by K. J. Emrick
The final folder went on the stack to his right. “Grace will want to look through these while she’s at the hospital, no doubt,” he said, still stalling. “She hates turning her most important cases over to anyone else. Frankly, I can’t afford the manpower to give them to anyone else right now, so I might as well let her do what she’s going to do anyway and work them from her bed.”
Darcy’s eyes snapped to the stack of folders again. Grace’s most important cases. The ones that she was working on right now. The ones that might make someone mad enough to resort to murder.
Her hands itched to grab them away from Wilson.
Instead, she pressed her palms down against her blue jeans to keep them steady. “I could bring those to her, if you want. I’m going back up to the hospital later today.”
Which was a complete lie. In general, Darcy didn’t condone lying, but in that moment she wasn’t waging a battle of moral etiquette. She needed to get a look at those files if she was going to find any clues to who might have hurt Grace.
And Jon.
Wilson rubbed a hand across his forehead and then shrugged. “Sure. That would be a big help, actually. Thanks, Darcy. So, listen, about Jon. I take it Sergeant Fitzwallis told you we haven’t heard from him?”
“Yes. He did.”
Her voice was flat, and hard as stone. Wilson cleared his throat before saying more.
“I asked the police from over in Windy Point, where his seminar was being held, to go and check his hotel room.” He stopped there, and took a deep breath, and Darcy knew this was the bad news he’d been leading up to. “They… his hotel room is empty. All of his things are gone. Now, Grace said she left ahead of him, but she also said he wanted to stay through today until the presentations were over. So the issue, as I see it, is where he might be.”
A sarcastic comment rose to her tongue before she bit it off. Wilson was trying to be helpful. Where was Jon. That was the question.
Darcy didn’t know. She knew they had to find him. They had to. They had to know what had happened to him and catch the person responsible for this. Or persons, for that matter. That assumed he hadn’t met with some kind of accident, of course, but she really doubted it was an accident. Jon’s ghost had lingered in the kitchen, not saying anything at all, until Sergeant Fitzwallis had come to tell her about Grace being in the hospital. The whole thing made her feel like something bad, and intentional, had happened to him.
They had to find Jon…
Wilson was watching her when she looked up again. She cleared her throat. “Yes. I agree that we have to find him.”
“Darcy, I’m sorry,” he told her. “I know this is hard. Would you rather go into my… I mean, Jon’s office? We can talk in private there.”
Darcy had kept an eye on everyone in the room, each of the officers, and none of them had paid her and Wilson the least bit of attention. She fidgeted with the files on the desk. “Here is fine, thanks. We need to find Jon. What can I do to help?”
He seemed relieved that she wasn’t going to break down in front of him. Darcy had already had her meltdown. That wasn’t to say she wouldn’t do it again, but for now she was holding herself together.
“Well.” Wilson sat back in his chair, tugging at the collar of his shirt like it was suddenly very uncomfortable. “We’ve put out an APB on his car. We’ve tried pinging his cell phone with no luck, but that could just mean he’s in an area with no signal. Can you think of anywhere he would have gone? A friend’s place? A relative?”
Darcy shook her head. Jon’s sister and father were still in prison. His mother and him had grown closer over the past few years, but she was off in another state. Jon wouldn’t have gone off to see her, spur of the moment, without telling Darcy about it first. He would never leave their daughter for even a few days without a goodbye. A loving father like Jon would never do that.
“No,” she answered Wilson. “I can’t think of anywhere he would have gone. Certainly not without telling me.”
He chewed the inside of his lip as he thought about that. “A few years back, you and Jon had some trouble, right? You separated. He took a job in another town.”
“That was a one-time thing and way before we were married,” Darcy said defensively. She found her arms crossed over her chest, like she was trying to barricade herself off from those memories. She made herself relax again, but her fingers still found her ring, and began to spin it on her finger. The ring on her left hand this time. Her wedding ring. “For Pete’s sake, Wilson, we worked through that years ago and came back stronger than before. He wasn’t in a good place. Partly because of his family, as a matter of fact. That is not what’s happening now.”
He raised a hand. “I’m not trying to imply anything, Darcy, honest. I want to find Jon as much as you do. I’m just trying to work every angle I can here.”
“Then what about the guy who rammed into Grace?”
“That too,” he promised. “Although there isn’t much to go on there.”
“Somebody wanted her dead. What about that? Maybe the same person wanted to hurt Jon?”
He slid his hand across the desk to her, but when she didn’t take it he pulled back. “I’m sure Jon is fine, Darcy. Wherever he is, I’m sure he’s fine.”
She really, really wished people would stop saying that to her.
“He’s not fine, Wilson. He’s… missing.” Moisture brimmed in her eyes again. “I want you to find my husband.”
This time he stood up, and came around the desk to help her to her feet as well. "We’ll find him, Darcy. I promise you that. We just have to know where to look.”
