Death at the Wheel Read online

  Jon stoically watched everything as it unfolded. The injured man whose memory Darcy had seen was loaded onto a stretcher with a neck brace and loaded into an ambulance. The squad members checked out the two still in the car. The uniformed officers of the Misty Hollow Police Department went about their jobs.

  “What did the guy tell you?” Jon asked when Darcy forgot to move away from the scene.

  “Oh. Um. He asked me to help the woman in the car. The redhead. Her name is Lindsay. And, uh…oh right. He said they were coming into town when the other car hit them.”

  Jon looked down at her, one eyebrow arched. “That was how he said it? The other car hit them?”

  Darcy concentrated. Everything had been so crazy. “Actually, no. He said they were all in the same car, coming into town, and then…I guess he never actually said what happened.”

  Jon didn’t make fun of her for the slip. He’d talked to her before about how police officers expected witnesses to mix up what they saw and heard at traumatic scenes like this one. It was human nature. Even so, Darcy was still embarrassed. She wouldn’t be much help to him if she started assuming things.

  “But he did say they were all in the same car?” he asked her.

  “Yes. That part I’m sure of.” There. That made her feel a little better.

  “Okay. When you get your store taken care of come find me at the station and I’ll take a written statement from you.”

  A commotion over at the edge of the gathered crowd drew their attention. A man with a blue baseball cap sitting backward on his head lifted a bulky news camera onto his shoulder. A tall brunette in a long beige coat stood in front of the camera, a microphone held in one hand, narrating with the accident scene behind her. Darcy would recognize the woman with her pixie haircut anywhere. Brianna Watson, reporter for the Ryansburg Chronicle newspaper.

  “When did the news get here?” Jon asked, annoyed.

  “When did she start doing television news?” was what Darcy wanted to know.

  “She got a spot on the local channel a few weeks back. Obviously she’s trying to move up in the world.” He smiled a little grudgingly. “There’s certainly enough stories in this town to report on, right?”

  Before she could say anything another detective in a plain brown suit came up to them. Wilson Barton, former night shift officer for the Department and recently promoted to detective. He was a young man, with eyes that were too old and too serious. The way he had his blonde hair buzzed so severely short made him look even older. He knew he had a lot to prove, though, being basically promoted to replace Darcy’s sister. Grace was on forced medical leave now as she was about to give birth to her first child. Wilson was Jon’s new partner. At least for now.

  “Jon. Darcy,” he greeted them with a nod. He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck.

  “Will,” Jon returned the greeting. “You’re bleeding.”

  Wilson stopped scrubbing his neck and brought his hand back around to look at it. A cut along the knuckles dripped blood. “Yeah. I was looking at the wreck and caught the edge of something. No big deal. Uh, Jon, we have a problem.”

  Jon heaved a breath. “Don’t we always? Let’s start with how two cars could wreck this bad on Main Street.”

  “Right, right. Well. About that.”

  He paused, and Darcy’s ears pricked up. Jon began tapping his foot. “Will,” he said, “if you’re going to be a detective then you’re going to have to learn to say what you need to say. Don’t pause for general effect or wait for someone to ask you what you want to tell them. Just say it. What’s the problem?”

  Darcy thought Jon was being a little too harsh on Will. She knew he hadn’t wanted a new partner, but even a department as small as Misty Hollow’s force needed two detectives.

  Considering everything that had happened in this town in the last year, Darcy reflected, maybe they needed more.

  “Uh, right,” Will said, straightening his spine. “This is the situation. Two injured, one male, one female. The driver of the blue car is deceased, most likely, although their boarding him for transport anyway.”

  “Oh, no,” Darcy said, her hands covering her mouth. She’d seen enough death to last her a lifetime. No matter how often she saw it, or in what form, it still bothered her.

  Wilson looked at Darcy, then looked at Jon. “You want me to do this later?”

  “No,” Jon said. “Darcy’s a witness. Plus she’s helped our department on a lot of cases, remember? Chief Daleson trusts her. Just go ahead with it.”

