’t help it,” she said to him. “We’re just going to have to wait.”

  Finally, she tossed her book down on the table. She sighed loudly. What to do? She got up and went to the phone, punching in the number for the police station. Jon answered on the second ring. It hadn’t been all that long, but in spite of how she had told Smudge to be patient, she had to know if anything had happened.

  When he said hello she jumped right into it. She was too agitated for pleasantries. “How’s it going?”

  “Well, hello to you too,” Jon said with a hint of laughter in his voice. “I’ve got nothing new, Darcy. Helen just keeps saying she doesn’t know anything. Oh, I have to go. The mayor just arrived and I need to explain what’s happening. I’ll see you later, okay?”

  “Hmm. I’d like that. Bye.” She hung up the phone, surprised at herself for being so forward with him. She had finally accepted that not only was there something going on between them, but she wanted there to be something.

  Smudge meowed and went to the door. He started scratching at it, wanting to get out. “You know what? That’s a great idea. It won’t do either of us any good to just sit around waiting for something to happen.”

  Darcy grabbed her coat and pulled it on. Then she and Smudge slipped out into the foggy night.

  Chapter 21

  When she left her house Darcy didn’t really have a destination in mind but soon she found herself heading towards Helen’s house. It was one of the larger houses in town, a sprawling two story white mansion at the end of one of the side streets. She made it there quicker than she had expected. All the lights were off and she was certain that Helen’s husband, the mayor, would still be at the police station. She wasn’t even sure why she was here, except that she still didn’t feel right about what had happened to Helen.

  She tried the door but it was locked. She went round to the back of the house and found one of the windows opened just a bit. With a bit of leverage, she managed to get through with nothing more serious than a scrape to her left wrist. She had been in the house a few times before to visit Helen and knew her way around pretty well.

  She headed for Helen and Steve’s bedroom first, turning lights on and off as she needed. She wasn’t certain what she was looking for. Tapping into her sixth sense and extending it out she tried to let it guide her. It didn’t help. She still didn’t feel anything.

  She continued to walk through the house, looking for anything that was out of place. She went into the study and looked over Helen’s desk. It was very neat. Everything tidy and in place.

  Then she walked over to the mayor’s desk, a huge oak thing that looked like it belonged in a room much bigger and grander than this one. His was much messier than Helen’s. She pawed through some of the papers on top of the desk but couldn’t see anything that shouldn’t have been there. She opened up one of the drawers. Inside it she found a plain manila envelope. It was filled with cash, a passport and a ticket to Paris.

  She didn’t need her sixth sense to know this was out of place. Why would Steve Nelson, mayor of Misty Hollow and by all accounts a stand-up kind of guy, have money and the means to get out of town stashed in a drawer of his desk?

  She moved the pieces around in her head. Everything was there, she felt. The picture was fuzzy, but the edges of what she knew started to line up and fall into place…

  Then it hit her. The man in her dreams. Jeff circling figures in the financial statements. Helen saying they needed money. Even Steve being so nervous on the day of the festival when Anna was killed. It was the mayor! She realized that Helen’s book had belonged to Anna, but Helen wasn’t the one that had taken it from her. Steve had.

  Oh, dear God, she thought to herself. She’d made a terrible mistake. She raced out of the room, knowing she had to get to Jon, but as she stepped into the living room she heard the front door close and someone walk into the house.

  Darcy slid to a halt on the carpeted floor and took precious seconds to right herself before she tiptoed back into the office with the desks hoping to avoid detection. It was only then that she realized she had left the light on in that room. Retreating further into the house, she hugged the wall in the hallway that led from the bedroom.

  She could just see Steve as he entered the office. She didn’t know what to do now. Run? Hide? She felt frozen with terror. In her panic to get away she backed up into the corner of a table. Whirling, hoping Steve hadn’t heard the muted sound, she tried desperately to keep the box of tissues and picture frames from falling to the floor.

  Steve appeared at the end of the hallway, flipping on the light switch. “Darcy?” He sounded confused. “What are you doing here?”

  “I, uh, hi Steve. Hi. I, um, I was looking for Helen.”

  She hardly had the words out before Steve said, “Helen is at the police station. You know that. You’re the reason she got arrested, after all.”

  “I uh… I uh…” Darcy had no idea what to say. The thought crossed her mind that if she was going to continue getting into trouble like this then she needed to learn how to sneak in and out of people’s homes better. She needed to get out of here, away from Steve. Fear gripped her heart. This man had killed two people.

  She needed to get away from him.

  “Wait here,” Steve said. He stepped out of the hallway and back into the office and Darcy knew she had to take this chance if she wanted to stay alive. She ran for the back room and its open window but before she had hardly moved Steve grabbed her by the arm. He threw her to the floor and towered over her. He held a gun in his hand. “You have always been trouble Darcy,” he said with a cold smile, “always meddling in things that don’t concern you.”

  “You’re the one who killed Anna and Jeff.” She raised an arm defensively and pushed her way backward along the hallway. “I think that concerns me.”