She nodded, not trusting her voice. Wilson Barton and the rest of the police force might not know where to start looking for their chief, but Darcy did. Well, not the where, exactly, but she knew the how. She might be the only one who could find him.
At least, she was the only one who could find his ghost.
Wilson smiled at her, encouragingly, and she had to turn her eyes away. She knew what she had to do, she just wasn’t looking forward to it. No. That was an understatement. She’d rather walk on broken glass, than do what she had to do next.
There just wasn’t any other way.
“Um. Wilson,” she said, her voice low and shaky. “I’m going to head out. I need to check on my daughter and do a few other things before I, um, bring these files over to Grace.”
He looked at her in that way that guys did when they thought they were being all manly and protective. Jon looked at her that way, sometimes. Not too often, though, because he understood she could take care of herself. It didn’t stop him from trying to protect her. He’d been her support and her strength ever since she’d known him. Jon would always be her better half. Death would never keep the two of them apart.
“I understand,” Wilson was saying to her. “I’ll be sure to contact you as soon as we hear anything. We won’t let you down, Darcy.”
She smiled up at him. What else could she do? Wilson would do his best. So would everyone here at the Misty Hollow Police Department.
Darcy was going to do her best, too. Her best was just a little bit different than everyone else’s.
She was going to perform a communication.
On her way out, she picked up the heavy stack of police files and cradled them carefully to her chest. If there were answers to be found inside the manila covers, she was going to find them.
One way or another, she was going to find Jon.
***
Once, years ago, Darcy had performed a communication so she could talk to the ghost of one of her closest friends. Her friend had been murdered, and Darcy had needed answers. A communication was the only way. Even so, that experience had ripped her apart from the inside.
This was going to be much, much worse.
Back home again, Darcy got everything ready. Colby was running around upstairs chasing Tiptoe. For a little cat with such a quiet name, Smudge’s favorite daughter made enough noise for a small herd
of elephants. Colby was squealing and laughing with every step she took. For her, it was just another normal day.
Only, it wasn’t. Colby’s father was never coming home again.
Darcy sat on the couch in the living room, staring into the dark television screen. Picking her daughter up from the bookstore had taken longer than she had expected, as she tried to tell Izzy about what was going on without Colby hearing, leaving out details that were too painful, or too personal.
Izzy hadn’t seemed much like herself. Since moving to Misty Hollow to get away from an abusive husband, Izzy had slowly come out of her shell and learned to be happy again. Her daughter Lilly had found a home here, too, and friends of her own.
Today, Izzy seemed withdrawn into herself. Sad, almost. Darcy knew she should ask what the trouble was. She knew she should work up some compassion for one of her best friends. She just didn’t have any left to give out right now.
The walk home had been almost painful as she held onto Colby’s hand while the little girl skipped down the street. It was hard to act like everything was right with the world, when it wasn’t. That was just one of those things parents did for their children, she supposed.
Knowing that didn’t make it any easier.
She would tell Colby the truth, she promised herself, when she had all the answers.
The fog crawling out from the shadows and clinging to the grass along the edges of their street didn’t make things any easier for Darcy, either. It reached for them, coiling along in their wake like a living thing.
Trouble was coming.
Or was it already here?
In front of her now, on the coffee table, was the stack of folders from the police station. She had never planned on bringing them to Grace, although she supposed she would have to do that eventually. Holding onto them probably constituted a felony or something. Jon would know.
Oh, Jon…
Next to the folders was a wooden box that she kept her emergency supplies in. Bigger than a jewelry box, its lid and sides were inlaid with artistic carvings and stained a deep rose. She loved that box. Under her hands it felt solid and the carvings slid beneath her fingertips in a familiar, comforting way. It had been a gift from Jon two years ago, on their anniversary. It demonstrated to her just how accepting he was of the stranger parts of her life. It meant the world to her.
So did he.
Taking a deep breath, she listened to Colby calling for Tiptoe, deep in a game of hide and seek. The fact that Colby had seen Jon so clearly this morning had really rattled her. People saw ghosts, sometimes, especially if they were relatives or loved ones. But the way Colby had reacted to Jon’s ghost had been a little creepy. No tears. No fear. As if she saw ghosts all the time.
Again she wondered if Colby was already manifesting the gift. How strong must it run through Colby, if it was going to manifest this early? It was something she would need to figure out, and soon.
Just not now. Right now she had things to do while Colby was distracted.
Reading through the files could wait. They weren’t going anywhere. She wanted to be done with the communication before Colby came down.
Clearing her mind, she pushed aside all the thoughts that had been weighing her down for the last few hours. Or at least, she stuffed them into a box sitting in the corner of her mind where they could be seen, but not heard. Her mind emptied out. Darcy tried to hold onto that center while she opened the box.
