Free 1 Death Comes to Town by K.J. Emrick Page B

anyone else, but she could trust Grace.
    ***
    “What on earth are you two doing together? Do you both have concussions?” Grace’s shocked expression would have been comical to Darcy if the situation wasn’t so serious. They had walked into the police station together, and Jeff had muttered something about how Hell must have frozen over.
    Jeff ignored Grace’s attempt at humor. “Is Jon around?”
    Grace shook her head. “Jon? No. He said he had to go home early today.”
    “Good,” Darcy said to her. “Grace, we need to talk to you.”
    “Well, I’ll mark this one on my calendar. Why don’t you sit down and tell me what’s important enough to bring the two of you together.”
    Darcy looked around the room. There were two other officers working in there, and the desk Sergeant at the front, and God alone knew who else. Maybe even the Chief. “Not here,” she said as Jeff was about to speak. “Can we go into one of the interview rooms?”
    Grace caught on to how serious Darcy was being. “Sure, Sis. Follow me.”
    The interview room was small, with a metal table bolted to the floor in the middle of it and two chairs on both sides. Grace sat down on one side, and Darcy and Jeff sat side by side on the other. A wall-length mirror showed Darcy her expression. When was the last time she’d gotten a full night’s sleep, she wondered. She sure looked like she needed it.
    At Grace’s prompting, Darcy explained to her what they had found out about Jon. About the time of death, about what Jeff had heard Anna saying, about the whole voicemail thing and how Jon had cut it off so that Darcy would get the wrong idea. How they thought he might be Anna’s killer.
    Grace shook her head. “No, that’s not possible. Darcy, the coroner is sure about the time of death. Nine o’clock.”
    “The time of death is off by an hour. It was ten P.M., Grace.”
    “And you know this because…” Grace’s eyebrows shot up. “Of course. Look, I can’t just arrest Jon. We don’t have any proof.” She held a hand up as Jeff started to argue. “We have what you two know, or think you know, but that is not proof. I can keep a close eye on him but I’m going to tell you, I don’t think it’s in his personality to do something like this.”
    Grace’s cell phone rang. She took it off her belt and looked at the display, running a hand through her dark hair she grimaced. “Sorry but I need to take this call.”
    When she walked out of the room to take the call, Jeff grabbed Darcy’s arm. “We should leave.”
    “What?” Darcy asked him. “Why?”
    “Because your sister isn’t going to do anything about this. And she was our best hope. I don’t want to give up on this just because Grace is going to ‘keep an eye’ on her new partner. We should do some research into Jon’s past. That’s something we can do now. Come on.”
     

Chapter Fourteen
     
    Darcy and Jeff had gone back to her house where they were using her laptop to search the internet for information on Jon. They had decided to look into anything they could find out about him but there was nothing to find. All of his past jobs, records, his schools, everything was normal. There was nothing that pointed to anything dark in his past.
    “Take your feet off the coffee table,” she snapped at Jeff. “You know that it leaves marks on the woodwork.”
    Jeff sneered at her. “Stop acting like my mother. I already have one of those.”
    “You had a wife at one point, too. This is why you don’t have one anymore.” Darcy sent him a scathing look and he rolled his eyes, but he took his feet off her table. She got up and put one hand to her temple while the other fisted into her hip. “I need a break. Do you want a coffee?” She didn’t wait for Jeff to answer before she left the room. 
    She was having trouble not letting all of her old attitudes toward him come out again. He always got under her skin, even though she knew most of the trouble was her, not him.