by Gun Brooke
Someone cleared their voice gently. “I understand that kissing induces endorphins, but I think Ms. Flynn needs a bit more of the real deal.”
Glancing up at the tall nurse, Darcy had to smile. “Yes, please.”
“You’ll feel better in a moment, darling.” Sabrina kissed Darcy again.
“Keep that up and I’ll be ready for anything.”
“Hey, no fancy stunts now,” the nurse said. “Don’t think I haven’t heard what you pulled off yesterday. Both of you.” She regarded the two of them with a pensive look on her face. “Though I think I can persuade the doctor on call that it’s medically a good idea if the two of you share this room. That way, Ms. Hawk won’t have to sleep in a chair against medical advice—again.”
“Could you do that?” Darcy relaxed into the mattress and pillows. “That’d be great.”
“I can see just mentioning it helped you. Let me work my magic and we’ll see, okay?” The nurse nodded at them and left the room.
“I don’t want to be away from you. If they don’t bring my bed, I’ll still sleep in this chair.” Sabrina was clearly adamant.
“I think the nurse will fix it.”
Darcy had faith, and she turned out to be right. Soon, two other nurses rolled in another bed and placed it next to Darcy’s.
As they lay there together, hand in hand, Darcy knew, sore as she was, she had never been more content. From the serene look on Sabrina’s face as she drifted off to sleep, neither had she.
Chapter Twenty-three
Eryn Goddard, the editor-in-chief at the local East Quay newspaper, carried a plate stacked with pastries into the hospital room, and only moments later, Meghan, just off the clock, joined them with thermoses full of coffee and tea. Sabrina moved her laptop away from the table and handed Darcy the remote for the bed so she could sit up.
“Looks like chocolate-chip cookies, darling.” Sabrina winked at Darcy, who after three days had regained the color in her cheeks. “And a change of scenery with the company.”
“Ah. You know just how to tempt me, Eryn.” Darcy lit up and grabbed a cookie before Eryn had a chance to put it on the table.
“God, you’re like a child,” Meghan said, snickering. “I swear, your progress from age five has moved very slowly when it comes to certain things like manners.”
Darcy stuck her tongue out at her cousin before she bit into the cookie.
Detective Lomax appeared in the doorway. “Am I intruding?”
Sabrina had to stop herself from acting like her old self, especially since she found Lomax to be one of the better cops she’d met. “Not at all. Come in. What can we do for you, Detective?”
“Nadine, please.” Stepping inside, Lomax stood by the foot of Darcy’s bed. “I’m glad to see you doing so much better, Darcy.”
“Thank you.” Darcy didn’t offer any more comments but regarded Nadine with a slight frown.
“I wanted to come by to see you and Sabrina…to update you in person about the latest development. You deserve to hear it from me before it hits the news.” She glanced at Eryn. “As you are here in the capacity of a friend, I assume, Ms. Goddard, I want to stress that this is off the record unless Darcy and Sabrina state otherwise. All right?”
“Sure.” Eryn poured coffee for herself and Meghan and then tea for Sabrina and Darcy. “Coffee or tea, Detective?” It was obvious that Eryn and Nadine wouldn’t continue on a first-name basis.
“Coffee, please. Thank you.”
“Take a seat, Nadine,” Sabrina said.
Pulling up one of the foldable chairs stacked against the wall, Nadine cleared her throat. “First, we’re working on building a solid case toward D’Angelo and Ivers. The pathologist has matched the faint, but obvious scar on Mark’s hand with your dental records, Sabrina. That’s one more nail in the coffin when it comes to the assault charges. As for Charles Ivers, I’m not sure if it’s his head injury that has made him more forthcoming, but he’s said some things on record that he could only know if he’d been part of the trio that attacked you fifteen years ago. As there is no statute of limitation for sexual assault in Rhode Island, he’s been charged with that—as has Mark D’Angelo. Something tells me you aren’t their only casualty, Sabrina. When guys this violent finally get caught, other victims tend to come out of the woodwork. I think the same will happen here when we start interviewing colleagues and former students from their high school and college.”
