The Stolen Valentine (8 page)

Could it work for the living?  She didn’t see why not.  The essence, or spirit, or whatever one chose to call the spark of life inside a person was released with death.  Darcy could commune with those spirits because of her gift.  But a living person held that spirit within them still.  She should be able to reach out to it in much the same way.

Closing the journal she put it back up on the shelf.  “Thank you, Millie,” she whispered.  On her way out she turned the store’s lights off again, leaving darkness in her wake.

Chapter Fourteen

Back at the hospital in Meadowood Darcy went back into the Emergency Department.  Grace was asleep now.  Jon was in the room with her, in a chair in the corner.  He put a finger to his lips meaningfully and waved her over to him.  Curling up into his lap felt good.  She was beginning to feel very tired, and the night wasn’t over yet. 

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Jon asked her quietly.

“I hope so.  I’m going to go up and talk to Ray now.  I might be able to help him pull his memories back up.  Did you get in touch with the local police?”

He nodded, his hands gently rubbing her back.  It felt good.  “They’ve sent two officers over to guard Ray’s door until the Oak Hollow boys can get here.  I’ll come up with you and let the officers know it’s okay for you to talk to Ray.”

She nodded.  “Um.  Can you keep them out of the room while I do this?”

“I’m sure I can.  This is going to be one of those kinds of conversations?”

“Yes,” she said, and she left it at that.

The officers at Ray’s door talked it over with Jon but ultimately they deferred to him, since it was more his case than theirs anyway.  So Darcy found herself inside Ray’s room, alone with the sound of the beeping machines and Ray’s gentle snoring.

She shook his arm gently until his eyes popped open.  “Oh, hello,” he said to her.  “Are you a doctor?”

“My name is Darcy Sweet,” she explained. “I’m actually working with the police.  I guess you’d say I’m a consultant.  I understand that you have a touch of amnesia.  If you’re willing, I think I can help you get your memory back.”

Ray’s green eyes widened, and he nodded enthusiastically.  “I can’t explain how it feels to not know…anything.  I’m willing to try whatever you want if you think it will help.  There was a robbery, the cops said?  At a bank?  I just don’t remember.”

“That’s okay,” she said to him with a reassuring smile.  “I’m going to help.”

Darcy sat down carefully on the bed beside him, making sure not to bump his injured leg, and took both of his hands in hers.  “I need you to close your eyes, take deep breaths and focus on your breathing.  Concentrate.  This, uh, might feel a little weird.”

He looked skeptical but then he did as she asked and closed his eyes.  Darcy took some deep breaths of her own and slipped into her meditative state.  In her mind, she focused on images of mist, swirling and twisting, a neutral gray color that washed away her worry and anxiety.  When she felt at peace she began to recall her own memories.  She watched her childhood unfold, like images cast by an old time movie projector onto the wall of the mists.  The scenes were a little distorted but with effort they became clear and crisp.

Childhood became her teenage years, and then adulthood.  Her failed marriage, Millie’s death, the bookstore and finding Jon and her sister and Aaron.  Her memories turned to the last few days, with Aaron’s disappearance and the robbery and—

“I remember!” Ray suddenly gasped.  “Oh, dear God I remember.  Ray.  My name is Ray Stephenson.  I work at the Three Twigs Federal Credit Union in Oak Hollow and there was a robbery and they took me.”  He suddenly looked very frightened.  “They took me and this other man…”

Darcy leaned forward, anxiety gripping her again.  This was it.  This was what they had needed.  “Jon!” she called out.  “Jon, come in here!”

He came through the door in a rush, looking from Ray to Darcy.  “What is it?”

“He remembers,” Darcy told him in a rush.  “Ray, tell us.  Tell us what you remember.”

Ray screwed up his face and then said, “There was just the one customer, you know?  Tall guy.  Blonde.  Anyway, three men in black clothes and masks came bursting into the bank.  They had guns.  They were yelling at me to give them money.  I tried to tell them I only kept three hundred dollars in my drawer.  It made them angry.  They pulled me into the back where the vault was, and made me open it.  They took nearly everything in there.”

Jon had pulled out a notebook from a pocket and was hastily writing down notes.  “What happened then, Mister Stephenson?”

