A Darcy Sweet Mystery Box Set Six Read online

  “I agree, Jon,” she said, a little stiffly. This was her business they were talking about, and she was fully capable of taking care of everything related to it. At the same time, she knew there would be unpaid medical expenses from their health insurance and they needed to have the store’s insurance cover those plus the repairs to that wall like it was supposed to. “Anthony just said that there were some forms to be filled out and approved. I think it’s just routine.”

  “Or it’s the company’s way of stalling.” He shook his head, making sure to keep a smile on his face for Zane’s benefit even as he frowned with his eyes. “Maybe I’ll have a talk with him. What’s his name? Anthony Faber? Maybe if the town police chief puts in a polite request for his company to expedite things, then all of this red tape will go away.”

  “You can’t always fight my battles for me,” Darcy said, looking at Jon through her lashes. “I’m a big girl now. I’ve been taking care of my own problems since high school. Besides, I don’t think he’s intentionally holding anything up. He’s a nice guy, and he’s trying to help. His mind is a little distracted. That’s all.”

  “Distracted by what?” he asked.

  There. Finally, she had the opening she’d been waiting for. “It turns out his sister disappeared three years ago. This week is the anniversary of the last time he saw her. It’s hitting him pretty hard.”

  “Whoa, whoa. ‘Disappeared?’ You mean, like she ran away?”

  “I don’t know,” Darcy admitted honestly.

  “Or, like she just vanished? Or was she kidnapped or something?”

  “Jon, I don’t know.”

  “Abducted by aliens?” he suggested sarcastically.

  “Jon. This is serious.”

  “Right. Well, that’s too bad, I agree.” Jon picked Zane up, getting up from his chair while he balanced the squiggly little boy on his shoulder. Zane latched his little arms around his father’s neck with a sigh of pure contentment. “It must really suck wondering what happened to her. Okay. Fine, but if he doesn’t get this done for you then I’m going to talk to the insurance company directly.”

  “Uh, I think what you mean is that I’ll talk to them directly.” Honestly, it was like ever since she broken her leg he’d started to treat her like an invalid. He had seemingly forgotten entirely that she had faced down both criminals and ghosts in her lifetime and came out victorious with both every time. Mostly. “It’s my store, Jon, I’ll take care of it. I was just mentioning Anthony’s sister because I thought, um, that you might be able to help him.”

  “Help him?”

  “Yes, help him. You are a police officer, as I recall.”

  “Sure, but if they don’t live in town I can’t exactly jump in with both feet. You know that, too,” his face scrunched up, the wheels in his mind starting to turn. “So, I guess the question is why you’re so interested in getting your police officer husband involved in a missing person’s case.”

  “Um, well, you see…”

  It was like the words just failed her. She’d been prepared to tell him all about it but now that the moment was here, she hesitated. Jon knew all about her extra senses, her talents for seeing ghosts and reaching out to the other side. He loved her unconditionally. More than that, he supported her whenever she used her powers to help people. He was the best thing that had happened to her in her entire life, with the exception of her daughter and her son.

  So maybe it was just old habits that made it seem harder than it really was to open up to him.

  Jon wasn’t having any of that, though. He knew her too well. “Ah. The sister’s not missing. She’s dead. You saw her ghost, didn’t you?”

  From the living room, Colby called out, “Mom had some company today. The angry lady.”

  Jon’s eyebrows shot up. “The angry lady?”

  Darcy really, really wished that her daughter had worded that differently.

  It was the first time that Colby had spoken since dinner. She’d been in there on the floor doing her homework, quiet as a mouse, with Tiptoe curled up on the backs of her legs. The sleek gray cat had grown quite a bit, but she was still very much a kitten, and she adored Colby. Darcy had heard the television go on a couple of times, too, which she didn’t mind as long as homework got done neatly and correctly.

  “Thanks, Colby,” Darcy called back to her daughter, barely keeping her sarcasm in check.

  “You’re welcome, Mom.”

