by K. J. Emrick
“You think that might be the way she died?”
Darcy shook her head. “No. Marcia’s spirit already showed me she was strangled. This is something else. If I’m right, it will be the last bit of information that you need to convict Matt Courson.”
He stroked her fingers, taking his time with what he wanted to say next. “You know I don’t like you doing spirit communications when you’re hurt.”
“I know,” she smiled at him. “But I know what I’m doing. I had the alarm set, and Smudge was with me. I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t necessary, I promise.”
With a heavy sigh, he cupped her cheek in his hand. “Just be careful, okay?”
“You knew who I was when you married me,” she reminded him.
“Yes I did, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.” With a final smile, he stood up. “I’m going to take a quick shower and then I’ll come back to see if you guys have left me any part of the bed to sleep on. Don’t wait up.”
“I won’t. Hey, what about Anthony? Has anyone told him about finding Marcia yet?”
Jon’s smile faded. “No. Not yet. It was so late we decided to save it for the morning.” He shrugged helplessly. “If I was in his position I’d want to know right away, too, but I mean… it’s been three years. I figured we could give him one more night before wrecking his entire world.”
Darcy had to agree with him. Information like that would always sound better in the light of day. They could afford to give Anthony one more night to believe his sister might still be alive before they broke the harsh truth to him. Besides, tomorrow the police would arrest Matt Courson and get the answers Anthony would need.
“I’m going to shower now,” Jon said, folding her hand onto her chest. “You go to sleep. I’m going to set the alarm but you don’t need to wake up when I do.”
“When are you getting up?”
“Early. Grace is meeting me at the station. I can always call you after we arrest Courson, if you like. You can spend the morning with Colby and Zane and maybe figure out what we’re going to need to make this Thanksgiving dinner you promised everyone. You’ve kind of been putting that off.”
“Hmph. Have not.”
“Have so,” he teased. “Now, go to sleep. I’ll call you tomorrow when I know how things are going.”
“No, I want to get up with you,” she protested, but her eyes were already starting to droop. “You wake me up, okay?”
“Sure. Now go to sleep, Snowflake.” His fingers traced a line along her lips. “Shh. Go to sleep.”
She smiled at him, and let his words wash over her. She settled down against her pillow as sleep reached up to take her.
The last thing she remembered was the sound of Jon starting the shower.
Chapter 8
It was Zane who woke her up.
Her son was crying, and no matter how tired Darcy was, there was no way she could stay asleep when that happened.
She pushed herself up in the bed, her leg itchy and cramped. She wiggled her toes. It relieved the cramps, but not the itching. “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she growled, twisting her leg all around and finally giving up. She was just going to be itchy for the rest of her life. Well, at least until this stupid cast came off.
Zane cried out again, one single loud cry. “I’m coming, kiddo. Hold on.”
“Mama!”
“I’m here, kiddo. I’m coming.”
She swung her feet out and over the side of the mattress. Where was Colby? The rest of the bed was empty. Jon was gone, too, and a quick glance at the clock told her that he hadn’t kept his promise to wake her up before he left. Usually he would bring her and Zane downstairs so they wouldn’t be trapped up here all day. Guess they were going to have to find things to do up here instead.
Well. Maybe it was a good thing that Jon had let her sleep. She was obviously a lot more tired than she thought. She felt sorry for Jon, though. He was the one who had been up all night. If she was tired, he must be running on fumes.
Her crutch was propped up against the dresser again. Jon must have brought it up here for her before he left. Thoughtful of him, considering it made it so much easier for her to get down the hall to Zane’s room.
He was in his crib, standing up with his little fingers curled around the edge of the top rail. When he saw her, he reached out both hands, clasping and unclasping his fingers, wanting to be picked up by his mother. His lip was quivering like he was about to cry.
“What’s wrong, buddy? Did you have a nightmare?”
