The Lost Witness (Darcy Hunt FBI Mystery Suspense Thriller Book 9) by Eva Sparks

Author:Eva Sparks [Sparks, Eva]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2025-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Home of Darcy Hunt

Avondale Heights Neighborhood

Albany, NY

Young Darcy stood at the top of the stairs in her nightgown. The hallway was dark. Only the light from the front porch illuminated the staircase. She couldn’t remember getting out of bed and walking over here. The last thing she recalled was switching off her bedside lamp and tucking in beneath her blanket.

She felt that she should go downstairs. Someone was waiting for her there.

Her feet padded softly down the wooden boards. As usual, the third one from the end uttered a thin creak. When Darcy reached the bottom floor, she stood there wondering where to go. Where did they want her to go?

It was chilly, and she wrapped her arms around herself. The backyard. She didn’t know why, but that’s where she needed to go.

Darcy moved down the main hallway through the living room and found that the back door was already standing open. She stepped onto the back porch. It was dead quiet, except for a low creaking sound that turned her attention to the large oak in the center of the yard.

There was no breeze. The tire swing was still. But the creaking persisted.

Stepping down the stairs, Darcy’s bare toes pressed into the coolness of the grass as she made for the tree. She stopped and looked up.

Her father’s feet were swinging near her head. He was wearing his work boots, the kind he always wore when he worked in the yard.

Darcy looked up to see the rope wrapped around his neck, his head resting at an unnatural angle. His eyes were wide and looked off blankly into the void.

“They told me you didn’t kill yourself,” she said to him.

The rope creaked again. “They were right.” But the reply was not her father’s voice. Not deep, not male, but that of a grown woman. Darcy glanced to her right to see her grown sister standing by the tree trunk. She held a gun in her hand. Blood trickled down one side of her head, oozing from a bullet wound.

“They killed him,” Lila said, “and they let you believe that he wanted to die. What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know. I’m scared. I want to go back to bed.”

“If you go back to bed, then Toby and I will find you. We’ll kill you. I love Toby. He’s a good brother. He loves me.”

“I love you,” Darcy said. “I always have. I miss you.”

“I miss Toby,” Lila said.

Her father’s voice boomed over them, causing her to look up again. “You’d better get that.” His jaw worked awkwardly against the rope.

“Get what?”

“You don’t hear it? They need you.”

Maybe she did hear it. Yes, there it was. A faint trilling from somewhere distant.

“They need you,” he repeated.

Louder now. Darcy frowned. It was unpleasant, foreign to her surroundings. The sound didn’t belong here.

Suddenly Lila stepped away from the tree and started toward her. “They need you!” she screamed, her voice shrill and urgent. “Go to them!”

Then she raised the gun at her sister…and fired.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.