by K. J. Emrick
In the back of the store they heard something shift. A stack of books, falling to the side, maybe. That would be Millie, asking if she was forgiven yet.
Not yet, Darcy thought to herself. Soon. Maybe.
Just not yet.
“Okay, so we’ve got the whole message.” Jon looked over her shoulder at the page. “That’s great, but we never even saw this Deseret book that our suspect took with him. How are we going to translate this?”
“Jon. This is the digital age. If I want to translate something I pull up a Google search on my computer.”
“Oh.” He sounded embarrassed not to think of that himself. “Right.”
“So this is the message.” She drew two slanting lines, carefully placing them at the start and end of one segment of the repeated message. “Let’s hop on the internet and find out what Millie was trying to tell us.”
“We probably should have stayed at the library to do this,” Jon said, looking out the front glass windows of the shop where the sky was beginning to brighten. “Or gone to bed and caught some sleep first.”
She stood up, wrapping herself around him, laying her head against his neck. “Getting tired, old man?”
“I came to a small town to have a quiet career,” he reminded her. “Maybe find a lost dog or two. Break up some neighbor disputes. I figured it would be a great place to retire, grow a flower garden, and watch my children grow. You’ll have to excuse me if I feel a little tired after running from one mystery to the next with you.”
Darcy knew what he meant, and knew he wasn’t really complaining. Jon was the type of man who enjoyed being in the middle of the action. “You knew what you were getting into when you married me, Mister Tinker.”
“And I did it anyway, Mrs. Tinker.” He held her tighter, stroking her back with the palm of his hand. “I love you, Darcy.”
“I love you, too, Mister Sweet,” she said, teasing him about their unofficial name change. “So…you wanted a nice quiet place to raise your children, did you?”
“Hmm? Oh. Yeah, well, sure. I never said I didn’t want kids.”
“You never wanted to talk about it,” she reminded him. “Change your mind?”
His warm breath caressed the side of her neck. “Maybe so. We should definitely talk about it.”
“After we decode Millie’s message?”
“It’s a date.”
Smudge meowed at them, short and questioning.
“Don’t worry,” Darcy said to him. “You’ll always be my first baby.”
He dropped his head back down on his paws, a smug expression on his face as if to say, That’s right I will. Nobody better forget it.
The thought of having children of her own with Jon was an exciting one. She had tried to bring it up with him, several times, only to have him say it wasn’t time yet, not now, when we’re ready. Darcy felt ready. They were married now, after all. How did the old rhyme go? First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes your own little human being to love and care for.
It was something like that.
As much as she wanted to sit down with him now and plan out the rest of their lives and figure out how they could easily afford one or two kids and maybe even a third—not that she hadn’t given this a lot of thought—right now they had to keep investigating this mystery. They had the next clue. It was time to see where it would lead them.
The computer at the checkout counter could access the bookstore’s wireless network, SweetReading. WiFI had been as big a draw for customers as the downloadable e-book section had. Right now she just needed it to do a Google search.
The alphabet of the Deseret language wasn’t hard to find. It was easy enough to understand, too. It just took some time to do the translating.
“Each letter represents a sound,” Darcy explained to Jon as she worked. “So, it’s kind of like reading hieroglyphics, I guess. There’s forty characters, each with its own sound. Look. This one is a short e, this one is a long e. That sort of thing.”
“Okay. Not sure why the Latter Day Saints needed their own alphabet but as a code I think it works fine.”
“There have been lots of alternative alphabets created over the years. George Bernard Shaw actually left a provision in his will to fund the creation of a phonetic alphabet. That was in the 1950s. Esperanto has its own alphabet, too. The Mormons were setting out to create their own society, separate from everyone else. It’s not that far-fetched for them to have their own alphabet.”
He looked at her from across the sales counter in a way that almost made her blush. “What?” she asked him.
“I love you.”
“For my mind, right?”
“Well, the rest of you, too.”
