Jon set the pad squarely in front of him as he sat down on the one side of the metal interview table. Darcy sat in a chair off in the corner, still trying to absorb what he had told her. His sister, Aimee, had been accused of killing her boss six years ago and stealing thousands of dollars from the company. Tens of thousands of dollars. She had been arrested, and arraigned in front of a judge on the charge. A boyfriend of hers had posted bail for her. Once she was out, she had run away and disappeared.
Jon had gotten a few letters from her since, telling him that she was okay, and not to worry. None of them had a return address. As far as Jon had known, Aimee was on the other side of the country.
Instead, she had found her way to Misty Hollow. Right where her brother, the police detective, lived and worked.
Darcy studied him now. He was a rock. Every muscle in his body was tight and rigid. His eyes were hard flecks of blue stone. This must be so hard on him, she thought to herself, sympathy pouring out of her heart for him.
When he spoke, his voice was coiled steel.
"I'd like to say it's good to see you again, Aimee." He didn't look up at her. Uncapping the pen, he started writing the date and time on the top sheet of the notebook.
"You're angry," Aimee said to him.
Jon snorted. "There's an understatement. I passed angry with you years ago. Sometime around when you ran away from home and broke mom's heart."
Aimee nodded, looking down at her hands, cuffed together on top of the interview table.
Her blonde hair had unraveled from its pony tail and now fell in unruly strands across her shoulders. She was wearing a tight white t-shirt with a picture of a kitten on it. It almost looked like a pajama shirt to Darcy. Her jogging pants could have been sleepwear as well. Pajamas.
Darcy had to wonder at that.
"Well?" Jon asked. "You said you wanted to talk to me. Let's talk. What were you doing in Vivica Chartrand's house?"
There was no hesitation in the answer. "I was living there. I've been living there for about two weeks now."
Jon's pen scratched to a halt. "Two weeks? You've been in town for two weeks?"
Aimee nodded, her expression a little too smug for Darcy's liking. "I came here looking for you, big brother. I wanted your help to take care of…" She flicked her eyes over to Darcy and then away again. "With my troubles."
"Darcy knows you're wanted for murder, Aimee." Jon started moving his pen across the paper again. "In fact, everyone here knows it. I'm betting that Vivica Chartrand knew it, too. So tell me how you expect me to believe that the town clerk was hiding a fugitive in her house? A fugitive who was the sister of one of the town's police officers?"
Aimee's glance turned to Darcy again, cold as ice, before lowering to settle on her own hands. "Vivica saw me the first day I was here. I went to the Bean There Bakery and Café and sat there until I saw you come in, Jon. I was hiding in a corner. No way you would have noticed me. But Vivica did. She saw how hard I tried to get up and talk to you. She saw me fail. Then she came over, and asked me what was wrong, and we sat and talked for more than an hour. Then she put her hand over mine and told me she could give me a place to stay until I was ready to talk to you."
Darcy saw the tears start to fall from Aimee's eyes. She had no doubt there had been a few tears at the café, too, when Vivica had opened up her heart and her home to a total stranger. Had that choice gotten her killed?
"So you mean to tell me," Jon said slowly, "she was hiding a fugitive in her home for two weeks."
Aimee sat back in her seat. "I'm your sister. I'm not just some fugitive."
"You're both, actually."
She wiped at her eyes angrily and awkwardly with the palm of her hands. "I should have known better. You never believe me. I came here for your help."
"You never want my help, Aimee. You just want to do what suits you in the moment."
"Whatever, Jon," Aimee snapped. "Like you're so perfect."
"Did you kill Vivica Chartrand?" Jon asked her.
She gaped at him. "How can you even ask me that?"
"Because she's dead and you were in the house with her. Because I'm a police officer and you're a wanted fugitive. Because I am your brother." He tapped his pen on the pad, waiting. "Take your pick."
Glaring at him through her tears, she slammed her hands down on the table between them. "I didn't kill her."
"You were in the house when Helen got there," Jon pointed out.
"I told you, I was living there."
"That's not the point, and you know it."
