A Darcy Sweet Mystery Box Set Five

by K. J. Emrick

  “I’m going to a conference next week,” he said. “Won’t be gone long. Five, six days at most. I’ll be back before you know it.”

  Darcy froze in place. That was what he said to her… how many days ago? Before he went to the conference. With a kiss on her cheek and some tender words that had led them quietly upstairs to their bedroom while Colby watched her cartoons, he’d told her that he was going away for a few days. Five. Six days at the most.

  “Your sister’s coming with me.”

  He’d said that, too.

  “She says she wants to carpool but you know your sister. Won’t be surprised if she changes her mind last minute. Grace doesn’t usually like to stay at these things the whole time.”

  And that. She remembered every word.

  Impossible as it was, here where her body wasn’t so much a real thing as it was a manifestation of her mind, Darcy felt sweat begin to trickle from underneath the hair at the nape of her neck. All of this had happened before. Sometimes, ghosts would give messages to the living by repeating a word or a phrase or even a scene from their lives. This wasn’t that. This was something else.

  It was like when he had sat at the kitchen table this morning, reliving the moment before he’d driven off for this police seminar. Sitting there, spinning his coffee cup.

  Almost, she thought, like he didn’t remember anything after that moment. Like he was reliving the last thing he could remember.

  Like he didn’t remember dying.

  She lifted her hands to cover her face, here in the in between space, and sobbed. The tears might not be real, but they felt real, and her emotions were as real as anything she had ever felt, and she didn’t know what she was going to do now.

  If Jon’s ghost didn’t know that he was dead, he wouldn’t be able to give her any information about how he died. He wouldn’t be able to lead her to where he… where his body could be found. If it was foul play or an accident or even something as stupid as a heart attack at his young age, she might never know. Ghosts weren’t omnipotent. That was a power left solely in the hands of God.

  Darcy wasn’t talking to God here. She was talking to her dead husband.

  His hand fell on her shoulder. It was comforting, and warm, and she held onto him like he was really here with her. This might just be the closest she ever got to him again.

  “Jon, what happened to you?”

  “I went to a conference. Five. Six days at the most.”

  She looked up into his eyes, seeing nothing but love for her. Like it was just another day for them together. A day they had already lived together.

  A tear slid from the corner of her eye. “Do you understand why you’re here? Why I’m here?”

  “I’m going to a conference next week,” he repeated.

  “I know. I know, Jon.” She held on tight to his hand, trying to hold his focus on her. The mists swirled, and his face blurred behind them before it came into focus again. “Jon, please. Try to think. You went to the conference. You were there with Grace. Remember?”

  “Your sister’s coming with me.”

  “Right. Right, Jon. She’s coming with you. You drove separately. She left before you. You were still at the conference, remember? What happened then?”

  He blinked at her. “I’m going to a conference next week. I’ll be back before you know it.”

  “Jon, please. Focus for me. Remember. What happened after Grace left?”

  He scrunched up his brow. “Grace was at the conference.”

  “Yes. Yes, Jon. Think. Help me understand. What happened next?”

  The mists shifted and moved around them, collecting and crowding in, making Darcy feel like she was suffocating. The space between the living and the dead was getting smaller.

  Like she was getting closer to Jon. Or he was getting closer to her.

  But that was impossible…

  When he spoke again it was so sudden that Darcy jumped.

  “Sometimes the past catches up with you,” he said, staring off into the mists. “I’ve put you through so much, Sweet Baby. So much.”

  “It’s okay,” Darcy said through her tears. “Jon, I wouldn’t have missed this for the world. Every day I’ve had with you is a day I’ve treasured.”

  “Treasure,” he repeated. “Fortune. Yes. That’s it. Fortunes come. Fortunes go.”

  With a finger, he began tracing an invisible line back and forth. Back and forth.

  “Fortunes come.”

  Back.

  “Fortunes go.”

  Forth.

  “Jon, please. Help me. Help me find out what happened to you!”

  He came closer to her, through the mists. He smiled into her eyes. “I will always love you, Darcy Sweet. There’s no way I would ever lose you.”

  His lips brushed across hers. Darcy caught her breath to feel his kiss.

  And in that instant, she jerked awake in her living room.

