Comes the Dark

by Celia Ashley

“They didn’t get anything from either station. The video camera was broken at one, but the clerk didn’t remember me there. He was shown a picture. He said ‘Her, I would remember,’ but he didn’t. I turned out my purse on the table in front of Jamie, went through every scrap of paper for the hundredth time. I even ripped the lining to look inside. The receipt’s not anywhere, Dan.”

  Dan yanked her close and held her. Water splashed onto his shirt, cutting cold through the fabric. “It’ll be all right.”

  “No, it won’t. Alva has an estate worth three million dollars, and I’m the sole beneficiary. Did you know that? Sufficient motive for murder. Monday, Jamie’s going to speak with the District Attorney. At least he gave me notice.”

  The corridor went red before Dan’s eyes. He used to think it was only an expression, “seeing red.” Perhaps it was due to blood vessels expanding. Or maybe it was envisioning blood being shed.

  “Let’s go for a ride along the coast. How’s that? Maris, look at me. A ride with the windows down. It’s a beautiful day. And after we get back, we’ll talk about things like getting you a lawyer.”

  * * * *

  A lawyer. She’d never needed an attorney for anything in her life. She had no idea how much a defense would cost, how broke she would end up in the process of unnecessarily proving her innocence. Maris leaned her head against the headrest, eyes closed against the glare of the sun through the window. Dan had gone into the drugstore on the main street for water for the trip. And chocolate, he’d said. Lots of chocolate.

  Hearing footsteps on the sidewalk, Maris peered out between her lashes. Not Dan. At the far end of the street, the sailors’ cross rose above the downward curve of the road, dark against the sky. People who looked at the cross and read the names of those they had known, family members going back generations, would feel a sense of connection, of history. She didn’t really possess that sense. Her roots hadn’t been ripped up and transplanted. They’d been cut off and left behind in the ground to wither and die.

  “Here you go.”

  Maris grabbed the plastic sack through the window and lowered it onto the floor between her feet. Peering at the contents, she removed a candy bar. “Want one?” she asked Dan as he slid behind the wheel.

  “In a bit.”

  Maris broke off pieces of the flat bar and placed them on her tongue to melt while Dan drove. He didn’t head straightaway to the coastal road, but took a side street out into the surrounding countryside, climbing hills flanked by scraggly pines and huge boulders. He said little, and Maris was content to leave it that way. After a few minutes, she folded the paper over the remainder of the candy bar and returned it to the drugstore bag.

  Dan pulled the car to the side of the road. “Look at that.”

  Maris followed his gaze to the view of gray sea and blue sky. Terns and gulls rode air currents flaring off the cliff face, while others perched on boulders like a dusting of snow. Pine resin and salt air filled the car. To the left in the distance, the lighthouse stood tall on a spit of rock, waves crashing below. Maris shivered.

  “Cold? We can shut the windows.”

  “Not cold. It’s fine. That’s a beautiful view.”

  “I come up here sometimes just to sit and watch the changing light over the water.”

  “Alone?”

  “Always.”

  “Until now?”

  “Until now.”

  The warmth of his gaze heated her skin. He smiled. Not the smile he threw around like business cards for the ladies he met, but one she’d noted he reserved for her. She didn’t deserve it. Not his affection, not his companionship, not his gratitude. In the end, she would let him down. Out there somewhere in the cold dark sea.

  “Maris.”

  “I’m not crying.”

  “Yes, you are. And you shouldn’t. Whatever it takes, we’ll work this out.”

  She knew he meant the possibility of charges, but she wished he meant all of it. Yet these were things beyond his ability to alter. Or hers. She drew a deep breath.

  “Maris, would you look at something for me?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out several photos. He shuffled through them and returned one to his shirt.

  She held out her hand. “Where did you get these?”

  “I, uh, might have come across them on Jamie’s desk.”

  Maris giggled, separating the photos in the sunlight. “They’re all of Aunt Alva.”

