The Stolen Valentine (7 page)

***

Smudge came running to greet her when Darcy got back to her house.  Jon had let her borrow his car, even though she could have walked home in under an hour.  They didn’t want to waste any time.  Besides, it was getting colder out.  Winter wasn’t done with them yet.

Closing the door behind her, she bent down to rub Smudge behind his black and white ears.  “I’m going to need your help,” she told him.  “We’re going to try something a little different this time.”

Smudge meowed back at her.  He sounded a little doubtful.

It didn’t take her long to gather together the things that she needed from around the house.  She brought them to the living room, where she would have a wide and comfortable space of floor to sit on, then she stood there, wondering.  Twisting the ring on her finger and chewing her lip, she wished now that she’d let Jon come with her like he wanted to.  She’d asked him to stay with Grace, though.  It was more important that her sister had someone with her.  Darcy had done this before.  It shouldn’t be any problem.

She hoped.

Darcy went around and closed all the curtains tight across the windows in the living room, casting it into darkness.  She arranged the six thick, white candles in a circle on the floor and lit them in order, one at a time.  Then she lit two incense sticks and placed them in their burner on the coffee table.  The incense didn’t really do anything for her purposes.  She just liked the smell.  It relaxed her.

She picked up the two objects she had brought with her.  Ray’s nametag from work, and Aaron’s favorite book.  She’d never read “The Bell Broke,” but she’d seen Aaron reading it through more than once.  That would be more than good enough to make a connection with him.  She grimaced as she thought that.  She didn’t want her brother-in-law to be dead.  At the same time, she didn’t know if she could make a connection strong enough to find him still alive.

Smudge raced over to her and climbed into her lap and made himself comfortable.  “Thanks, Smudge,” she said to him, gently stroking his fur until she was calm enough to proceed. 

She started with Aaron first.  She held the book tightly in her two hands, and concentrated.  In her mind, she pictured the mists of the town.  She let them swirl and twist, trying to make a connection through them.  Time passed.  She didn’t know how long she sat like that, but finally she popped her eyes open and took a deep breath and admitted to herself there was no connection to be made to Aaron.

It almost made her smile.  That was good news.  Right?  It meant Aaron was still alive.

She hoped.

Next, Darcy picked up Ray’s nametag.  She concentrated again, on picturing Ray’s face among the mists in her mental picture.  She stroked Smudge’s fur idly, unable to disconnect fully from the world around her.  She could always delve deep into the world of the other side when there was someone to contact.

She guessed that was good news, too.  Ray Stephenson was still alive.

It was hopeless.  She couldn’t feel him in any way.  Gently nudging her faithful cat off her lap she stood up and blew out the candles.  She racked her brain for anything else she could do.  Nothing was coming to her and she was getting more and more frustrated. 

As she was putting the candles away the phone rang.  Darcy’s skin crawled with icy prickles, and she had the feeling that something wasn’t right.  Rushing to the phone she answered it to hear Jon’s voice.  “Grace is in a lot of pain.  The ambulance will be here any minute.  We’ll be going to the hospital over in Meadowood.  Meet us there, okay?”

The baby, Darcy thought to herself as she ran to get her coat and the keys to Jon’s car.  She was in a near panic as she gunned the accelerator, making the car fishtail out to the road.  Grace could not lose this baby.  It would just be too much.

Chapter Twelve

Darcy had risked more than a few traffic tickets on her way to Meadowood.  Rushing through the doors of the hospital Darcy headed for the information desk.  “Can you tell me where they took Grace Wentworth, please,” she asked the woman at the front desk.

The woman, short and squat with dark hair and a perpetual frown, looked up at her.  “That depends, honey.  Are you a relative?”

“I’m her sister.  Darcy Sweet.”

The woman nodded, her eyes turning kinder.  “They told me to expect you.  Hold on, now.”  She tapped a few keys on the computer in front of her.  “Yes, still in the Emergency Department.  Go through them doors right there, okay?  I’ll buzz you through.”

The swinging doors opened to her as the woman unlocked them with a touch of a button, and Darcy hurried through into a brightly lit space dominated by a rectangular desk.  Behind that desk, doctors and nurses in different colored scrubs and white coats stared at computer screens or scribbled out orders.  Doors leading to different rooms stood lined up along three sides of the Emergency Department, all of the doors closed to protect patient privacy.