  The younger detective sucked on the inside of his cheek for a moment but then shrugged as if to say it was Jon’s call. “All right. Here’s our problem. We can’t find the driver for the second car.”

  Jon blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “The driver. Of the red car. There’s no, uh…there’s no driver.”

  Darcy swept her eyes over the scene. She saw now how the fire department and the police officers were both walking around the wreckage, looking under and through everything they could, searching for something that should be there and wasn’t.

  There was no driver.

  “There’s got to be a driver,” Jon pointed out. “The car didn’t just drive itself into town and then run into these people!”

  “That’s what I’m saying,” Wilson agreed. “We’ve looked everywhere and we can’t find anyone. The other three were in the front car. Somehow the other driver just, well, vanished.”

  “Will that’s impossible. There’s got to be an explanation.”

  “You think it’s possible this was a parked vehicle that slipped its gears and rolled into traffic?”

  Jon was already shaking his head no. “Not with that kind of force. Not with the speed that the wreckage indicates. Look at the position of the cars. The red one hit the back end of the blue one hard enough to stop both of them in their tracks and then mangle everything into one big ball of scrap. No. It was being driven.”

  “Okay, but then where’s the driver?”

  “Start a search, right now. Get the guys to go building to building and ask every person they talk to if they’ve seen anyone or if someone came to their door. If our officers have any reason to suspect something is wrong somewhere then they are to do a top to bottom search of the building. I’ll call Chief Daleson and get him down here and get some more men in to help.”

  Wilson nodded and started off, suddenly a bundle of energy now that Jon had given him a direction. “Put a bandage on that hand!” Jon called after him. “And run both license plates through the DMV files!”

  When he turned to Darcy with an apology ready on his lips she didn’t even need him to say it. “Don’t worry, Jon. I know. You’re going to be late. It’s all right. I have the book club tonight anyway.” She smiled at him, and pushed herself up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “I’ll stay up for you.”

  “I love you, Darcy Sweet,” he said to her.

  “You’d better,” she told him, waggling her left hand with its diamond ring. His ring. “You’re going to marry me, after all.”

  Looking back over at the accident scene, Darcy wasn’t surprised at all to see tendrils of white, misty fog starting to coil around the cooling heaps of twisted metal. This town had ways of telling her when weird things were happening.

  They were happening now.

  Chapter Two

  Darcy and Izzy wore rubber gloves as they swept up and removed glass shards from everywhere they could find. Lilly stayed in the back office, chattering away to Millie’s ghost about the exciting car accident. Darcy had whispered the more gruesome details to Izzy. They both agreed Lilly didn’t need to hear about dead people and missing drivers. Not right now.

  The police had finished measuring the impact of the car part—a wheel strut, they said—that had shattered the front window. It had been taken away to be kept with the cars themselves for further investigation. Now it was up to them to put the shop back to rights.

  “We’ll need plywood to board up th
at window until we can get it replaced,” Darcy said. “I hope Davis down at the hardware store can help us out with that.”

  “Why don’t I run down and ask him now?” Izzy offered, dumping a last dustpan full of glass into the trash. “That way we can get it done quicker.”

  “No, let me do it,” Darcy said. “That way you can stay with Lilly and I’ll be able to stop by the Police Station like Jon wanted me to. Oh, and see Grace, too.”

  “How is your sister doing? The first pregnancy is always the hardest, you know.”

  It was almost like she knew what she was talking about, the way she said it. Darcy quickly put the thought aside. Her friend only had the one child, as far as she knew. “Grace just doesn’t like being put on bed rest, is all. She never could stand still. Even when we were little girls. She must be ready to chew nails knowing that she missed all this action here this morning.”

  “Sure is weird, isn’t it?” Izzy stripped off her rubber gloves, shaking her head. “Wouldn’t someone have seen the driver run away from the scene? I mean, he has to be somewhere, right?”

  “We didn’t see anything,” Darcy pointed out. “It’s not that strange, I guess. Just weird. Like you said.”

