Darcy Sweet Mystery Box 1 Read online

  “That’s fine Anna,” Darcy said in a soothing tone. “I realize that not everyone is going to like the same books. That’s a good thing. It gives us something interesting to discuss.” She smiled at the older woman, and Anna visibly relaxed.

  Darcy didn’t try to fight it when the ladies started up a conversation about the latest romance novel by Debbie Macomber. In fact, she quite enjoyed it. The ladies could be very high-spirited when they were talking about a subject they all loved. Two hours slipped by very quickly.

  “It was a great meeting today Darcy. I really enjoy these book club sessions.” Anna gently patted Darcy on the arm as she was preparing to leave after the meeting had ended.

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it, Anna.” Darcy smiled at the older woman and walked with her to the door as Anna shrugged on her coat and gathered up her bag. Anna stopped, brow furrowed, and pointed out of the window. “The mists are starting to rise again. I’d better hurry home. Bye Darcy.”

  Darcy pulled the door open for Anna to leave and watched her friend wave as she quickly rushed away into the gathering darkness.

  Darcy let the door swing shut and stood looking out of the window. The bad dream she’d had made its way into her mind again. She hadn’t been able to shake it and it had left her feeling odd all day. A shiver ran through her at the thought of it. The mist was getting heavier by the moment as she gazed outside. It gave everything such an eerie feeling.

  That same odd sensation was settling inside of her once again, like something was going to happen but she just didn’t know what. She never knew what. She shivered again and absentmindedly started to twirl the delicate antique ring on her finger. It was a habit that she had whenever she got stressed or anxious. It had been her great-aunt’s ring and Darcy wore it to feel closer to her.

  The lighting was dim inside the shop and she could see her image reflected in the glass of the window as she stared outside. She took a good look at herself and wondered why she was blessed, or perhaps cursed, with these odd feelings and visions. She looked pretty ordinary on the outside with dark hair framing a heart shaped face, green eyes and petite figure. Ordinary.

  She sighed. As she was about to turn away from her reflection she felt Smudge rub up against her leg causing her to startle a little. Shaking her head at herself Darcy absentmindedly bent down to scratch his ears and hoped that the mist wouldn’t last too long.

  Darcy flipped the sign from ‘OPEN a good book today’ sign to ‘CLOSED, THE END’ and pulled the front door of the book shop closed behind her. She locked up for the night and started for home. Not owning a car meant that she had to walk everywhere she needed to go. In fact, there weren’t that many cars in Misty Hollow as the town was small enough that you could walk from one side to the other in about fifteen minutes.

  Darcy didn’t mind the lack of a car though. The exercise did her good. She had contemplated, more than once, getting a bicycle to use as transport, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

  Pulling her coat tighter around her to keep the damp mist out she set off along the main street with Smudge following along behind her, occasionally darting in between her feet and nearly tripping her up.

  The sun was slowly setting and Darcy liked this time of day when the main street was quieter. She loved this town with its quaint shops and lovely town square complete with a gazebo in the center. Beautifully trimmed grass flanked the gazebo on all sides and several regal red maple trees stood tall and proud. Darcy loved those trees. They brought glorious color to the town center all year round. She loved to spend time in the town square and often ate her lunch there when the weather was fine. Tonight as she walked past, the mist gave it an almost otherworldly quality. She shivered again. That odd feeling settling like a stone in her stomach. She tried her best to just ignore it though.

  As she walked she imagined that everyone was home already in their cozy houses. On her way she strolled slowly along Main Street with its lovely evenly paved sidewalks. She even did some leisurely window shopping as she passed the lit windows of those shops still open at this hour.

  As she came to where the town Library stood on the other side of the street she saw her friend Linda come out through the double glass front doors. Poor Linda, it looked like she had scored the closing shift again. Her boss, Marla, was always making her work the odd hours of the day and usually Saturdays as well.

