Death Comes Home

by K. J. Emrick

  Which was what really bothered her.

  If Jon was still alive, how could she have seen his ghost in their kitchen? Why had she been able to reach out to him with her first communication? And, why had the second communication failed so abruptly?

  The whole talking-to-ghosts thing had proven to be much more of a gift than a curse, even if it hadn’t seemed that way when she was a teenager hiding the fact that she could see dead people. She had come to learn the amazing things her gift could let her do.

  But, no matter how much she might want it to, her gift could not let her communicate across long distances with people who were still alive. If Jon was still alive, which he was, then how had she seen his spirit?

  Piece by piece, she put the mystery together. Her mind puzzled it through until the answer came to her. It was obvious, once she figured it out.

  She was pacing back and forth in the waiting room of the hospital. Jon had been brought straight into the emergency room, and she was waiting to hear anything at all from the doctors. Eight steps up, eight steps back she paced while Ellen watched her, and that was when the final piece fell into place and she knew the answer.

  There was a simple reason why she had seen Jon’s ghost earlier today.

  Because Jon had died. For however briefly, he had passed over from this side to the other, and then he’d come back.

  Darcy had always known that such things were possible. There were countless stories out there, books and movies too, about people who had gone through near-death experiences. People undergoing operations who had looked down at their own bodies from the ceiling of the operating room and then woken up the next day to find they were still alive. People who had seen a long tunnel and a light at the end, or heard loved ones calling to them and saying it wasn’t their time yet. Go back, it’s not your time.

  It hadn’t been Jon’s time yet.

  But it had been very, very close.

  In fact, Darcy was willing to bet that Jon had brushed up against the other side more than once. At least twice. Once, when he had appeared to her and Colby at the kitchen table and then suddenly disappeared. A second time, when she had reached out to him with her communication and he had given her the clue that led her to him. Then, the next time she’d tried to reach him with a communication, in the Brick Road Casino, he hadn’t been there because he’d come back to the land of the living.

  Darcy dropped down in a hard green plastic chair in the waiting area and tried to suppress a shiver. At least twenty-four hours. Jon had been out in the elements by his car for at least a whole day, maybe more. If she and Ellen hadn’t found him when they did, if they’d been just a few minutes later than they were, would Jon have had the strength to come back a third time?

  Thankfully, she would never have to find out.

  “Wilson says he’s on the way,” Ellen said as she ended her phone call and put her cell phone back into the hip pocket of her jeans. “Somehow, he didn’t seem too happy to hear the news coming from me. I don’t think he’s quite as forgiving about my new job as you are.”

  No doubt, Darcy thought. “Thanks for making that call, Ellen.”

  “Are you ever going to start carrying a cell phone?”

  “Uh, no.” She stared off at the door marked “EMERGENCY” at the other end of the waiting room, past the registration desks behind their privacy dividers. “I just wish someone would come out and tell me what’s going on.”

  “He’s fine,” Ellen promised her, again. “We got to him in time. Actually, you got to him in time, I should say. Jon doesn’t know how lucky he is to have you.”

  “Yes he does. And if he doesn’t, I plan on reminding him every single day for the rest of his life so he doesn’t go and get himself hurt like this ever again.” A lump had formed in her throat, making it hard to breathe. “I just wish someone would come out and tell us something.”

  “It would help if we knew someone who worked here,” Ellen said.

  Which was true, Darcy knew. If they had been in St. John Camilus Hospital in Meadowood they could have found a friendly face and maybe gotten some information. Everyone there knew Jon Tinker, if they didn’t also know Darcy Sweet. That hospital was nearly six hours away from where Jon’s car had been found, though, and there was no way to justify driving him all the way there even if it would have been closer to home for him.

  This was the hospital in Coopersville, the closest hospital to the casino nightlife in Wellingford, and even so it had been a half hour’s drive to get here. Once the State Police had released them from the scene, Ellen had driven them here, too.

  Brown and cream colored wallpaper should have made the waiting area of the hospital lobby a more peaceful place. The paintings of sunsets and flowers should have set anyone’s mind at ease. Every time Darcy looked up, the receptionist at the front desk was smiling, and that should have made her feel better, too.

  It didn’t matter. She couldn’t relax. Not until she knew what was going on with Jon.

  “Someone should call Grace,” Ellen suggested.

  Darcy nodded. That had been one of her first thoughts after Jon had been safely tucked inside the ambulance, still unconscious, but somewhere between that moment and this one she’d forgotten all about letting anyone else know that Jon was all right. If Ellen hadn’t suggested they make a call to Wilson directly, just to make sure the State Police let the Misty Hollow PD know what had happened, Darcy wouldn’t have remembered to do that, either. In a lot of ways, she was more anxious now than when she had first thought Jon was dead.

  Some of the mystery was solved. Some of it remained.

  She held her hand out to Ellen. “I’ll call Grace. Jon’s mom, too. I don’t even know what anyone has told her.”

  As soon as Ellen placed the slim rectangle of the cell phone in Darcy’s hand, it rang. The number came up “unavailable.”

