Guest Blog - JT Hine

Sonja McGiboney
Jun 29
6 min read

About JT

I am a writer, translator and life-long cyclist. My fiction crosses crime, travel and adventure, featuring awesome women. The non-fiction includes travel writing and self-help booklets for freelancers and career-changers. My novels will lead you into two different series (Emily & Hilda and Lockhart), which I hope that you will enjoy as much as I enjoy writing them. In the blog of this site, I post sea stories (memoirs) and short stories. Enjoy!

Darts

Posted on 2025-06-28

EMILY HAMPSTEAD TOOK A SIP OF HER BEER, then walked to the dart board. She pulled out the three darts and walked back to the table. Chris Mercer, Maryellen Dorchester, and Maryellen’s new husband (but long-time significant other) Diego Gonzalez hooted as Chris wrote the new scores on the blackboard. Emily was eighty points ahead of the three-way tie for second place.

“Damn, Em,” said Chris, “seeing you shoot back at the academy, I shouldn’t be surprised, but a dart is not a Glock 19.” Chris and Emily had been classmates and briefly lovers at the National Park Service Law Enforcement Academy years before. Maryellen had hosted Emily while she attended the academy.

Chris was stationed at the Gateway National Recreation Area in New Jersey. Emily was riding home from her six-month stint at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park near Cleveland, Ohio. Chris had driven in for this reunion of the four friends.

“True, but throwing a dart is easier than a survival knife.”

“I read that interview with your mother, ” said Maryellen. “Do you two really practice knife-throwing?”

“Yeah. She’s pretty good, too.”

“Who’s that?” asked Diego.

“K. M. Millbank.” Maryellen waved her beer at Emily.

“The writer?”

“Yeah. The Dawn People series. I’ve read all six novels. Love ’em.”

“I read those,” said Chris. “Aren’t Netflix and Starz in a bidding war for the rights, Em?”

“They’re driving Mom nuts. She’s an English professor at UVA. All this hoopla is distracting, she says.”

“On her way to the bank.” Chris nudged her. Emily smiled. He aimed carefully and put his dart in the bullseye. The next two went in the next circle, the bull.

“This wasn’t part of her long-range financial plan. Dad has a good job, UVA pay is okay, and she has royalties from the books now. I’m no load.” Emily marked Chris’ score on the board while Diego stepped up to the line. His darts stuck in the doubles on the left.

“How about you, Emily?” asked Maryellen. “Park rangers and nurses don’t make big bucks, I know. And you’re both.” She put her missiles in the same circle as Diego, but on the other side.

“I’m doing fine. The parks provide quarters, and there are extended-stay lodgings near the hospitals. With no mortgage or car payments, I’m stashing most of my pay in my IRA and an investment account. I’ll need it someday.” Investment Retirement Account.

On the next round, Chris’ last dart hit the wire at the edge of the bullseye and fell to the floor.

“I am not going to match that,” said Emily, stepping up to the line.

The doors to the bar crashed open. A girl screamed.

Emily turned to see a man in a hoodie and a balaclava step in, brandishing a revolver. Instinctively, she shifted into an alert state in which her focus on the pistol matched her peripheral alertness.

“Nobody move!” The bass voice from such a skinny man seemed out of place. The pistol never stilled to point at anything specific.

He walked to the bar and waved the pistol between the bartender and the cash register.

“The cash. Now!”

Emily had seen that jerky nervousness before. Only the stupidest drug addict would storm into a crowded place with no backup. The terrorists, murderers, kidnappers, and poachers she had faced flashed through her mind. She packed them away in her mental survival compartment. With a breath, she slammed the lid shut on them.

She paused only long enough to feel the darts in her hands. She reacted more from instinct and training than conscious thought.

“Police!” she shouted. “Drop the gun!”

The robber looked her way, surprised, but saw only a slender woman in a blue skirt and blouse. Auburn hair in a long braid. No guns. “Bullshit! Stay back, all of you!”

He turned back to the bartender.

His mistake.

Emily threw the dart so fast that it sank into the side of his head. The robber screamed.

Before he could move, Emily threw her second dart into his forearm. The gun tumbled to the floor, and the robber fell on it. The dart in his head came out.

The patrons stood frozen as Emily crossed toward the man.

“Maryellen, 911!” She looked back and made eye contact. Maryellen snapped out of her shock and took her phone from the table.

“Diego, napkins or towels! Chris, evidence bag, maybe a Ziploc, and see if they have a first aid kit!”

As she knelt by the robber, Emily asked the bartender, “Mary, the highest proof booze you have. Vodka maybe.”

Seeing someone taking charge relaxed the other customers. They stayed at their tables, and watched the two park rangers deal with the situation.

Taking the towels from Diego, she poured the vodka on them, then used them to remove the dart from the robber’s arm, sliding the alcohol-sanitized napkins over the two wounds. Chris brought her the first aid kit.

By the time the ambulance arrived, Emily had the robber bandaged. She warned the Emergency Medical Technicians about the possible penetrating head trauma. He opened his eyes as they loaded him onto a gurney with his head in a brace. She gave the Ziplocs with the two darts to an EMT.

Two officers from the Upper Darby Police Department stepped aside to let the gurney out. Before the handcuffs could come out, Emily and Chris showed their NPS law enforcement credentials to the responding officers. The two policemen relaxed immediately.

“The darts had short points, so he will probably recover. He didn’t get anything. How much of a crime scene do you want here?” She nodded to the bar. “Does Mary need to close up?”

“The detective will be here soon,” said the older policeman. “I think this is enough excitement for the night.” He looked at Mary, who shrugged and waved for the dart players to come to her.

While the officers took names and contact information from the customers, Mary cleared everyone’s tab at the end of the bar away from the cash register. She closed the bar as the duty detective arrived from the precinct. He took statements from the five of them.

***

A weak sun leaked around the curtains of the guest room in Maryellen’s house. Emily stirred and pondered the coming day. She patted the bed and smiled, remembering the week that Chris had spent with her while Maryellen was in Los Angeles. Too bad he had to go back to New Jersey, she thought. Maryellen and Diego had planned to ride to the Valley Forge National Historical Park, but the snowy forecast and the aborted robbery last night had nixed that.

Emily used the bathroom and got dressed. Diego and Maryellen were still asleep, so she packed her panniers. She would visit the police station to make sure that the detective did not need anything else from her for now, then ride to the Thirtieth Street Station to take the train home. She took the phone from her purse and saw that it had been off. She had three calls from her mother with no message. She called her mother, but it rolled to voicemail. She dictated a note with her plans, then went downstairs to fix breakfast.

This excerpt from the next Emily & Hilda novel, The Marsh, may not make it into the final draft, so enjoy it here.

Other E&H books include Emily & Hilda, Rule Number One, Emily Is Hard to Kill, Black Amazon, and As Our Mothers Made Us. Details in the Books section of this blog.

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