The Greatest Gift (A Darcy Sweet Mystery) Read online

  "I need you to wake up," he told her.

  The world around her began to dissolve and she didn't understand what was happening. "Wake up, honey," Jon said, in a voice that wasn't his. "Wake up."

  Darcy sat bolt upright on the couch. She felt Smudge jump away from her, hissing in protest. Her legs were cramped from being up on the coffee table all night. She stretched them, stretched her arms out, blinked her eyes, and couldn't help but feel disappointed. Wasn't there a blanket? No. It had been a dream. The whole thing, even the dance with Jon, had been a dream.

  Sighing, she stood up from the couch. Her mother stood in the doorway from the kitchen, calling to her. "Darcy? Are you awake?"

  "Yes, Mom." Now that she was awake she smelled breakfast. "You don't have to cook for us every morning, you know. You're my guest."

  "I'm your mother," Eileen countered. "This is what mothers do."

  Over plates of eggs and bacon and home fries they chatted about the wedding plans and where James might take her for their honeymoon. He was being pretty tight-lipped about it, apparently, and her mother seemed honestly excited to find out where they were going. Darcy marveled again at the change in her mother.

  The conversation eventually came around to why Belinda Franco had called Darcy. Mental walls went up immediately in Darcy's mind. Her mother had never reacted well to Darcy using her gifts. That had been the root cause of the rift that had existed between them for years, until only recently.

  As briefly as she could, Darcy told her about Belinda believing her husband's ghost was haunting her house. She had expected her mother to drop the subject after that. Instead, to Darcy's surprise, her mother set aside her knife and her fork and regarded her thoughtfully.

  "I remember Belinda and Dominic. I didn't know them as well as your Aunt Millie did, of course, because I didn't spend all that much time in Misty Hollow. I remember they were good people. He came from money, as I remember, although I don't recall where he made it. I remember thinking it was odd that they never lived like they were rich. Dominic never talked about what he used to do, either." She shrugged. "I suppose he worked for a living rather than living off his family's money. Some people prefer to make their own way."

  "What about James?" Darcy said, anxious to change the subject before her mother could start making any of her usual comments about Darcy's gift. "Does your future husband come from money?"

  Eileen's expression changed in a subtle way. Her smile softened the lines on her face and her fingers fixed her perfectly set hair without even realizing what she was doing. "James is a self-made man. I respect that. He has a little bit of money from an inheritance his parents left him but only enough to make our life comfortable."

  Darcy couldn't help but notice the way her mother talked about James like they were already sharing a life together. She thought it was sweet. "Have the two of you decided where you're going to live?"

  "Oh, he has the most amazing home. It's this little bungalow on the coast." Eileen was talking with her hands excitedly as she described the place to Darcy. "We'll have to invite you and Grace down to visit as soon as we're settled in. It just didn't make sense to ask him to move into my apartment when he had this house already set up and ready. You know, I have the strongest desire to—"

  The ringing of the wall phone interrupted her mother. Darcy got up, swallowing her bite of eggs, and picked up the little handset on the fifth ring just before the answering machine caught it. "Hello?"

  "Hi, Darcy. I'm glad you're still at home."

  Jon Tinker sounded tired. He stifled a yawn but Darcy still heard it across the phone line. She hadn't expected him to call. At least, not this quickly. Maybe not at all. Leaning back against the countertop around the sink she waited for him to continue.

  "So listen," he said. "I'm sorry for running off on you like that yesterday. These burglaries over here have us all stumped. We can't get a line on the guy. Or, guys I suppose. Either way."

  "Do you need some help with it?" she asked, not sure why she'd even offered.

  That wasn't true. She knew exactly why she had offered to help him. She wanted an excuse to spend time with him. They had solved several of his cases together, even when he didn't necessarily ask for or even want her help, and they had always had fun doing it. Even when their lives had been in danger. She wanted to get back to what they had back then.

  Of course, the dream she'd had last night might have something to do with it too. Her in Jon's arms, dancing close together while he told her that he loved her…

  "Well, that's not why I called," he said, breaking her train of thought and not exactly answering her question. "I still want to see you, if that's all right."

