Laid to Rest (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery Book 18) Read Online Free Page B

I’ll meet you guys here.”
    Jon hung up the house phone on the wall and came back to sit with Darcy and Ellen at the kitchen table.  “Your sister will be here soon with a couple of our officers.  We’ll go over the house, look for evidence, fingerprints and whatever else we can find.”
    “Do you think you’ll find anything?” Ellen asked when Darcy stayed silent.
    “Honestly?”  Jon hesitated.  Darcy felt his eyes on her.  “No, I don’t.  We can always hope whoever did this got sloppy, but I doubt we’ll find anything here.”
    “Why not?”
    Darcy wanted to hear him say it, too, even though she already knew the answer.
    “Because,” Jon said, “you told me the door was locked when you went for your walk, right?”
    “Of course,” Ellen told him, her tone sharp.  “I never leave it unlocked.  Not even for that short amount of time.  I’m not stupid.”
    “That’s one thing I’ve never accused you of being.  So, you have the door locked and you’re sure that Smudge was inside when you left.”
    “Right.  Asleep on the couch.”
    “So, unless he got up and ran out of the house just as soon as you left, he was still in here.  So the kidnapper got in and took him while you were on your walk, and then left this note, but there wasn’t any sign of forced entry.  No broken glass, no signs that the locks were picked and really no time to pick them anyway.  So.  The kidnapper came in the house.  How did he get in?”
    “We have a key outside in the knothole of that one tree remember,” Darcy said, knowing where Jon was going with this.  “We keep it there for emergencies.”
    “Right.  Now.  How many people know we do that?”
    She threw her arms up in the air.  “Everyone in town, practically.  We’ve never had to keep our doors locked from our friends.”
    Jon waited.
    Darcy blew out a breath and slumped in her chair.  “Which means whoever did this knew us.  They knew where the spare key was.  And even if they were dumb enough to leave fingerprints, it will be fingerprints of someone we know and who has probably been in our house before.”
    Ellen closed her eyes tightly shut.  “Guess we start locking our doors on our friends now, don’t we?”
    “And change the locks,” Darcy added.  She wanted to be out in town, looking for Smudge, but Jon had pointed out how useless that would be.  They didn’t have the first clue where to look and they only had until midnight to find him.  They couldn’t just run around aimlessly.  She just felt so frustrated!  “Someone we know did this to us.”
    “Right.”  Jon drummed his fingers on the table.  “So they used the key.  Probably waited for you to leave, Ellen, or just lucked out that you weren’t home when they got here.  They came inside, looked around quickly for the journal, and when they couldn’t find it they went to plan B.”
    “Kidnap Smudge,” Darcy growled.
    “Darcy,” Ellen said, again, “I’m so sorry…”
    “Just shut up, Ellen.  I don’t blame you, I really don’t, but I keep wanting to shout at you because you were supposed to be here and you weren’t and if you keep telling me how sorry you are then so help me, I’m going to claw your eyes out!”
    No one was more surprised by her outburst than Darcy was herself.  She never lashed out like that.  Ever.  Especially not at a friend.  It really wasn’t Ellen’s fault.  It wasn’t anyone’s fault.  That’s what made it so hard.  Every mystery she had ever solved, every request for help by a ghostly presence reaching out from beyond the grave, in every one of those there had been someone to blame.  Someone she could point a finger at and say, it’s your fault!
    There wasn’t anyone to do that to here except Ellen.  She should have been here.
    She should have been here!
    Ellen set her lips in a firm line, and slowly got up from the table.
    “Ellen,” Jon said to her, with a helpless expression.
    “No, Jon.”  Ellen