  Steve shook his head and said, “You don’t understand. I had to do it. What choice did I have?” He took a step toward her as she continued to scoot away. “I’m not going to justify myself to you, though. I’ve got no reason to talk to a dead woman. Goodbye, Darcy.”

  She was sure the loud noise that echoed through the house then was the gun going off but she found herself still miraculously alive as Steve looked up and away from her in surprise.

  It was the front door breaking in, she realized. Suddenly she could hear Jon’s voice as he burst into the hallway, followed by Smudge the cat, who landed protectively beside Darcy. His fur was on end with his back arched up and his teeth bared as he hissed menacingly at Steve.

  Jon reacted quickly to the situation and tackled Steve. In mere seconds he had Steve disarmed and in cuffs. It was over. Just like that.

  Smudge spit one last time and then settled himself, pushing his face into Darcy’s. “I’m okay, boy,” she said as she patted the cat. “I take it I have you to thank for my rescue?”

  “No, actually I think you have me to thank for that,” Jon said. Smudge mewled at him and looked away as if to argue the point. When he knew that Steve was subdued, Jon picked her up off the floor and pulled her into his arms, hugging her to him tightly. “Are you alright?”

  She nodded into his shoulder. “How did you know I was here?”

  Jon smiled. “Smudge came and got me. He wouldn’t leave me alone until I followed him.” Jon kissed her quickly. “I have to take care of Steve right now. Follow me out of h
ere, okay?”

  She waited for him to pick Steve up and, holding him by his shirt and his bound hands, walk him out of the house. “Steve Nelson you are under arrest for the murder of Anna Louis and Jeff Thomas…” Darcy picked Smudge up and held him in her arms as she followed Jon.

  The picture was almost complete. She was just happy she hadn’t ended up as part of it herself.

  At the police station Jon released Helen. What should have been a happy moment for her was colored black, though. “I had no idea about any of this, Darcy. You have to believe me. Steve and I have been leading almost separate lives lately.”

  Jon, Darcy, and Grace sat around Grace’s desk with Helen and listened to the woman tell her story. “He was acting so strange the night Anna was killed.” Darcy remembered that Helen had said that once before. At the time, she had thought that Helen meant after he found out about Anna’s death.

  Grace said, “Steve has admitted to Anna and Jeff’s murders but not the attack on Darcy. He won’t talk about his motive, either. Anything you can tell us about that, Helen?”

  Helen shook her head as tears fell. “No. I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t know him at all.”

  Jon turned to Darcy and she felt safe when she looked into his eyes. He was looking at her so protectively and he said, “I want to make sure that you’re not in any more danger.”

  Grace cleared her throat and looked pointedly at Jon. “I’ll look into the town’s financial statements,” she said, “and talk to Mark from the bank to see if we can find the mayor’s motive within that.”

  “So,” Darcy ventured, “am I forgiven for suspecting Aaron?”

  Grace rolled her eyes. “You were wrong about him. There was a perfectly innocent reason that his name was on those papers and I already knew about it. We’ve cleared his name. You really should check your facts before you have an innocent man arrested. Just go home, Sis. I think we’ve all had enough excitement in our lives recently.”

  Chapter 22

  Jon walked Darcy home. “That’s odd,” she said. “It’s still so foggy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Darcy laughed and said, “It always seems to be foggy when there’s trouble. I just figured with everything over, it would clear away.”

  She expected Jon to laugh along with her but instead he looked serious and upset. “Hey. What’s wrong?” she asked him.

  He stopped at the steps leading up to her porch and turned to face her. “I almost lost you, again. Do you make a habit of putting yourself into danger like this? That was damned foolish what you did tonight.” He paused for a moment and she braced herself for what might come next. “I have very strong feelings for you, Darcy. I couldn’t stand to lose you.”

  Her heart rate skipped a beat with his confession. “You won’t have to,” she said, and then she stepped up onto the first step of the porch to put herself even with him, and kissed him. His lips were soft and warm and she felt the electricity course through her at his touch. They pulled apart and she grabbed his hand to lead him into the house. She knew, now, that this was something she wanted.

  The phone started ringing as her hand rested on the doorknob.

  She swore under her breath as Jon pulled her back. “We should just ignore it.”

  “We can’t just ignore it, Jon. What if it’s Grace with news?” She looked around at the tendrils of fog in the moonlight. “What if it’s something else that’s happened?”

  She left him on the porch and went in to grab the phone before the machine could pick it up. Grace was on the other end.

  “Darcy, is Jon with you?”

  She looked over to see Jon stepping slowly inside and mouthed to him that it was Grace. “Yes, he’s right here.”

  “Listen to me,” her sister said, her tone serious and rushed, “I went to Mark’s house to talk to him but his wife said that he was at the bank. So I went there and there was smoke coming out of one of the windows.”

  “What?” Darcy couldn’t believe this. Would this never end?

  “It was Jess, believe it or not. I know I’m having trouble believing it. She’d knocked Mark unconscious and she was trying to burn the bank’s records.”

  “Is Mark okay?” Darcy asked her, all the while praying there hadn’t been another murder.

  “Yes, he’s fine. Tell Jon to meet me down here, okay?”

