A Darcy Sweet Mystery Box Set Six
A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery
Box Set 6: Books 22 to 24
K. J. Emrick
Copyright © 2019 by K. J. Emrick and South Coast Publishing.
First published in Australia 2019.
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and locations portrayed in this book and the names herein are fictitious. Any similarity to or identification with the locations, names, characters or history of any person, product or entity is entirely coincidental and unintentional.
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Contents
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Count Your Blessings
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
The Ghost of Murders Past
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
A Vote For Death
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
More Info
About the Author
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Count Your Blessings
A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery Book 22
First published in Australia by South Coast Publishing, November 2017. Copyright K.J. Emrick (2012-19)
Chapter 1
Sitting on your keister for days on end is not as much fun as it sounds.
That was what Darcy Sweet had discovered while sitting around the house with nothing to do for the last week but look out the kitchen window at her white Honda Civic sitting unused in the driveway and the few stubborn leaves left on the trees in the middle of November. It hadn’t snowed yet, and she could see the birds in the branches and the puffy clouds that were wisping across an otherwise blue sky. It wasn’t all that unusual for the snow to hold off until after Thanksgiving. Not that it mattered. For now she was practically housebound.
But, that was what happened when you fell off a ladder in your own bookstore and broke your leg. Doctor Sandal orders you on bedrest. Your family waits on you hand and foot, which is great at first, and then just becomes totally humiliating after that. Your plaster cast starts to itch and even the funny smiley faces and hearts that your nine year old daughter has drawn all over it don’t make you happy anymore. You have to wear shorts and sweatpants instead of your favorite jeans and khakis. And, there’s only so many reruns and bad movies you can watch.
Thank God for books.
She took a breath. It was just possible that she’d had too much time to sit here and think about these things.
It was nearly three o’clock now, and it wouldn’t be much longer before the school bus came to drop off her daughter Colby from school. Jon would be home from work in a couple of hours, too. The job of small town police chief had its perks, and one of those was that he usually got to come home on time. Usually. After all, this was Misty Hollow, and things weren’t always as ‘small town’ here as they should be.
There hadn’t been a really, truly big mystery here for months, and Darcy counted each day without one as a blessing. It was enough to make Darcy believe that things might be normal in their lovely little town for the rest of all time.
She could just see her reflection in the glass of the kitchen window, and she stuck out her tongue at herself. “Don’t jinx it,” she said out loud. “You start saying everything is going to be normal, and that’s when you know something bad is going to happen. It happens every time.”
Her reflection smiled back at her. Was that really what she looked like now? Yes, she supposed it was. Older, and wiser. Still pretty, according to her wonderful husband Jon Tinker. It was hard to believe that she’d been a teenager when she first came to this house of her Great Aunt’s. That was… more years ago than she cared to think about right now. It was hard to see that girl’s heart-shaped face in her own anymore.
There were fine lines at the corners of her soft green eyes whenever she smiled. Her dark hair wasn’t long now like it used to be because she’d cut it nearly as short as her sister Grace wore hers. It had been something of a necessity, because when you had two young kids like Darcy did their little hands tended to grab at things. The last time her son Zane had a piggyback ride, his fingers had tangled in her tresses and that was the end of that. Her short style bobbed with her whenever she hobbled around on her crutch.
She would always be Darcy Sweet. Just with a few changes.
Well. That was enough reminiscing for now. She had to get ready for Colby to come home. Zane was in the living room, napping in his playpen, and she was hoping he would sleep for another hour before he got up. It had been something of an argument between her and Jon about whether she could watch the kids with a broken leg. Colby was already more mature than most girls her age, Darcy had reminded him, and Zane was on a regular sleep schedule for now. When he wasn’t in his playpen, he was crawling around the completely baby-proofed living room.
Thankfully the safety gates were enough to keep the speedster penned into this one space. There was one on the stairs keeping him from getting up to the second floor, and a fold-away one that they had attached to the entryway between the kitchen and the living room. Darcy wasn’t stupid. She could totally take care of her son all by herself, even with a broken leg. As long as she stacked the odds in her favor. He was just over a year old now, and although he’d mastered crawling right on schedule, and had moved on to walking a few feet at a time, the stairs were going to have to wait. Same with the kitchen and all the fun but deadly implements he might get his hands on in there.
