Disclaimer - "Mystery Case Files" and all related characters, events, and concepts belong to Big Fish Games, Elephant Games, and Eipix Entertainment. I get no monetary benefit from this. My benefit is the enjoyment of dealing with beloved characters. Original characters, however, are mine - please contact for permission before using. This includes Darnell as a defined, fleshed-out character in his own right.
Aftermath
by DragonDancer5150
Chapter 5 - Sister's Keeper
"You know how some women like to complain that women's clothing must have been invented by men? Like bras and pantyhose? I swear the noose-as-a-fashion-accessory has to have been some woman's idea of revenge." Finally feeling properly human again after a good, hot soak and a shave, Darnell was futzing with his tie. He paused, shifting his gaze in the mirror to look out the bathroom door into the rest of the hotel room behind him.
"Wouldn't surprise me," Thomas agreed with a chuckle and a shake of his head before returning his gaze to his laptop.
Darnell packed up the last of his toiletries and left the bathroom, tossing the bag onto his open suitcase before moving to sit on the end of the bed nearest the desk. "Must be a pretty fascinating read. You've been glued to that thing since before I woke up."
Thomas huffed, closing the laptop. "Reports from Manchester. This whole thing's even more balls up than I'd reckoned it'd be."
Darnell gave him a crooked grin. "Yup, I think you've said that once already."
Thomas gave him an absent 'Did I?' look, then shook his head. "C'mon, mate. How about we chat over lunch? I'm hungry, and I figure you must be too."
Darnell started to reply, but a gurgle from his stomach made his point for him. He felt his cheeks flush as he grinned. "Famished."
Thomas chuckled and shook his head, putting away the laptop while Darnell repacked his suitcase.
The locksmith had arrived while Darnell was in the shower. He was just finishing up as the two men approached from having checked out with the front desk. Thomas drove since Darnell wasn't presently legal to – not having any form of identification on him – and they relocated to a café down the street, ordering hot sandwiches and coffee.
Darnell had both hands wrapped covetously around his mug of heaven's brew. "Reports from Manchester?" he prompted after indulging in a long drink. He couldn't wait for the caffeine to kick in, despite the hours of sleep he'd gotten.
Thomas poked at his sandwich. "I asked for no tomatoes," he groused, amusing Darnell (the detective would never not find 'to-MAH-toes' funny). Thomas pulled the sandwich apart to remove the offending slices, nodding as he put the rest back together. "They have a Charlotte Caldwell in custody at the jail there in Manchester." He looked up at Darnell. "She's asking for you, wants you to visit her."
Darnell frowned, setting down his mug. He recalled his last exchange with her after he'd trapped her in the storage room at the asylum. They'd traded insults and arguments as he went through the carpet bag she'd left in the hall just outside the door. "Did they say what she wants?"
Thomas shook his head. "Just to talk to you." The officer's brow furrowed. "They say she's hardly stopped crying since they found her."
"Crying?" That certainly didn't sound like the confident, angry, haughty young woman Darnell had butted heads with. "What'd you tell them?"
"That I'd talk to you about it." Thomas was frowning. "Frankly, I don't think it's a good idea . . . but there's a lot of stuff that just doesn't add up. She's changed her story, for one. She's not still accusing you of killing her sister. At first, she said it was 'Grandfather,' but now it's 'the dark, scary man'. And there's more. Darnell, she's claiming to be Charlotte Sommerset! That she and her sister are Rose Sommerset's daughters."
Darnell stared at his sandwich, no longer hungry. After a moment, he nodded. "Because she is." He'd found too much evidence to believe otherwise, despite the fact he didn't know how that could be possible. Then again, it 'wasn't possible' for spirits to be made flesh-and-blood again more than a century after their deaths. But such had been the fates of Rose and her eight-year-old twins, as well as Ravenheart's ill-fated namesake, Emma. Darnell swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. "Alister did something to them, aged them somehow with his dark magic and twisted their minds."
"How? And why them?"
Darnell picked up his coffee mug again, rolled it back and forth between his hands. "Because he held power over anyone with his blood in their veins. Like he did to Derek last year, in Dire Grove." He looked up. "Thomas, Alister was their grandfather, like he was Derek and Peter's. Rose's husband wasn't the girls' father, Charles Dalimar was. I don't know if Charles seduced or even raped her and she never told anyone, or what. Considering this was the late eighteen-hundreds and Charles was a much more well-to-do person than she was, I wouldn't be surprised. Holding that secret over her might even have been what made her go work for him to take care of Emma. It also explains why he considered Rose and the girls part of his twisted family, and why he once told me that Rose was his first love, before Emma." Darnell frowned at a thought. "Has anyone checked on them? Rose and Emma?"
Darnell had rescued the newly-living women with his last investigation of Ravenhearst four years ago when he'd defeated – killed – Charles and his son Victor once and for all. When Charles' bizarre techno-magical machinery had embodied 'his family' as part of his plan to keep them with him forever. How Charles thought he'd manage that by returning them to mortal bodies, which by design would just die again sooner or later, Darnell had no idea. But the five of them – Darnell, Emma, Rose, Charlotte, and Gwendolyn – had escaped together as Charles' machinations exploded in gouts of fire. Darnell had brought the women back with him to London where, with the queen's personal blessing, Thomas had used his contacts to help them build new lives in the modern world.
Thomas's eyes were dark as he met Darnell's gaze. "After I got the report on Charlotte first thing this morning, I called the local constabularies where they live to have someone go check on them. Emma's fine, but Rose . . . she was found dead in her home about three years ago. No sign of forced entry, no sign of struggle, no discernable wounds. The best the coroner could come up with was that her heart simply stopped, in sheer fright from the looks of her though that couldn't be proven."
Darnell's own heart twisted in his chest. An innocent life ended by violent tragedy . . . twice. "And the kids?"
"No sign of them. They were assumed to have run away shortly before or after their mother's death. They were searched for but never found. They were never serious suspects. They're still on the Missing Children watch list, but otherwise the case has been closed for almost two years."
Darnell dropped his head into both hands. "Blast it!" He peeked up at Thomas. "Three years ago, you said?"
Thomas nodded, then frowned, guessing what was crossing Darnell's mind – and he was right. "Don't start, Barrett. No one holds you responsible for those women. You've already done far more for them than anyone could ever ask. Once they entered the subsidy program, they were the responsibility of the constables in charge of their cases. And I will have the arse of whoever failed to report this case back to the Royal Agency, considering the special circumstances involved." He huffed, letting go of the anger for now, then ducked till he'd caught Darnell's eye, holding his gaze. "It's not your fault, Darnell. Don't blame yourself for this. You have more than you ought of things as it is."
Darnell nodded, if reluctantly. "When we get to Manchester, I'd like to stop by and see Charlotte before we head south." He held up a hand before Thomas could protest. "Maybe I'm not responsible for her, but it still feels like something I need to do."
Thomas studied him a long moment before finally drawing a slow breath. "All right, mate. We'll make the stop. Eat up before it gets cold." He nodded at Darnell's plate.
The two finished lunch and hit the road in silence.