  Her mother was watching her from across the kitchen table, a knowing look in her eyes. Darcy turned away, embarrassed, self-consciously twisting a strand of her hair. "I want to see you, too," she told Jon. "Um. I know we said lunch but I have something I need to do for a friend this morning. Maybe this afternoon? Will you be able to get away?"

  "I'm sure the chief over here won't mind if I take a few hours. I've been putting in a lot of overtime on this case." He laughed softly. "If nothing else it will save them some money if I leave for half the day. Want to say two o'clock?"

  "Yes," she said quickly. "I mean, that works for me. Clara's deli. I'll see you there?"

  "Yes. I miss you, Darcy."

  Her heart did that same fluttering leap it had done when she saw him at the dress shop yesterday. "I miss you too, Jon."

  Then he hung up, and she was left holding the phone and wishing there had been more to say.

  "I would have gone to meet him right away," her mother said from behind her teacup.

  "Mom," Darcy said, hoping she would just drop the subject. "He has to get here from Oak Hollow first. Besides, I have to help Belinda."

  Her mother busied herself collecting silverware and empty plates to bring to the sink, leaving them there to be washed later. She took her time about it. When she was done, she turned to Darcy. "Tell me what's involved in these communications you perform for people."

  Darcy was surprised. Her mother had never shown any real interest in her gift. Ever. In fact, Darcy used to get grounded for just mentioning the word ghost, let alone talking about what she could do. Life had become a lot easier for her when she had come to live with Millie as a teenager, when she could talk about who and what she was without fear of being yelled at.

  "You actually want to know?" Darcy asked, feeling a strange mix of nerves and fragile optimism.

  Eileen rubbed her hands over themselves again and again, and it was obvious the smile she showed Darcy was forced, but she nodded and said, "Yes, honey. I pushed you away when you were younger because of…all this. I shouldn't have. I know that now. I would like, very much, to understand what it is you can do."

  Darcy felt tears in her eyes. Her mother couldn't realize what it meant to hear that. Darcy had spent years hoping to make some kind of amends with her mother, then years more coming to terms with the knowledge that they would never be more than distant and proper with each other. Now, in the space of just a few months, Darcy's mother had come back into her life and into her home and done everything she could to make up for the time they had lost between them.

  "Tell you what," Darcy said to her. "I'll do better than explain it to you. I'll show it to you."

  ***

  In the living room, Darcy sat cross-legged inside a circle made of five heavy wax candles, their little flames burning in hues of red and orange. She had them placed on square tiles made from pieces of slate. Her emergency communication kit, the one she carried with her whenever she went out of town, used plastic butter tub lids for the same thing. Here at home she could afford to be a little more classy.

  The back of her right hand rested on her right knee. Dominic's watch lay loosely in that palm. Her left hand stroked Smudge's fur where he sat in her lap. He had hopped up there as soon as she sat down. Her mom had raised an eyebrow, but this wa
sn't the first time her big tomcat had helped her with a communication. He was almost as practiced at it as she was.

  With her eyes tightly closed Darcy set her mind on the process of calling up the spirit of someone who had died. A specific someone. Dominic Franco. In her mind, she imagined an endless plain of foggy mist. It wasn't hard for her to picture that. Misty Hollow, the town itself, had been named after the thick ground fogs that constantly rolled through. Different people had different explanations for the phenomenon. Most of them were weather related.

  Darcy knew better. In Misty Hollow, when the mists began coiling through town, it meant trouble was close behind.

  Now, standing in her mental landscape of dense, white fog, Darcy called out to the other side. She concentrated on finding the spirit of Dominic Franco, using the connection he would still have to the object in her hand as a guide. She put a stream of her own life energy into the calling. It was necessary as the fuel that powered the conjuring. Every communication took an emotional toll on her. There was just no other way to make contact with those who had passed on. Not without being completely at the mercy of the ghost.