Tiptoe jumped up on the nearby dresser as Darcy lifted her son out of his crib, careful to keep her weight on her good leg. The cat kept her eyes on the window, not blinking, and not moving.
As Darcy was about to ask Tiptoe what was so fascinating outside Colby came twirling into the room, already dressed, and holding one of the plastic serving trays from the back of the cabinet in her hands. On the tray was a plate of buttered toast and three of the apples from the fridge and an applesauce cup for Zane. Breakfast, nine-year-old style. “Zane’s okay, Mom. He’s just a little upset that the bird left without saying goodbye.”
In her arms, Zane babbled something, as if he’d understood every word his sister had just said and was agreeing with her.
“Bird?” Darcy asked all of them, Tiptoe included. “What bird?”
“The one that Zane was talking to yesterday,” Colby explained as if it should be obvious. She set the tray down on the dresser. Tiptoe twisted her head around to give the butter a sniff and Colby moved the tray a little further away. “That’s not for you. I put food in your dish downstairs. I’ll get some milk for you and Smudge later, okay?”
Tiptoe sniffed at the butter again, and then twitched her whiskers and jumped down off the dresser, leaving the room with her tail in the air.
Darcy chuckled at the antics of her daughter, and the way Zane had calmed down as soon as she held him, and how happy she was. Before meeting Jon, she never could have imagined that she would ever be able to find this sort of happiness by being a mother and a wife. Now she knew there was nothing better.
“Well. Let’s have some breakfast,” Darcy suggested, “and then we can all try to find more birds outside the window. You have to understand, Zane. It’s very late in the year now. It’s getting colder, and pretty soon it’s going to snow, and a lot of birds go south to warmer climates when it gets cold.”
“Bir, Mama,” he said, his voice full of disappointment. “Bir. Bir.”
She hugged her son and wondered what his fascination with birds was all of a sudden. If only he could talk to her in complete sentences. Well. Someday. Maybe soon he’d be talking to her just like he talked to the birds.
“Should we eat here?” she asked them. “We could have a little breakfast picnic right here in Zane’s room. Then, I think someone needs their diaper changed.”
Colby giggled. “Not me!”
Darcy laughed with her. “No, no. You’re way past needing that.”
She was hoping that it would be as easy to potty train Zane as it had been with Colby. Girls were supposed to be easier, she thought. Guess she was going to find out.
From the hallway, Smudge meowed. Darcy was just putting Zane back into his crib and when she turned to ask the old tomcat what the matter was, there was a loud knocking on the front door downstairs.
The old house had always funneled sounds in odd ways, and standing up here on the second floor you could hear the knocking from downstairs clear as day. It was followed almost immediately by someone calling out her name.
“Anybody home? Darcy, are you here?”
That was Anthony Faber. Darcy looked over at Colby. “Is the door unlocked?”
Her daughter looked a little sheepish. “I went to check the mail. I never lock the door when we’re home.”
“No, of course not,” she said gently, smoothing her hand over the top of Colby’s head. “It’s fine, Starshine. That’s Anthony, my friend. Remember him from the other day?
”
Colby nodded. “The angry lady’s brother.”
“Right. The angry lady’s brother.” Anthony was here, and Darcy didn’t even know if anyone had told him about his sister being found dead. Or that she had been murdered. Oh, she was not looking forward to being the one who told him about that! “I think I’m going to have to have a very uncomfortable conversation with Anthony. Can you do me a huge favor? Since you’re already dressed and I’m not, can you go down and tell him that I’m going to be a few minutes? I’ll call down when I’m ready.”
“Sure. Um. You should really tell him the truth,” she said. Maybe she’d been reading the questions in Darcy’s eyes, or maybe she was just sensing Darcy’s unease. “But, um, not the part about the angry lady in my room. Okay?”
“You’ve got a deal.”
When her daughter went running downstairs to meet Anthony, Darcy took a moment for a deep breath. “This isn’t going to be any fun, Zane. Wish your mommy luck.”