  Linda looked up and when she spotted Darcy she smiled and lifted her hand in a happy wave. Darcy smiled and waved but wasn't about to stop to chat. She was anxious to get home and Linda could be very hard to get away from when she got started.

  She turned to continue her trek home and hadn't taken two steps when she heard Linda calling her.

  "Darcy, Darcy wait up a minute." Darcy sighed as she turned toward her friend who was just stepping up onto the pavement. "Oh Darcy, how are you? I haven't seen you in simply ages."

  "I'm good Linda. Just heading home to get some dinner now actually." Darcy tried to get the message across that she wasn't interested in conversation but it didn't seem to register with Linda.

  "Oh good, good. Actually I wanted to ask you if you've seen my cat?" Linda's face was eager, eyes wide.

  "Your cat? No, I can't say that I have."

  Linda's face fell, her eyebrows drooping down. "Oh darn, I was hoping you would have seen her. Persephone has been missing for about a week now. I've looked everywhere but I can't find her. I'm getting so worried about her."

  Darcy was concerned. It wasn't like Linda's cat to wander. The beautiful, fluffy, snowy white Persian was a mostly indoor cat and usually never ventured far from home.

  "That's too bad Linda. I'm sorry I can't help you. I will keep an eye out for her though, she can't be too far away surely."

  "Oh thanks Darcy. I don't know what could have happened to her. She's been acting odd for a while now. I was thinking of taking her to the vet over in Meadowood as she's gotten a little overweight. I haven't changed her diet so it seemed strange to me. But then she just upped and disappeared. Maybe she has a tumor or something. Maybe she's run away to die." Linda was working herself up into a right state, tears running down her cheeks.

  Darcy felt bad for the woman and pulled her in for a comforting hug, patting her on the back like one might do to comfort an upset child. "It will be okay Linda. We'll find her."

  Linda sniffed loudly and pulled away to look at Darcy. "Thank you, thank you so much Darcy. I knew I could count on you to help."

  "Anything I can do Linda, I will."

  "Linda!" Darcy saw Linda jump when the voice of her angry boss Marla rang out across the square.

  Linda sighed. "I thought she'd gone home. I'd better get back to work. Thanks again Darcy." She ran across the road with a final wave.

  Darcy stood for a moment thinking about where Persephone could have gotten to. It was a mystery. One she was surely going to try to work out for Linda. She knew how she would feel if anything happened to Smudge.

  As Darcy left Main Street and stepped onto the path that would take her home she stopped and turned to look back on the town. The sun was settling below the horizon now and there were lights twinkling in all of the windows. The beautiful scene spread out in front of her somehow made her feel melancholy. She turned away and continued walking, hands in her pockets, feet dragging slightly.

  As she walked along the path to her home, she thought about her life, as she so often did. She didn’t think she was doing too badly for a twenty-nine-year-old woman. She owned her own business and house. She had inherited both of them from her great-aunt Millicent Carlisle or Millie as she was known about town, when she’d passed away eight years ago, but she had made them her own.

  Darcy’s home life hadn’t been that great when she was younger. Her ‘sixth sense,’ as she liked to call it, had been somewhat of an embarrassment to her upper class mother. Darcy always felt like her mother wished she would disappear. So eventually she had, kind of. Darcy had left home at fifteen to come here to Misty H
ollow and live with her aunt.

  Millie had been more of a mother to her than her real mother had ever been. So much so that Darcy was still connected to her now, even after her death. Of course, she hadn’t told anyone that little detail. Not even her sister Grace, who now lived in Misty Hollow also, with her husband Aaron, and worked for the Misty Hollow police force. She hadn’t told her friends either, who already thought she was a little nuts. She didn’t need to give them any cause to think she was completely mad.

  She sighed at the sudden thought of going home to an empty house once again. She shook herself. This wouldn’t do. Just because she was alone didn’t make her lonely, and she did have Smudge after all. She looked around for her cat but couldn’t see him anywhere. There was only so much comfort a cat could give, she supposed. He was probably home by now wondering where she had got to. He would be demanding his dinner as soon as she got to the house. She smiled at the mental picture. “I love you too,” he would say if he could talk. “Now where’s my food?”