  In her trance, she shivered, remembering what that could be like, hoping never to go through it again.

  She called again to Dominic Franco, concentrating harder, and this time the tendrils of fog swirled frantically and twisted into the form of a man. He was short, and stooped, and wore a black suit that hung loosely from his shoulders. In the vision, it appeared threadbare and old. His short gray hair was thick and wavy, and his eyes were sharp. Dominic Franco, or at least how his spirit remembered being in the tail end of his life. He looked exactly like he had in some of Belinda's more recent photographs.

  "Hello there, young lady," Dominic greeted her, moving forward with the help of a plain, sturdy black cane. It thumped against a nonexistent floor with each step. "I have something to show you."

  Darcy was surprised. Spirits didn’t usually give direct answers, or offer to show you things you needed to see, without a very good reason. Darcy hadn't even asked her first question yet.

  "Um. Hello, Mister Franco," she said to him. "What do you want to show me?"

  A smile crossed his face and made him look twenty years younger. His clothes changed in the blink of an eye, becoming a more stylish white shirt and slacks. Dominic stood up straighter and turned to the woman suddenly standing by his side. Music played, and the two danced.

  Belinda, Darcy realized suddenly. When she was younger than Darcy's mother was now. This must be some memory of Dominic's from his past. A happy moment shared between the two of them.

  "Isn't my wife beautiful?" Dominic asked Darcy. Belinda, in a flowery, wispy blue dress, smiled up at Dominic, oblivious to the fact that she was a figment of a ghost's imagination. "I'd do anything for her, you know. Make any sacrifice. It's not much. All she really wants is a little house somewhere warm. A nice dream. I want to give her that. That's why I'm saving all the money I can. Happy wife, happy life."

  They danced more, a waltz or something similar, and Darcy thought that if the look in Belinda's eyes was any indication then Dominic already had a happy wife. The image would be a reflection of what Dominic remembered of Belinda in real life, and that was definitely love in her eyes. Whatever dream home he was saving up for would just be reason for Belinda to love him more.

  Nice as that thought was, she hadn't called up Dominic's ghost so that he could while away the hours dancing through memories of his wife.

  "Dominic," she said, stepping a little bit closer to him through the fog, "are you haunting Belinda?"

  He spun Belinda through a twirl at the end of his arm. "How could I ever leave my Bella Linda?" he asked.

  That must have been his nickname for Belinda. Darcy wasn't sure that was an answer to her question, though. "Why are you haunting your house now?" She asked. "I called you back from the other side. You've already crossed over, so why come back now?"

  Dominic stopped very still, blinking his eyes over and over. With each blink, they became cloudier, milkier, like cataracts in a blind man.

  Or a dead man.

  "I haven't seen my Belinda in…well. It's been a long time," he said now, his voice toneless and flat, confused. The image of his beloved wife dissolved back into mist, insubstantial wisps of it trailing away between his fingers. "My. How forgetful I've become."

  He turned and looked at Darcy with those filmy gray eyes. Then he smiled darkly. "I have something to show you."

  For a moment, Darcy was still in the infinite plain of her vision. Then she was somewhere else. A house. A small, cozy house that looked familiar. Belinda's house. This was the house she had been in just yesterday when Belinda had shown off her poltergeist. She stood in the living room, but everything was different. Different couches, different television, different photos. Everything had the feel of being older, like from a different time period.

  There was something else, too. Something Darcy hadn't noticed when she'd been here for real.

  This was the house as it had been back when Dominic had still been alive, Darcy realized. That explained what she was seeing. As if that thought had spurred the image into life, like she had pushed play on a recorder, Dominic himself came down the stairs, humming a happy tune. He looked right past Darcy as he did. In this vision, she was the ghost.

  Turning along the wall at the end of the stairs, Dominic opened a door. This was what she hadn't seen yesterday. This door simply hadn't been there. Darcy remembered clearly that it had been nothing but a blank wall. Now, Dominic went through the opening and the scene tugged her forward as Dominic reached up to turn on a light, descending another staircase that must lead down to a basement or crawlspace. A part of the house Darcy hadn't seen.

