by Bobbi Holmes
“Did he say why he came back now? What’s the point now that she’s dead?”
“To visit her grave.” Danielle glanced over to the chief. “You think it’s just a coincidence he showed up when Stoddard was murdered?”
“Probably.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in coincidences.”
When MacDonald didn’t reply, Danielle said, “You know what else he said?”
“What?”
“He told me Karen wasn’t buried in the grave next to Isabella’s.”
“Oh really? And where is she buried? Wait…I know, the Marlow Crypt.”
Danielle rolled her eyes. “Funny.”
“So tell me then, where is she buried?”
Danielle watched MacDonald’s expression, waiting for a reaction. “My guess would be nowhere.”
“Nowhere?”
“According to Will, Karen isn’t dead.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chief MacDonald pulled the police car in front of the Gusarov Estate and parked. Turning off the ignition, he faced Danielle.
“What do you mean she isn’t dead?”
“That’s just what he said.” Danielle shrugged.
“Did you ask him to explain what he meant?”
“He sort of caught me by surprise. It was when we were at the cemetery.”
“Why were you at the cemetery?”
“I wanted to see whose graves he was putting flowers on.”
“And did you?”
“Yeah, Isabella’s. But he didn’t put any on Karen’s, and when I asked him why he said because she wasn’t there, she was still alive.”
“And you just walked away after he said that?”
“No. Actually, he walked away. I was kind of speechless. But then I figured I’d quiz him about it when we got back to Marlow House.”
“So what happened?”
“You.” Danielle smiled.
“Me?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.” MacDonald sighed. He opened the door and got out of the car. “When we’re done here, I’d like to find out what Wayne meant.”
“Fine, but you have to let me talk to him. I don’t want you coming into Marlow House and interrogating him.” Danielle got out of the car and slammed the door.
“No Danielle, I’m going to talk to him.”
Danielle opened the car door and climbed back in. Sitting on the passenger seat, she slammed the door shut.
“What are you doing?” MacDonald asked.
Stubbornly folding her arms across her chest she said, “I told you about Will because I thought you should know. But I really don’t want him to think I went tattling to you the first chance I got. If you don’t let me talk to Will—without you—then you can talk to Darlene without me.”
Shaking his head, he walked to her side of the car and opened the door. “Fine, you talk to him. Just let me know what he says. But if I’ve good reason to believe he’s in someway involved in Stoddard or Darlene’s murder, deal’s off.”
“Fair enough.” Danielle stepped from the car.
Together they made their way up the walkway to the massive front door. The mansion looked more industrial than residential in design, a sterile blending of metal and glass.
“I wonder what’s going to happen to this monstrosity now?” Danielle asked.
“I suppose that’s up to Darlene’s heirs.”
“Which is probably KS Trust, whoever they are,” Danielle murmured.
MacDonald stopped walking and looked at Danielle. “What do you know of KS Trust?”
Stopping in her tracks, Danielle looked back at the chief. “Nothing really, just that Stoddard made a stipulation in his will that should Darlene ever be unfaithful during their marriage, his estate would go to KS Trust. And considering what you told me, looks like that’s going to happen.”
“I know about KS Trust, but how do you?”
“Ian got us copies of the will. So what is KS Trust?”
“We’re still looking into that.”
They started walking again.
“I asked Marie if she ever heard of it before. She hadn’t but she noted KS were Karen Strickland’s initials.”
The moment the words left Danielle’s mouth she and MacDonald froze. They faced each other.
“Is it possible? Was Will serious when he said Karen was still alive?” Danielle asked.
“I think we need to see what you can find here and then get back to Marlow House so I can talk to Will Wayne.”
“I thought you were going to let me do that,” Danielle grumbled.
“Sorry, bet’s off.”
“Fine,” Danielle said with a sigh and started walking toward the front door again.
“You mean you’re still going to do this for me?”
“Yeah, why not. But if I help Brian, before you let him go, you have to first let me visit him in lock up so I can laugh at him.”
“Sounds fair.”
When they reached the front porch, MacDonald paused again and faced Danielle. “Before we go in, there’s more you need to know, so if you do see Darlene, you can ask for her side of the story.”
“If she’ll tell me. But sure, go on.”
MacDonald took a few minutes filling Danielle in on the facts of the case. When he was done, he unlocked the front door.
“The alarm wasn’t on?” Danielle asked.
“It wasn’t on when we came over earlier.” MacDonald opened the door.
“You have a key? Did you have to call a locksmith?” Danielle walked through the doorway ahead of MacDonald.
“No. When Chuck Christiansen came into the office he told me he had a key to the estate, offered to give it to me,” MacDonald told her as he shut the door behind them.
It was still daylight outside. With all the high windows and skylights in the mansion, it wasn’t necessary to turn on the interior lights. Danielle had been in the mansion before—back when Stoddard held Lily upstairs, telling the world the comatose girl was his niece, Isabella.
Danielle walked through the entry to the living room. The moment she stepped onto the carpet from the tile floor, she heard it: muffled sobs. Turning toward the sound she found Darlene curled up on the sofa, her arms wrapped around her legs as she cried.
