K.J. Emrick - Darcy Sweet 13 - Ghost Story (9 page)

So, finally, Jon smiled and eased back into his seat.  “Sure thing.  You know I’m always here for you and the department.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Joe said with a broad smile.  He got up from the table, collecting the folder as he did.  “Just be a minute.”

Jon waited for the door to the interview room to close before he turned to Darcy, head very close to hers, and whispered, “We need to warn Helen.”

“We need to get out of here, Jon,” was her response.  “I can’t do anything from in here!”

“What if I could get you into a private room?” he asked in hushed tones.  “If you locked the door and did the ritual here, would it still work?”

“Maybe.  But, I don’t have any of my supplies.  Plus, the Pilgrim Ghost isn’t here.  He’s somewhere out there in town doing God alone knows what!  I need to go to where I’m sure the ghost will be.”

“What, our house?”

She shook our head.  “No.  The Town Hall.  That’s where his spirit will be rooted in this world.  It’s the surest, safest bet.”

“Okay.  So, we stay here and see what the Chief has for us, then get out of here.”  He looked uncomfortable, and his hands held both of hers like he was afraid to let go.  “It’s going to be full night by the time we get out of here.  I’m not comfortable with you taking this thing on at night.”

“I don’t know if we have a choice,” she argued.  “Halloween is tomorrow.  That means tonight is the night that Nathaniel Williams was killed all those years ago.  If I don’t stop him now, I don’t know how strong he might get.”

He blinked at her.  “That another law of ghosts?”

“Yes.  It’s just as true as the law of gravity, believe me.”

“I do, Darcy, I do.”  He sat back up, looking up into the corner of the ceiling where an inconspicuous black plastic bubble sat suspended from the tiles.  A surveillance camera.  “Good.  The red light is off.  If it were on then it would be recording.  Since it’s not…”

He took out his cell phone and hit the first speed dial.  Their house.  It didn’t take long for the call to get answered.

“Helen, it’s Jon.  Stay in the house,” Darcy heard him say, still keeping his voice down.  “Don’t answer the phone unless it’s my personal cell number.”

After listening for a few seconds, he shook his head.  “No.  But the Chief suspects you, and the longer we can keep you away from him the better.  It will give us a chance to stop the ghost and maybe prove who the killer is or isn’t on our own.  What’s that?  No.  Don’t worry about what the Chief told us.  Helen.  Don’t worry.  Seriously.  It’s nothing.  I’ll tell you all about it when we get back.  Okay?  All right.  Stay inside, don’t answer the door, and don’t answer your phones.  Unless it’s me or Darcy,” he added.

After a quick goodbye he hung up and put the cell phone back in his pocket.  Darcy eyed him levelly until he shrugged.  “What?”

“You lied to Helen just now.  The evidence they have against her isn’t nothing.  It’s a lot.”

“I know.”

“I mean, you did a good job of playing it down to Joe, but you’ve arrested people on less.”

“I know,” Jon repeated.  “Just, give me a moment to be glad it’s not you, okay?”

Darcy couldn’t quite bring herself to smile.  The evidence showed it wasn’t her.  That was something to be happy about, but not at the cost of her friend being arrested.  Especially for something that wasn’t her fault.

“I don’t get the phone calls to her office, though,” Jon said, looking around nervously, waiting for the door to open up again at any moment.  “Why wouldn’t Helen just tell us that she’d spoken to the victim before?”

“She probably didn’t know.  Remember, people who are possessed don’t always remember what they’ve done.  It’s just possible that Bonnie Verhault spoke to the Pilgrim Ghost all those times, thinking it was Helen.  Who knows, maybe Helen actually was on the phone some of the times I heard her in her office, just like the phone records show on that list we saw.”

He took a slow breath.  “That evidence is going to bury her.”

“Looks like.”  Darcy hated this.  After everything Helen had gone through, she didn’t deserve to have this happen to her.

