Resorting to Murder (A Darcy Sweet Mystery Book 11) (7 page)

She turned around to glare at Jon
, daring him to say something.  Darcy was driving so that he could sit behind JoEllen and keep an eye on her.  He shrugged, refusing to turn away.  "I may have to arrest you when this is done but right now I don't have any proof that you did anything.  Other than trying to kill me and Darcy."

JoEllen
snorted.  "If I'd tried to kill you, you'd be dead.  I was only trying to scare you into telling me where Connor is."

Connor, her
ten year old son, had been kidnapped from the cabin JoEllen and her fiancé Audie had rented at the Lonely Cub.  That was five days ago.  Last week.  She'd found a letter inside their room telling her that her son was all right, but there was a job she needed to do before she could get him back.  The details were all there.  Then, in Audie's hastily added handwriting, he had told her he was going after their son.  He told her what trail he was taking, saying he had seen just a glimpse of their son being taken that way.

In a panic, she had raced out after him, running through the woods.  It was just dawn at that point.  She had arrived a day after Audie and Connor had or she would have been there when Connor was taken. 
She would have been there to save Audie.  The whole thing might have unfolded very differently if she had been there.  The letter said their son was safe, if she did what she was told.  Audie was a different story.

"He didn't know what I did for a living," she explained.  "I hadn't told him.  I figured I would never fall in love
, and I would just keep making money at my chosen profession until I was rich and could retire.  But then Audie came into my life and everything changed.  We've been together ever since Connor was born.  He asked me to marry him, just last year, after all this time together.  I was going to get out of the business, settle down, make a life for myself.  And I had, too.  I gave everything up when Connor was three.  Or so I thought."

"Then someone found you here," Darcy sympathized.  "You're getting pulled back in against your will."

Staring out the windshield again, JoEllen nodded.

"I was too late to find Audie. 
Too late to save him.  A whole day late."  Tears fell down her face, and Darcy could hear the truth in everything she said.  The emotion was real.  So was her desire to save her son.  "I was given a week to complete my contract.  It's been five days.  If I don't kill the target, my son will die instead."

"Forgive me for saying this," Darcy said as they came back into the speed zone in town.
  "But you don't strike me as a killer."

A faint smile passed over JoEllen's face.  "That's why I was so good at it.  No one susp
ects a pretty blonde girl as a killer.  I can walk right up to most targets before they ever suspect anything.  Or, I could.  I used to."  She sighed again.  "Now I just want it to be over.  I want to be a mother to my son.  A wife to…"

To Audie, she had been about to say.  Only, like Darcy an
d Jon had seen, Audie was dead.

They went to
BoBo's, the restaurant that JoEllen had suggested earlier, and as it turned out she had been right about the burgers.  She made sure to order one without mushrooms.  They chose a table out on the sidewalk area in front of the building with its neon yellow paint job and red roof.  Out here they could see all around them and make sure they weren't overheard.

JoEllen
pushed a french fry through the ketchup on her plate.  "Do you two have children?" she asked.

Darcy looked at Jon, and saw the amused light in his eye.  They had discussed having children together. 
Once.  Jon had quickly closed the subject without giving her a real answer.  She blinked, remembering how he had seemed to be hinting at something with her earlier. 
How about every night.  For the rest of our lives…

She really wished
he had said more.  She badly wanted to get him alone to ask him what he meant.  Would they ever find time for that now?  Trouble had found her again, just like it always did, putting them right in the middle of it.

"No," he said to JoEllen, a world of meaning in that small word.  "We don't have children."

"I see," JoEllen said.  "Well.  Can you imagine what it would be like to have a child taken away from you and be powerless to get him back?"

Darcy had to admit that no, she could not imagine it.  "You aren't powerless, JoEllen.  You've got us."  She tried to make it sound encouraging but
wasn't sure she succeeded.

Jon didn't seem to have that same problem.  "Who is your target?" he asked.

A couple walked by their table at that moment and they dropped the conversation until the young man and woman had gone by, their eyes on each other and their hands held tightly together, absolutely no interest in Darcy or Jon or the hired killer they were eating hamburgers with.

JoEllen
shook her head.  "You don't need to know who my target is."

"Yes, I think we do."  Jon pushed aside his half eaten meal to lean in
closer to her.  "Whoever it is might have some idea of who's trying to get them killed.  So, we talk to your target and work this backward and find your son that way."

It made sense to Darcy.  The same kind of sense
as any of their plans ever made, which was to say that it sounded dangerous and likely to go wrong.  When Jon looked at her for approval she nodded her agreement anyway.  What choice did they have?  If they wanted to save Connor from whoever in this town was holding him hostage, they had to do something.

With a slow breath and an almost imperceptible nod of her head JoEllen
agreed with them, too.  "All right.  I guess you can't arrest me for being asked to kill someone."

"Don't be so sure," Jon said, biting into his burger again, his eyes never leaving JoEllen.

"Jon."  Darcy reached over to rest her hand on his knee, squeezing gently.  "Go easy on her.  We're trying to help her, remember?"

"Right.
  Sorry," he said with a shrug.  "Old habits."

"Whatever." 
JoEllen glared at him again.  "You can do whatever you want to me, cop, as long as you help me save my son.  That's all that matters to me now.  So.  My target is supposed to be Donnie Wasson."

She waited, looking from Darcy to Jon as if that name should mean something to them.  When they didn't have the reaction she apparently had expected, she clarified
it for them.

"
Donnie Wasson.  The Mayor of Bear Ridge."

Darcy's stomach tied into a knot. 
The mayor?  JoEllen was supposed to kill the mayor?

"Well," Jon grumbled, "that's just fantastic."