Now she was sure she was blushing. To cover for the heat rising in her cheeks she concentrated on her notepad and the translation of her aunt’s message.
“So what’s it say?” Jon asked her after a few minutes.
“Hold on. It isn’t as easy as I made it sound. A few of these letters look almost identical. The one for the long a sound and then the one for a hard b. The ones for b and v are very close, too. I think I’m getting it, just be patient.”
She scratched out a word she had just written and tried again, sure it was right this time. It was kind of like using one of those decoder rings from a cereal box. With only a few more goofs, she had the whole message translated.
Reading it to herself, Darcy tapped the pen against the page, and then read it again. “Huh.”
“What?” Jon asked her. “What is it?”
“I’m not sure.” She picked up the notepad and handed it to him. “See for yourself.”
Jon read it through, his eyebrows scrunching up as he did. “You’re sure about this?”
“Yes. Feel free to double check me, but that’s how it translates.”
He read it one more time before dropping the pad back on the counter. “Well I guess we shouldn’t have expected any part of this mystery to be easy. For a woman who passed on a decade ago Millie sure does like to hold onto her secrets, doesn’t she?”
A book went sailing past Jon’s head, in a slow arc, before it landed on the floor and slid to a stop against the wall.
“Well, it’s true, Millie,” Darcy called into the book stacks, defending Jon’s choice of words. “You could have told me this part in the dream. You could tell me what it really means right now if you wanted. I know you think you’re protecting me but you’re not. I’m a big girl now. I can take care of myself.”
Millie didn’t answer. No more books came sailing, nothing fell off the shelves. Everything was quiet.
“I’ll try talking to her again later,” Darcy offered. “Maybe I’ll get lucky and she’ll show up in my dream again. Or I could always try a communication.”
Darcy really didn’t want to do that. A communication forced a spirit to come talk to you. Sometimes it wasn’t very pleasant for the ghost. It was always exhausting for Darcy, although she had gotten better at it with more practice. Still, the thought of dragging her aunt into the in between space that existed on the edge of life and death, and then forcing her to talk…it wouldn’t feel right.
And either way she would only get so much information. Ghosts told you what they needed to tell you. Not always what you wanted to hear. If the lines of communication between the living and the spirit worlds were easy to understand, everyone would be doing it.
So for now, they were left with one more cryptic message. Jon read it out loud from the notepad.
“Laid to rest for safekeeping, with the little girl left sleeping.
Stolen stars worth more than stone, better off left all alone.”
They both stood there, thinking it through, puzzling out what the lines could mean, until they heard the front door open.
“Oh. Hi, Darcy.” It was Izzy, in a pair of khaki slacks and a white button-up blouse, dressed for work. “I didn’t think you’d be in today. Not after…oh hey! You got Smudge back!”
She went over and got right down with the cat, rubbing Smudge’s belly and scratching under his chin, pushing her long blonde hair back with her other hand. Darcy checked her watch against the clock on the wall. Just before seven. Izzy was here to open up the shop and get things ready for the day. Hadn’t they decided to keep the place closed today? No. She remembered now. It was something she had told herself she needed to do, one of several hundred things that fell through the cracks as events unfolded last night.
“Yes, he’s back,” Darcy said, unable to keep the smile off her face. “Safe and sound.”
“Did you catch the guy?” Izzy asked her as she kept rubbing Smudge all over, giving the appreciative cat all the attention he could stand.
“We didn’t catch him. Yet,” Jon said, in a way that managed to politely convey how they couldn’t answer any more questions. “Darcy, I need to go down to the police station and check in with my guy delivering the evidence to the State Police crime lab.”
The blood, he meant. Darcy understood he couldn’t say it in front of Izzy even if she was a friend. Right now, the friends they could trust would be few until they knew who their bad guy was. Who he was, and possibly who his accomplice was. Millie had definitely been writing about a guy in her journal, but could they be right? Could there be more than one bad guy?