That thought had occurred to her before, and she tried to follow it through now.  Did the Pilgrim Ghost somehow think Helen
did
deserve what was happening to her?  Was that why he had waited all these years to come out of hiding?

Was there a connection with Helen, too?

The photographs that Chief Daleson had shown them came back to her mind.  There was a lot of evidence against Helen.  No jury in the world would find her innocent with all of that.  The knife, especially.  A bloody knife with fingerprints on it.  Did it get any more damaging than that?

Not that they had the fingerprint match yet, but it was only a matter of time.  Darcy clenched her teeth angrily.  If it hadn’t been for that bloody knife, there would be nothing to worry about.  There was no real, hard evidence without that.  None of them had woken up with blood on them anywhere.  No one but Helen.  Great, even more evidence to convict her.  Yup.  A jury would have a field day with all this.  A victim stabbed and bloody and lying on Helen’s lawn…

As something clicked into place in her mind, Darcy sat up straighter, her eyes wide.

“What is it?  Are you all right?” he asked, searching her face.  She knew what he was looking for.  “Darcy, you aren’t…I mean, he’s not…you aren’t…?”

“No, I’m not possessed,” she said impatiently.  “I just thought of something.”

“What?  Can it help Helen?”

“Yes.”  She looked up into his amazing blue eyes and managed a joyless smile.  “I know who the killer is.”

And that was when the lights went out.

***

“What’s going on?”  Darcy heard the note of fear in her voice.  She wasn’t a scaredy-cat but there was nothing natural about the lights going out in a police station, all at once, while they were there to investigate a murder committed by a ghost.  Nothing at all.

A little fear was normal.  Under the circumstances, she didn’t mind being normal.

An emergency light, a pale red thing that didn’t help them see so much as it deepened the shadows in the room, winked on over the door.  It was better than nothing, Darcy supposed.

“Stay here,” Jon told her.  He knocked his chair over backward as he fumbled his way to his feet.  “I’ll be right back.”

As soon as he opened the door, someone screamed.

A cold tingling spread over Darcy’s skin, crawling up her spine to a spot just between her shoulder blades, making every muscle in her body tense up.  She’d never been a big believer in coincidence.  There could be no doubt in her mind what was going on.

“He’s here,” Jon guessed, echoing her thoughts.  “Isn’t he?”

Darcy swallowed back the lump in her throat and nodded.  “We need to go.  Now.”

“He’ll be after you,” Jon guessed.  “We can use the back entrance.  My car’s right outside.”

It was a good plan.  Darcy liked that plan.  Of course, every plan they made usually went wrong somehow.  She doubted this time would be any different.

Out into the hallway, where more red emergency lights cast their ghastly glow, Darcy followed close at Jon’s heels.  They kept hold of each other’s hands as they went.  She saw Jon reach for the gun he wasn’t wearing out of habit, and she didn’t have the heart to tell him it wouldn’t have done him any good anyway.

Another scream.  A man’s voice, but high pitched and strained.  Someone up towards the front of the station had found some reason to cry out in fright.

Or pain.

They made it through the hallways, down past the holding cells, to the back of the building.  When they were fifty feet away from the exit door they heard the gunshots.  Two, in rapid succession, followed by a lot of raised voices and shouting.

Jon stopped suddenly.  “I should go see what’s happening.” 

He turned back, still holding Darcy’s hand.  She tugged him closer to her.  She had the eerie feeling, almost a premonition, that if she let him go down those darkened hallways that he would never come back.

Into the faint red light a figure appeared.  Darcy’s heart stopped.  A darker shape among the shadows, it came stumbling against the walls and then turned toward her and Jon.

That’s when Darcy saw his face.  Chief Daleson was scared.  She thought nothing could ever scare this man but his eyes were darting everywhere and his chest heaved in short, quick breaths and his hand held a snub nosed automatic pistol up and ready.

