Murder Under the Mistletoe Read online

  Murder Under the Mistletoe

  A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery Book 30

  K. J. Emrick

  First published in Australia by South Coast Publishing, December 2020.

  Copyright K.J. Emrick (2012-20)

  * * *

  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.

  - From a Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations.

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  All information is generalized, presented for informational purposes only and presented "as is" without warranty or guarantee of any kind.

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  Contents

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  More Info

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

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  Chapter 1

  “Are you sure about this?”

  Darcy rolled her eyes at Jon, even if he couldn’t see her doing it here in the darkness of their bedroom. The nightlight was on, but she always made sure to keep her face in shadows when she was making sarcastic gestures at her husband.

  “Yes,” she told him. “I’m sure. Just like the twenty other times you asked me.”

  From his side of the bed, Jon tossed his hands up to the ceiling as if he was asking the Heavens themselves to take his side. “It’s just that… Well, you know.”

  “I know, Jon.”

  “We haven’t had good luck with vacations.”

  “I know.”

  “There’s been some, um, incidents when we go on vacation.”

  “Really? Gee, I hadn’t noticed.”

  She could feel him drop his arms back to his sides, and then his head rolled on his pillow in her direction. “Was that sarcasm?”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Turning over on her side to face him, she settled her hand on his bare chest, thrilling to the feel of his skin under hers. “Jon. It’s Christmas. Colby and Zane will have time off from school. It’s the perfect time, and we haven’t had a family trip in forever. What is it you’re afraid of?”

  “Does there have to be just one thing? I’ve got several.”

  “Like what?”

  Picking her hand up, he brought it to his lips, and kissed a finger for each point he listed off.

  “Murder.”

  “Well,” Darcy had to admit, “yes, we’ve seen plenty of that.”

  “Ghosts.”

  “Yeah, plenty of those, too. That’s kind of my life.”

  “Mystery.”

  “Well, sure. But I kind of like the mysteries.”

  “Danger.”

  She giggled at the featherlight touch of his kisses. “Danger? I laugh in the face of danger. Ha-ha-ha.”

  He paused, staring at her, her pinky finger poised against his lips. “Did you just quote The Lion King at me?”

  “Yup. That’s what happens when you have a son who discovers the wonderful world of Disney. He knows every word to that song the meerkat sings. You should hear him sing along to that Phil Collins song in Brother Bear.”

  “Hmm. That so? Maybe it’s time for me to watch Die Hard with my son.”

  “Jon!”

  He laughed and kissed her finger again. “What? Die Hard is a Christmas movie.”

  “If your idea of Christmas is explosions and gunfights, maybe,” she muttered. “But that’s kind of my point, Jon. Look, the guy in that movie didn’t expect any of that. He was just going on vacation for Christmas. See? You never know when you’re going to go on vacation and end up in the middle of a hostage situation.”

  Picking up her other hand, he extended her pointer finger out, and kissed it.

  “You can’t put that on your list!” She sighed out a breath, and it turned into soft laughter. “Whatever. Do you honestly think staying here during Christmas is going to keep any of the things you mentioned from happening? I mean, this is Misty Hollow after all. What was it that Breanna Watson called our sleepy little town? The ‘unofficial murder capital of New England,’ wasn’t it?”

  “Ahem. Yeah. You got me there.” He let go of her hand to slide his arm around her, under the blankets. “I guess trouble just likes to follow us around.”

  “This time will be different. I promise.”

  “Oh, yeah? How do you know?”

  Darcy shrugged, because she didn’t really have an answer to that question. The Darcy Sweet-Jon Tinker household definitely knew how to stir up trouble, and they could do it without even trying.

  To be fair, that was probable when someone who could talk to ghosts married a police officer. Even more so when those two people had a daughter who could also talk to ghosts, and a son who could talk to animals. Their life was never going to be normal, no matter what they did.

  “So,” she said, rather than try to argue with him, “does that mean you agree with me? You think we can take a little Christmas vacation?”

  His warm breath caressed her cheek as he let out a thoughtful breath. He knew how much this meant to her. He should. She’d only been talking about it for the last week and a half. The four of them hadn’t taken a break together in a very long time. It had been months and months now since the events surrounding Mark Franks, and he still showed up in her nightmares sometimes. She needed time to unplug and unwind. Recharge her batteries. In fact, they all needed that.

  “Fine,” he said, giving in at last. “I feel like this was an argument I was destined to lose from the start, so…yes. Fine. Vacation it is.”

