The Language of Death (A Darcy Sweet Coy Mystery) by K.J. Emrick Read Free Book Online

walls on the outside, along with a few stop signs and a sign that read "Chicago, 30 Miles," even though they were nowhere near Chicago.  The lower half of the walls had been painted red, the upper part left as bare wood.  Neon signs advertising different brands of beer flashed in the windows.
    Darcy didn't go out to bars very often.  Not anymore.  She and Chloe and Lorne and a few others had visited more than a few back in college but after that she'd lost interest.  Maybe if she and Chloe had stayed in touch, it would have been the two of them going out to bars for a drink instead of Chloe and Veronica.
    Not that she was jealous.  She just was sad for missed opportunities.  Life was short, she reminded herself.  A girl who could see ghosts really should remember that.
    Inside there was a long, narrow room with a polished bar tucked along one wall, tall stools with leather seats lined up next to it.  A few booths were set up against the opposite wall next to the jukebox.  Country music played softly while neon signs buzzed on and off where they hung on the walls.  A mirror reflected the whole scene, giving the room the illusion of being bigger than it was.
    A bartender, a middle-aged woman with raven black hair in a ponytail and a shirt that was cut dangerously low, laughed at something the lone customer sitting at the bar had said.  The guy looked over his shoulder at Darcy and Lorne as they came inside, then turned back around to his beer.  Other than those two, the place was empty.
    "Not a very popular place," Darcy remarked.
    "It doesn't start getting people in until closer to eleven o'clock when the afternoon shift at the local paper mill gets out," Lorne explained.  "Bill there is the only regular who comes in this early."
    Darcy went up to the bar.  When the bartender came over she debated whether she should order a drink to help ease into the conversation.  She wasn't much of a drinker.  Wine, on occasion, or sometimes a good cold beer.  Thankfully Lorne took the matter out of her hands.
    "Hi, Felicity," he said to the dark haired woman.  "How's business?"
    "How's it look?" she said in a low, scratchy voice, waving her hand around the emptiness.  "Sometimes I wonder if I'll have a job tomorrow.  Hey.  I'm sorry about Chloe.  She was one of the good ones."
    Darcy's throat constricted.  Lorne nodded, his fingers tapping along the edge of the bar rail.  "Yes.  She was.  She liked coming here, you know.  She was supposed to come here the night she…the night they found her."
    "Really?" Felicity asked.  "No way.  Oh, yeah, I did see Veronica here that night, now that you say it.  Those two were always coming out here for girl's night.  You guys want something?  Let me get you a drink.  On the house."
    Lorne turned to Darcy, asking her silently if she wanted to.  She nodded , but her mind was on what Felicity had just said.  Veronica was here the night Chloe died.  As Lorne ordered and Felicity went off to pour out wine coolers for both of them, questions swirled through Darcy's mind.
    "Did you see Veronica when she left here?" she blurted out as soon as Felicity came back with the tall frosted glasses filled with pink liquid for her and blue for Lorne.
    Felicity looked at her oddly and raised an eyebrow.  "Oh," Lorne said, "sorry.  Felicity, this is Darcy Sweet.  She was a good friend of Chloe's from back in their college days."
    "Co me for the services tomorrow, did you?" Felicity asked in that rough voice of hers.  "Everybody here loved Chloe.  Should be a pretty packed church.  And, yeah, to answer that question I saw Veronica when she left.  She kept checking her watch and her phone.  I could tell something had screwed up girl's night for them.  Just wish it hadn't been anything that serious."
    "Them?" Lorne asked, picking up on the same thing that Darcy had.
    "Sure.  Veronica and that Sami Wilmer.  You know who I mean, right?  Mousy little girl.  Glasses.  Hangs out