“They took me and the other guy to a car they had waiting out in back of the bank.  They stuffed us both in the backseat and had guns pointed at us and then somewhere they tossed me out and I landed so hard and then…well, the next thing I remember is waking up here.”

Darcy felt her lip quivering as she asked her next question.  “The man who the robbers took with you.  His name is Aaron, and he’s my brother-in-law.  Do you know what happened to him?”

Ray sadly shook his head.  “No.  I’m sorry, but I don’t know.  He was still in the car when they tossed me out.”

She nodded.  That was more than they had known an hour ago.

“Mister Stephenson,” Jon asked him, stepping closer.  “Is there anything about the robbers you can remember that might help us?  Did they use any names, did they have an accent?  Did you see any of their faces?”

“No, they never took their masks off.  I didn’t notice anything about their voices.  I think at least one of them was white, though, from what I could see through the eye holes.  Oh, right.  The guy who pulled me over the counter, he had two different colored eyes.  One was blue, one was brown.  It was kind of creepy.  Then there was…”  He stopped, turning his eyes away and looking a little embarrassed.  “There was a smell though.  A sweet smell.  Almost sickeningly sweet.  I don’t know that I’ve ever smelled anything like that before.”

Jon looked at Darcy.  He smiled at her in that way that let her know he was proud of her.  “Good work,” he mouthed to her silently.

She hoped it was good enough to help them find Aaron.

Chapter Fifteen

“It’s actually good news,” Jon was telling Grace as they drove her home a few hours later.  It had been three days now since Aaron’s disappearance.  Good news was something they definitely needed.  “If the robbers dumped Ray out of the car it means they aren’t interested in hostages, and they aren’t interested in hurting anyone.  That’s cause for optimism.”

“Let’s go straight to the police station when we get back to Misty Hollow,” was all Grace said in response.

Darcy and Jon exchanged a look.

“Honestly, you two, I feel fine now.”  Grace sat up a little straighter in the front passenger seat to prove her point.  “I don’t need to be in bed any more.  I won’t rest until we find Aaron.  Just take me to the police station when we hit town.”

“Okay, whatever you say,” Jon said to her.

Darcy wasn’t convinced that it was the right thing for Grace to do but she also knew she couldn’t argue with her sister.  It was exactly what Darcy would do if Jon was missing.

They were pulling into the police department parking lot when Jon said, “I’m not sure what the sweet smell would be that Ray remembered, but a robber with two different colored eyes?  If he’s been arrested for anything before, that should stand out.  Not too many guys with different colored eyes.”

Darcy had to agree and she hoped that would be the clue that would lead them to Aaron’s abductors.  She got out of the car and then leaned through the driver’s side window to give Jon a quick kiss.  “I need to go home and change.  And shower.  And maybe eat something.  Make sure Grace takes it easy, will you?”

“Hey,” Grace said to her, “I’m right here, you know that, right?”

“Just take care of yourself, sis.”

Grace rolled her eyes, but Darcy could see the little wisp of a smile on her sister’s face.

As Darcy left the police station parking lot to start walking home, she looked over at the town square being transformed for the Valentine’s Day dance the next day.  Everyone was hustling about, stringing red streamers and hanging heart shaped lights.

“Darcy, Darcy!”

Darcy looked back to see Helen running up to her.  “Where have you been?” Helen asked in a panicked voice.  “I’ve been running around trying to get everything organized and I couldn’t find you anywhere!”

Darcy realized that she hadn’t done any of the things that she promised to do for the dance.  “Helen, I’m so sorry.  There’s just been so much going on with Aaron’s disappearance and Grace taking ill and—”

“Wait,” Helen said, putting a hand on Darcy’s arm.  “Aaron’s missing?  I heard something about that but I thought it was just silly rumors.  Oh, Darcy, I’m so sorry.  How’s Grace?”

“As good as can be expected, I suppose.  We’re working on finding Aaron now and we think we’re close.  Are you set for the dance?”

“Well, sort of.  That cousin of yours has been a godsend.  She and her band are all set for tomorrow.  At least something’s going right!”

Helen looked a little embarrassed as she said it, as though she shouldn’t be happy about a dance when Grace’s husband was missing.

