Resorting to Murder (A Darcy Sweet Mystery Book 11) by K.J. Emrick Page B

edge to it that should have killed Rockwood where he stood.  "What did you do with my son, you filthy— "
    "Uh, uh, uh," the Sheriff warned her.  "None of that, please.  I can still make sure the kid dies.  You behave, and maybe I'll let him go.  Although I aughta kill him just because you didn't fulfil our contract."
    Those words hung over their heads like daggers.  Sheriff Ben Rockwood was JoEllen's blackmailer.  The killer of her fiancé.  The kidnapper of her son.
    And Darcy hadn't seen it until it was too late.
    "Why?" she asked, knowing that stalling was their only chance.  "Why would you do this?"
    "It's a might too complicated for you to understand," was his answer.  Scratching at his temple, he pursed his lips.  "Not to mention I don’t really want to explain all of it to you.  Suffice to say Carson wasn't the only one who stood to lose if an arena broke ground over by the ski resort.  What I need to know from you two pretty ladies, is how did you find out it was me?  There any other folks out there I'm going to have to silence?"
    From her vantage point, Darcy could see some of the interior monitors still.  Just enough of them to see Jon come sneaking around a corner, his own gun drawn and held in a double fisted grip.
    She had to stall.
    "Come on now," the Sheriff urged, "tell me how you found out."
    "Yeah," JoEllen whispered to Darcy.  "I'd like to know that myself."
    Knowing that she couldn't very well tell them her human-sized tomcat had given her the clue she needed at a teaparty in a dream, Darcy slowly reached into her pocket and took out the Sheriff's note instead.  She uncrumpled it, then held it out for him to see.
    "You misspelled the word 'you're' on this note," she told him.  "The same way the blackmailer misspelled it on his note to the mayor."
    YOUR DEAD , the mayor's note had said.  Your, instead of you're.
    "Really?   That was it?  Really?"  The sheriff grumbled to himself and shook his head.  "Never was much of a speller.  That's what kept me from getting this job in the first place."
    "But you have the job," Darcy pointed out, her eyes flicking to the screens and back.  "You're the Sheriff."
    That brought his cold smile back.  "Am now.  Old Sheriff Allen was one of the first people I killed.  Had to get where I am somehow."
    The cold feeling that had been twisting in Darcy's stomach knotted tighter.  One of the first people he'd killed.  All those missing people here on Mount Borealis.  Did Rockwood kill all of them?  Just to get to where he was now?
    Worse still, were she and JoEllen going to be his next victims?
    On the one screen, she saw Jon peek his head around the corner at the other end of the corridor that led to the door where Rockwood was standing.  Her heart leapt into her throat.  If the Sheriff saw him…
    In a chilling sing-song voice, he put words to her fears.
    "I see yo-o-o-ou."
    In that split second the world became a blur of motion.  Rockwood swung his gun away from Darcy and down the hallway, the muscles of his forearm tensing as he put pressure on the trigger.  An explosion of sound hammered at her ears.  Even as the gun went off, Jon was moving on the monitor.
    And then from behind her, JoEllen pushed her aside, drew her own gun, and shot so many bullets into Sheriff Ben Rockwood that Darcy lost count .
    Blood smeared the wall as Rockwood slid down to the floor, his boot heels shuffling comically on the linoleum.  He was already dead.
    When Jon raced out of the doorway that Rockwood's lifeless body kept propped open, Darcy heard herself sob in relief.  She raced into his arms, and he held her close, his body warm and strong against hers.
    "So," he said after a long moment.  "Sheriff Rockwood?"
    She nodded into his chest.  Not Carson.  It had never been Carson.  He'd died because he had wanted to keep the town from building an arena on his property, and stumbled across Audie Berkstone's grave in the process.  He probably would have