Could one of them be a woman?
Grace had heard a noise behind her, while she was watching the library. How could she have heard a noise behind her unless someone else was there to cause a distraction for the guy in the library?
Well. They’d have the blood back from the lab in a day or so, if they were lucky. Then they’d know.
In the meantime, it would be hard for her to look at her neighbors the same way.
“Do you want me to drop you off at home?” Jon asked Darcy. “They’re keeping Grace until noon, at least, and Aaron’s already there. He can bring her back home. We really don’t have anything else to do. Except go home and rest.”
“No, thanks. I think I should stay here today.”
She stretched, and yawned. Bed sounded so nice to her right now. Sleep, and something to eat. She had to tell Ellen everything that had happened, too, not to mention apologize for the way she had acted earlier. She wasn’t looking forward to that. She had to call her mom and let her know what they had found out about Millie’s death, too, which was something she was looking forward to even less…
Izzy came over to give her a hug. “Darcy, I can take care of the store today. Lilly’s in school until later and I asked her to get off the bus at your house so Ellen could watch her for me. I’m all set here. You should go home.”
Another yawn caught her. She hated dropping all of this on Izzy. Her daughter, Lilly, would have a blast playing with Ellen’s son Connor for the afternoon, but still. “Maybe you guys are right. You’re sure you can watch the store all alone today?”
“Really?” Izzy asked, her voice touched with sarcasm.
Darcy laughed and hugged her again. “Like I have to ask. All right, you guys win. Let’s go home, Smudge.”
“I’ll drive you,” Jon said. “I won’t be at the office for long and then I’ll come home, too. I could use a few hours of sleep myself.”
That was when her stomach growled, and Darcy suddenly couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten anything. She had a vague memory of a pretzel bun from Helen’s bakery.
“Actually, you know what?” she said. “I think I’d like to get some breakfast first. Can I meet you at home later?”
He put his lips close to her ear and whispered, “I’ll be waiting for you in bed when you get there.”
Darcy saw the little smile on Izzy’s face and knew she’d heard what Jon had said even though he’d tried to say it quietly. Kissing Jon’s cheek, she whispered something back to him that made Izzy’s eyes pop as she turned away.
He kissed her gently and then went to scoop up Smudge. “Come on, Misty Hollow Cat Detective. You can stay with me for now.”
Smudge wriggled but didn’t try to get away from Jon. He wanted friendly human company right now just as much as Jon and Darcy wanted to keep him safe.
After Jon was gone, Darcy thanked Izzy for watching the store once again and stepped out into the morning sunshine. Misty Hollow was just waking up. People she knew were opening their shops on Main Street. Some of them waved and said hello to her, while tourists’ window shopped and strolled slowly along the sidewalks. Darcy waved back and exchanged greetings and tried her best not to see secrets and lies behind smiling, friendly faces.
Helen’s bakery had started opening up at six in the morning to catch the morning crowd on their way to work. Coffee and one of her muffins was a morning staple for half the town.
Today, just after seven in the morning, the door was closed and the lights were off.
Darcy stood in front of the window, trying to see inside. Maybe she could walk over to Clara Barstow’s La Di Da Deli and get something there. Or she could just go home. There was instant coffee there, but it just wasn’t the same.
Now she regretted not taking that ride from Jon. As she was turning away, still undecided, she saw Helen pop her head up from behind the display case and wave to her. Darcy raised her hand to say hello, glad to see at least one truly friendly face.
Helen rushed to the front door to open it up for Darcy, although she kept the sign in the window turned to show CLOSED. “I’m not ready to serve yet, Darcy, but you’re always welcome. Come in, come in.”
“Where’s all your help?” Darcy asked. The chairs were still up on the tables around the café, and the lights back in the kitchen were off.