His eyes locked on Jon, surprised to see him and Darcy still here.  “Jon, get her out of here.  I’m not sure what’s going on.  There’s someone in the station.  The lights are all out and I can’t get anyone to answer me.  Something’s going on and…just get her out.  Get her out!”

Another scream from up front was cut abruptly short.  That seemed to decide things for Jon.

“Come on,” he said, turning and running for the door as fast as he could.

Darcy didn’t argue.  She could feel the presence coming for her.  Feel the dark energy of a malevolent spirit rampaging through the halls of the police station, searching for her, hunting her, tearing through everything to find her.

Out into the night, everything was dark and still.  The air felt fresher than she would have thought possible, and she filled her lungs with it as they ran.

Turning, she caught a glimpse through the door, just before it closed, of a formless shadow bearing down on Joe Daleson.

They got into their car and Jon started the engine and was backing away from the police station even before he had his door closed.  “I’m going to get you back to the house where I know you’re safe and them I’m coming back here to help.”

“Jon, no.”

“Darcy, I have to.  I can’t leave my people, my friends, like that!”

“That’s not what I meant,” she explained gently.  “I can’t go home.  Not now.  I need to get to the Town Hall.”

He stopped the car in the middle of the street, the tires locking up and screeching against the pavement.  “What?  You said you don’t have any of your equipment.  You said he’d be seriously strong tonight.  That’s what you said.  What are you going to do, go in there and push the ghost out with your bare hands?”

“Of course not.  Jon, look at the town.”

He did, and saw what she meant.  Everywhere in town was dark.  Not just the police station.  Every electric light was out.  The buildings, the streetlights, the lamp posts in the park.  It was a complete blackout.

Except for the Town Hall.

Up the street, floodlights on a manicured lawn shone up at the brick building with its white columns.  More lights on the building lit up the front doors and the windows, and the clock in its front roof that was forever stopped at 11:59.

Darcy pushed the button on her little watch to light up the dial.  It was ten o’clock.  Two hours to midnight.

The streets were empty.  That was unusual even for the sleepy little town of Misty Hollow.  People should still be out in the park, or walking their dogs, winding the day down before heading home.  It was like everyone knew not to be out of their homes tonight, that something wicked was not only coming their way but was already here.

“We have to do this now,” Darcy said.

“Yeah,” he agreed.  “Yeah, I think you’re right.  You need your things first though, right?”

“Right.”

“Bookstore?”

“Bookstore.”

They were practically in front of the Sweet Read bookstore as it was.  Getting there involved Jon pulling the car to the curb and shutting off the engine.

Then they sat where they were, staring out at the night.

“Is it safe?” Jon finally asked.

No, she wanted to say.  They had to do this, though.  “Won’t know till we try, I guess.”

After a long count of five seconds, Darcy took a breath, held it, and raced out of the car to the front door of her store.  She yanked on the handle, expecting to fly inside with Jon right behind her.

Only, the door was locked.

Feeling stupid, feeling the rush of panic coming up inside of her, she turned to Jon with her hand out.  “Keys.  Quick.”

Without hesitation he passed her his ring of keys, where the spare key to her store dangled next to his car keys and the key to their house and others.  She was really glad she had insisted on him having a copy of his own.

Two seconds later they were inside and the door was shut and locked again.  She turned to Jon, he turned to her, and as their eyes met she couldn’t help but burst out laughing.  They fell against each other, holding tightly, laughing, letting the stress of the past two days wash away.

“I love you,” she told him.

“I love you, too.  Now.  Let’s go send this ghost back to the eighteenth century.”

Time was not their friend.  Darcy had to remember that.  “Okay.  Wait for me here, will you?  I need to get some things from the back.  Watch the street and tell me if anything, uh, weird happens.”

She could barely see his expression in the light from the waning moon, but if sarcasm had an expression, she knew this was what it looked like.  “Right.  Anything weird.  Like a ghost causing a blackout or making an entire police force scared of their own shadows.”