  She made sure the sign on the door was turned to “OPEN a good book today” before she left. The lack of a window shouldn’t keep them from making a few sales if anyone came to the store. Out on the street she watched the last of the clean up being done. Just two hours later, and all that was left was some pieces of plastic and other leftover debris for the fire department members to sweep away. If the gouges in the pavement hadn’t been there it would be easy to imagine it hadn’t even happened.

  Only it had, and someone had died because of it. A tragedy in itself, but since the one passenger’s touch had sparked a vision for her, Darcy had to believe there was more to this than even a missing driver could explain.

  Her bicycle was waiting for her, still upright and safe in its rack. She was glad the accident hadn’t hit her bike, too. She depended on it to get around. At least, she would until the snow started to fall. Pedaling off, she headed for the Police Station to talk to Jon.

  Of course, Jon could wait for a little bit, and so could the broken window, although neither of them would wait for too long. Checking her My Little Pony wristwatch she decided she had time to go see her sister. A quick visit, anyway.

  The watch had been a gift from Lilly. Not exactly what she would have chosen for herself, but who didn’t like My Little Pony?

  ***

  Grace and Aaron’s apartment was a little bit of a pedal from the Sweet Read Bookstore, but not too far. The center of town wasn’t that big, really. Shops, residential streets, apartment buildings, all of it was within walking distance. Bicycling just made it that much easier. Less than ten minutes later she was knocking on her sister’s door.

  Aaron answered her knock. He smiled when he saw her, but Darcy could see how weary he was. There were lines around his brown eyes, and she was pretty sure he was wearing clothes that he had slept in. Hadn’t she seen him in that same collared polo shirt yesterday?

  “Hi, Darcy,” he said, his voice full of excitement and energy even if the rest of him was dragging. “Hey. Glad you could stop by. Grace is in the bedroom.” He lowered his voice then, and winked like he was sharing a private joke. “She’s a bit on the cranky side. Hope you borrowed some body armor from Jon.”

  Darcy laughed and gave her brother-in-law a hug. “I’ll be fine. I’m sure I can handle one cranky pregnant woman. Even if it is Grace.”

  The bedroom was at the back of the apartment. It was cramped with gift bags and boxes that still had wrapping paper shreds attached. Grace’s baby shower had been a few days ago. She’d made out like a bandit.

  On the bed, propped up by a mound of fluffy white pillows, Grace lay uncomfortably. “Don’t just stand there, sis,” she said, patting the checkered blue comforter next to her. “Get in here and fill me in. What’s going on with the accident?”

  Darcy rolled her eyes but came in and sat down like she had been told. She gave Grace a quick, gentle hug, careful of the baby belly draped under the sheets. “Come on, Grace. The doctor said you were supposed to be resting. I’m not going to stress you out with police stuff.”

  “You’ll stress me out if you don’t! Darcy, I’m going crazy here. I should be back at work. This baby is going to come any day now and I feel so incredibly useless!” Grace tugged at the short length of her dark hair and ground her teeth. “I’m still a police officer, aren’t I?”

  “Sure, you are,” Darcy said calmly, used to her sister’s little outbursts by now. “But you’re also about to be a mother. You need to relax and do what’s best for your baby. The doctor wouldn’t have ordered bed rest if he didn’t think you needed it.”

  “Whatever. I’m telling you this is more stressful to me than being at work would be. Jon won’t even take my calls anymore.”

  “He doesn’t want to encourage you.”

  “Ha! Like I need his encouragement. Now. Tell me what’s going on with this accident, or so help me Darcy, I’m going to get up out of this bed and waddle my way down to the station and sit in the middle of the floor until someone talks to me!”

  Darcy had to laugh, because she could so picture her sister doing exactly what she had just threatened to do. “All right, all right. I don’t know everything but I’ll tell you what I do know. There was a bad accident, two cars, and the driver of one car is dead because of it.”

  Grace’s eyes lit up as she took in every detail. “Whoa. Vehicular manslaughter!”