Jon had finally relented after making her promise to call him if anything h
appened. Anything at all, he emphasized. She didn’t blame him for being cautious. For the first few days wearing the cast, whenever Darcy had needed to get up and down the stairs she’d tried skinnying up them backwards on her bum. That took even longer than hopping on her good foot, her crutch in one hand and the other keeping a death grip on the railing. If little Zane had learned to take those stairs, like he’d already learned to zip across the carpet on his hands and knees, then Darcy would have ended up breaking her other leg trying to keep up with him.
So the living room had been turned into his own private kingdom. Toys and books were within easy reach, and every electrical outlet had been covered, every sharp corner cushioned with foam edging. Nothing had been left to chance. Until Zane grew a little bigger, he couldn’t get into any trouble in here.
Darcy was happy to have her little baby stay a little baby for now. Colby had grown up much too fast as it was. Darcy wanted to enjoy this time with her children. It was exactly why she had told Jon that she didn’t need someone to help her at home while he was at work. She had to be careful, but she could manage. She jealously wanted this time to belong to her and no one else. It was just a broken leg. She could manage. Colby had been an amazing helper with her little brother, too.
So. She should think about getting something ready for supper. Looking down at her leg in its cast, propped up on the kitchen chair next to the one she was sitting in, Darcy frowned. Well. Maybe she’d call Jon and have him pick something up for supper. It wouldn’t be so bad to admit she was a woman with a broken leg, just for today. Settling the padded brace of the crutch under her arm, on the opposite side from the broken leg like the doctor had instructed, she levered herself up and took a few steps. Her muscles were sore from her toes all the way up to her shoulders, and her good ankle had started to throb from having to carry her full weight all the time.
Yeah. A day off from being Supermom would be all right with her.
There was more she needed to do today yet. She needed to call and check in with Izzy at the bookstore. Her partner was more than capable of running the Sweet Read bookstore for a few days on her own. She had certainly done it plenty of times in the past. Still, Darcy couldn’t just ignore her responsibilities there. She had to at least check in, even if she couldn’t make it back to work full time until her leg had healed.
Great Aunt Millie had started that store, after all, and it had been Darcy’s pride and joy ever since she’d taken over. Izzy McIntosh had an amazing head for business, and Darcy simply couldn’t have asked for a better next door neighbor, but if she didn’t start doing her part Izzy was likely going to quit and move to Canada or something.
She had to start organizing the Thanksgiving dinner she’d been roped into hosting here at the house, too, but she was going to put off thinking about that until tomorrow. Again.
So. She needed to call the bookstore, and then call Jon about dinner.
As she was about to go and get the phone from the living room, there was a knock at the front door.
That was a surprise, to be sure. She wasn’t expecting anyone. The curtain over the window in the front door kept her from seeing who it was. Just a tall shadow standing there and waiting to be let in. They must have walked here from town. There were just the two houses on her street and she certainly would have noticed a car pulling up and into the driveway.
It might be one of her neighbors, maybe. She still had people dropping by to visit and ask if she was doing all right after her fall even now, a week later. That was just the way Misty Hollow did things. Neighbors helped their neighbors. She liked living in a place where people came first.
Of course, sometimes people who knocked on her front door were here to ask for help in, well, very special circumstances. That had been a regular thing for the people of Misty Hollow since Darcy could remember. She had a reputation for seeing things that other people missed, and knowing things that she just shouldn’t be able to know. For a lot of years after she moved here, people thought she was just odd. No one thought that anymore. Or if they did, no one said it out loud.
Being able to see ghosts kind of set you apart from everyone else.
She smiled to herself as she hobbled to the door on her good foot and her crutch. Very few people knew what she could do. For most of her friends her paranormal abilities wouldn’t matter. As for the rest of them… well. Even if it changed things for them, it wouldn’t change things for her. She’d still go on being exactly who she was.
“Who is it?” she called out when she was halfway across the kitchen.