“Exactly.  You know me so well.”  She kissed his cheek, then went to her office behind the checkout counter.  She had to do it mainly by feel, until she got into the office itself and got the flashlight out of the top drawer of the desk.  Switching it on, she sighed in relief that it worked.  It lit up the entire space, pushing the darkness away.  She had been worried that whatever influence Nathaniel Williams was exerting over the town’s power would extend to things like flashlights, too.  It didn’t, apparently, and she could breathe easier knowing that at least something had gone right tonight.

“Millie?” she said quietly.  “Are you here?”

Sweeping the flashlight beam around she caught a glimpse of a shadow in the corner wearing a long black dress, smiling an encouraging smile.  When she swept the light back quickly the old woman was gone again.  Just an impression of her spirit, enough to tell Darcy that yes, she was here to help.

“Good,” Darcy said.  “I understand what you meant by how things would get worse.  They’re a lot worse.  I don’t want anyone else getting hurt.  I’m going to try an exorcism, but I could use you there with me.”

There was no answer, and Darcy didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

“All right, then.  Let’s get what I’ll need.”

From one of the filing cabinet drawers she took out a square box of salt.  Sometimes she and Izzy had to have their lunches here, when the workday was busy. She had pepper and a small bottle of soy sauce and a few little plastic packages of ketchup and, yes, salt.

Then from her bottom desk drawer she took out a small cardboard box, a duplicate of one she had put together to keep at home.  No girl with abilities like hers could afford to be without one.

Her Emergency Communication Kit.

Calling a ghost to you and pushing one away from the mortal world might be two entirely different techniques, but they both involved a lot of the same gear.  In this little box there were four tall white candles, matches because she’d learned the hard way you can’t light a candle just by wishing for it, chalk, and plastic snack-sized baggies of sage, basil, garlic, and a few other household spices.

It didn’t seem like much, but she was ready.

The book falling from the shelf up on the wall and landing with a thump startled her.  The beam of her flashlight bounced in her hand and she very nearly dropped her container of salt.

“Millie!” she whispered.  “Don’t do that!”

It was Millie’s own slim journal, and for it to have landed flat on its spine like that was impossible.  The book didn’t just fall open to a particular page.  It fell, bounced open, and then flipped through several pages before settling on the one her aunt wanted her to see.

Darcy didn’t get freaked out by these things anymore.  In fact, she welcomed her aunt’s advice in whatever form she could give it.  Now, she looked down on a handwritten genealogy of the main families of Misty Hollow.  The Graces, the LaCroix family, the Underwoods, and others.  There were four full pages of these names.  Darcy had read through them briefly on several occasions.  She really couldn’t care less who was related to who, but it was interesting to know family lines could be traced back that far.  Like those parts of the Old Testament with all the begats that no one really paid much attention to.

This page had three of the major families on it.  There were the Graces, the ones who Darcy and Millie were descended from.  There was the Underwood’s, a broken line that had yet to be filled in because so many of them had left Misty Hollow and never been heard from again.

The third family was a direct line from Roderick Chauncy.  The leader of the original group of settlers who Nathaniel Williams had cursed for stealing the land out from under him.  And then hanging him, of course.  Darcy didn’t know if that was how it had really happened or not but that was how Williams had seen it.  That was why his spirit held so much hatred and why it was still tied here in Misty Hollow today.

Darcy followed the Roderick Chauncy line, seeing the names change over the decades as marriages brought in new bloodlines, down through the years to the present day where one final name was listed in the ancestral progression.

Helen Nelson.  The mayor of the town.

Of course.  All the pieces were in place again.  A direct descendant of the original group leader was now mayor of the town.  Darcy was a descendant of the lawman who had hung Nathaniel Williams and she spent a lot of her time solving mysteries and putting bad people in jail, plus she was engaged to an actual police officer and her sister was one, too.  Add into that the fact that land in Misty Hollow was now being sold off to various companies to bring new commerce into the town, and you had history repeating itself.