Jon was standing outside of room six, and he held his arms out to Darcy as she rushed over to him.  “It’s okay, everything is going to be all right.  The doctors say it’s likely just stress.  There’s going to be a few more tests, but they aren’t worried.  Grace is more embarrassed than anything else.”

Darcy was so relieved that she practically collapsed into his arms.   She started to cry and hugged him tightly, not wanting to let go.  “Everything is so overwhelming right now, Jon.  What are we going to do?”

Jon hugged her back and kissed the top of her head.  “It’s okay, I’m going to make sure that everything works out.”  He kissed her again.

She wanted to believe him.  She just wanted to be held and protected right now.  She knew that must be all that Grace wanted, too.  “Thank you for being here for me,” Darcy said to him as she stood up on her toes to kiss him full on the lips.  She didn’t care who was watching.

He palmed her cheek and smiled at her.  “I will always be here for you.”

She hugged him one more time and then stepped back.  “Can I see Grace?”

“Not yet.  The doctor is in there with her.  He said we can go in as soon as he comes out to get us.”

***

They went out to the hospital waiting room and Jon got them both cups of coffee from the vending machine.  It was lukewarm and disgusting.  Darcy hardly tasted it as she sipped at it, worrying about Grace, and Aaron, and their baby.  As they sat side by side in plastic chairs, Darcy felt the same icy tingles crawling across her skin that she had felt when Jon had called to say Grace was going to the hospital.

She sat up straighter and looked around.  Something felt off to her again.  She couldn’t place what.  “Do you feel anything?” she asked Jon.

“No.  Like what?”

Instead of answering him Darcy stood up and said, “I’ll be right back.”  He gave her a look with raised eyebrows but didn’t try to stop her.  He was used to her odd little behaviors now.  He didn’t even find them that strange anymore.  Or, at least that’s what he told her.

She felt herself being pulled in a certain direction.  The tingling along her skin drew her down the hallway into the hospital, to the right and up a set of stairs to the second floor.  It was all patient rooms up here.  The nurses at their station smiled at Darcy politely, then ignored her.

She walked down a line of numbered doors, some open, some closed, most of them with patients lying in their beds.  At room number two-fifteen, she stopped.  Her skin practically shivered and she knew she was supposed to see who was in this room.

She entered slowly, carefully stepping closer to the sleeping form of a man on the hospital gurney.  His leg was in a cast and held up by a sling suspended from the ceiling.  Machines beeped as they monitored his condition.

His face was turned away from Darcy.  One step at a time, she walked around the bed, closer to the room’s window, to look at him from the other side.

Darcy stopped still, not even daring to breathe.  The wide face had a bruise around the right eye.  His messy red hair was even more mussed now from lying in bed.

There was no mistaking it.  This was Ray Stephenson.

Chapter Thirteen

Back down the stairs Darcy raced.  In the waiting room she scanned for Jon.  He wasn’t there.  The same hospital worker at her desk caught Darcy’s eye and nodded her head toward the Emergency Department door.  “He went in there, honey,” she said to Darcy.  “Your sister’s awake now.  Go on in.”

In her room, Grace was sitting up, her eyes sad and her smile weak.  “Hey, Darcy.  Guess I really did myself in there, didn’t I?”

“It’s not that bad,” Jon said for her.  He was sitting on the edge of Grace’s bed, one leg folded up over the other.  “You just need to rest and get your strength back.  I have to tell you, I wouldn’t be doing any better in your spot.”

Darcy grabbed Jon’s arm.  “I found Ray Stephenson.”

“You…wait, what?”  Jon stood up, searching her face.  “You mean with, uh, your abilities?”

“No, no not that.  He’s here.  He’s here in the hospital, Jon!”

Grace was watching them intently.  “You mean, that teller who got taken with Aaron?  He’s in the hospital?  We need to go question him.  Right now!”

She struggled to get out of from under the sheet on her bed.  It was obvious how hard it was for her.  Jon reached over and easily put her back down.  Grace was furious, and she slapped at Jon’s arm, but she didn’t have the strength to fight him.  “Jon, stop it!”

“Grace.  Let me and Darcy take care of this, okay?  You need to rest.  For the baby.  And for Aaron, too.”