“Don’t worry about it, Helen,” Darcy reassured her friend.  “I know that if you can do anything for us you will.  I’ll let you know what happens, all right?”

The two women hugged and then Helen rushed off giving instructions to someone with a box full of roses.

Darcy turned away from the busy scene, wishing that all she had to think about was getting ready for a Valentine’s Day dance.  It wasn’t long before she had made it home.  A grateful Smudge rubbed up against her legs until she opened a can of cat food for him and set it next to a saucer of milk.  “Sorry, boy,” she said to him as she scratched behind his ears and let him scarf down his food.  “I know I haven’t been here much.  I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

She quickly showered and changed.  While she was showering, the idea of what she should get Jon for Valentine’s Day finally popped into her head.  She knew it was such a low priority right now, and she wished her brain could just turn off, but she finally knew what she would give him.  She hoped that he would like it.  One less thing on her mind, she finished getting dressed and quickly headed back to the police department.

She had hoped that in the time she was gone, Jon and Grace and everyone else crowding the desks at the police department would have figured out who the robbers were.  Jon scowled when she came in, though, and shook his head.

“Not a single criminal in all the databases we can access has two different colored eyes.”  He smacked his palm down on his desk.  “I really thought that would give us something.”

Grace sat miserably at her desk next to Jon’s.  Her hands kept playing with the papers on her desk like she didn’t quite know what to do with them.  Darcy watched her write something out, then shake the pen as it ran dry, and then angrily throw it away and continue writing with a different pen.  The colors of the ink didn’t match.  The first pen had been black, and this one was blue…

A thought occurred to her.  “You know, Jon, I used to love watching reruns of Columbo
on television with my aunt Millie.  Did you know Peter Falk had a glass eye?  He hid it pretty well, but one eye was fake.”

Light dawned in Jon’s eyes.  “Of course!  We’re not looking for a criminal with two different colored eyes.”

Grace finished his thought for him.  “We’re looking for a criminal with a fake eye!”

“Do they keep records of things like that?” Darcy asked.

“Sometimes,” Jon said, already typing away furiously at his computer.  “If the arresting officer is smart enough to make a note of it…”

It was several minutes later when Jon looked up with a smile.  “Got him.  Howard Manning.  Arrested three times on counts of robbery, one conviction.  Spent five years in state prison, where he was arrested again on an assault charge.  Seems he lost his left eye in a fight with another inmate.  Cost him another two years.  Out now and according to his parole record…”

He turned his computer screen so Grace and Darcy could read it.

“Living in Meadowood,” Grace read out loud.

Jon picked up his phone and dialled the Meadowood PD.

Chapter Sixteen

“Are we ready?” Jon spoke into his handheld radio.

Darcy sat in the front seat of the car with him.  Grace sat in the back.  They were parked just down the street from the address they had for Howard Manning.  They were within sight of the three story brick building on the corner of Second Street and Thackwood Drive.  No one would notice them, though, in Jon’s personal car.

“Almost in position, Detective Tinker,” the officer’s voice came back to him over the radio.  “Stand by.”

A joint operation of the Meadowood Police and Oak Hollow’s PD was about to swarm the building to arrest Manning.  Earlier, an undercover officer from Oak Hollow had gone inside and came back out again to confirm Manning was inside.  He was considered armed and dangerous, so no one was moving in until everyone was ready.

“Jon,” Darcy said to him.  “You noticed what else is in that building, didn’t you?”

“Yes.  It explains what Ray smelled, doesn’t it?”

The upper two stories of the building were apartments, and one of the three apartments on the second floor is where Manning lived.  The first floor of the place, though, was a chocolate shop.  Open and busy for Valentine’s Day, the store was doing a brisk business.

A sweet smell, Ray had said.  Almost too sweet.  The store made their own chocolates here, or so the sign in the window said.  Darcy imagined the smell from living over a place like that would soak into your skin and your clothes both.  The building looked like it was old, and she figured the apartments were probably cheap…

Darcy yawned.  Jon looked over at her with a raised eyebrow.  “Sorry,” she said.  It was the same day they had brought Grace home from the hospital, just a few hours ago.  Everything had been put together quickly but it meant none of them had gotten any rest.