by K. J. Emrick
“We got the arrest warrant. It’s the weekend so he’s not working at the hardware store but he shouldn’t be too hard to find.” He shook his head. “We should have him under arrest soon.”
“Good. Hopefully that will give Marcia’s ghost the peace she needs.”
“So that she doesn’t come and terrorize our daughter again?”
Darcy tapped a finger against his shoulder. “I’ve been thinking about that. She appeared in the house again earlier—”
“What?” He sat up against the pillows, looking at her intently. “Where was she? Did she go near Colby?”
“No. No, it wasn’t like that. She was with Anthony.”
“Anthony was here? Oh, Darcy, you didn’t have to…”
She nodded. “Yes, I told him about his sister. I didn’t like being the bearer of that news but he deserved to know.”
“Yeah, he did. We were waiting…” He shrugged, and blew out a breath. “I guess there was no good reason for us to wait that long. I wanted to have all the information ready for him so that we could give him answers instead of more questions, but I guess just knowing that his sister was really gone might have been better. I’m sorry, Darcy. I didn’t mean to put you in the middle of that.”
“I get it, Jon. It’s just the way it worked out.”
“I know, but maybe if my work didn’t keep coming into this house… All right. So what did our ghost want this time? Tell me she didn’t go near the kids. You would have called me if she went near the kids again, right?”
"Of course I would have.” She wasn’t insulted by the question. She knew he was just being a protective father, but still. “And again, Jon, this isn’t your work bringing this here, it’s my gift. That’s why Marcia was here. She just came into the kitchen, and it was just me and Anthony there. She yelled at him and then showed me that wound on her belly again… and disappeared.”
He eased back down, his expression sour. “Somehow that doesn’t make it better in my mind. That ghost still has a lot of anger issues.”
“I know, but… I think if she was here to hurt our kids that would have been the perfect moment to do it, you know? I was downstairs and Colby was up here with Zane, and I wouldn’t have known anything was wrong until it was too late. I mean, Smudge would have told me something was going on, and Tiptoe would have too, but it wasn’t like I was going to get up the stairs in a hurry. So, yeah. I have to wonder now if she didn’t mean to hurt Colby at all. What if she was just trying to tell us something?”
“By creating a hurricane in Colby’s room?”
“I’m serious, Jon. I really think there’s something here we’re missing.” She wanted to say more, but a yawn took over and she had to put her hand up over her mouth or else give Jon a great view of her tonsils.
Rolling closer again, he kissed her forehead, and then popped up off the bed. “I’ve got to get back to the station. I just stopped by to let you know what’s going on and to grab my wallet. I was in such a rush to get out of here this morning I forgot it.”
“You mean you were too exhausted to remember it,” she teased, although with another yawn overtaking her she really wasn’t in a position to say anything.
“How about I make a deal with you. I’ll take Colby and Zane over to Aaron’s for the afternoon, and you can get some rest. Some real rest,” he added, “instead of a couple of hours here and there while you hobble around on that broken leg pretending to be Superwoman.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she tried to say.
“It’s no trouble. Aaron will love having our two at the apartment and it will give Colby a chance to hang out with Addison again. Besides, Grace is already at the station. This will make Aaron’s day. It’ll be good practice for him in case they do have another child.”
Darcy had finally let him in on the secret that Grace and Aaron wanted a second baby. She and Jon were both insanely happy for them. “Well, sure, but I can manage here.”
He smiled over at her and leaned an elbow against the doorframe. “You’re overworking yourself, Darcy. I know I married an amazing woman, but everyone has their limits. So. I’ll let you get some uninterrupted sleep now, and when I get home tonight you can do the same for me. Deal?”
With a dramatic sigh, she gave in. “Fine. You’ve got yourself a deal. I admit I’m trying to do too much. I am not now, nor have I ever been Superwoman. I’m just Darcy Sweet.”
“Good. This thing with Matt Courson should be all wrapped up in a couple of hours. Text me when you wake up and I’ll let you know what happened.” He blew her a kiss. “I’ll let you know if we hear from the coroner, too. Um. There’s still something else I want to talk to you about but it’s not important right now. Just get some rest, okay?”
He was gone before she could ask him what he meant, and then she heard him calling down to Colby and Zane to get their things together so they could go over to Uncle Aaron’s for a playdate with Addison. Colby cheered, and Zane babbled at his father so incessantly that there was no doubt he liked the idea, too.
She closed her eyes, listening to the house around her.
“Um, Mom?”
It was Colby who was standing in the bedroom doorway when she opened her eyes. She smiled at her, and reached out a hand for her to come over.
“It’s okay, Starshine,” Darcy told her as she pulled her daughter into a hug. “Your mother just needs to rest for a bit. I didn’t realize how tired I was.”
“I know,” was Colby’s quick response. “I can feel how tired you are.”
“Really?” Well, that was new. “Is it that obvious?”
Colby nodded her head. “Kind of feels like you’re a balloon, and you’re losing all your air, and you keep drooping closer and closer to the ground.”