She got his diaper changed and she could tell how much better he felt for that. After a few bites of applesauce he decided he didn’t want anymore. “Okay, you. I’ve got to go and get dressed anyway. I can’t exactly have men running around the house while I’m in my nightgown. Not unless it’s your father.”
Zane plopped himself down on the crib’s mattress, and then rolled over onto his back, clapping his hands and gurgling with laughter. Darcy decided to believe he was laughing at her joke instead of little kid things that she couldn’t understand.
“I won’t be long, Zane. You call me if you need me.”
On the way out she took a moment to thank Smudge. “Good cat. Keep an eye out for anything screwy and let me know.”
Smudge leaned into her foot, and meowed in agreement.
Once she was dressed, she hobbled back to the top of the stairs and called down. “Anthony, I’m dressed now. Can you come up here, please? I can’t bring Zane downstairs right now and I don’t want to leave him in his crib for too long.”
“I’ll watch him, Mom.” Colby came dashing up the stairs, all smiles to be the helpful big sister. “I’ll keep him in his crib so he doesn’t get into trouble, ‘kay?”
“Thank you, my big girl.”
Colby’s smile lit up her whole face as she rushed past and into Zane’s room, already asking her brother what he wanted to play.
Darcy met Anthony in the kitchen. He was sitting at the table, drinking some lemonade, and he raised his glass when she limped into the room. “Colby was nice enough to pour this for me. You’ve got a great little girl there.”
“Yes, I do.” Darcy liked to hear it when people gave Colby compliments. She was a very good girl. “I wasn’t expecting you to come over today. Was there more paperwork to sign?”
“I think I’m about ready to finish the investigation,” he told her. “I’ll recommend to the company that they pay the claim, of course, and it should be just a couple of weeks before you get a check. Now, the amount will cover the cost of repairs, but there will be a partial reimbursement for your medical expenses as well.”
Now that was a relief. “I’m glad to hear that, Anthony. That’s really good news. You could have called me to tell me that, though. You didn’t have to make a special trip all the way to Misty Hollow.”
He stared at her without saying anything for a moment, and then set his lemonade aside. He was dressed in khakis and a short sleeved shirt with a v-neck, she noticed now, and he didn’t have a briefcase or any folders with him. He wasn’t here for work.
“Um, Darcy,” he said, slowly. “I got a strange phone call yesterday from the Lockbox Firm. You know who they are?”
“Yes, I do.” Darcy wasn’t going to lie to him. Anthony was a friend, and he deserved the truth. “That’s where your sister was working when she disappeared.”
A smile ghosted around his lips, and she could tell that he appreciated her honesty. “That’s right. I’ve had a few conversations with the owner of the Lockbox Firm over the years. That Oscar Bismuth guy. When Marcia first disappeared, I was on his doorstep almost every day wanting to know if he’d heard anything new. But that was three years ago. I haven’t heard from him since. So when he called me yesterday, you can understand why I was surprised.”
“Yes. I can imagine. Listen, Anthony…”
“Someone called them about Marcia,” he continued. “Someone who wanted to know all kinds of stuff. Oscar just wanted to let me know that he still hadn’t heard anything about my sister. Someone did, though. I think that someone… was you.”
Darcy’s leg ached. She shifted positions, but it didn’t help much. She knew it didn’t really hurt any more now than it had a few minutes ago. She was just letting it distract her from telling Anthony what he deserved to know. She really didn’t want to do this.
But she was the only one here.
“I’m sorry, Anthony. Your sister isn’t missing.” She reached over across the table, and held her hand over his. “Marcia is dead. We found her body yesterday.”
His face darkened. Under her fingers, Darcy could feel his hand begin to shake. “No…”
“I’m so sorry, but it’s true. She was buried not far from the north shore of Rose Lake. Jon and my sister Grace are seeing a judge right now about arresting the man responsible. It was her boyfriend. Matt Courson.”