Inside, among her other things, were six fat and stubby white candles. The wicks were blackened from the last time she’d used the kit, the centers of the candles melted down into smooth pools. Darcy took them out and lit each one before arranging them on a circle on the floor. Once upon a time she had used metal canning jar lids as holders for the candles. Now her emergency communication kit held six shallow ceramic dishes, painted in bright blues and reds and purple swirls. Another gift from Jon.
There were sealed packets of incense in the box as well. Salt, too. Even a pink crystal shard that a friend from Australia had sent her, along with a very interesting story. Today she didn’t need any of that, or anything else from the kit, either.
The act of reaching out to a ghost across the divide between this world and the next usually required an object of personal interest. Something that had been important to the person Darcy was trying to reach. Darcy had used coins and photos and stuffed animals before. Once, she’d even used a faded I Love NY sweater.
The only thing she needed today was the already strong connection that she had to her husband. The love they shared.
Smudge poked his head out from behind the couch just as Darcy sat herself down cross-legged in the middle of the circle of candles. Walking slowly, sniffing the air as he came, he curled himself up into a ball in her folded legs. He always stayed with her during her communications, whenever he could, to protect her and watch her and sometimes, to draw her back if she got in too deep.
Him being here with her was even more welcome this time.
“Thanks, Smudge,” she whispered, stroking the fur along his back before returning to her preparations.
In the clear space she had made in her mind, she pictured coils of rolling fog. It was a mental image that she used to make the connection to the other side. To keep her mind clear and open to whatever might come.
Breathing in, and then out, she pictured Jon. She pictured him bringing Colby home from the hospital. She pictured him at work, behind his desk, puzzling through a complicated crime one step at a time. She pictured him in their bed, touching her, kissing her, whispering words that meant everything in the dark.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
She let that breath carry a bit of her life energy with it as it went. Every communication cost her a little bit of herself. Once in a while she got to wondering if she was taking days, weeks, maybe even years off her life when she did this. If she was, it didn’t matter. It always needed to be done. More so this time than any other.
She was here now. This was the in between place. She stood between the world of the living, and the world of the spirit. Now she just had to reach out to the other side.
It was usually like trying to ask a question of a single person in a crowded stadium. Making the right person hear you was the challenge.
Jon, she told herself, over and over. I need to speak with Jon.
Peering into the mists in her mind, going deep inside, she called out to him. She reached out with her heart and her inner spirit.
And just like that, there he was.
Jon Tinker had always been an impressive looking man. Especially to Darcy. Tall and broad shouldered with strong arms and this way of standing that showed off his legs and his, um, backside. He was older now, and age had softened his face some. Maybe put some wrinkles around his striking blue eyes. Maybe put just a little gray into the sweep of his black hair. For all the physical changes the years they had spent together had made in him, he was still the same Jon Tinker she had fallen in love with. When he smiled at her, here in the in between space, she couldn’t love him more.
The mists swirled around him, crawling up his legs like they wanted to claim him from her, suck him back into whatever place Darcy had called him up from. Every move Jon made, every step he took, stirred the white fog and made it writhe.
She didn’t know how long she stood there, just drinking in the sight of him. Time didn’t mean anything here in this place. Back in her living room she could have been sitting on the floor for three minutes, or three hours. Either way it seemed like forever before she remembered to breathe. It was an eternity later that she remembered to speak.
“Jon.” That was all she had the strength for. All of her questions poured out of her when she said his name. He reached for her with a smile, and she waited with her heart breaking in her chest.
“Good morning, Sweet Baby,” he said to her.
That was his nickname for her. Sweet Baby. The little pet name that always made her breath come just a
little bit quicker. He could see her. He knew she was there and he was reaching out to her the same way that she was—
“I’m going to a conference next week,” he said. “Won’t be gone long. Five, six days at most. I’ll be back before you know it.”
Darcy froze in place. That was what he said to her… how many days ago? Before he went to the conference. With a kiss on her cheek and some tender words that had led them quietly upstairs to their bedroom while Colby watched her cartoons, he’d told her that he was going away for a few days. Five. Six days at the most.
“Your sister’s coming with me.”
He’d said that, too.
“She says she wants to carpool but you know your sister. Won’t be surprised if she changes her mind last minute. Grace doesn’t usually like to stay at these things the whole time.”
And that. She remembered every word.
Impossible as it was, here where her body wasn’t so much a real thing as it was a manifestation of her mind, Darcy felt sweat begin to trickle from underneath the hair at the nape of her neck. All of this had happened before. Sometimes, ghosts would give messages to the living by repeating a word or a phrase or even a scene from their lives. This wasn’t that. This was something else.
It was like when he had sat at the kitchen table this morning, reliving the moment before he’d driven off for this police seminar. Sitting there, spinning his coffee cup.
Almost, she thought, like he didn’t remember anything after that moment. Like he was reliving the last thing he could remember.
Like he didn’t remember dying.
She lifted her hands to cover her face, here in the in between space, and sobbed. The tears might not be real, but they felt real, and her emotions were as real as anything she had ever felt, and she didn’t know what she was going to do now.