"Hey, I didn't pick the target," JoEllen protested.  "It's being forced on me.  Even when I was doing this full time I handpicked my jobs.  I had standards.  Even when the money was good I wouldn't kill people who didn't deserve it."

"And who decided if your victims deserved it?" Jon challenged. 
"You?  Your employers?  Who are you to decide who lives and dies?"

JoEllen's
hands clenched into fists on either side of her plate.  "Don't judge me.  I turned down plenty of good paying jobs because the people involved offended me.  Either the money was dirty or the reasons for the kill went over the line.  I've got blood on my hands, I know that.  I'm trying to clean it off.  But I know where every drop of that blood came from and I'm okay with it."

Blood on her hands.
  Darcy had to wonder what she'd see on JoEllen's hands if she looked at them with her gift.  How many people had she killed?  What might it have done to her spirit and to her conscience?  She was trying to make up for it now that she had a son.  Maybe being a mother had changed JoEllen, Darcy thought.  Maybe she had cleared away some of her past by trying to build a future.

Still, she wouldn't want to take that bet
.  She sincerely hoped she never had to look at JoEllen's soul.

"Let's leave all of that alone for right now," she suggested.  Jon had been about to say something and JoEllen had her face bunched up like she was already preparing an argument.  Both of them visibly relaxed
, with some effort.  Darcy sighed and picked up a fry to use as a pointer.  "Let's get Connor back for JoEllen.  Anything else is a discussion for another time.  The only thing we need to figure out now is what to do next."

"Simple," Jon said, throwing a napkin down on his plate.  "We go talk to the mayor."

Darcy didn't think this was anything close to simple.  Just walk up to the mayor of the town and say, "hi, this is the woman that was going to kill you but now we're trying to save her son and keep you alive.  Can you help us?"

Jon smirked at her as they made their way up the cobblestone walk to the
large red brick home.  She could tell he was reading her thoughts, and she rolled her eyes at him.  There was no turning back now.  They had to see where this lead would take them.

JoEllen
had stayed back in the car, parked at the side of the road a little way down the block in this upscale residential part of Bear Ridge.  She didn't feel comfortable coming up to Donnie Wasson's door.  Actually, all three of them felt better about leaving her in the car.  Jon had the keys, and the trunk with her gun in it was still locked.  It wasn't like they had to worry about her trying to run away and disappear.  She needed their help to get her son back.

Well. 
To get her son back without having to kill anyone.

The front door to the Wasson home was
a tall, imposing thing with frosted glass windows set up in a diamond pattern and a brass knocker in the center of it shaped like a bear with a metal ring in its mouth.  It was impressive, in an overbearing in-your-face kind of way.

"Is this guy the mayor or
one of those rich land barons in the Scooby Doo mysteries?"  Jon sniggered at his own joke before using the knocker on the door.  Then he growled at the bear's face.

Darcy elbowed him in the ribs.  "Stop it."

"What?  It's a bear's head knocker, for crying out loud.  I can't take that seriously."

Her
scowl melted into a smile.  She couldn't stay mad at his handsome face or that childish twinkle in his eyes.  Here they were investigating murder again and he was still able to find the humor in the craziness.  If this was what her life would always be like, Jon was definitely the man she wanted to share it with.

From inside, a
voice called out.  "Be right there."  A moment later the door opened and a tall, smiling man greeted them.

He was dressed in blue slacks and a long-sleeved blue shirt a few shades lighter, buttoned up to the short collar.  His skin was the color of rich coffee.  His
light brown eyes took them in, casually but carefully, friendly in a guarded kind of way.  "Can I help you?" he asked, one hand on the door, ready to close it again if need be.

Jon showed him his badge.  "Are you Mayor
Donnie Wasson?"

"Hmm.
  Well, my parking tickets are all paid up, so yes.  Yes I am."  Donnie Wasson chuckled but then put a hand to his chin and peered closer at Jon's badge.  "Say.  Hold on now.  You aren't one of Sheriff Rockwood's men.  Says here you're from Misty Hollow.  Where's that?"

Darcy felt her hopes sink a little.  She had really hoped
the mayor wouldn't catch on so quickly to Jon being from another jurisdiction.  It stood to reason, though.  In a small town everyone knew everyone else.  The mayor would know all the officers by face if not by name.

"Misty Hollow is a few hours from here, sir," Jon continued, without missing a beat.  "
I'm a detective with the police force there.  My girlfriend and I are here on vacation.  At least, we were.  Something's happened to change that."

"Oh?  Well, I'm so sorry to hear that,"
Donnie said in his smooth and fluid voice, seeming to be honestly concerned that two tourists in his town might not be enjoying themselves.  "I can't imagine what might have troubled you in our fair town?"

Lowering his voice, Jon held the mayor's gaze as he said, "I have information that someone is trying to kill you, Mister Mayor."

Here was the moment of truth, Darcy thought to herself.  Donnie would either listen to them or bounce them out on their ear.  She watched for his reaction.  His face seemed to go very still.  Then slowly, his smile disappeared.

"Well," he said at last.  "Why don't we come
on inside and discuss that."

Don
nie Wasson was by himself.  His wife and young son were out of town on a trip, he explained.  From the way he said it Darcy got the impression that their trip had happened rather suddenly, and recently, and probably had something to do with what Darcy and Jon were there to talk about.

They sat down on the brown corduroy couch and
Donnie served them tea and little biscuit shaped cookies.  He folded himself down into the loveseat across from them, his smile inexplicably back in place.  Folding his hands over his knee he looked from Darcy to Jon.  "Well.  Seems you learned a lot about our little town in just two days."