“Oh, Elizabeth called in this morning. Said she was sick.” Helen went back behind the counter, pouring steaming coffee from a fresh pot into an extra-large Styrofoam cup. “So it’s just me today. I’ve got the coffee going and a batch of bread and muffins baking in the oven, but it’s going to be hard to get through the day like this. I might just have to close up early to go do my mayor duties.”
She put a lid on the cup and handed it over to Darcy. “I heard a good rumor. Smudge is back and he’s safe?”
Darcy took a moment to get a handle on her suspicions. Helen was the mayor. Of course she knew about Smudge being returned. Right. “Yes. We were so happy to see his furry little face. It’s too bad the suspect got away.”
“Any idea who it is?” Helen asked.
“Not yet.” Hopefully soon, Darcy thought. She went on to explain how Grace had been hurt, but she was in the hospital and would be fine. Taking a few dollars out of her pocket she went to pay for the coffee.
Helen held a hand up as Darcy offered the money. “No, no. Today it’s on the house. You’ve got Smudge back, Grace will be out of the hospital soon, and I’ve got some very good news of my own.”
She smiled like a little girl and actually clasped her hands together. Darcy put the coffee down on the edge of the counter. She hadn’t seen Helen this excited in a while. “Tell me,” she said, catching her friend’s mood. “What’s the news?”
Helen held her hands out closer, until Darcy saw the slim diamond engagement ring on her hand. A silver band, with a shimmering black stone in the setting.
“Helen, that’s beautiful! Is that a black diamond? Oh, wow. Alan finally popped the question?”
“Can you believe it?” Helen gushed. “I’ve been waiting and waiting. I knew it was going to come I just didn’t know when. Oh, I love him so much. We’re going to be Mister and Mrs. Alan Lansky! I can hardly believe it. After my first husband, you know…went to prison, I just wasn’t sure that I’d ever find anyone again. At my age! But here he is, and here’s this ring, and I just can’t help but feel so happy!”
Darcy met Helen halfway around the counter and they hugged and laughed and talked about how wonderful it was. Darcy was genuinely happy for her friend. In the midst of everything that was going wrong, she was so glad that she could be happy for one of her friends.
“He asked me las
t night,” Helen told her, “after I came home from checking on you at the store. It was such a nice night that I stayed out for a long walk. I can’t even remember what time it was when I got back but when I did, there he was, on his one knee, holding up this beautiful ring and asking me to be his wife. I couldn’t have asked for a more romantic setting.”
Darcy remembered when Jon and she had finally set the date for their wedding. She’d been in the back of an ambulance. Romance meant different things to different people, she supposed.
Love, on the other hand, was universal.
Outside again, she smiled a genuine, heartfelt smile. She drank her coffee. It was strong and black, probably not the best thing to be drinking at the moment if she planned on going home to get some sleep but at this point she really doubted anything short of a marching band parading through her bedroom would keep her awake. Maybe not even that. Even the whispered promises her and Jon had made back in the bookstore about what they would do when they met up again at the house would have to wait. She had a date to snuggle with her bed.
The enormous cup of coffee was half gone before Darcy realized what Helen had just said. Maybe it was the caffeine kicking her brain into gear but suddenly little facts all connected together and Darcy saw it.
She’d been right all along. Someone in Helen’s café had heard her talking about the beehive journal yesterday. That’s what had started all of this. Not Roland Baskin. Someone else had been in the café.
Elizabeth Archer had been there as well, and she would have heard everything Darcy said about the book.
Today, the morning after Smudge had attacked his kidnapper to get away, Elizabeth Archer hadn’t come into work.
Elizabeth Archer had been to Darcy’s house several times, and she was one of the many friends who knew where the spare key was kept.
These facts, all lined up together, pointed to a new suspect.
Darcy turned back to look up the street, at the café. There was one other fact she had to consider. In her journal, Millie said a man wanted to hurt her. But she and Jon had already decided there might have been an accomplice. The whole setup in the library almost certainly needed two people.