  “Yay!” Darcy realized she blurted that out a lot louder than she meant to. She couldn’t help it. She was too happy to keep it in. A trip with the family was exactly what she wanted for Christmas. “This is going to be fun!”

  At the foot of their bed where she’d been all curled up in a furry ball, Tiptoe raised her kitty-cat head, glaring at Darcy in the dim glow of the nightlight. She did not look happy about being woken up.

  “It’s fine, kitten
,” Darcy told her. “We were just talking about something exciting. Oh, don’t give me that look. You know you’re going to sleep most of the day tomorrow. Cats make their own schedules with absolutely no regard for what time of day it is.”

  The gray cat continued to stare, before flicking her one black-tipped ear. She didn’t think Darcy was very funny. She closed her eyes again and heaved a sigh and snugged her tail around her feet—

  And jumped into the air as two little tornados came rushing to the bedroom door, pushing it wide open until it banged into the wall. She managed to land on her feet, claws sunk into the covers, tail sticking straight out.

  Darcy didn’t blame the cat one bit. It had spooked her, too. But, that was the way things were when you lived with children as spirited as theirs. She wouldn’t want it any other way.

  The whirlwinds named Colby and Zane stared at their parents in the dark until Jon reached over and turned on the bedside lamp. Zane’s eyes were huge, his finger stuck in the corner of his mouth. He’d missed the bottom button on his fuzzy pajamas and now they hung unevenly around his waist.

  “Mom?” he said, slowly. “Did you just make a scream?”

  “You don’t ‘make a scream’, dufus,” his sister corrected him. “You just scream.”

  Her brother scrunched up his face, scratching the top of his unruly blonde curls. “Um, okay, but somebody had to make it. If nobody made it, how come we heard it?”

  Darcy hid a chuckle behind a hand. Colby stared at her brother for a moment as if she couldn’t believe what she had to suffer through as the oldest sibling. When she couldn’t come up with a way to put that in words, she just rolled her eyes and muttered, “Boys.”

  Colby was older than her brother by seven years and change. In fact, on her last birthday she became a full-fledged teen. Darcy could hardly believe it had been that long—thirteen years—since she’d given birth to this beautiful, brilliant little girl. Well, not quite so little anymore. She had Darcy’s heart-shaped face that was framed by long, dark brown hair that took on auburn highlights in the sun. She’d hit a growth spike, finally, too. She hardly resembled the person she was just one year ago. It was easy to see she would be a real heartbreaker, and sooner, rather than later. Darcy took comfort in the fact that her pink pajamas with the cartoon bears on the shirt demonstrated that her daughter wasn’t ready to be all grown up. Not yet.

  “I did scream,” Darcy said to Zane. She sat up, and stretched, knowing it would be a while before any of them got to sleep now. “But it was a happy scream, kiddo. Your mother is happy because your daddy here just agreed to let us go on a little vacation.”

  “No way,” Colby blurted out. “Serious? That’s awesome. We haven’t been on vacation in like, forever. Where’re we going?”

  “Yeah,” Zane echoed. “Where? To grandma’s?”

  Jon rolled up onto an elbow, throwing the blankets back. “He must mean your mom, Darcy. Not like there’s any chance of us seeing mine.”

  Which was true. But they wouldn’t be visiting Darcy’s mother, either. She didn’t want to bother her kids with all the details, but… “Sorry, Zane, but we’re not going to see Grandma Eileen. She and Grandpa James are taking a trip of their own this Christmas. In Paris.”

  Although she tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice it only sort of worked. Jon noticed, and squeezed her hand in sympathy. He understood that Darcy wasn’t jealous, not really, but it was hard not to feel left out when your mother tells you she’s suddenly going off to one of the greatest cities in the world and you weren’t invited along.

  Darcy had smiled and told her mother how great it was that she had that chance, and wished her mother a good trip. In the back of her mind, however, there was an evil little voice reminding her of all the times her mother had treated her badly, including when she had dropped her here in Misty Hollow to live with an aunt when Darcy was only just a teenager. She hadn’t known what to do with Darcy and her special abilities. She couldn’t cope. It wasn’t until recently, in fact, that they’d been able to come together and made amends. After that, all that history between them had just simply disappeared for Eileen like it never happened. It was like she forgot all about the pain she’d caused her daughter over the years. It was Darcy who had to be the grownup for both of them and be the one with the forgiving heart.

  But, hey. Darcy still hoped her mother had fun in Paris. Really. She did.

  “So…where are we going?” Colby asked again when her parents didn’t answer.