  The melancholy mood refused to budge, though. She figured it was probably partly because she lived further away from the town than most people. The only neighbor she had was Anna and there was quite a big pasture between their two houses. It wasn’t like they could talk over the fence or anything.

  As she rounded a bend in the path and could see her house she felt a little better. She loved this house. She loved how it sat among the tall pine trees that gave wonderful shade when it was hot. She loved the big porch and the big lawn. She sighed. It did feel like she was a little isolated sometimes. Though most of the time she enjoyed the solitude.

  But sometimes she wished for something more. It would be nice if there was someone waiting at home for her on nights like this. Someone she could talk to and take comfort in. Someone she could have children with, a family. She laughed at herself then. She didn’t need those things. Most of the time she actually preferred to come home to an empty house. Those things would maybe be nice but she was okay as she was right now.

  When Darcy reached her front porch she stopped short. Her front door was slightly ajar. That was odd. She could have sworn that she’d shut it properly when she’d left for the book shop that morning. Her dream popped into her head again. But it hadn’t been her house in the dream. Still, it unsettled her a little seeing the door open.

  She pushed on the door carefully and stuck her head around to have a quick look inside. She couldn’t see anyone. She could usually sense when something was off and she wasn’t really getting anything right now. Only that squirmy feeling from the dream that she couldn’t shake. Deciding it had nothing to do with her home she entered the house. It was as she was taking off her coat that she heard a kind of rustling noise coming from the living room. Alarm shot through her as she remembered the dream again.

  That feeling might have been trying to warn her about something after all. Could the dream be coming true here in her own house? There was definitely someone, or something, in here.

  Settling her coat on her shoulders again she grabbed the nearest heavy object, which happened to be an old umbrella of her aunt’s that had been hanging from one of the coat hooks in the entryway, the one with the heavy plastic end shaped like a diamond.

  Not much of a weapon, but it wasn’t like she kept a shotgun by the door. Foolish perhaps to try to defend herself but she didn’t see any other alternative right now. She couldn’t call her sister because the phone was in the room with the intruder. And unlike most everyone else she knew, Darcy didn’t own a cell phone. Long story.

  Darcy carefully tiptoed along the passageway to the living room doorway. Craning her neck, she looked around the edge of the doorjamb. She could just make out the figure of a man riffling through the drawers of the computer desk that sat flush against the far wall. Was it the man from her dream?

  Her heart was pounding so loud she was sure he would hear it and it would give her away. She tried to calm it down and then entered the room as quietly as possible. She raised the umbrella with the heavy end up over her head in a defensive pose. Then she screamed as loudly as she could to hide her fear, “What do you think you are doing?!”

  The man jumped back and dropped the papers he had been holding. He turned to face Darcy with his hands held in the air.

  Then he saw what she was holding, and his eyes popped. He started laughing loudly. “What were you going to do with that thing? You Mary Poppins or something?” He pointed to the makeshift weapon she was holding with a sneer on his lips.

  Now that was an expression she’d seen him wear any number of times.

  “Jeff! What on earth are you doing in my house?” She was shocked to see her ex-husband standing there in her living room. They didn’t associate anymore. They really didn’t have anything to talk about. He definitely didn’t have any right to be in her house going through her things.

  And he was the reason that she preferred to come home to an empty house every night. She had momentarily forgotten that little detail when she’d been wishing for more on her walk home. Their marriage had been at best rocky. No, once was quite enough and she had no intention of ever doing it again. Jeff had cured her of that.

  He began laughing so hard at her that he was bent over double. Reluctantly she dropped the umbrella with a clatter to the floor. She would much rather have hit him over the head with it. Repeatedly.

  “Oh for Pete’s sake!” She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms under her breasts. “Will you stop laughing and tell me why you are skulking around inside my house? My house, Jeff! And why are you going through my personal things?”

