A Darcy Sweet Mystery Box Set Seven

by K. J. Emrick

  “All right, daughter of mine. We’ll give that a try. You are the woman of the house today. First we try this, and then we see where we’re at. Fair enough?”

  “Yes. Thanks, Mom.”

  The way Colby’s face lit up you would have thought she had just been pronounced the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Darcy watched her trying not to grin, seeing her little girl grow up right in front of her eyes. There was a maturity starting to show in her decisions, and even now she could glimpse the woman her daughter would grow up to be. Someone Darcy would be proud of. Someone she couldn’t wait to meet.

  Speaking of which. “A doctor, huh? You and Audrey want to be doctors?”

  “Uh-huh. She wants to be a surgeon, but I still think maybe I’d like to be a family doctor? You know, like Doctor Malik?”

  “What happened to being a comic book artist? Weren’t you staying after school this year in art class to learn how to shade people’s faces properly, or something like that?”

  Colby rolled her eyes, but Darcy knew it wasn’t directed at her. “Yeah, but I think maybe I’m over that. I’ll still draw Detective Puppy comics sometimes, for fun, I guess, but let’s face it. You can’t get rich being a writer.”

  “Oh, and the goal is to become rich, is it?”

  “Well, rich enough to have a nice house like this and maybe, you know, a couple kids of my own.”

  She kept her face turned toward Tiptoe, but Darcy saw the way she blushed. Her little girl, already looking forward to the future.

  “Did you ever think,” she asked carefully, “that maybe Audrey’s brother is annoying you so much because maybe he likes you? Like, likes you?”

  “Ew, Mom. No. Gross.” Now she rolled her eyes for real. “See? I told you boys were just annoying. Seriously. Yuck.”

  Darcy thought maybe her daughter was protesting a little too much, but she let it go. Colby would learn how great it was to be in love with someone someday, but it would be on her own terms, and in her own time. Nobody was going to be able to force it. “All right. So. You have the number to the bookstore and my cellphone, too, but remember you can’t call my cell, you can only—”

  “Just text,” Colby said. “Yeah, Mom, I remember. And Doctor Malik’s number is on the fridge and I sure know how to dial 911. There’s macaroni and cheese in the cupboard I can make for lunch and Zane is supposed to have milk, no soda.”

  “Pretty good,” Darcy had to admit. “Milk for you, too, remember.”

  “I do. It does a body good, right?”

  “Exactly. Just one more thing. Nobody comes over to visit unless you ask me first. That goes for Audrey, too.”

  Colby looked surprised by that idea, like she hadn’t even considered it. “Could she come over? I mean, like to visit for a couple of hours?”

  “Not today. This is a trial run and I want to make sure that it works first before we start adding friends into the mix, okay?”

  “Sure, sure. But, if I do a good job, maybe another day? She could come over while you’re at work another day?”

  Darcy realized she’d painted herself into a corner. She couldn’t very well go back on her deal now. “That’s a hard maybe. Let’s leave it at that for now.”

  “I’ll take it. Thanks, Mom.”

  Darcy couldn’t think of any other warnings or instructions that she would need to give Colby, although she had a feeling she was going to be texting with her daughter every half hour just to make sure everything was all right. That’s what it was to be a mother, after all. Let your kids fly but keep the binoculars handy to watch them just in case they broke a wing.

  As she was about to leave, Colby stopped petting Tiptoe and sat up straighter. “Hey, Mom?”

  “Yes, daughter of mine?”

  “Hitchhikers use their thumbs to get everywhere.”

  Well, that was unexpected.

  Darcy was familiar with this part of Colby’s gift. She had it as well, but not as strongly as her daughter. There were times when thoughts came to them with no explanation. Ideas that seemed to make no sense, bits and pieces of the universe’s plan that could only be expressed in words that popped into your mind seemingly from nowhere.