  Darcy shook off her thoughts, reminding herself that wherever her story had started, it had brought her here, to a loving family and a wonderful life. “Well, as a matter of fact your dad and I found this really cool Inn that’s quiet and peaceful, off the beaten track, surrounded by trees. It’s so pretty there that you’ll just want to sit and watch nature for hours and hours.”

  She gave Jon a sideways look, and he gave her a crooked smile in return.

  “That’s right,” he said, playing along. “We’re going to count the deer and collect snowflakes.”

  Colby shifted her feet in her bunny slippers. “That doesn’t sound like very much fun to me.”

  “Yeah,” Zane agreed. “We gots trees here, mom. Gots lots of snowflakes, too.”

  “Ah,” Jon said, all dramatically. “But these are special trees. They’re made from wood!”

  “Da-a-ad,” Colby groaned. “All trees are made of wood.”

  “So are the bookshelves in the Inn,” Jon said without missing a beat. “They have literally hundreds of books to read there. We’ll watch the trees outside, and then we can sit inside and read book after book after book after—”

  “Da-a-ad,” Colby said again.

  “Well,” Zane said, his voice tentatively hopeful, “I like books, but maybe we should go somewhere more funner?”

  Darcy gasped and put a hand over her chest. “More funner than this Inn?”

  “Well, maybe.”

  “More fun than the books?”

  “Um.”

  “More fun than the trees?”

  “Um…”

  “More fun,” she added at last, “than the indoor mini golf and 3-D laser tag game zone that’s just down the road?”

  She watched as both of her kids’ eyes got really, really big, and then almost at the same time they both let out a cheer that should have shook the whole house. Colby hugged her brother and they jumped together for joy. They were just so happy that their parents weren’t going to make them read books while counting snowflakes, or whatever.

  Darcy knew her kids loved to read. She ran a bookstore, for Pete’s sake, and since the time both of them were babies she’d read to them on a regular basis. They both had bookshelves of their own in their rooms.

  But she also knew that today’s modern kids needed other things to keep them occupied. Things other than just the imaginary worlds contained in the pages of well-written literature.

  Tiptoe’s whiskers twitched, and her tail did too. This ear-splitting noise of child excitement was just too much for her. In the next second she jetted off the bed as fast as she could, aiming for the door and the hallway and freedom…

  Until she ran nose-to-nose into the family’s other furry member. A Bassador hound not much bigger than she was, with floppy ears that still dragged on the floor if he tipped his head over to the side. Cha Cha was a good dog. He loved all of the family, even Tiptoe. Judging by the way his tail was drooping, he must have been asleep on Zane’s bed until he heard them whooping it up over the news of their vacation.

  Tiptoe mewled at the indignation of touching a dog’s nose, but she didn’t stick around to say anything more about it. She sidestepped him and made her escape from all the noise and commotion.

  Zane bent down to scrub his dog between the ears. “Hear that, Cha Cha? We’re gonna go on vacation and play small golf.”

  “Mini golf,” Colby told him. “And I’m going to beat the pants off you when we do.”

  Her br
other looked horrified for a moment, clutching his pajama bottoms with both hands to make sure they weren’t going anywhere. He didn’t want his sister taking his pants anywhere.

  Jon hugged Darcy, laughing softly into her shoulder, and suddenly it didn’t matter how late it was. The moment was just too perfect.

  Cha Cha knew something was up. He jumped around Zane’s feet, tail swatting the air, little barks bubbling up out of his throat. Zane bounced on his heels with the dog, almost like a little dance between the two of them. They were a good match, this boy and this dog.

  Of course, that reminded her that this was going to be a vacation just for people. Their furry family members would have to be left behind and watched by someone they trusted. It would be the first time Zane would be away from Cha Cha for that long. Well. There was no sense to upsetting her son tonight with that conversation. It could wait until the morning. Over breakfast. After some sleep.

  “Okay, everyone,” she said, with a kiss placed on the top of Jon’s head. “We’ll start making plans for our big adventure tomorrow morning.”

  “Good,” Jon agreed. “That will give us the weekend to prepare, and then we can leave Monday. Or is that too soon? Think we can still get reservations on such short notice?”

  “Yes. I’m sure. In fact, I made the reservations yesterday.”

  He gave her a look. “You were that sure I was going to say yes?”

  “Uh-huh. Because I’ve got magic ways of making you say yes.”

  She kissed him again, on the tip of his nose this time.

  From the doorway, Colby made an exaggerated blech noise. “Come on, you two. There are impressionable young children over here.”

  Darcy snuggled closer into Jon’s side on purpose. “Oh, I think you’ll survive, my wonderful daughter. You’re old enough to see your parents kissing.”