  It was hard to tell, but Darcy thought she heard a little sarcasm there, too. Colby was definitely her mother’s daughter.

  “Burf abu, Mama,” Zane said, taking his sister’s side like a good little brother.

  “Well,” Jon said into the silence. “Since the cat’s out of the bag, why don’t you tell me about this angry lady’s ghost?”

  “There’s not much to tell, really.” Darcy pictured the ghost standing in her kitchen again. A pretty young woman, her life ripped away from her before her time… somehow. “She appeared with Anthony here in the kitchen, and hung around the whole time he was here, and then left when he did. It’s like she’s following him.”

  “Haunting him?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Darcy decided. “Screaming at him, actually, trying to get him to hear her. It’s like she appears to him at this same time every year, and won’t leave him alone until the death-aversary is over.”

  Jon stared at her. “Her… what now?”

  “Death-aversary,” Colby answered him. She’d picked up her stuff and now she was standing in the open doorway between the kitchen and the living room with her notebooks folded into her arms up against her chest. “It’s the anniversary of Marcia’s death. I don’t think she likes being dead.”

  At her feet, Tiptoe meowed softly in agreement.

  “Well, no,” Jon said with an amused tilt of his head. “I expect she doesn’t like it at all. I mean, who would?”

  Zane burbled spit bubbles around his tongue, adding in his two cents.

  Colby looked at both of them like they were missing the obvious. “Great Aunt Millie doesn’t mind being a ghost. She likes it where she is. Mostly people like it when they move on to a better place after they die. Death isn’t anything to be afraid of.”

  Millie, even though she was Darcy’s great aunt, had been the woman to raise her right here in this house. Darcy’s own mother had basically kicked her out when she became so strong in her gifts that her mother didn’t know what to do with her. The family had patched things up since then, with a lot of secrets coming out along the way, and through it all Millie had watched over everything from beyond the grave. She was there to offer advice when Darcy needed it, even if the advice wasn’t always so clear or so easy.

  So Colby was right in a way. Some people enjoyed moving on to what came after death. Marcia Faber obviously wasn’t happy where she was, however, and Darcy needed to find a way to help her.

  A shadow had passed over Jon’s face, but he schooled his expression back into place quickly, and Darcy was reasonably sure Colby didn’t notice. “Well,” he said out loud, “I don’t know much about what happens after death, Starshine. That’s your mom’s department. Hers and yours. I don’t think a lot about dying.”

  “But, you did die once,” Colby reminded him. “It’s okay, Daddy. Everybody dies someday.”

  Darcy and Jon exchanged a glance. The time that Jon had died—just for a few brief seconds—had been the worst moment in her life. Even though she could see and talk to ghosts she did not want to have her life with Jon end any time soon.

  She could tell that he was thinking the same things she was. Colby wasn’t like most girls her age, and she understood death better than most people ten times her age, but sometimes she still had a lot to learn about the way the world works.

  Jon reached over with Zane still perched on his arm and ruffled his daughter’s dark hair, making the reddish highlights shine under the kitchen lights. “Someday is good enough for me, Starshine, as long as it doesn’t come too soon.�
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  A passing thought occurred to Darcy. She sincerely hoped Colby’s life would be easier than her own had been. Especially puberty, when kids were cruel and really enjoyed pointing out anyone who was different than they were.

  “I’ll be fine, Mom,” Colby said to her. She hefted up her books as she said it. “It’s just a little work, that’s all.”

  Darcy heard the way those words spoke directly to her concerns for her daughter. She smiled, wishing that Colby’s bright outlook on life—and death—could be enough to make her feel better.

  Tiptoe meowed, and Colby looked down at her while the cat flicked one gray ear.

  “Oh you’re right,” Colby said to her feline friend. “We should go take care of that. Um. Mom, Dad, I’ll be up in my room. ‘Kay?”

  “’Kay?” Jon sounded surprised. “Since when do you say, ‘kay?”

  Colby rolled her eyes. “Dad, it’s just something I say. Seriously.”

  “Uh-huh. I see. Just something you say.”