  So, when her daughter said hitchhikers use their thumbs to get everywhere, and then sat there with that odd expression on her face, Darcy knew that wasn’t just gibberish. It wasn’t her daughter trying to be funny. It was part of the family gift that Colby hadn’t quite come to grips with. She was doing the best she could with it.

  The thing of it was, that bit of wisdom could mean anything. It might not even have anything to do with guys standing on the side of the road with their thumbs out. It could have some other, more cryptic meaning that Colby didn’t know how to explain. It could be the meaning of the universe for all Darcy knew. It could mean everything, or it could be nothing of importance at all.

  Either way, she tucked the words away at the back of her mind for when she might need them later.

  “Love you, kiddo,” she told Colby.

  “Love you too, Mom.”

  Then she went to take a shower and get some breakfast for both her and the pets. Before she left, she gave Zane a quick kiss on the cheek and told him he was spending the day with his big sister. He mumbled something that sounded happy, and then he was asleep again.

  Cha Cha lifted his head up from the end of the bed. He was used to going with her when she left in the mornings, but his boy was right there, asleep in the bed, and his place was at Zane’s side. He licked his chops, and closed his eyes, and laid his head back down with a satisfied grumbling.

  “See you later, Cha Cha,” Darcy whispered, and then slipped out of the room.

  On the way to work, on the long street she lived on, she met a hitchhiker.

  There were exactly two houses on the street, and it didn’t really connect to anywhere except as an intersection with Main Street on one end. She figured that must be where Mark Franks was coming from as he walked down the shoulder of the road, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his gray Ricker Institute hoodie. The sun shone off his blonde hair. He was heading out of town, in the direction of her house.

  She slowed down when she got closer, and he peered into her windows until he was sure it was her, and then he waved.

  Then his weathered face broke into a goofy grin, and he thrust out his hand, and stuck out his thumb.

  Darcy stopped so hard that her tires barked on the pavement. Hitchhikers use their thumbs to get everywhere. Colby had just said it, and now here was a man using his thumb to hitch a ride. Darcy was heading into town and Mark Franks had been heading out of it, but now he was jogging over to her car, obviously happy to see her.

  This was what Colby’s warning had been about… but did it mean Darcy should pick him up, or pass him by?

  She took a chance and rolled down her window.

  “Hi, Mark. Need a ride?”

  “Well, I sure would appreciate that,” he told her, finally dropping his thumb. “I’ll come around to the other side. Hold on.”

  Darcy smiled at his odd antics. He was a goofy man. Funny, but in an odd sort of way. When he got in the front passenger side, he made sure to click his seatbelt on and then drummed his hands on the dash. “So where are we going today?”

  “I’m going to work. What about you?”

  “Oh. Work? Hmm.” He sounded disappointed, like he was expecting her to say something else. “I thought maybe we were doing something more fun. I suppose that’s where I should be, too. Back home, working on the next few chapters in my book. I don’t want my publisher climbing up one side of me and down the other. This was just such a nice day that it seemed a shame to waste it indoors.”

  Darcy agreed with him on that. The sun was just coming up in a cloudless sky, and the breeze was gentle and warm, and it would be a great day for a walk or a bike ride, even. Except she was an adult, and work had to come before play.

  She put the car in drive and started back toward Main Street. “You know, it’s funn
y. My daughter wanted to be a writer when she was younger. Well, a comic book writer, actually. For the longest time that’s all we heard. Just this morning she announced she wanted to be a doctor instead. She said she couldn’t get rich being a writer.”

  He laughed, hard, tapping his hand on the dash again. “Well, you tell her that if she has good ideas, she can go really far as a writer. It just takes a lot of hard work. And, I should add, a lot of luck. There’s a slew of talented writers out there who will never get the chance to go anywhere because they don’t have a publisher or the money to promote themselves.”

  “I’ll bet you need good typing skills, too.”

  “Sure do! Helps if your fingers aren’t in pain.”

