Resorting to Murder (A Darcy Sweet Mystery Book 11) (5 page)

Rockwood waved the offer away.  "I appreciate that, Jon. 
I know we look small time here.  Most of the time my people don't have anything to do but hand out parking tickets to tourists.  But we're more than capable of handling something as simple as a tourist gone missing in our woods."

"More than just the one disappearance, though. 
Right?"

Darcy could tell by the expression on Rockwood's face that he was becoming annoyed.  Maybe he saw Jon's offer to help as an outsider telling him how to run his department.  "Yes.  Thing is, a lot of tourists come into Bear Ridge with the idea they can just strike out into the woods without being prepared.  Then something happens, and next thing you know they can't find their way back again."  He shrugged, like it was
something he just couldn't help.  "Maybe if people read the warning signs on the trails, they wouldn't go missing like that."

"I suppose you're right, Sh
eriff."  Jon nodded, slowly.  "But then, where are the bodies?"

"Well now, if I knew that," Rockwood said guardedly, "then they wouldn't be missing, would they?  I got a meeting with some people soon, Detective Tinker.  It was good to meet you.  Hope you enjoy your stay.

Darcy felt completely dismissed when he turned to her with a quick "Ma'am" before closing the glass partition and walking away into the interior of the building.

Jon turned to her, an eyebrow arched.  "That went great. 
Just like we planned."

"Better than some of our plans," Darcy agreed, taking his hand and smiling up at him.  "I think you might have stepped on his ego."

"Any police officer who can't take an offer of help without getting his feathers ruffled isn't taking his job seriously.  He's got people going missing in his town.  He should be begging for help.  Not turning it away."

Darcy kissed his cheek and they left, empty handed.  "Not every cop is as good at their job as you are," she told him.  She meant it.  Jon was amazing at what he did, and he loved his job.

He squeezed her hand tighter.  "If I'm amazing, it's because I'm with you."

"Oh, so you weren't amazing when you weren't with me?"  She couldn’t help putting that little dig in.  She hadn't let him off the hook for leaving her alone for all that time.  Not yet, anyway.

He stopped at their car, and turned her into him, his gaze holding her in place.  "I'm nothing without you, Darcy Sweet."

Her heart thumped harder and heat flushed through her.  "You should say things like that more often."

"How about every night.  For the rest of our lives."

"
Mmm," she murmured, stepping into him, holding him tight.  "Yes please."

Wait.  Darcy listened to his words again in her mind and had to wonder if maybe he had meant something more? 
The rest of their lives?  Did he mean…?

She leaned back, still in his arms, meaning to ask him to say it again. 
Instead, a prickling sensation all along her skin set off alarm bells for her and she knew something was wrong.  That's when she saw the shadows move in the hedge row bordering the parking lot.

Someone had been standing there. 
Watching.  Looking over Jon's shoulder now, she saw just the outline of whoever it was step around the end of the tall hedges, out of view.  Who could that have been, she wondered.  Maybe someone just watching their public display of affection.

Maybe it was something else.

Her sixth sense told her it was something else.  Whoever that had been, their reasons for watching her and Jon were not innocent.  She didn't have the slightest idea who they could have upset here in town already.  They'd only just started asking their questions about Audie Berkstone and the others who had disappeared.

Jon picked up on her uneasiness.  "What is it?"

"There was someone there.  Watching us."

He turned, looking all around them.  Of course there was nothing
to see anymore.  Whoever it was they were gone now.  They had horrible timing, too.  She gently turned his face back to her with a hand on his cheek.  "What was it you were saying?" she asked.

Turning into her hand and kissing her palm, he untangled his arms from around her and went around to the driver's side door.  "Later.  I think we should maybe take a look at those trails ourselves before we meet JoEllen for lunch. "

She did a very bad job of keeping her frustration out of her voice.  "Why?  I mean, what good will that do us?"

"I don't know, but I was thinking that maybe you could recognize something from your vision if you saw it.  Some part of the forest or the trails themselves."

It made sense, and it was a good place to start.  It was obvious they weren't going to get the help of the Sheriff's Office any time soon.  Maybe if they found the body they had seen Sheriff Rockwood would come around.  They still had three hours before they were supposed to meet JoEllen, at noon.  They should make use of that time somehow.

She blew out a stiff breath and got
into her side of the car.  If their romantic getaway was ever going to heat up the way she wanted it to, they would have to solve this mystery first.

There were several
trailhead parking areas off the main road that lead from the town up to the resort lodge.  Mount Borealis was deceptively large.  It looked like an oversized hill to Darcy, but as they parked and got out at a random trail and then began hiking up, she got a better sense of how the gradual incline of the mountain had skewed her perception.  There was a lot of ground to cover up here. 

Thankfully they were dressed for a long
walk.  Twenty minutes up the slope, Darcy began to feel perspiration at the back of her neck.  "This could take days," she said, waving away a buzzing insect that got too close to her ear.  "Didn't the Sheriff say that he came up here with his deputies and the fire department already and couldn’t find anything?  What makes us think we'll just stumble onto something I recognize?"

"We're due for some good luck, aren't we?" was his response.

"Come on.  We've had our share of good luck."

His hand found hers and held it tightly.  "Yes.  We certainly have."

The trail meandered through the trees, their leaves whispering nonsense to them in the cool breeze.  Nothing looked familiar.  The trees were wrong, the lay of the land was wrong, even the trail was wrong.  This was rich, dark soil littered with dead leaves and pine needles and small stones.  Nothing like she had seen in the vision at all.