“It’s Anthony Faber,” a familiar voice answered.
Oh. Well, she certainly wasn’t expecting him. She opened the door as soon as she got to it and then performed an awkward backward hop to get out of the way. “Hi, Anthony. I thought our meeting was set for tomorrow?”
“It was, it was,” he agreed with a wide smile. “But I was just down at the bookstore talking to your friend Isabelle McIntosh. Lovely woman, I have to say.”
“She prefers Izzy.” Darcy closed the door behind him. “Did you walk here from town?”
“I did, actually. I figured it’s a beautiful day out, especially for this time of year, and it’s not that far to walk. My car will be all right in town, won’t it?”
“Oh, I’m sure it will. We haven’t had any petty thefts here in Misty Hollow for a long time.”
“Just one of the reasons I like being the rep for our company in this area.”
Anthony’s smile was infectious. Darcy couldn’t help but smile back at him even though she knew he was here to discuss the claim she’d filed over her accident. It was all strictly routine, but their insurance company was asking about a gazillion questions and even though Anthony was being super considerate about it, ultimately, he worked for the company and he had to serve their best interests.
Even so, from all the time they’d spent talking on the phone he seemed like a very nice guy and she couldn’t help but like him.
He stuck out a beefy hand for her to shake, his long arms extending well past the cuffs of a gray wool coat that went down past his knees. He had the face of an insurance salesman to be sure, wide and expressive, with bright brown eyes that were as shiny as new pennies. Under his coat he wore a business suit. In a leather satchel strung crossways over his shoulder would be the documents she needed to look over and sign. He was all business, and comfortable being so.
“It’s good to finally meet you,” he said to Darcy, stepping over to the table and unshouldering his satchel. “I don’t think this will take too long. It’s not a bad time, is it?”
“No, it’s fine. I’m just waiting for my daughter to get off the school bus.” As Anthony took a seat she peeked into the living room to make sure Zane was still asleep. “Sorry, my son is in his playpen. Just wanted to check on him.”
“Mm-hmm, I understand completely. Kids are important. He’s a baby, is he?”
“One year old now. Hard to believe.” She smiled, like she did every time she talked about her kids. “Do you have children, Anthony?”
“No, ma’am, I don’t.” He undid the flap on his satchel and took out a manila file folder packed full of papers. “Never found the time, I suppose.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. Well, you’ve still got time.”
“I suppose.” He smiled, and pointed to her leg. “How’s the injury?”
“The doctor said five weeks, probably, so I’ve got a ways to go. I’ll still be in this when Thanksgiving rolls around. It’s no fun, I can tell you that.”
“I’m sure it’s not!” he chuckled. “Not like you fell off that ladder in your store on purpose, right?”
She remembered the moment when the ladder’s track had broken free from the wall above her, when she’d been freefalling with no way to stop herself. “No. It was definitely not how I wanted to spend my day.”
“Well. Now we’ve got all this paperwork to go over and we get to spend some quality time together you and me. So it’
s not all bad, right?”
They went over some basic questions about her policy, and her personal information, and some pleasant chit-chat in between. It had been a long time since Darcy had put in an insurance claim on her store. The last time, there had been a car wreck that had sent half an engine block through the front window.
Darcy found herself itching at the side of her cast, right above the knee, as they sat there talking. She needed to get up and move for a little bit. “Would you like some tea, Anthony?”
“Why, yes, I would.” He finished filling in a line on the fifth page of a form. “That’s very nice of you Miss Sweet.”
“It’s Mrs. Sweet, actually.” Darcy hopped to the countertop on her crutch. “Don’t worry. It’s a common mistake. My husband and I both decided to keep our last names when we married. Our girls get my name, like my daughter Colby, and our boys get Jon’s name. So Zane is Zane Tinker.”
“Well I must say, that’s very forward thinking of you guys. I’m not sure I’d be able to do that with my family. If I ever had one, that is.”
“Do you have a wife?” Darcy asked as she balanced herself to get the teabags down from the cabinet. Were these always this high? “She must be a very patient woman if you’re always driving around for your company.”
“Nope. No wife either. Like I said, I guess I just never found time for a family.”