  “You could try to be a little less enthusiastic about it,” Darcy scolded mildly.

  “You know what I mean. I live for things like this. So, what’s Jon going to do? Has he already arrested the other driver?”

  “Well, um, the other driver kind of…disappeared.”

  “Disappeared? You mean, like, vanished?”

  Darcy nodded. “There’s no sign of him. Or her, I guess. Nobody saw the other driver. It’s almost like the car was driving itself.”

  She had expected her sister to laugh that off, but instead she eyed Darcy levelly. Things like that were no laughing matter here in Misty Hollow. Stranger things had happened.

  “I’m going to see Jon in a little bit to give him my statement,” Darcy said, trying to move the conversation away from the mysterious non-existent driver. “I’ll know more then. He and Chief Daleson have practically the whole force out going door to door, searching.”

  “Good. You tell Jon to call me. He can’t work this investigation without me.”

  In those words, Darcy heard how anxious Grace was to get back to work, how worried she was that having this baby—unplanned as it had been for her and Aaron—might be the end of her career.

  Darcy put her hand reassuringly on Grace’s shoulder. “You’ll be back to it soon enough, sis. This isn’t the end of your world.”

  Putting her hands over the curve of her belly, Grace smiled for the first time since Darcy had been in the room with her. “I know. I’m really looking forward to meeting my baby. I am. I’m not upset that I’m pregnant. I just so, so, so want to be out there doing what I’m best at.”

  “You’ll be just as good at being a mother,” Darcy promised her. “My niece couldn’t have a better family than you and Aaron.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t tell Aaron what I said. If I scowl enough he rubs my feet and feeds me ice cream.”

  The sisters laughed about that, and Grace confided a few other things that she had guilted Aaron into doing for her, a couple of which made Darcy blush.

  “Besides,” Grace said, “I might be carrying your nephew. You don’t know.”

  Darcy let the comment go unanswered. Grace and Aaron had opted to not have the doctor tell them the sex of the baby. They wanted it to be a surprise. That was fine, but it didn’t change what Darcy knew. Her sixth sense had told her months ago that Grace would be having a girl. She wasn’t sure why her
gift had found that fact important enough to pick up on, but it had. There was just no reason to ruin the surprise for Grace. If her sister wanted to believe it might be a boy, that was fine. Darcy knew the truth.

  She’d gotten Aaron and Grace half a dozen baby girl outfits as a shower gift, along with two tickets to a spa and a promise to babysit so the new parents could have a weekend respite whenever they needed it. Grace had held up the pink and frilly baby outfits with a meaningful look, but Darcy couldn’t help it. She was excited to know the family would have another girl in it soon.

  “Have you heard from mom?” Darcy asked Grace now.

  “Oh, yes. She calls every day. She and James are still in their honeymoon phase by the sound of it and mom takes every chance she can to call herself Mrs. Bollinger. I can’t remember ever seeing her this happy.”

  “You’ll be that happy too, once you have your baby in your arms. Are you ready?”

  “So, so ready. You’ll see what it’s like one day. At least Jon finally got his head on straight so you two could get married. I guess there will be three of us when we come to your wedding. Me, Aaron, and baby.”

  Baby girl, Darcy amended in her mind. “You’ll be the first one I send an invitation to,” she promised her sister. “I have to get going now. The accident smashed out the front window of my shop. I need to get over to the hardware store.”

  “Okay,” Grace said, obviously sad that Darcy had to leave so soon. “Be safe, okay?”

  “Hey, you know me.” Darcy did a little pirouette as she stood up, striking a pose at the end of it. “I always play it safe.”

  “Ha! As if. Just get out of here. You’ve got an invisible driver to help Jon find. And remember to tell him to call me!”

  Darcy gave Aaron another hug on the way out and thanked him for taking such good care of her sister. “How are you doing, by the way?” she asked him.

  With a shrug, he tried to pretend he wasn’t still having nightmares after his abduction earlier in the year. “I’m just taking it day by day, Darcy. It’s Grace who has all my attention now.”