  “Yup.” Colby smiled at him like she was very pleased with herself.

  “Sure. Just try not to say it too much, all right?”

  With a wicked little girl grin, Colby nodded her head. “’Kay.”

  Tiptoe meowed again, her tail swishing against her paws. That actually reminded Darcy. She hadn’t seen someone else around all day. “Hey, Colby, have you seen Smudge anywhere?”

  Her daughter seemed to sag under the weight of something other than her books. “He’s upstairs, Mom. He gets tired real easy.”

  “That’s something that happens,” Jon explained to her, “when we get old. Moving on to the next life might be nothing to be afraid of, but just before you get there most people tend to slow down, and get tired a lot. Maybe everyone’s more afraid of that part than anything else.”

  Colby considered that, looking down at the floor as she shifted from foot to foot. “How come cats have to get old so much quicker than people?”

  That was a very good question, Darcy thought to herself, and not one that grownups thought about very much. Sometimes Colby could act so mature, and other times she was still very much the little girl who they both loved.

  To Darcy’s surprise, it was Jon who answered the question. “Cats are like thousand-watt lightbulbs. They don’t last as long but that’s because their light burns brighter.”

  Tiptoe put her paw up on Colby’s foot, like she was agreeing with that little pearl of impromptu wisdom.

  “Yeah,” Colby said, a little more enthusiastically. “I think you’re right. Come on Tiptoe. Let’s go upstairs.”

  Zane reached out for his sister with grasping hands, asking her for a hug with a string of nonsense syllables. Colby obliged him with a quick hug and a kiss on his forehead. “Love you, little brother.”

  Then she was off, and Tiptoe was racing her up the stairs to her room.

  Jon hugged Zane, too. “Sister loves you, doesn’t she Zane?”

  “Ga-plbbpht,” was the answer, which was probably a long winded way to say ‘yes’ in the vocabulary of a one-year-old. At least, that was how Darcy took it.

  “So, seriously,” Jon said to her. “When did our little girl start using the phrase ‘kay’?”

  “She learned it from Ellen,” Darcy explained. “She’s decided she wants to be just like Ellen when she grows up.”

  “Really. Just like her, huh?”

  “Sure,” Darcy said with a little shrug. “By the time she grows out of it she’ll be old enough to know the sordid facts of Ellen’s past. Right now she only knows that Ellen is a strong and confident woman with a cool car. There’s definitely worse role models out there that our daughter could have chosen.”

  Jon nodded, but he wasn’t willing to admit that he agreed. He’d come to an uneasy truce with their friend, and her past life as a killer-for-hire. Part of that was because of how she’d helped save Jon’s life, but she’d proven herself to be a good friend in lots of other ways, too. It had been a while since she’d seen Ellen Gless, especially now that her son Connor and Izzy McIntosh’s daughter Lilly from next door had both gone off to college. She would have to find some time for them to get together. Maybe after Thanksgiving.

  Motherhood had taken up a lot of her time, and it seemed like now that she had reached a point in her life when she had lots of friends that she could spend time with, she didn’t have the time to make it happen.

  “No, no, ba, ba, pffbt,” Zane gurgled, as if to prove her point.

  “Let’s see if our big man wants a little bit more of his dinner,” Darcy suggested. “Then we should talk more about Anthony’s sister.”

  “Don’t you have other things to worry about?” Jon asked her.

  “What could be more important than another mystery?” she said with a smile.

  “How about letting your leg rest so it can heal? And,” he added, “don’t forget we’re hosting Thanksgiving here this year.”

  Darcy tossed her head back, and rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “Don’t remind me.”

  She would rather face down a hundred angry ghosts, than sit through another awkward family dinner full of silence and secrets.

  Darcy sat on their bed, trying to decide if it was worth the effort to put on her pajama bottoms or if she should maybe just sleep in her panties tonight. Of course, Jon wouldn’t mind. It did her heart good to know that her husband could still find her attractive even with her leg in a cast. The kids were in bed, and for the next few hours it was just time for the two of them to be together.