“Oh crap,” Danielle groaned.
“What is it?” MacDonald asked, glancing around the room. He didn’t see anything out of the ordinarily.
Darleen stopped crying. She looked up from her place on the sofa and sniffled. Instead of standing up or saying anything, she silently watched Danielle and the police chief walk into the room.
“Darlene. She’s on the couch,” Danielle explained.
Darlene sat up straight and put her feet on the floor. “You can see me?”
“Yes. But the chief can’t.”
“Why can you see me, and no one else can?” she asked. “Sargent Morelli was here with some other cops, they just came right in. Didn’t even ring the bell. They went through my things. They all ignored me! It was so frustrating!”
“They went through your things because they found your Ford Flex. Looks just like mine, imagine that.”
Darlene pulled her feet back on the sofa and scooted back, retreating into the cushions.
“You killed your husband, didn’t you?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. Please leave my house.” Darlene wrapped her arms around her legs again.
“And you tried to frame me.” Danielle sat on a chair facing Darlene.
“Don’t go into that now,” the chief said. “Find out who murdered Darlene.”
Darlene’s head snapped up. She stared at the chief. “What’s he talking about?”
Letting out a weary sigh, Danielle looked over to MacDonald. “Please don’t say anything else. Leave us alone. Go.” Danielle pointed to the hallway.
“But…”
“I’m serious Chief, trust me.”
“I’ll go in the kitchen and wait,” he grumbled,
leaving the room.
“When you’re in the kitchen pour me a glass of wine!” Darlene called out. “I think a glass of wine will help.”
“He can’t hear you.”
“Why? I don’t understand.”
“Why do you think?” Danielle asked.
“I didn’t write that letter,” Darlene said.
“What letter?”
“That disgusting letter Sargent Morelli was reading on my computer. I don’t even know how to type.”
“What do you mean you don’t type?”
“Just that. If I wanted to write a letter, I’d use a pen and paper. I don’t even have a printer hooked up to my computer, so why would I use it to write a letter?”
“Email the letter to Brian?” Danielle suggested.
“Who sends emails? It’s faster to call or text.”
“Do you have an email account?” Danielle asked.
“Of course. I need one when I shop online. But I don’t use it to send people letters.”
“Did Brian have anything to do with Stoddard’s murder?” Danielle asked.
“Brian? Are you serious?” Darlene laughed. “Hardly.”
“But you killed him, didn’t you?”
“I told you I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Darlene, why do you think no one can see you, except for me?”
“I don’t know.” Darlene shifted nervously on the sofa.
“Did you go up to Pilgrim’s Point today?”
Darlene looked up. “How did you know?”
“Why did you go up there?”
“Someone asked me to meet him.” Darlene looked away from Danielle. She tapped her feet nervously.
“Who?”
“I can’t say.”
“Could you at least tell me: was it his idea to meet you up there, or yours?”
Darlene shrugged. “His. I didn’t want to go up there.”
“So you didn’t send Brian a text message, asking him to meet you at Pilgrim’s Point?”
Darlene jerked her head around to look at Danielle. “Of course not. I don’t do text messages.”
“Just a minute ago you said you’d send a text message instead of an email.”
“So? Just meant, if I had to do one or the other, I would choose to send a text. It doesn’t mean I’m going to start text messaging people.”
“So you didn’t send Brian a text message, asking him to meet you?”
“Didn’t I just say that?” Darlene snapped.
“I’m curious about something. I know your husband really told Brian I shot him.”
“I was there, remember?”
“What I can’t figure out is, how did you pull that one off?”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it,” Darlene said stubbornly.
“They found the braid and ski mask the shooter wore. I know the shooter wore a ski mask, Stoddard told me.”
Darlene narrowed her eyes. “You talked to Todd? How?”
“He was convinced the person in the ski mask, wearing the fake braid, was me. How is that possible? How did you find someone who sounded just like me? It couldn’t have been you; your husband would have recognized your voice.”
Darlene began to laugh. “Todd always underestimated me! He didn’t appreciate my talent!”
“I don’t understand. Explain it to me.”
“I’m an actress.”
“Actress?”
“Well, I could have been. My drama teacher said I was the most talented student he ever had. Impersonating voices always came easy to me. I suppose I could have done something with my talent, but then I married Todd and I thought, why bother? I didn’t need to work anymore. No more tedious casting calls. I liked being married to Todd.”
“Then why did he have to die?”
“I didn’t want to go to jail over Lily. It’s not like we were the ones who hurt her. We were paying her medical bills; she should have been grateful.”
“I still don’t understand why your husband had to die. Just days before the murder he went to the police station and swore out an affidavit that he was solely responsible for kidnapping Lily, that you weren’t involved. They weren’t going to charge you with anything.”
“And what would have happened when Todd realized I wasn’t pregnant? He would have been furious! He would have blamed everything on me!”
“So that’s why you told him you were pregnant?”
“It’s what he wanted to hear. He died happy.”
Danielle didn’t know how to respond to that, so she changed the subject.