  “Who’s that?” He pointed to a young boy in all of them. Maris leaned forward for a closer look.

  “My dad, I think. Could be one of his brothers, but I don’t think so. Yeah, I’d say my dad. Why?”

  Dan’s shoulders slumped. “I didn’t think he looked like the other photos, but then again they might have been taken at a different time. I thought he might be someone else. A relative you don’t remember.”

  Maris tapped the photos into a pile and handed them back. “No. We’re not going to be able to go that route. There’s no one but me left.”

  He slipped them back into his pocket, clearly disappointed. “We’ll keep driving then?”

  “Onward.” She squeezed his hand and let go. Jamie had told her the provisions of Alva’s Will. If only there were someone else, but even so, would she want suspicion to fall on that person? Why on earth couldn’t it be someone with no familial connection whatsoever? Why weren’t they checking further into other people in this town? Granted, three million dollars could sway someone to murder, but it didn’t have to be that way. Decent people wouldn’t care about the money. Unfortunately, Jamie didn’t think she was decent. She wasn’t sure he even believed she was sane.

  Chapter 21

  Dan leaned against the hood of his car, arms folded across his chest. Maris sat inside behind him in the passenger’s seat, refusing to get out. In front of him, the lighthouse of dark stone loomed high into the brilliant sky, the afternoon sun gilding the back curves. She appeared genuinely afraid. He figured he’d give her a couple of minutes.

  The lighthouse was automated now, but for many years it housed the light keeper and, occasionally, his family. Perhaps Maris sensed some long ago tragedy, a spirit or two lingering on the grounds. He felt absolutely nothing except the delightful breeze along his forearms below his rolled-up sleeves.

  The passenger door opened and closed again, quietly. Footsteps on gravel heralded Maris’s appearance at his side. She leaned her rump against the car hood beside him, mimicking his stance, arms folded over her breast. Her face was as pale as it had been at the station.

  “It’s a lovely structure.”

  He nodded. “People are allowed inside up to a point. After that, there’s a gate across the steps with a padlock to keep the machinery from being molested.”

  She didn’t move.

  “Do you want to go inside?”

  “I…”

  “We don’t have to.”

  “Okay.”

  “But I’d like to.”

  She dropped her arms to her side, straightening. “Fine. We’ll go together.”

  He took her hand and tucked it into his elbow. Her fingers trembled slightly before curving to grip his arm. Could be she was afraid of heights. He couldn’t fault her there. A lot of people were.

  What had once been a stout wooden door was now another iron gate, less like the fence on the stairs overhead, but more like a true barrier. No lock secured it. He pulled the gate open, the creak of its hinges nearly lost in the pounding of the surf. Inside, the air temperature was cooler by a good twenty degrees. He rolled his sleeves down and buttoned them at the wrist. Somewhere water dripped in a steady, echoing rhythm.

  “Hello!” His voice bounced back at him, over and over in diminishing volume.

  “Don’t,” Maris said. Even that small sound whispered in repetition along the walls. He took her hand.

  “Do you mind if we climb midway? I’d like you to see the view.”

  She acquiesced without s
peaking, stepping forward with a brief nod, and he led the way up the spiraling stone stairway, their steps coming back at them. Her near-panic began to unsettle him, and he found himself listening for other sounds in the echoes.

  “Here. Here we are. Look through this casement.”

  She did, clutching the stone and rising on her tiptoes. She was barely breathing.

  “What are you so afraid of?”

  “Nothing. I…nothing.”

  “Do you want go back down?”

  “Yes, please.”

  He took a few seconds to enjoy the view himself before preceding her down the stairs as a barrier to a fall. He ought to have given her recent head injury some consideration before asking her to climb up all those stairs. Outside again, she drew a shuddering breath.

  “Better?”

  “I didn’t mean to ruin your day.”

  “The day was already ruined. We were just trying to make it a little less so.”

  Her lips turned up in a weak smile. “Thank you.”