"You never believed in me!" she shouted, rising up in her chair, jabbing a finger at Jon that jingled the chain of her handcuffs. "You never lifted a finger to help me! You never helped Dad, either! He's in prison, and you don't even care!"
Darcy felt her throat tighten. She couldn't catch her breath. Jon's father was in prison? He looked over at her, unspoken apologies in his eyes. The room spun around her as time ground to a standstill. It was like everything she thought she knew about him was changing. They needed to talk, he had said to her more than once today. What else was he waiting to tell her?
"All right, let's try this," Jon said, clearing his throat and getting back to the interview. "How did she die? If you were in the house with her, and you didn't kill her, then who did?"
Aimee sat back down, throwing her hands helplessly into the air. "I don't know. I went out for a walk in the woods. When I came back, that woman Helen was standing over Vivica's body and screaming at me that I killed her."
Jon raised an eyebrow at her. "A walk in the woods? You're wearing pajamas."
"Good enough to go for a walk in." Aimee shrugged. "I was going to take a shower and go to bed after."
"Aimee, you don't like to walk to the store, let alone take a walk in the woods."
She stared at him levelly. "People change, Jon."
"No," he said to her. "No, they don't. You and Dad are proof of that."
She jumped up again and Darcy thought Aimee might launch herself across the table at Jon. "You listen to me! I did not kill Vivica! I'm innocent! I didn't do it!"
Darcy felt herself getting to her feet and holding her hands up to both of them like she could somehow hold back their rising anger. "Hold on, both of you," she said. Jon turned to her, an uncertain look on his face. He mouthed the words not now, but she pretended not to see it. "Jon. Maybe I can tell if she's lying. For certain."
"Now how could you do…?" He stopped. Understanding made his eyes wider. "You mean like you did with Brad Finn to see if he killed Marla?"
Darcy nodded.
"Uh, excuse me," Aimee said to them, "what are you two talking about?"
Jon thought it over and then finally stood up, motioning for Darcy to take his seat. "Go ahead. It's nothing that can stand up in a court of law, but I want to know."
Darcy sat in the chair across from Jon's sister, holding her hands out across the cold metal surface of the table. She smiled and tried to look reassuring. "I know it sounds strange, Aimee, but I promise I know what I'm doing."
"So you're what?" Aimee asked Darcy. "Some kind of psychic?"
Darcy laughed. "Funny. That's just what the last person asked me."
Hesitantly, Aimee reached out her hands, still held tight inside the handcuffs, and placed them in Darcy's. "Just don't try to read the lifeline in my palm or anything, okay?'
Jon rolled his eyes. Darcy just smiled. "Don't worry. This is a little more advanced than that."
Breathing in and out and in again, Darcy held her breath and focused on the feel of Aimee’s hands in hers. Wherever their skin touched, Darcy's nerves began to tingle. She could feel how slender Aimee's fingers were, how the fingernail of her left index was chipped, even the individual lines of her fingerprints. Then, taking a breath in, letting it out, taking it in again, she pushed out with her life force.
Her Great Aunt Millie had been the one to show her this technique, sort of, by writing it down in a book Darcy had found just a few days ago. It was still a relatively new way of using her abilities, at least for Darcy, but she had used it once already, and she knew it was working now.
The tingling hum spread out from her hands and across Aimee's. Darcy felt the other woman startle, but she didn't take her hands away. Four times Darcy repeated the process, then she opened her eyes on the exhale.
She gasped, stifling a scream, and pushed back from the table abruptly enough that she knocked over the plastic chair she'd been sitting in. Jon caught her just before she tumbled over to the floor and she gripped the front of his shirt in her fist.
Aimee's hands were covered in blood. It was dried into her skin, crusted under her fingernails. She saw where Darcy was looking and held her hands up in front of her face, turning them over as best she could in the handcuffs. "What?" she asked. "What is it?"
Darcy looked at Aimee, unable to believe she wasn't screaming at the sight of all of that blood. But then she looked up into Jon's face, and she understood. Neither of them could see it. Just her. It wasn't real blood. It was a paranormal manifestation of what lay in Aimee's soul.
Aimee had killed someone. She had blood on her hands.