Darcy couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Oh, so I’m an old wrinkly balloon, is that what your mother is to you?” She tickled Colby’s sides, and then they were both laughing. “Is that what I am? Just an old balloon losing all of its air like whoooosh…”
She breathed out all over Colby’s face, doing her best impersonation of a deflating balloon.
They laughed some more, and Colby hugged her mother tight. “Don’t worry. You’ll get your second wind. You just need to rest.”
“Thank you, sweetheart. You better hurry, now. Your dad needs to leave soon.”
“Yup. See you later, Mom!” Colby jumped up and raced for the door, and then stopped, and turned back. “Oh, and Mom? Watch out for the feathers, okay?”
“Colby, wait,” she said as her daughter was about to race away down the hall. “What does that mean? What feathers?”
Her little face screwed up tight as she thought about it. “I don’t know. I don’t always know what I mean when I say stuff. Is that… is that bad?”
Darcy didn’t laugh. She knew how serious the question was. Her daughter didn’t have a bad bone in her body, and she never wanted anything to make her feel differently. At the same time, she remembered how it had felt to come into her own powers, and wonder if maybe you were crazy, or evil, or if you were maybe going to wake up one day and just start screaming.
She didn’t want that for her daughter.
“It’s your gift,” she said, giving Colby the straightforward answers she’d never had until she came here to live with Great Aunt Millie. “Your gift can tell you things, sometimes, that you don’t understand. That’s because the gift doesn’t reside in your mind. It lives in your heart. Right here.”
She tapped the middle of her chest.
Colby did the same, and smiled brightly. She felt better knowing her mother understood.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“You’re welcome, Starshine.”
When Jon left with a final wave goodbye, Darcy settled back into the sheets, fluffing the pillow to make it more comfortable. Sleep was definitely what she needed. Once again, she was forced to admit that Jon was right. She should have accepted some help here at home until the cast came off.
Well. She could w
orry about that tomorrow. Right now, she just wanted to close her eyes, and sleep.
Chapter 9
Sleep, as it turned out, was not going to be easy to find.
She heard the phone ringing, but that didn’t make any sense because her cellphone was just a camera with some fancy games and apps loaded onto it. She could call 911 in a pinch but nobody could call her. So how was there a phone ringing in her room…
Oh, that’s right. Jon was nice enough to bring her the wireless handset from downstairs before he left, so that when anyone called she could get the phone.
She was going to have to remember to thank Jon for that oh-so-kind gesture. If she had a hammer she could just beat the thing to death. Truthfully, she just wanted to sleep.
Groggily, she fumbled the phone up from her nightstand and pressed the green button to connect the call, and then put it next to her ear on the pillow, closing her eyes again. “Hello?”
“Hello there, Darcy. It’s me again. Anthony. Sorry to bother you.”
Darcy made herself sit up, and focus. “Oh, hey Anthony. Um. Hi. I didn’t expect to hear from you again so soon. Did Jon call you?”
“No, Darcy. No one’s called to tell me anything. Lots of commotion around town, though. I think the police might have arrested Matt Courson. You haven’t heard anything?”
“Jon said he’d call. You’re still in Misty Hollow? Anthony you should go home. As soon as I know something you’ll be my very first call.”
“Actually, I was hoping I could come over to your house again?” He paused, like he was putting together his thoughts as he went. “I was rude when I left earlier and I kind of feel like I should apologize.”
“You were just give some pretty bad news. I think you took it better than I would have. No need to apologize.”
“That’s very kind of you,” he said. “Really. I still need to come over at some point. I found a form for your claim that you forgot to sign. We’ll need to get that taken care of before we can finish things up. Like you said, I’m still in town. Would you mind if I came over?”
“Er, sure you can. It’s the weekend though. Shouldn’t you be at home taking it easy? Especially considering what’s going on…”
She didn’t have to finish that thought. He knew what she meant.
“I’m trying to keep my mind off it, to tell the truth. Working helps. I thought you might let me bend your ear some more about Marcia, too. I guess I could just really use someone to talk to.”
Darcy tucked the phone up between her shoulder and neck as she used her hands to help swing her cast over the edge of the bed, followed by her other leg, so she could sit up. “I completely understand that. Come on over. I’ll put some tea on.”
“Some of that fine lemonade would be nice, actually. Thank you, Darcy. I have a feeling this is almost over. I don’t want to be alone when they find out why my sister was killed. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
She sighed again as she threw the handset down onto the bed, and accepted the fact that she just wasn’t going to get any sleep today.
On her way out of the room, she stared at the traitorous phone. She was really beginning to hate the thing. Still…
She grabbed it up and brought it with her.
Darcy made her way to the stairs. The baby gate at the bottom had been set aside for her—thank you Jon—which made it a lot easier getting down. Her leg was really beginning to ache now. She’d been using it way too much today and Jon was right, she needed some rest.
There was no rest for the living today. Maybe when she was a ghost like Great Aunt Millie she could finally find rest then.
When the kettle was whistling, she heard Anthony pulling into the driveway and a moment later he was knocking on the door. She could understand why he needed someone to talk to. He’d just suffered a loss. Well, the loss had happened three years ago, but it was happening now for Anthony. Probably, she shouldn’t have let him leave earlier. He’d already told her that he didn’t have any family left. She had no idea what he had for friends, either. Probably not very many if he was coming to her for an ear to bend or a shoulder to cry on.