  If any possibility existed of getting away with it, he would have packed her up and taken her home. Her home, far from Alcina Cove. It wouldn’t have done any good. That’s what arrest warrants were for. Dragging people back to justice.

  “Do you want to sit awhile? Out there on the abutment? I’ll get the chocolate out of the car. We’ll pretend it’s a picnic.”

  A few minutes later they were seated on the stones, complete with a blanket from the trunk. She ate the rest of her chocolate bar, visibly relaxing as she consumed it. He twisted the cap off her water, then his.

  “The scenery is stunning here, I do admit.”

  Dan took a swig of cool liquid. “What’s got you spooked?”

  She bit her lip, narrowing her eyes to view the seagulls crying overhead. “I sense danger here. For you, I think, but I’m not sure.”

  A smattering of his second mouthful went down the wrong way. He coughed the liquid out and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “What kind of danger?”

  “I don’t know. Since I’ve been here, I’ve been experiencing a kind of sensory overload. It would be hard to explain when you don’t fully believe—”

  “But I do.”

  She shook her head, tossing a piece of chocolate to the birds. “That’s not bad for them, is it? And you say you do, and a good portion of your good, good heart is all in, but the understandably logical portion of your brain isn’t quite so sure, even now.”

  “Maris, don’t doubt me.”

  “I don’t doubt you, Dan. I trust you with my own heart, good or otherwise, and that’s never been an easy thing for me to do.”

  Her face lay in partial shadow. The white feather hanging from her lobe danced madly in the wind. He was glad he’d been able to save that for her, her talisman of peace. It had taken a good bit of cleaning to remove the spattering of blood. Feathers were strong, though. They had to be. They carried birds thousands and thousands of miles in their travels.

  Maris reached up and halted the feather’s frenzied movements. “In its own way, it’s carried me thousands of miles, too.”

  Dan’s lungs deflated. “Maris, how could you believe I doubt you when things like that come out of your mouth?”

  “You told me you’d denied something you’d seen with your own eyes. It’s not easy, full acceptance. There are times when I question myself.” She tipped her head back and closed her eyes. Fine strands of black hair gyrated back and forth around her head like the spokes of a pinwheel.

  “We’ve come an unnaturally long way in two weeks,” Dan said quietly. She didn’t react. He wondered if she hadn’t heard him over the thunder of the waves. “I remember when I first met you I was—”

  “Pissed. You thought I was someone else who’d come to the station looking for you.” She dropped her head down to study him.

  “And now I can’t recall what that woman looked like.” Clutching his knee cap between two hands, he rocked back. He wondered if he could block his thoughts from her because there was one he wanted desperately to keep hidden. She’d said only some came through. It would be damned inconvenient if this one did. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think of something else, the way he might if he was trying to avoid ejaculation. Suddenly, he laughed. “Good God, woman, the gyrations you put me through.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I was just…oh, it doesn’t matter. Are you ready to head back?”

  She clambered to her feet and bent over to gather up their ridiculous feast of chocolate and water. He folded the blanket, still chuckling to himself, the sound dying in his throat at the expression of shocked dismay on Maris’s face.

  “Dan, I know what happened to the receipt. For the gas. I wrote my number on it that first night and gave it to you. It’s probably at the dump by now.”

  Dan’s heart leapt in his ribcage. “No. I think I threw it in my desk drawer at work. We’ll swing by the station, and I’ll check.”

  It was all he could do not to peg the accelerator to the floor. Losing his cool wouldn’t help anyone. In the past, he’d been a level-headed type of guy, not letting anything get under his skin, always in control. Maybe when some of the attitude went, it all did, like water from a burst dam.

  He had Maris wait in the car and went in alone, straight to his office. He turned on the overhead florescent and yanked open the right hand drawer of his desk. Not finding the receipt at first glance, he dumped the contents of the organizer tray on the blotter. Next, he pulled all the files from the drawer beneath, methodically flipping through the papers before spreading them across the floor.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  He shot Jamie a butt-the-hell-out look. “Searching for the receipt.”