Grace looked like she wanted to murder Jon where he sat, but she nodded and laid her head back down, staring fixedly at the ceiling.

Jon motioned Darcy out into the hallway and when the door to Grace’s room was closed behind them, he asked her, “What did you see?”

Darcy filled him in on what she had found upstairs in room two-fifteen.  “I don’t understand,” Jon said when she was done.  “How come nobody told us about this?  We put out the message to all the local hospitals that first night.”

“You put out the information about Aaron,” Darcy reminded him.  “We didn’t know anything about Ray Stephenson until today.”

“Yesterday, you mean,” Jon corrected her.  “It’s after midnight now.”

“Well, I’m not waiting another day to find out what’s going on,” she said to him.  “Let’s find somebody who can tell us what’s going on.”

They went up to the work station in the center of the Emergency Department.  Behind the rectangular outline of the desk were three nurses and a doctor chatting quietly.

“Excuse me, doctor?” Jon said.  He displayed his badge to them.  Darcy could tell it got their attention.  “My name is Detective Jon Tinker.  I’m with the Misty Hollow Police Department.  I need to talk to you about one of your patients.  There’s a man in room two-fifteen who we believe was kidnapped during a robbery in Oak Hollow.”

The doctor, an older man with thick wire-rimmed glasses, blinked repeatedly and scratched at his ear.  “Ah yes,” he said.  “I’m familiar with that patient.  I saw him when he came in yesterday.  John Doe.  Could barely speak.  Mild concussion, broken leg.  Suffering from amnesia and unable to tell us anything including his name.  You know him?”

“We’re sure his name is Ray Stephenson.  The city police in Oak Hollow should have sent you out a message by now.”

The doctor looked at one of the nurses, who shrugged.  “I’m not sure.”

“Doctor, we need to guard this man.  When can we interview him?”

“Well, you can interview him in the morning, I’m sure, but I can’t guarantee what he’ll be able to tell you.  Is there some urgency?”

Instead of answering that question Jon asked to use the phone behind the desk so he could contact the Meadwood PD to provide protection for Ray, and then he promised Darcy he would call Ray’s wife to let her know where he was.

“I’m also going to have to call the Oak Hollow PD.  The robbery took place in their city.  I’m sure they’ll want to send some people over to speak to Ray in the morning.”

Darcy hugged him briefly.  “You’re going to be busy.  Can I borrow your car again?  I need to go back to Misty Hollow for something.”

He looked puzzled but just nodded and handed her his keys.  “I’m guessing you’ll explain it to me later?”

“Of course,” she said with a smile.  Things were finally looking up.  They knew where Ray Stephenson was.  That was a start.  The smile faded quickly, though, when she remembered that Aaron was still out there, somewhere, missing and possibly still in the hands of three men in ski masks.

***

When Darcy arrived back in Misty Hollow she headed straight for her book store.  Turning the lights on inside, she went to the back office.  She had tried using her gift to contact Aaron and Ray, and for obvious reasons it hadn’t worked.  Ray was still alive.  Aaron must be still alive as well.  That didn’t mean she didn’t have other resources to try.

“Millie, I need your help,” she called out.

From the shelf above the desk in the office, her great aunt’s journal fell.  It thumped against the desk, popping open to lay on its spine.  As Darcy watched, the pages turned, as if a strong wind had caught them.  She knew better.  It was her aunt’s hands turning the pages to find the passage Darcy needed.  The passage she had suddenly remembered at the hospital when the doctor was talking about how Ray Stephenson couldn’t remember anything.

When the pages stopped, Darcy sat and scanned the neatly written paragraphs.  It was instructions for helping ghosts who were too old to remember the lives they had lived before their deaths.  If a ghost remained on this earth for too long without passing over, their connection to who they were became so weak that their memories actually faded.

Not unlike what had happened to Ray Stephenson.

If it worked for the ghosts, Darcy reasoned, then it might actually work for Ray too, even though he was still alive.

She read through the whole thing twice.  The actual technique didn’t sound that difficult.  It involved settling her mind into a peaceful state, reaching out to the ghost, and then carefully remembering the details of her own life.  The act of visualizing her own memories was supposed to help the ghost remember how to do the same thing for themselves.