Well, the least she could do was be there for him when they finally figured out why Matt Courson had killed Marcia.
“Come on in, Anthony.” She was just pouring him his lemonade. “Have a seat. I’ll have this for you in just a sec.”
“Oh, hey, let me help you with that.”
He put his file folder down on the dining table before taking the glass from her hand and the pitcher from the counter where she’d set it. He made sure to put it back in the fridge when he was done. “My sister used to make juice for us when we were kids. Lemonade, limeade, even orange juice from concentrate. You remember those cans of concentrated orange juice?”
“We had them in our freezer when I was a little girl, too.” She poured hot water into her cup from the kettle when it whistled and set a teabag into it before carefully carrying the cup to the table and sitting down with Anthony. She put her crutch up against the wall. “It sounds like you and your sister were very close.”
“We were.” He stared down at the table, turning his lemonade in his hands. “We shared all of our secrets. Everything. Of course, that was when she was younger. She got too old for her big brother after a while. No, she sure didn’t want to listen to me anymore. Maybe if she’d listened to me a little bit more, she’d still be alive. Guess I’ll never get the chance to make up for lost time now.”
Darcy put her tea down, and pushed it aside, and as she reached out to put her hand over his she decided that she would tell him. She would tell him that his sister Marcia’s ghost had been here. He could talk to her, if he wanted to, and say whatever needed to be said. Perhaps that was the closure that his sister was missing.
Of course, to do that Darcy would have to reveal her secret to him. Could she risk telling him that she could see ghosts?
She looked at the way he was grieving, and decided that yes, this time it would be okay. He needed to know that his sister was still here, and waiting for him to notice her. After all, she kept coming back to him year after year. It was him that she came to. Not her boyfriend. Not her coworkers. No one but her brother.
Just as she opened her mouth to say all of that, the phone rang.
“Do you need to get that?” Anthony asked her, nodding his head toward the phone handset that was on the table.
“No, it’s fine,” she said. “Let the machine pick it up.”
The phone rang again.
“You sure?” he asked her. “It could be Jon. He could have news on my sister.”
“If it’s Jon, I’ll answer it. If not there’s no one else I need to talk to right now. So. Let’s see this form I forgot to sign.”
Anthony shrugged. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
Darcy sighed. The moment where she could have told him about his sister had passed. If this was the closure that Marcia needed, it would have to wait until she could work up the nerve again.
He put the sheet of paper in front of her, and pointed to the empty space at the bottom. Sure enough, she’d somehow missed a signature line on this one. Oops. She moved things around on the table, looking for a pen as the phone kept ringing.
“Here,” he said, “use mine.”
“Thanks, Anthony. Listen…” She was just going to say it. I’ve seen your sister, she’s a ghost. She was just going to say it. “There’s something I think you should know.”
In the living room, the message machine clicked on, and she heard Jon’s voice. “Darcy, it’s me.”
Everything stopped as she and Anthony both waited for him to say more.
“We have Matt in custody… give me a call, will you? There’s more to it. I mean, there always is, but this time… I’m not sure what this means. Call me. Okay. Bye.”
“I better see what he wants,” Darcy said.
She was burning with curiosity, but this could be important to Anthony, too. She rolled the pen across the tabl
etop with the fingers of one hand, back and forth, as she picked up the phone with the other to dial the station. The design etched into the side of it caught her eye. An eagle soaring on an imaginary wind, its wings stretched out wide.
“I like your pen,” she told Anthony. “The detail is amazing.”
“Thanks. I’ve got two boxes of them out in the car. It was expensive to have them made up, but people seem to like it when I hand them out. My sister liked birds. I sort of had them done in her honor. That’s what that necklace was that she wore. It was some ancient Chinese symbol that was supposed to represent the eagle in flight, or some such thing.”
Interesting, Darcy thought. That necklace was another thing they would have to tell Anthony about.
The phone was ringing in her ear now, and it was just a few seconds later that Jon was answering. “Darcy, hey. Glad I caught you. I want you to know what’s going on before you see Anthony again.”
Darcy cast her eyes across the table, at Anthony sitting right there with her. “Uh-huh.”
“We’ve got Matt Courson here,” he told her, not catching on to the guarded tone in her voice. “He’s been in the interrogation room for over an hour now.”
“Has he said anything?”
Anthony sat up straighter. “Is that Jon?”
Darcy held up a finger to ask him to wait, and then put her hand back down on the pen. She rolled it back and forth, back and forth.
“No matter what we try,” Jon said, “Matt won’t admit to killing Marcia.”
Darcy pursed her lips, but she didn’t give up all hope. She knew it wasn’t uncommon for criminals to deny what they had done, right up to the moment they had no choice but to tell the truth.
She ran a finger up the pen. She could feel the outline of the eagle, and under the bird… something else.
“There’s one other thing,” Jon was telling her.
She looked down at the pen.
“Matt is saying that he didn’t get that necklace from Marcia.”
There was more than just a bird on the pen. Flying fast and free, the bird was leaving a trail behind itself, down the length of the shaft. Feathers.