It was all happening again.  The spirit of Nathaniel Williams had been stirring for a while now.  Darcy was sure of it.  All the bad things in town that had happened…she should have seen it.  Even Chief Daleson commented on it.  Things had gotten worse and worse here in Misty Hollow.  Murder, kidnapping, and more.  People doing bad things.  Human beings at their worst.

Maybe the reason wasn’t purely human, after all.

“Thanks, Millie,” she whispered, before closing the journal and going back out to Jon.  She knew who the real murderer was.  She knew the reason the ghost had come out to cause havoc.  She knew the method, and the way.

She was armed for the exorcism with both the proper tools and the proper knowledge.

It was time.

***

The Town Hall looked all the more eerie for being the only place in town still awash in lights.  Jon followed her step for step, so close that his body brushed up against hers.  Up the steps they went to the heavy double doors at the entrance.  Darcy put her free hand on the left handle, and Jon took hold of the right.  Her other hand held her box tucked carefully to her side.  They looked at each other, serious expressions mirrored in each other’s eyes.

“Ready?” Darcy asked him.

“Is no a choice?”

“Not really.”  She tried to smile at his feeble joke but it wouldn’t hold.  Taking a deep breath she firmed up her grip and counted, “One, two, three.”

They pushed on the doors together. 

They wouldn’t open.  They were locked after hours.

“Seriously?” Jon asked out loud.

“Maybe the back door?” Darcy offered.

“I’m not going to search all around this place for an opening that someone forgot to lock.  There’s no time for that.”

“You have a better suggestion?”

Jumping back down the front steps two at a time Jon went to the front lawn, scouting around in the grass by the light of the flood lamps.  When he found what he was after he bent down and scooped it up one handed.

As he got closer, Darcy could see what it was.  A rock.

“You’re going to break a window?” Darcy asked him.

“Well, we need to get in, don’t we?”

“I know, but…you’re a cop.  A straight-laced cop.”  This time, she did smile.  “I just never thought I’d see you breaking the law like this.  It’s kind of attractive.”

He bounced the rock on the palm of his hand a few times.  “I never knew you went in for the bad boy type.”

“I fell in love with you, didn’t I?”

Jon winked at her, cocked back his hand with the rock in it and aimed for the nearest window.

The doors unlocked with a loud, metal
snick
and swung inward.

Jon managed to hold onto the rock but couldn’t stop his forward momentum.  He ended up doing a windmill, barely keeping his balance, before steadying himself on his feet.  Clearing his throat, he looked ruefully at the rock and then let it drop.  “Well.  Guess my bad boy moment will have to wait.”

“It’s okay,” she told him, lifting herself up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.  “I still think you’re cute.  Now.  Let’s go exorcise a ghost.”

Even though the outside of the building was all lit up, the lights inside were at a muted low burn, like a brownout.  They made their way forward slowly, ready for something or someone to pop out at them.  Nothing happened.  They made their way without any problem past the assessor’s office and a janitor’s closet, and other rooms besides.

“Where are we going?” Jon whispered.  He had his hands held up like he was ready for a fight.  “Do you have a location in mind where you want to do this?”

“I was thinking of Helen’s office,” Darcy answered in the same hushed tones.  “I know I’ve felt Nathaniel Williams in there.  His presence, I mean.  And I’m sure that Helen has been speaking to him in there.  It seems like the place to start.”

“Darcy?”

“Yes, Jon?”

“Why are we whispering?”

She blinked, and realized how foolish they were being.  The ghost would hear them whether they whispered or not.  She was glad that the lights were humming low so that Jon wouldn’t see her face turn red.  “It seemed like the thing to do, I guess.”

At the end of the hall was a T intersection.  The hallway went left and right but in front of them was the door to Helen’s big office.  “Mayor” was spelled out in black lettering on the frosted glass.  There was no way of seeing what—or who—was inside.  They listened, but heard only silence.

“Think this one will be locked?” Jon asked her.

“Probably.  Did you bring your rock?”