Lomax sipped her coffee. “As for Mark D’Angelo, his doting grandparents, Carla and Bruno Constanzo, are shocked and devastated to learn about Mark embezzling millions from their private funds. Once we dug into their records it became obvious to the forensic economist what you would have found when you started doing their taxes, Sabrina. We think Mark intended to replace the money with the company funds now that he is, or was, the president of their restaurant chain. Apparently, Mark meant to substitute the millions he stole from his grandparents with money he intended to instead embezzle from the seafood chain he’d just taken over. Talk about putting out fire with kerosene.”
“Then why stalk Sabrina and risk being found out that way?” Darcy held her tea mug close to her chest.
Nadine nodded. “I know. The trick was to coerce Sabrina to give up the documents his grandparents had begun sharing when they chose her to do their taxes and manage their money, or, as they attempted, to force her to erase them from her system. He hasn’t admitted it yet, but he probably thought he’d struck gold when he learned he could kill two birds with one stone if he got rid of Sabrina altogether. Since his scar was the only thing that tied him to the assault against you, he wanted you gone.”
“Are these guys complete idiots?” Eryn bit into a cookie and chewed it energetically. “If they’d killed Sabrina after having her erase stuff about his grandparents on her system, that would’ve been a bright-red flag when the Constanzos eventually found out. A clear motive.” She shook her head, her long, red braid jumping off her shoulder.
“Right. Not the brightest of moves, especially since Sabrina is still alive and can testify against them, and the doctors here, Darcy’s testimony, and the crime-scene investigators will back her up. They’re both going down on kidnapping charges. As it is very clear to the DA they planned this for quite a while, life without parole is on the table. Then there’s the serious matter of Charles shooting Emerson and Logan.”
Sabrina moved from her chair by the table to Darcy and sat down on the side of her bed. Darcy leaned against her shoulder. “The sick part was how they stalked you, even before this. I’m sure they got off on it somehow, the twisted little fuckers.” Darcy rubbed her cheek against Sabrina’s arm.
“Which brings me to a more unforeseen matter.” Nadine sipped her coffee. Placing the mug back on the table, she squared her shoulders. “It regards you, Darcy.”
“Me?”
Sabrina felt Darcy tense up and gently slid her arm around her and pulled her closer.
“Yes. As I mentioned, Charles Ivers became a good deal more loose-lipped as he was dealing with a concussion. His brother Steve was at first adamant that Charles was an innocent bystander in your kidnapping, Sabrina, that Charles had no idea what Mark’s intentions were. Steve insisted on hanging around the station, and that way he learned more and more how deeply involved in this his brother is, that he nearly killed the two bodyguards and fired at Sabrina, who was saved by a dog. Learning about this, he switched moods, became angry and volatile. When we were taking Charles back to his cell after questioning him, Steve flew across the bullpen, charging right toward his brother.”
“Shit. Really?” Darcy gripped the side of the blanket over her legs hard.
“He started shouting at Charles, saying how he’d disgraced the Ivers family and him as a cop in particular, and how he’d enjoy watching him go down, and so on. Apparently, he knew about Charles getting into the money somehow, but not any of the details. He even disclosed what a good marksman Charles is and that it had to be him who shot
Sabrina’s bodyguards. That, along with the hunting rifle we found in their van parked behind the beach house, is pretty damning evidence.” Nadine smiled maliciously. “I bet Steve Ivers hadn’t counted on Charles retaliating. Or he was angry and humiliated standing there among his peers, enough to not think clearly. At least ten cops present in the bullpen overheard Charles growling at his younger brother about how he had the audacity to say all that to him when Steve wasn’t much better.”
“What?” Sabrina kept caressing the tense muscles of Darcy’s shoulders. “What did he mean?”
“Charles stated, very loudly, that Steve had set you up when it came to the boardwalk shooting.”
Darcy gasped, and Sabrina could hardly believe what Nadine was saying.
“He what?” Darcy whispered.