  “We’ll be right there,” Darcy told her.

  Back at the police station Jess was sitting at Jon’s desk in handcuffs. “I’m innocent. I didn’t kill anyone, it’s all just a misunderstanding.”

  Jess was dishevelled, her red hair loose around her face, her dark blue dress torn at one shoulder. Obviously she’d been in a struggle of some kind.

  Darcy walked over and sat in the chair next to her at Jon’s desk. “Stop talking and just listen to me.” When she was sure she had Jess’s attention she continued. “Are you having an affair with the mayor, with Steve?”

  Jess was silent for so long that Darcy thought maybe she wouldn’t answer. Finally, though, she nodded.

  Darcy pressed her lips together. There was the final piece, put in its place. She guessed the gossip around town had finally gotten something right.

  Grace was shocked. “How did you know, Darcy?”

  Darcy turned to face her sister. “Jess came into the bookstore and bought a book on how to speak French. I found a ticket to Paris in the mayor’s desk. I’m betting that they were going to run away together.” She turned back to Jess who was sitting with a blank expression on her face, just staring out of the window. It was like she was shutting down. Her dream had fallen to ashes.

  Darcy shook her head and looked back at Grace. “We know that the mayor has been taking money from the town. You know Sue, who works for me? Well she’s been commenting recently on how expensive Jess’s clothes and shoes are, way more than she should be able to afford. I’m guessing that the mayor has been showering her with expensive gifts. That’s why he needed the money. To afford his affair.”

  “If you cooperate,” Jon said to Jess, “things will be easier for you. You may not even have to go to trial.” When she didn’t answer right away he added, “He killed two people, Jess. That’s not a man to lie for.”

  Jess seemed to think that over for a few minutes and then she nodded. “We weren’t running away together, Steve and I, we were just going on a trip. Steve would never leave his wife. That was something I was okay with.”

  Darcy would never understand that. She hoped she’d never have to be in the position that Jess had put herself in. “You were the one who broke into my house, weren’t you Jess? It wasn’t the killer. Steve wouldn’t have been scared off so easily.”

  Jess looked at her with wide, sad eyes. “I overheard you at the party saying that you were close to solving the case. I didn’t want you to find out that the murderer was Steve. I just wanted to scare you off.”

  “So you knew what Steve had done.” Darcy didn’t say it as a question.

  Slumping into her chair, Jess nodded miserably.

  It made sense to Darcy. “You’re not a killer, Jess. I know that. But you can’t be okay with what happened. Where did you get the gun that you used to scare me?”

  Jess couldn’t look at her as she said, “It was just a toy gun, totally harmless.”

  Darcy shook her head. “Why did you try to burn down the bank?”

  “I wasn’t trying to burn down the bank.” Jess said. Her voice had gotten so quiet. “I just meant to burn the financial records in a trash can, but it got out of control.”

  Jon nodded to Grace as he jotted down the last of his notes from what Jess had said. Then Grace led Jess back out to the holding cells. The woman didn’t even try to resist.

  Darcy turned to Jon, sitting at his desk, tapping his pen against the paper like he did. “I want to talk to Steve,” she said.

  “That’s not a good idea,” Jon argued. “Thank you, for helping us with Jess. But like you said, she’s not a killer. Steve is.�
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  “I know. But I need to talk to him. You have to trust me one more time, Jon.”

  She could tell he didn’t like it. He didn’t have to like it, Darcy figured. She didn’t like it herself, but she had to do this. Finally, Jon threw his hands up in the air and led her to the holding cell where Steve was sitting with his head in his hands. Grace stood nearby. She nodded silent encouragement to Darcy.

  When Steve saw Darcy he leaned back against the cell wall. “Hi, Darcy. I’m, um, sorry. I guess.”

  “You’re sorry?” Jon said, his voice rising. Darcy held up a hand to hold him off.

  Darcy spoke directly to Steve. “They arrested Jess. She told us everything. We know that you and she were having an affair.” Steve was quiet. He looked like a broken man. “So we know everything, Steve. But there’s still one thing I can’t figure out, and I need to hear it from you. Why did you kill Anna in the first place?”

  Steve started to cry then. Heavy tears ran down his face and he tried in vain to blink them away. “I never wanted to hurt anyone. Certainly not Anna. She had come to the house that afternoon to see Helen before going to the festival but Helen wasn't there. Instead she walked in on Jess and me together. We were… well it was obvious what we were doing. I never had a chance to explain because she just fled the moment she saw us.”

  He sniffed loudly and swiped a hand across his eyes. “It would have ruined me. Everything would have come out then. The affair, the money I’d stolen, everything. I went to her house after the ceremony to try and talk to her. I brought money with me to encourage Anna to stay silent. At first we just talked, but when Anna made it clear that she was going to tell my wife everything, I got upset.”

  They waited for the rest of it. Now that he’d started talking, he couldn’t stop. Getting up, he began to pace the length of the cell getting more agitated as he spoke. “I just meant to scare her, but Anna fought back and it got out of control. The gun was Anna’s. She grabbed it when she felt threatened. It made such a tiny noise when it went off…”