  Jeff calmed himself down enough to be able to talk to her. “Stop assuming the worst, will you? I came here to get an old box of photos that my mom wants.” He was wiping the tears away from his eyes as he spoke. “Not get hit in the head with a stupid umbrella.”

  “So, what, you just decided to come on in and help yourself?” Darcy considered calling her sister at the police station. Maybe she could talk some sense into Jeff.

  His laughter evaporating, Jeff set his face in a scowl. “Always hospitable, aren’t you?” He stood up straighter and crossed his arms over his chest. “Anyway you weren’t here and I was in a hurry.”

  Darcy felt her blood start to boil. Jeff always brought out this reaction from her. No matter how she told herself she wouldn’t rise to his bait, rise she did. That was one of the reasons they were now divorced and had been for three years. Divorced that long, and still he thought he could come and go in her life just as he pleased.

  She bit her tongue to prevent herself from retaliating how she would like to. Taking a deep breath, she said, “I don’t want to argue with you Jeff. I want you gone. That’s why I divorced you.”

  “Excuse me,” he said to her with that same sneer, “but I think you’ve got that backwards. I divorced you.”

  Taking another deep breath to settle her nerves she said, “Whatever Jeff. You believe that if it makes you happy. Spin it however you want. I think those photos are in the basement. I’ll get them. Then you’ll leave. Okay?”

  She didn’t wait for him to answer as she turned and headed for the door to the basement steps off the kitchen. He followed behind her, grumbling under his breath as he did. Served him right, she thought to herself.

  She kept the basement of her aunt’s house clean and organized. The ceiling was low and most of one corner was taken up by the furnace, leaving little space for storage anyway. There were metal shelves set up along one wall where she kept bits and pieces of her life that she didn’t have much use for anymore. It didn’t take long for them to locate the box of pictures belonging to Jeff that he’d stored down there when they were married. The box was among everything else that was leftover from another life.

  “There you go, Jeff,” she said to him in a stiff voice, shoving the box into his hands. “Now if you wouldn’t mind leaving? I want to get my dinner and relax a bit.”

  “Aww Darcy. You’re always trying to get r
id of me.” His smile was full of ideas she had no interest in. “I could stay and have dinner with you.”

  Was he for real?

  Darcy gave him a dark look. “Why on earth would you want to do that? You can’t stand me and I can’t stand you. Why don’t we just leave it that way?”

  He grinned at her and winked. “Yeah, you do have a point there. Well, I’ll be going then.”

  She followed him all the way to the front door to make sure he actually left. As he opened the door she said, “Oh and Jeff…”

  He stopped and looked back at her. “What?”

  “Don’t ever come in my house uninvited again. Got it!”

  He screwed up his face as he slammed the door shut dramatically. She made sure to lock it and throw the deadbolt as well.

  Darcy grinned as she went into the kitchen to start getting her dinner ready. Smudge startled her when he jumped up onto the counter to demand that she get his dinner first.

  “Where have you been? You couldn’t have warned me about Jeff? Hm?” He looked at her with his big green kitty cat eyes and she smiled at him. “It’s okay, I don’t blame you for keeping a low profile while he was around. I should have done that myself instead of agreeing to marry him.”

  She watched as Smudge seemed to nod his head at her words. His tail twitched as if he was in complete agreement with her.

  Smart cat.

  Chapter 3

  Darcy could feel her heart pounding in her chest as the dark figure walked slowly towards her. She was standing on the sidewalk of Main Street as the apparition moved closer and closer to her. He was surrounded by mist, wearing a dark overcoat and a wide brimmed hat, making it impossible for her to see his face. But there was something so familiar about him…

  He approached her menacingly and she stepped back a few paces as he came closer. She tried to speak, to tell him to stop, but she found that no words would leave her mouth. Her heart nearly leapt from her chest as he reached into his coat with his right hand and…