“Those photographs Joe found today, of you and Brian…”
“I knew I should have destroyed those!” Darlene groaned.
“They didn’t look like something you took.” While Danielle hadn’t actually seen the photographs, MacDonald had described them.
“Of course not, do you actually think we’d take pictures like that?”
“Then who took them?”
Darleen stared at Danielle a moment before answering. “I suppose there’s no reason to keep it a secret now. After all, Sargent Morelli already took the pictures with him. Anyway, it would serve them right.”
“Serve who right?”
“Earthbound Spirits. They were blackmailing me.”
“Earthbound Spirits?” Danielle repeated. Then she remembered. “Isabella’s will. You knew it wasn’t a fake!”
“Of course I knew. But it was either lie about Isabella’s will, or risk losing everything. But it looks like everything will now be going to KS Trust anyway. If only Morelli hadn’t found those pictures!”
“Darlene, what’s KS Trust?”
“I have no idea,” Darlene said before disappearing.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Danielle sat with MacDonald in the police car outside of the Gusarov Estate. The sun was starting to set.
“She didn’t say who she met at Pilgrim’s Point?” the chief asked. He hadn’t yet turned on the engine.
“Just that it wasn’t Brian, but it was a he, and whoever he was, it was his idea to meet up there, not hers. She confirmed she was the shooter, yet I suspect she didn’t do it alone. And I bet whoever pushed her off that cliff was her accomplice.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.” He studied Danielle’s profile as she looked out the window. “Why did you make me leave the room?”
“Because Darlene is in that hazy period between life and death. Part of her realizes she’s no longer alive, yet she hasn’t embraced the fact she’s dead. I didn’t want to upset her.”
“Sounded to me you were already asking questions that could upset her.”
“No, it’s different. A spirit might be reluctant to admit certain things, yet they seem to innately know confessing to a crime isn’t going to get them into deeper trouble. After all, they’re already dead. However, this doesn’t mean they’ve actually accepted their death or acknowledged it. I know that sounds a little contradictory, but that’s how it is.”
“Yes, it is contradictory. If she already knows confession won’t get her in deeper trouble because she’s dead, how can she not recognize the fact she’s dead? It doesn’t make sense.”
Danielle laughed. “Whoever said death made sense? Once a spirit is forced to face his new state, I never know how he or she is going to respond. Cheryl threw a tantrum and cried for hours when it was her time. Walt, he was pretty mellow about it, yet he’d had almost a century to get used to the idea.”
“So all we really know… it wasn’t Brian. Did she give you anything that might clear him?”
“A couple things, but I’m not sure how it will help. According to Darlene, she didn’t write the letter Joe found on her computer. In fact, she insists she doesn’t type. I imagine you might be able to somewhat confirm that by checking out her computer. The same with the text message—she claims she never sends text messages. Oh, and a biggie. She was being blackmailed by Earthbound Spirits.”
“What?”
; “Yep. Those racy pictures Joe found were blackmail pictures sent to Darlene. It’s what got her to lie about Stoddard forging that will. She figured it was better to lose Isabella’s portion of the estate than all of it.”
“That really does not surprise me. I suspected it might be something like that. Let’s head back to your place so I can have a little chat with Will Wayne. See what he knows about KS Trust—the one entity who’ll definitely benefit from this turn of events. Even if Darlene had her own will drawn up, leaving her estate to someone other than KS Trust, those photographs Joe found today would nullify her beneficiary in favor of the trust.”
On the way back to her house, Danielle told MacDonald everything she could recall from her conversation with Darlene’s spirit. When they drove up to Marlow House, Danielle noticed Stoddard hovering by the windows on the second story. He hadn’t yet noticed she’d pulled up in the police car. She imagined once he did, he’d swoop down and continue with his tedious taunts.
“Do me a favor,” Danielle asked before getting from the car.
“What’s that?”
“Let’s not discuss any of this, especially the fact that Darlene is dead, when we’re outside Marlow House. I don’t want Stoddard getting more upset than he already is.”
“Wouldn’t he already know she’s dead?”
“No. Not unless their spirits bumped into each other. Take Walt for example, he’s been stuck at Marlow House for almost a century while his wife is down at the cemetery. Those two haven’t seen each other. And while Angela seems to have an idea of what is going on with Walt, I suspect that’s because she interacts more with other spirits at the cemetery.”
“I won’t say anything.”
The moment they stepped onto the walkway leading to the front door, Stoddard was at their side. He appeared even more agitated than normal, which concerned Danielle, who felt the agitation energized his obsession. It might result in his ability to harness his energy in the same way Walt had. If that was the case, she worried Stoddard would then be bound to the perimeter of Marlow House, making him a permanent and potentially dangerous entity. She had never worried about spirits hurting her before. However, she had never encountered one quite like Stoddard.
Sadie met Danielle and MacDonald in the hallway and followed them to the library, where Lily was alone with Walt. Perhaps Lily and Walt could not hold a conversation during Lily’s wakeful hours, that didn’t mean they couldn’t play chess. Lily sat at a small table facing what appeared to be an empty chair.