  “So let me get this straight,” Jon said to her, already in his pajama pants and shrugging into an old white t-shirt. “Anthony Faber has a sister who went missing, and no one knows what happened to her, except for you of course because you saw her ghost. So we know she’s dead. You’re leaning towards foul play being involved because this ghost was very, very angry.”

  “Yes to all of that,” Darcy agreed. “Her name is Marcia, and she was shouting at her brother like she had something to say but she just couldn’t get it across to him. Some secret, or a question, or something important enough that she’s been screaming the same thing at him, year after year, all this time. I know that would make me angry.”

  “Yeah. Me too, I guess. You couldn’t hear anything the ghost was saying?”

  Darcy stuck her tongue into her cheek, thinking back. “She said, um, ‘see me.’”

  “That’s all?”

  “Some ghosts can’t get their voice to be heard from the other side. I’m lucky I heard that much. Oh, there was something else, too.” The scene played out in her mind’s eye again. “Marcia had a wound on her stomach. A slash, right below her belly button.”

  Jon considered that. “See, this is where I get fuzzy with the whole ghostly visions thing. Sometimes when you see a ghost with an injury it’s symbolic… like if the ghost has its eyes gouged out it could be because they died blindfolded, right?”

  She nodded. They actually had a ghost appear like that once, and it was only after they had solved the mystery that they understood what the ghost was showing them.

  “Okay.” Jon rubbed a hand over his forehead. “Sometimes it’s symbolic. But other times, the injury is a real thing that they had when they were alive. Right?”

  “Yes. That’s a simple way of putting it, but you’re right.”

  “So, in this case, do you know if that wound you saw on her belly was real, or if it was the ghost’s way of trying to give you a clue about her death?”

  “Well, no,” she said, “I guess I don’t. I can’t imagine what sort of message a big cut on her stomach is supposed to be, though.”

  “I don’t know,” Jon admitted. “Maybe whoever killed her stabbed her in the stomach. Maybe she tripped and fell on a sword. Maybe she thought she was too fat.”

  Darcy gave him a you’re-not-funny look.

  “What? Stranger things have happened.”

  She had to admit, that was certainly true.

  It was after midnight n
ow, and both of their children were in bed and asleep. They’d lucked out with Colby, and she’d slept through the night almost right from the beginning. It was looking like they would have the same good fortune with Zane.

  She finally decided to put on the loose-fitting bottoms with the hopping kangaroos on them, the ones she had bought specifically for these weeks she was going to be stuck in the cast. It was just more comfortable, and if she needed to get up in the middle of the night she didn’t have to worry about Colby seeing her half naked. Plus, the kangaroos reminded her of the trip she and Jon had taken to Australia several years ago.

  When he saw her struggling, Jon knelt by the side of the bed and helped her slide them on. “There you go.”

  “My hero,” she said graciously when they were finally on. “You may rise, good sir, and kiss your princess.”

  “I could do that,” he said, staying right where he was on his knees, “or I could ask my princess if she really plans on looking into someone else’s problems again.”

  She shrugged. “It’s who I am.”

  “Actually, what you are is an amazing mother of two children who need your attention.” He stood up, and took her hands in his. “They’re the most important things for us now.”

  After a moment, she took her hands back. “That’s not fair. My kids are important to me. You know they are.”

  “Of course I know that, Darcy. It’s just… if you remember, every time we get involved in one of your ghost stories, someone gets hurt. Or worse,” he added.

  “I am a mother,” she stated firmly. She settled her leg down on its mound of pillows to keep it elevated during the night as she spoke without looking at him, angry that he would accuse her of putting their children second. “I’m also a woman with a very special ability and I can’t just shut that off, Jon. One of our children has that same gift, if you remember correctly, so what would you like me to tell our daughter? ‘Sorry, honey, but using your gift is just too dangerous. Hide what you are from everyone and make sure no one sees you do anything that might make you look different.’ Is that really what you’d like me to say to Colby?”