Still, they climbed the trail for another half an hour, both of them realizing they would have to turn back soon or risk
losing their chance to talk to JoEllen over lunch.  What was the woman up to, Darcy wondered.  What was her connection to the dead man?

Then there was Carson Middlemiss, the big bear of a man who wrote humorous stories and loved books.  Something else was going on there, too.  Something Darcy
genuinely hoped didn't mean he was the killer.

Jon had stopped walking.  Darcy hadn't even really been paying attention to their surroundings, knowing they were
possibly in the wrong place but knowing too that there were at least five other trails to pick from on this side of the mountain alone, not to mention the ski trails over by the resort that were also used as hiking trails this time of year.  The places she had seen in her vision could have been anywhere.

Or they might be right in front of her.

"Look," Jon said, pointing to a square of dark wood screwed into a towering pine tree right in front of them on the trail.

"Danger.
  Trail closed due to slides," it said.  Only, with the missing letters the last word read "lies."

The sign from her vision.

She looked up at the trees all around them.  Yes.  This was the spot from her vision, where she had seen JoEllen pause and get her bearings before continuing on her headlong run in…this direction.

Darcy led Jon
straight ahead through the trees.  Before long they came out to one of the ski runs, a torn up swath of ground that separated the forest like a scar.  All vegetation had been worn away from the brownish-white sand that would probably never grow anything again.  Rocks the size of Darcy's fists were everywhere along the trail of the run, giving her the uneasy feeling that the whole thing could start tumbling at the slightest provocation and spill both her and Jon in a tumbling heap down the mountainside.

Oh. 
Closed due to slides.  Now Darcy understood the sign.  The ground was unstable and hikers were warned not to climb on the ski run.

Good advice.  Too bad they couldn't follow it.

They had to follow the trail instead.

"Where to?"
Jon asked her.

"This way," Darcy told him, one hand waving him to follow.  She started down the path, carefully picking her way, placing each foot down slowly and avoiding the loose rocks.  Even so her feet slipped under her more than once, forcing her to wave her arms for balance as she slid forward like a barefooted surfer on an ocean of gravel.

Jon was always there with her, catching her by the elbow or the waist or reminding her to be careful.  She was so glad he was here.  Looking into the paranormal and mysterious without him had been harder than she realized.

"Do you recognize any of this?  Remember any of it?"

She didn't have to ask him what he meant.  It was her vision that was leading them.  Only, this part of her vision had been a blur.  Had they already gone too far?  Should they go back?  Search the forest on both sides of the trail?  Checking her watch she saw that it was already quarter after eleven.  They'd been at this too long as it was.

"I'm not sure where to go next, Jon.  Maybe we should just follow this down to the bottom and regroup at the ski lodge.  At least we'll know which of the ski runs to follow later when we come back to look."

Cold prickles danced up her spine.  Goosepimples stippled her arms.  She stopped in the middle of the trail.  Or at least she tried.  The rocks shifted and slid her forward another foot before she could grind to a halt.

"You sense something?" Jon
asked her.

She nodded, scanning the trees around her. 
From behind her, the wind picked up.  It pushed against her back and swirled past her to dance in the trees to her right.  It pushed against her again.  And again.

Until she got the hint.

One step at a time, she walked to the edge of the ski run and then back up onto the grassy soil that surrounded the first few trees on this side.  Yes.  This felt right.  What they were looking for was this way. 

The wind couldn't reach them
once they were enveloped by the towering trees, but Darcy didn't need its guidance any more.  She saw it.  This was the area from her dream.  A small clearing ahead.  Freshly turned dirt, sod replaced haphazardly to cover something that would not be covered.

The remains of a hand stuck up from the Earth.  The animals and the elements had not been kind to it.

She began twisting the silver ring on her right hand over and over.  Her gift had led them to another dead man. 

At moments like this it was hard to think of it as a gift.

Jon was beside her, his arm wrapped around her shoulders, turning her away from the grave site.  She buried herself into his embrace, happy to close her eyes and lean into his comfort.  She wasn't going to ever get used to seeing dead people, no matter how many times it happened or how many ghosts came to visit her or how many departed souls she helped cross over to the other side.  It would just always be wrong for anyone to end up this way.

This place was so desolate. 
So isolated.  No wonder the searchers hadn't been able to find it, Darcy reflected.  They could have walked right by it on the ski run trail and never known it was here.

They had found the grave of Audie Berkstone. 
They had the proof they needed to have an investigation started, and have JoEllen questioned officially.  It sort of seemed like a hollow victory. 

A twig snapped behind her.  She felt Jon tense, his hands tightening protectively on her back, as JoEllen
said, "Put your hands up."

Darcy
started to turn around, to confront the woman, but Jon held her close instead.  "Do what she says," he whispered in Darcy's ear.  "She has a gun."

Only then did he take his hands off her, lifting them up like JoEllen had ordered.  Darcy turned
, slowly, and stepped to the side of Jon.  She didn't want to be in his way if he suddenly made a lunge for JoEllen or tried anything else.  Seeing the heavy black automatic that was pointing their way made her hope he didn't try anything stupid.

She put her hands up and stood
there, waiting for what would come next.

JoEllen
took a step closer to them, her face angry, her eyes narrowed.  She held her gun steady, the knuckles of her hand white and tense.  Darcy's heart caught in her throat.

"Where,"
JoEllen growled at them, "is my son?"