  Darcy shook her head, and touched the button on the screen to reject the call. Then she handed the phone back to Ellen. “Why don’t you make that call? I’ll talk to Grace if she wants me to.”

  It was possible that Ellen had gotten a call from a wrong number. On her unlisted, private cell phone. Right at the instant when she handed it to Darcy.

  There was another explanation, too, and Darcy had already had enough of ghosts for one day.

  Well, two days actually. Here it was three in the morning already, the day after Sean Fitzwallis had come to her door to say Grace had been in an accident.

  As Ellen looked up the number for the Meadowood Hospital on her screen, the door to the Emergency department opened. A tall man wearing gauzy blue scrubs and a hairnet of the same material came out and looked around at the few people sitting in the chairs. He focused his gaze on Darcy, and came over to her, rubbing at the back of his neck.

  Darcy stood up to meet him. Next to her, she heard Ellen talking into the phone. “Hold on, I think the doctor’s here now.”

  “Are you Darcy Tinker?” the man asked her, a tired smile easing the wrinkles around his eyes.

  Darcy didn’t correct her last name for her. Right now, she was Jon’s wife. That was all that mattered. “Yes I am. Is Jon all right?”

  “Can we sit?” he said, and motioned to the chair she had just left.

  She dropped like a stone. “Is it that bad? I thought—”

  “What?” He seemed confused as he sat next to her. “Oh. Oh, no, it’s nothing like that. I’m just tired. I’ve been on my feet for the last ten hours straight. I was about to go home, actually, when they came in with your husband. I stayed to examine him and patch him up. Uh, the short version is that I think he’s going to be okay.”

  Darcy found Ellen’s hand and squeezed it tightly.

  “There’s a bit more to it than that, however,” he added quickly. “Would you rather go into a private room to talk?”

  “Doctor, please,” Darcy told him, “I just want to know what’s going on. You can tell me here.”

  He nodded. “All right. I’m going to
bring you into his room after we talk but here’s what you should be prepared for. He has a bad concussion with some microfissures to the left side of his skull. We believe that’s consistent with the car accident, as is the broken left foot and the bruising you’re going to see on his arms and face. There’s a nasty seatbelt bruise along his chest, too. All of that will heal. We have his foot in a cast, and we put a bandage around his head for now. His ribs, too. Nothing broken there but they’re—”

  “Bruised,” Darcy guessed, wishing he would go faster.

  “Exactly. Bruised. He’s going to be in quite a bit of pain when he wakes up again.”

  “He can take it,” Darcy told him. “Jon is tough.”

  “So he is. Your husband is a very brave man, too. From what I understand he crawled out of the car after the accident. Hard to imagine. So, everything else looks fine. The X-rays and CAT scan showed no internal bleeding or serious injuries other than the bruises and breaks I mentioned before. He’s dehydrated, which is to be expected, and he suffered a bit of exposure. Do you know how long he was out there like that?”

  “A day. Maybe a bit longer.”

  The doctor nodded. “That fits with what we found. So. I imagine he’ll wake up in an hour or so, when the anesthesia wears off. We’ll know more when he does. After that, if everything checks out, we’ll release him to your care.”

  Darcy had never felt so relieved in all her life. “Thank you, doctor. Thank you so much.”

  “You’re welcome, Mrs. Tinker, but really I think he owes more to you and your friend than he does to us. I think you got to him just in time.”

  “Yes.” Darcy looked at Ellen, watching her repeat all this to Grace. “Thankfully, I was able to catch a ride.”

  “How did you know where to find him?” the doctor asked.

  Now how was she going to explain that? “I made a very good guess,” she decided to say.

  “Well. He’s lucky, either way. Come on. I’ll show you through to the room where your husband is.” He stood, and that faint smile came back. “I’d like to just bring you, if that’s all right? Your friend can wait here.”

  “It’s all right, Darcy,” Ellen told her before she could say anything herself. “I’m fine here. Got some other phone calls to make.”

  After the doctor led her to the room, he politely told her to come find him if she needed anything, and shut the door to give them privacy. Darcy appreciated that more than she could say. She needed a moment to herself, to take in what she was seeing.

  Jon was in the hospital bed with the head of the mattress raised up, the sheets folded down to his waist. Her husband. Her love. Alive, and still with her. His ribs were wrapped and taped. Lead wires monitoring his vitals were stuck to his chest above the wrapping and the doctor had been right about the very vivid seatbelt bruise. Stitches marked a small line over his left eye. An IV line had been inserted at the elbow of his right arm. Two bags hung on the pole next to his bed, but she didn’t even bother reading the names on the labels. They wouldn’t mean anything to her.

  She sank down into the padded chair close to his bed. Reaching through the plastic bars of the side rail she held his hand, gently, in her own. He was alive. Against impossible odds, here he was. Back with her.

  “Jon?” she whispered over the beeping of the monitors. “Can you hear me? Baby, it’s time to wake up now. Please? For me?”

  He took in a little breath, and let it go again, but he was still asleep.

  Darcy thought back over all the times she had woken up in the middle of the night to feel Jon there next to her, and just watched him sleep. Those were some of her best memories, as sappy as it sounded. So many memories with this man. Not all of them good, but all of them hers.