  Everything flowed forward around her until Dominic was halfway down the staircase. It wasn't far enough for Darcy to see what was down below. The scene ended in blackness and murk down there. Dominic turned around then, and suddenly he was looking right at her.

  "Do you understand?" he asked.

  Darcy was startled out of her trance. With a deep breath she came back to herself, pushing up and into reality like a swimmer surfacing from a deep dive. Her lungs burned to fill with air and her heart thumped hard in her chest. The world spun and refused to stand right side up.

  "Darcy? Darcy are you all right?" Her mother's voice was frantic and she was suddenly grabbing Darcy by the arms and pulling her up from the floor.

  Crying out, Darcy nearly fell over onto her knees. Her legs were numb from sitting in one position for so long. Feeling rushed back into them on pins and needles as vertigo swept over her. Which way was up? "Mom," she said weakly, her tongue thick. "Mom, don't! I can't…I need a minute."

  Her mother supported her until her knees stopped shaking. When she was able, Darcy gingerly hobbled over to the couch and sat down. "You can't pull me out of a communication like that, mom. You have to let my body ease back into the world of the living. Otherwise I can get physically sick or fall over on my face and break something."

  It was then that Darcy noticed how pale her mother's face was. She hadn't been prepared for what she'd seen. Her daughter, deep in a trance, probably looking like she was dead. How long had she been in the meditative state? Holding her head with one hand she turned to the clock on the wall and found it was almost noon. Hours. She'd been in that state for hours. During a communication, time could seem to move slower or faster than it really did. She could be in that state for just a few minutes and live a whole lifetime. Or, she could spend a day lost to the trance and have it feel like only a few seconds.

  To a ghost, time had no meaning.

  "Mom, where's Smudge?" she asked. It was all she could do to get that question out. A headache had bloomed with throbbing intensity behind her eyes. She needed aspirin and caffeine, and a nice soft pillow would be great. First, though, she was worried about her cat. Where was he?

  "He jumped away as soon as you, uh, woke up," her mother explained. "De
ar me, Darcy. Is it always like this? I mean, when you go talking to ghosts in your head?"

  She had to laugh at the way her mom said that. Talking to ghosts in her head. Well. She guessed that was as close to the truth as anything else. "Sometimes. Sometimes it's easier, sometimes it's harder."

  As if she could tell what Darcy had been thinking, her mother ran to the kitchen and returned with a glass of water and two aspirin. Darcy took them gratefully, even though a nice tall glass of soda would have been better.

  "Did you find out what you needed to know?" her mom asked.

  Darcy swallowed back the aspirin, then drank the rest of the water in one long swallow. "Sort of," she answered. "At least I have a place to start."

  Chapter Four

  Puzzle pieces that didn't fit. That's what Darcy had. Lots of them. The door in Belinda's living room that lead to a downstairs space. A poltergeist. Dominic's strong love for Belinda.

  Right now the pieces didn't even form a picture, let alone anything useful. She'd need to talk to Belinda again. Just not now.

  Now, she was meeting Jon.

  Hard to think of it as a date. "Meeting" was the best she could come up with. Her stomach was in more of a knot now than it had been when her mother had pulled her unexpectedly from her connection with Dominic. It had been a while, a few months, since she'd seen Jon. It was a little unnerving to see how nervous she was. She and Jon had lived together, for Pete's sake. There was no reason to have these butterflies just going to lunch with him.

  Her insides did another little flutter as if to show her how wrong she was. It made her laugh and scold herself for acting like a child. It didn't keep her from twisting her ring around her finger like a good luck charm.

  The La Di Da Deli had a meager selection of lunch sandwiches and that sort of thing but there weren't all that many places in Misty Hollow to sit down and grab a bite to eat. There had been others when Darcy first came to live here, like the Hot Dog Shack, but now there was only Clara Barstow's deli and Helen Nelson's café a little further up the street. Jon probably would have taken her somewhere fancier over in Oak Hollow, but they'd blown that chance.