  He held his hand up to show her the red, raw tips of his fingers again. The burns he talked about must have been severe. Darcy felt bad for him. It would be hard enough for her to live her life like that, and how much harder was it for a writer?

  “I’d like to try my hand at it, if I could find the time,” Darcy told him as they got to the parking lot behind the bookstore, “Maybe not a fiction novel. Maybe something like what my great aunt wrote. Or maybe a history of Misty Hollow, or something like that. This town has a lot of history.”

  “Oh, now that would be interesting to be sure. Maybe we could work together. I’m sure I could convince my publisher to handle a project like that and then it would give me a chance to get to know you better.”

  “Me? Why would you want to get to know me better? I’m just the town’s bookstore owner.” She put the car in park and turned the engine off. She still had time before she had to go inside for work.

  “Now, now, you’re being modest.” He unbuckled his seatbelt and twisted around to face her. “You’re a lot more than that as far as I can see. I went looking online for those old articles on Misty Hollow that you mentioned, and it turns out you’re in almost all of them. Seems to me like you’re kind of the heart of this town.”

  “That’s very kind of you to say, but really we’re a community here. Everybody takes care of everybody else.”

  “Well, that may be true, but you’re always at the center of things, right? I mean, I read those news articles. Read between the lines a little bit, too. Every story, every mystery, you’re always there. I remember this one case in particular, actually. There was this one case where the victim was long dead and buried on the campus of Saxton University over in Oakwood. You remember that?”

  Darcy grimaced. She remembered that one very well. The ghost of the girl had cried out to Darcy for help and the case had led them to find her unmarked grave, and a murderer who was hiding in plain sight.

  “How did you do that?” he asked her.

  She wasn’t sure what he meant. “Do what?”

  “I was just curious, you see, how you managed to find the victim in that case. She’d been buried for a while, hadn’t she? The news reports were a little sketchy on that point and as a writer, I’m always curious about those little details.”

  The ghost led them to her grave. That was the honest answer, but not one that Darcy was willing to share with someone she had only just met. “It was a complicated case,” was what she decided to tell him.

  “Maybe it was one of those techniques in your aunt’s books? I read them last night and they’re fascinating. The things she talks about, like séances and the cycles of the moon and all of that. Simply amazing. Could she really talk to ghosts?”

  “Yes, she could.” Darcy had decided a long time ago not to lie about Great Aunt Millie. There was no need. There were lots of ghost hunters who came to Misty Hollow looking for the paranormal, and because of her books Millie was part of the story now. “The things she wrote about were real to her. But that mystery you mentioned, with the poor girl buried at Saxton University, was solved with hard police work.”

  That was mostly true. Close enough, anyway.

  “Wow,” he said, with an awed little shake of his head. “This town is just full of secrets.”

  Darcy laughed, amused by his keen interest in their little town. “Well, I’ve got to head into work,” she told him. “You know, the book club members might be there again. They seemed to enjoy it when you joined their little group yesterday. Would you want to come in again…?”

  “Hmm. Maybe tomorrow. Like I said, this is just too nice a day to stay inside. I was actually walking around town trying to get the lay of everything. My realtor is meeting me in, oh, two hours to show me another house. So. I’m just going to keep walking around. I’ll see you later, I guess.”

  “Okay. Hey, the book club is going to have their regular meeting Thursday night, if you want to join us.”

  He seemed to like that idea. “But I haven’t read whatever book you’re talking about. Shouldn’t I read the book? I mean, Jackson is going to want me to know what I’m talking about, youngster.”

  Darcy laughed, hearing Mark imitate Jackson’s inflection and the sound of his voice almost perfectly. “Wow, that was really good. Do you do impersonations?”

  “Me? Oh, no. Nothing like that. Jackson just makes a pretty big impression. Don’t you think?”

  “I couldn’t agree more.” Darcy had always thought that about Jackson herself. “The book we’re talking about this week is the sequel to Kill a Mockingbird. You’ve heard of it, I’m sure. Go Set a Watchman?”