  She remembered when Smudge had first met Jon, and how jealous her cat was of the new man in her life. He had gotten used to having Darcy all to himself after Jeff, her now deceased first husband, had left her. It had taken some time for Smudge to let anyone else be a part of their family.

  She remembered the Christmas that Jon had given her a brand new copy of Meet Joe Black on DVD. She still had that movie. It was still her favorite of all time.

  There was the time up at Bear Ridge, walking around town and laughing together about how every business had a carved bear statue in the window, and how the restaurant tables were edged with running bear designs, and the doors of the mayor’s house had bears-head knockers.

  Their wedding, when she had been so anxious to be married that she said the “I do” before Pastor Hiller was even done reciting the vows. And then, their wedding night together. It had been at their house but she didn’t care. Jon had taken her to Australia not long after that, but nothing could compare with that first night when she knew she was Jon’s wife, and he was her husband, and they would be together forever.

  Clearing the tears out of her eyes, she looked at Jon again. He’d kept his promise to be with her forever. He’d reached out to her from the brink of death and given her the clues that led her right to him. When he woke up, she was going to make sure that he knew that it was worth it.

  “Jon,” she tried again, caressing the back of his hand with hers. If this was a fairy tale she’d just have to give him a kiss. Then he’d wake up and everything would be right again.

  Or close to it. They still needed to find out who had put him and Grace in the hospital. Two car accidents, one apparently almost right after the other, and the two out of the three people she loved most in the world were the victims. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

  Then there was Ferguson Gorsky’s fraud, the money that was stolen from him, and the connection between that and the casino. Not to mention finding out if any of that was connected to the car accidents. Was there something going on at the casino that got both Grace and Jon hurt?

  She didn’t know. She had dozens of questions, and no answers. She needed help. She needed Jon, and his razor sharp mind and his witty humor and his way of making her believe that everything was going to be all right.

  “Jon, please. Come back to me.”

  Then, even though she knew it wouldn’t make any difference, she leaned over the bedrail and gave him that gentle kiss on his lips anyway. Her mouth lingered there, breathing him in, and giving him her breath in return.

  When she leaned back again, his eyes were open.

  “Jon?” She took his hand in hers and held it up to her face. “Jon, you’re awake! Oh, yes. Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes! Jon, can you hear me? Can you understand me?”

  He groaned and Darcy stopped firing questions at him, realizing she was probably overwhelming him with her own emotions. As he stirred, rolling his head from side to side, Darcy brushed his hair back from his forehead and stroked her fingers against his cheek. She gave him a moment to fully wake up while she spoke soft words of encouragement. When his eyes focused on her she tried again, more slowly this time.

  “Jon, do you know where you are?”

  He licked his lips, closing and opening his eyes as he stared at the room around them. “Hospital,” he said weakly. “I’m in a hospital.”

  That simple answer filled her with more joy than she would have thought possible. “That’s right. You’re in the hospital. You know who you are?”

  The smile he gave her was lopsided, and a twinge of pain followed it. “Silly question. Next you’ll be asking me—” He paused for a breath. “Asking me who you are.”

  She lifted an eyebrow, a little needle of worry working itself through her veins. “You, uh, do know who I am, right?”

  His grip on her hand was weak. “Never forget you. You’re Darcy Sweet.”

  “Good to know,” she sighed in relief. “Jon, you were in an accident. Do you remember what happened?”

  He tried to sit up, but stopped when the pain proved to be too much. Laying back with an arm across his chest, he studied Darcy’s face. “An… accident? I don’t… I don’t remember…”

  Oh no, Darcy thought. “You were driving in your car, Jon.
It looked like you were run off the road.” Him and Grace both, but now wasn’t the time to tell him about Grace. He was under enough stress already. “Do you remember leaving the conference? Or, being out near the Brick Road Casino? Any of it?”

  Slowly, he shook his head.

  That sliver of fear came back to sting her again. “What’s the last thing you do remember?”

  “The conference,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “I was at the conference. And… and… uh. Can I get some water? Throat… really dry.”

  On the little wheeled table next to his bed there was an ugly yellow pitcher. When Darcy checked she found that it held ice water, even though the ice was mostly melted away. She poured some into a Styrofoam cup, and he drank it slowly, then asked for more.

  When he was done, his voice was a little stronger. “I don’t know, Darcy. I remember the conference. With Grace. After that… it’s all just fog and mist, you know what I mean?”

  She did. Maybe better than he realized. The mists had returned to their town, telling her trouble was coming their way. Trouble had found Jon. And Grace.

  Maybe it had found all of them, too.

  Jon shook his head again and lay back against the bed. “I don’t know. I can tell there’s something… I should be remembering but I can’t figure out what. I feel like… I’m just lucky to be alive…”

  His eyes closed, and Darcy could tell he was falling back toward sleep. She figured he needed it.

  Then she heard him whisper, soft and drowsy.

  “Remember seeing you, Sweet Baby. Saw you… told you… I’d be back before you knew it…”

  Then he really was asleep.

  Darcy stared at him in disbelief, remembering the words he had spoken to her in the communication, there in the in between space.