  “What receipt?”

  “The gas receipt! Maris wrote her number on it that first night and gave it to me.”

  Jamie came into the room, stepping over a pile of papers. “Let me help.”

  Dan experienced a surge of gratitude. “Shoot me if I cry, Rogers.”

  “You’re not going to, are you? I don’t think I could take it. I know we’re modernized men and all that, but yeah, I’d have to put a bullet in your head for that one.”

  Twenty minutes later, the office looked like a cyclone had struck, but no receipt had been found. Dan smacked an open palm against the metal filing cabinet. “Fuck.”

  “Where’s Maris?”

  “In the car.”

  “And you’re sure—”

  “Yes.”

  “Could you have taken it home? Maybe it’s stuck in a pair of pants you haven’t washed yet.”

  Dan smacked himself in the forehead hard enough to sting. “I grabbed a bunch of crap from my desk drawer a couple of days ago. The receipt’s probably in there.” He shoved paperwork back into files, cramming them into the file cabinet. “I’ll clean up the rest next time I’m on. Thanks for your help, Jamie. I appreciate it.” He reached out and shook Jamie’s hand, who hung on a fraction of a second too long.

  “I’ve got to come with you, Stauffer. Chain of evidence.”

  Dan lowered his hand to his side. He nodded. “I get that. Okay. You following or driving with me?”

  “I’ll drive myself. It’s probably best if I don’t appear to be cozying up to that girlfriend of yours.”

  Snagging his keys and cell from his desk, Dan gave the debris covering the blotter one last look. He indicated Jamie should precede him and then locked the office door on his way out. He didn’t need anyone seeing that mess.

  Once outside, he found Maris napping like a cat in the sunlight shining through the car window. She awoke with a start at his approach. “Did you find it?”

  Dan shook his head. “Jamie’s following us back to the house. It’s possibly there. I took some stuff home with me the other day. He has to come, Maris,” he added at the look on her face. “It’s better if he’s there when the receipt is found.�
�

  Jamie pulled out of the parking lot directly behind them. He followed all the way back to the townhouse at a close distance. Dan parked in the driveway with Jamie right behind, blocking the sidewalk. He was getting the sense Jamie didn’t trust him. It wasn’t as if he could manufacture a receipt. If the thing was found, it would have to be legit, the real deal. Dan wouldn’t argue the point, though. Better to have Jamie’s eyes corroborating evidence.

  Dan unlocked the front door and held it open for Jamie to enter first, then followed with Maris.

  “I’m going upstairs to get out of these boots,” she whispered, heading for the steps.

  “No,” said Jamie. “Not now.” He inclined his head toward the sofa. “I’d like you to sit right there.”

  The color leached from Maris’s cheeks, but she didn’t protest. She walked with head held high to the sofa and sat, spine rigid, hands in her lap.

  Jamie turned to him. “What did you bring home? Where would you have put it?”

  “I…” Dan pivoted on his heel, thinking. “I don’t know. I had some utensils from the kitchen shoved in the drawer so, yeah, I grabbed those and…put them in the bag my sandwich had come in.” Then what? The bag had gone into his jacket pocket. When he got in the door, he’d tossed the utensils into the dishwasher. Had there been anything else in the bag?

  Jamie eyed him in mute consideration, not rushing him.

  “I recycle.”

  “What?”

  “I recycle the plastic bags, take them back to the grocer’s.”

  “Are you saying you did that with the bag we’re looking for?”

  “No. Not yet.” He pointed generally toward the kitchen. “I have a trash pail in that closet over there where I keep all the canned goods—”

  “The pantry?” Maris interjected.

  Jamie shot her a look.

  Dan brushed past him. He pulled out the pail from the closet in question. “It has to be one of these top few. It hasn’t been that long. A white one, the kind they use at the sandwich shop at the corner. No markings on it, I think, except maybe a thank you.” He started to reach into the container, but Jamie stepped in, grabbing the handle of the can.