  “I’ve heard of it. I’ve never read it, though.”

  “That’s okay, let the others carry the conversation and just enjoy yourself. The book club meetings get way off topic all the time. You saw them. It’s part of the fun.”

  “All right, that sounds like a good chance to meet more people. I’ll be there.”

  He gave Darcy a wink before opening the door and getting out again. Darcy watched him go, not back down her street, but around the corner of the building and down Main Street.

  She sat there in the car for another moment, and she was surprised to feel herself smile. Mark Franks was trying really hard to fit into life here in Misty Hollow. Reading about past events, getting to know her and the book club members. It was a refreshing change of pace to have someone like him moving here.

  Maybe that was the tradeoff for having to suffer with Willamena Duell barging into her life. If that evil harpy was going to be a part of their town now, then it was good to know a nice guy like Mark Franks was going to be a new neighbor as well.

  After all, balance was the way of the world. When bad things happened, you just had to look for the good.

  Chapter 9

  When the bookstore’s phone rang, Darcy was in the middle of a sale of a four-volume set of illustrated map books to a nice older couple. Those had been on the shelf for over a year now and Darcy was so glad to see them go that she added a copy of a book called Spirit Tales for free. “Stories about the ghostly hauntings of this state and the ones surrounding,” the blurb on the dust jacket read. It was a book Darcy had become aware of from a trip through Ryansburg a number of years ago, and since then it had become one of her best sellers. The couple were very happy to have the extra little something and promised to stop in again the next time they were in the area.

  Izzy had picked up the phone by the time Darcy was handing over the receipt and the paper bag with their purchase. She waved goodbye to them as she listened to Izzy with half an ear.

  “Oh, hi Jon. Yes, she’s here. She’s just finishing up with a customer. Hold on.”

  Darcy took the phone with a smile. It was only midmorning. Maybe Jon was calling to set up a lunch date for the two of them. That would be nice.

  Unfortunately, that’s not what he had in mind.

  “What are the chances that you can have Izzy watch the store and our kids for a few hours?”

  “Well, she can definitely manage the store for a while but as for the kids, I left them at home today.”

  He took a moment to reply. “By themselves?”

  “Yes, I know,” Darcy sighed. “I was a little uncertain about it myself, but Colby asked
if she could do it and she is twelve, and really grown up. I thought it was time we give it a try.”

  “Hmm. Let me guess, you’ve been calling every twenty minutes to check up on them?”

  “Only every hour, thank you very much.” Darcy laughed at herself. “All right, I’m worried about them but really, we have to let her grow up sometime, right? She’s got her own cellphone now and Zane’s going to be happy having a day with just his sister.”

  “Hey, you don’t have to convince me. It’s just a big step.”

  “One of several. So. Now that you know all that, what’s up?”

  She could hear him switching the phone from one ear to the other, and the distinctive squeak of his chair as he leaned back at his desk. “Well, let me ask you this. How sure are you that Annie Pellegrino is dead?”

  “It’s like I told you. I didn’t see her ghost but the way those connections between her and Charlie were cut… ninety percent, I’d say.”

  “Okay. Then it would seem our dead girl has been using her debit card to buy things I’m pretty sure ghosts don’t need.”

  That took Darcy by surprise, to say the least. “Her debit card?”

  “Uh-huh. Somebody’s been making purchases on her card, according to Maxwell. I called him first thing this morning, and told him about Annie being dead, so they were looking into her life. They got a warrant for her finances, and the first thing they see is that she’s still buying things as of yesterday. Maybe today, too, but the bank hasn’t updated their information for today yet.”

  “Buying things where?” Darcy asked him.

  “Here in Misty Hollow. In Oakwood. Other places further away, too. So here’s the question. If their neighbors haven’t seen Annie in about a week, who’s using her card?”

  “You think it’s her?”

  “It’s not her ghost,” he quipped.