For a moment Anthony’s face tightened, and then surprise registered on his eyes. “The boyfriend? They’re arresting Matt? I mean, it was Matt?”
This was a lot for him to take in. Darcy wanted to do this better, to give him the information in some orderly fashion that would make it hurt less. If there was some proper way to do it then she couldn’t begin to imagine what it was. “Everything we’ve seen shows that Matt is the killer. The motive is the only missing piece.”
He cleared his throat, and took his hands back, and then couldn’t seem to decide what to do with them. “Well,” he said, clearing his throat again. “Well, that’s a thing.”
“I know, Anthony. I know.”
She didn’t, though. She didn’t have any idea what it would feel like to suddenly know someone you loved had been dead for three years. She had lost people she cared about, some of them to senseless acts of violence, but she’d always been able to grieve for them right away. Anthony had been living a nightmare for three years only to find out now that it had been over before it ever began.
As they sat there, Darcy saw a shape taking form behind Anthony. His sister’s ghost materialized and stood there trying to scream at him, her hands curled into fists, the cords in her neck standing out as her eyes blazed red like they had last night.
“…see me…”
Her anger was getting worse. Whatever was holding her here to this world hadn’t been fixed by finding her body. It hadn’t been fixed by Jon working hard to arrest Matt Courson.
What did the ghost want?
Looking directly at Darcy now, Marcia lifted the front of her shirt, to show off that wound on her stomach. Darcy would have sworn that the cut had gotten worse since she saw it last.
Then she was gone so fast that Darcy blinked and nearly fell out of her chair.
The seconds stretched out there in the kitchen and Darcy realized that not only did she not know what to say to Anthony, she just really didn’t have anything to say at all. The rest of what she knew about Marcia’s murder had been learned directly from Marcia’s ghost. She couldn’t tell Anthony any of that without making it sound like crazy talk.
“So what now?” he asked Darcy after another little while. “What do we do now?”
“I’m waiting to hear from Jon,” she said. “He promised to call once he knew something. Jon’s very good at his job. Trust me. He’ll get this guy.”
He wiped at his eyes, brushing away sudden tears. “Thank you, Darcy. Thank you for telling me the real story. I… I think I’m just going to go now. Can you keep in touch? When you hear from Jon can you let me know what he finds out?”
“I’ll have hi
m call you directly,” Darcy promised. “You deserve to know.”
“Can you call me? Can it be you? I just think it would be easier to hear it from a friend.”
Her heart went out to him. “Sure. Of course I will. At the number on your card, right?”
“Yes. Thank you, Darcy. You’re a real friend.”
He stood up and gave her one last weak smile before leaving.
When the door closed, Smudge came over and sat down beside her chair.
“Mrrow.”
“I agree,” Darcy told him. “It’s very sad.”
Instead of calling, Jon came home.
She had been upstairs with Zane, playing with him on the floor in his room while Colby was in her room drawing more comic strips of Professor Puppy. The wind that Marcia’s spirit had created had ripped a couple of her other drawings, but Colby hadn’t been upset. Instead she took this as an opportunity to give her cartoon creation some new adventures.
Jon’s appearance set the kids into a tizzy and for fifteen minutes he was giving piggy back rides and running up and down the hallway with Zane in his arms, playing tag with his sister.
Darcy waited for him patiently in their room. It gave her a chance to lay down and rest her feet. Both of them.
“Wow,” he said when he finally made it to their door. “Our kids are exhausting. Where do they get all that energy?”
“I wish I knew.” Darcy laughed. “I could use a bit of that myself.”
He flopped down on the bed next to her, lying with his arm crooked up under his head. “I left Colby in with Zane. He’s in his crib. I have a feeling he’ll be asleep soon, even with his sister reading him all of her most recent comic strips.”
“We’ve got a little artist on our hands, that’s for sure.” She rolled onto her side facing him, carefully, and put her hand on his chest. He looked amazing in that sharp dress shirt. “So tell me. What’s going on with Matt Courson?”