“I was about to take Steve in for questioning, but can you believe it? Ivers’s current partner, Taylor, was right there, yanking Steve along by the collar and dragging him into interrogation room two. He slammed him down on the chair and cuffed him to the table before I even got a word out.” Lomax regarded Darcy with obvious regret. “I chose to have Taylor with me there when I interrogated your former partner. As it turned out, he seemed to know he had reached the end of the line, in a sense. Very subdued and, I would say, remorseful, almost, Steve told the true story of what happened that night.”
“Am I ready to hear this?” Darcy said, shaking all over. “I’ve lived with contempt hurled at me from all directions for so long. If it wasn’t for Meghan and her family, I would have left East Quay a long time ago.” She clung to Sabrina, looking up at her. “You…think I can?”
“I think you really need to hear this,” Lomax said firmly. “What’s the last thing you remember before your concussion?”
“Uhm…” Darcy dried her eyes. “We were up on the top of the beach, right below the smaller dunes. Tons of kids were having a beach party, but not very well organized at that point. Drunk kids wandered in all directions, and some of them were doing other drugs for sure. There were rumors of knives being wielded. Then we heard some of the kids were hiding under the boardwalk to try to escape the cops. Ivers and I ran down there. I pulled my weapon out as the screaming under there seemed to come from all directions. I could see barely one yard, perhaps two, in front of me before I turned on my flashlight. After that, I can’t remember anything until I woke up.”
“Here’s Steve’s new and improved recollection.” Lomax leaned forward, resting her arms on the surface of the table. “You first went down the stairs and in under the boardwalk. Steve was right behind you. He says you both heard loud voices farther in underneath, and you both drew your weapons and flashlights. Steve claims it was misty and dark around the columns, and it was hard to see where you were going despite the flashlights. After a few moments, Steve was certain he saw several people approach through the mist and darkness and raised his weapon. You were ahead of him to the left, and he meant to nudge you out of the way so he had a clear shot when he stumbled and fell into you.”
“Oh, God.” Darcy drew shallow, trembling breaths. “Go on.”
“You fell, and he heard your head hit the foundation of one of the columns. The voices came closer, and he meant to raise his gun again, but it was gone. He’d dropped it and couldn’t see it anywhere. Panicked now, he found you lying unconscious in the sand, still holding your weapon. Steve took it and raised it together with his flashlight to where the sound was coming from. The next thing he knew, a shadowy figure ran between the columns toward him. He realized he should identify himself as a policeman and give the person a chance to stop and back off, but he was so afraid, he raised his gun and fired, hit one of the columns, fired again, and hit the young man, who fell back into the sand, bleeding. Steve rushed forward and saw, not only was this college kid not armed, but he was in fact naked.”
“Sabrina?” Darcy moaned and hid her face against her. “This can’t be happening.”
“Shh. Go on, Nadine. I’ve got her.” Sabrina held Darcy tight and tried to absorb her stress.
“So now he had a wounded young man, unarmed and naked, and Steve was a rookie with only eight months on the force as your partner under his belt.” Pausing, Lomax sighed. “But he’s more resourceful than you’d think at first glance. He decided to blame you for the bad shooting, but of course he was aware of the issue with gunshot residue. Since you both wore latex gloves after going through some kids’ pockets, he decided to switch gloves with you. That way you’d end up with the GSR and he’d be pristine. It only took him a moment to switch with you, and then he called in the shooting and began taking care of the injured young man, ‘saving his life.’” Lomax made a face of disgust. “His only worry was if the boy had seen who shot him, but as it was so dark down there and he had shone the flashlight at the kid, he didn’t think it would pose a problem. And it didn’t—except for you.”
Meghan gaped at Lomax. “How could he possibly know Darcy wouldn’t remember?”
“He didn’t. He was prepared to make Darcy sound more concussed than she was by simply stating his false facts and maintaining that she must indeed have partial amnesia. At this point, Forensics supported his claims. You had a rep for being quite intense, Darcy, and the ones among your peers who envied your popularity among the brass were all too ready to take what Steve said at face value.”
“Me too,” Darcy said. She freed herself from Sabrina’s embrace but kept holding her hands. “I mean, I believed him.” Her voice was hollow, and the tightness around her eyes made Sabrina want to drive down to the police station and go after Steve Ivers with a baseball bat. Darcy trembled, and tears ran down her cheeks. “Three years. Three fucking years I believed I destroyed a young kid’s life. So many people hated me, but most of all, I hated myself. When the boy went on the local TV news and said he forgave me after we settled out of court, I couldn’t show myself for months. If it hadn’t been for Meghan, I would’ve given up at that point…despite the way I kept questioning why I’d thrown away five years of experience when I couldn’t remember being the least bit nervous or afraid. I’d faced worse and never had the inclination to shoot first and ask later.”
“Is there any evidence to corroborate Ivers’s confession so he won’t take it back?” Sabrina asked, stroking Darcy’s ponytail.
Lomax began to smile, and Sabrina realized the detective had saved the best for last. “The evidence box was preserved, of course, and Taylor, Ivers’s current partner, made me promise to get it and not let it out of my sight until Forensics could get their hands on it. It was good to see how he changed his outlook on his partner. I wouldn’t be surprised if he shows up at one point to apologize. He’s not a bad guy at all, but he is younger than Steve and impressed by his ‘heroic’ past.” Lomax made exaggerated quotation marks in the air and then took another sip of her coffee. “So I did. I got the box and handed it over to the guys in the lab. They retested everything, and as the big deal was the gloves, both yours and Steve’s, I asked them to pay extra attention to them. I had their boss on the phone already after a few hours. They managed to isolate fingerprints on the inside of the gloves—two of yours in both gloves, and four of Steve Ivers’s fingerprints and partial palmprints of his in the glove with gun residue. The rest of the prints were smudged, but there was enough for her to tell me what had gone down.”
“And?” Eryn bit her lip and patted Meghan’s hand as Darcy’s cousin cried silently.
“What this means is, both Darcy and Steve wore each set of latex gloves. Only the one found on Darcy had the GSR. Logically, the only explanation is that Steve speaks the truth. He shot at the boy with Darcy’s gun, switched gloves, and placed the gun back in her hand before he pretended to be the hero and stopped the kid’s bleeding.”
“But it was my gun…” Darcy stuttered and shook so badly, Sabrina became worried about her stitches coming out. “The ballistics confirmed it was my gun. The residue was on my gloves. Everyone said…” She glanced at Meghan, who smiled even if he
r tears also flowed freely. “Almost everyone said I was the one to blame. I couldn’t believe it, but intellectually I did—I trusted the evidence.”
“What else could you do, darling?” Sabrina held Darcy and rocked her gently to not aggravate her stitches. “That’s what you’re trained to do as a police officer. Follow the clues and trust the forensics. Even I know that.”
Lomax sighed. “The biggest mistake was to fully trust the rookie instead of the seasoned cop. And my predecessor should have tested the inside of the gloves—which I think we all assumed he did.”
“Wow.” Darcy wiped at her tears with the blanket. “Lomax. Thank you.”
“Nadine. Please.” Even Lomax’s eyes were shiny with tears. “I can’t say how sorry I am that this didn’t come to pass three years ago. You didn’t deserve this. I think this’ll teach everyone at the station something. Actually, all of East Quay. I can imagine there will be a lot to deal with in the aftermath, legally speaking. The poor guy will have to sue again—the right person this time.”
“Oh, God. Poor thing. Hasn’t he suffered enough?” Darcy sighed and leaned farther into Sabrina.
“Something tells me he’ll have help from a lot of people at the station and a few others. East Quay will rally behind him again.”
“Darcy and I’ll be among them,” Sabrina said and kissed the top of Darcy’s head.
“Count me in,” Meghan said.
“And my paper.” Eryn smiled. “If I can write about it?”
“As soon as we have all our ducks lined up and ready to quack.” Lomax returned their smiles.
“How are you feeling?” Sabrina knew she had asked that question too many times the last few days, but she couldn’t help herself. Darcy’s wellbeing was paramount.
“Numb. Relieved. Afraid. Nervous. Shaken.”