  Her legs ached and she had to rub at her thighs to get feeling back before she could unfold them. Her back was stiff, and every single part of her spine popped, one after the other, when she twisted around to stretch. She must have been sitting here for a really long time. It happened that way, sometimes, when she was really into the calling.

  Jon. She’d been with Jon, for just a fleeting moment. She thought back over everything he’d said—

  “Hi Mommy!”

  Darcy was surprised to find Colby sitting nearby, just outside the ring of the candles with their flickering flames sinking low into the melted candlewax. Bittie Bunny the stuffie sat leaning up against her side. The little girl’s hair had turned into dark fire again from the slanting rays of the sun through the window. Darcy groaned. She really had been sitting here awhile.

  Around Colby, spread out in no particular order, were the folders that Darcy had borrowed from the police station. A few of them were open.

  As quick as she could Darcy collected the folders up again. There might be crime scene photos or witness statements or any of a dozen things that a girl of five years old should definitely not be reading. Colby’s level of understanding for the naughtier words of the English language was impressive, as both Darcy and Jon had found out on more than one embarrassing occasion. She could only imagine what her daughter would pick up from reading these things.

  “No, no, honey,” Darcy said, swiping the manila folders away. “These aren’t for you.”

  “But I found it, Mommy.” Colby lifted up the folder from directly in front of her and presented it like a wrapped Christmas gift to Darcy. “I found the one that Daddy wanted us to see.”

  Darcy stared at that one file as if she expected it to swing open and bite her fingers. Colby was talking like she had heard Jon in the communication Darcy had just performed. That was impossible. When Darcy reached into the in between place it was a private conversation. No one else could hear it.

  Still, Colby was holding out the folder for Darcy to take.

  When she finally did, Colby picked up Bittie Bunny and went skipping over to the stairs singing most of the words to her favorite song and humming the ones she couldn’t remember. Her stuffie’s sad eyes watched Darcy as they went.

  She waited until she heard her daughter upstairs again before she opened the folder. The name on the tab didn’t mean anything to her. She knew almost everyone in Misty Hollow, at least by name, and she didn’t recognize this one. Ferguson Gorsky. Under the name was a file number, and the nature of the case.

  Fraud.

  Inside, the details were listed out in Grace’s neat handwriting. Skimming through, Darcy learned that Gorsky had been conned out of his life’s savings. The figure added up to a small fortune.

  Darcy gasped and held her finger under the total value of the stolen money. A fortune. Just like Jon said.

  Could this be it? Could this be the reason Jon had died?

  Fortunes come…

  …and fortunes go.

  Darcy had found her first clue.

  Chapt
er 5

  Lilly met them at the door to the Sweet Read bookstore. She had grown into a very cute sixteen-year-old girl, Darcy thought. The pigtails she used to wear in her brown hair were gone, replaced by a ponytail that had the last few inches dyed pink. Her pixie’s face and wide, expressive eyes the color of jade had a certain maturity to them now, even as she stood there in her jeans and t-shirt. When she smiled it was easy to see why she had a certain boy by the name of Connor wrapped around her finger.

  “Hey Darcy,” Lilly said around a mouthful of bubble gum. “Mom’s in the office. She said something about a book shipment coming in tomorrow.”

  “Thanks Lilly. I’ll find my way. Would you mind watching Colby for me? I’ll only be a few minutes.”

  “Sure.” Lilly smiled down at Colby, nodding with her head toward the stacks. “Race you to the bibliographies?”

  Colby wasn’t sure. “Which ones are the bib graphs?”

  “The big, boring ones,” Lilly explained. “Ready? One, two, three, go!”

  They fell into their usual game of hide and seek as Colby laughed and squealed in delight. Darcy watched them play for a moment. School had ended an hour ago, thankfully, which was why Lilly was here waiting for her mom to finish work before going home together. It gave Colby someone to play with, and it was nice for Darcy to see something as normal as a child’s game being played between the stacks of books, while the rest of her world had turned itself upside down.

  With a sigh, she left them to their game. She had forgotten about the book shipment until Lilly had just mentioned it. With everything that was going on, her mind had scattered itself into a million different pieces and she knew it would be days before she put them all back together again.

  No one else seemed to be in the store at the moment which made it a good time to go speak with Izzy in the back room they used as their office. She could have waited for Izzy to close up the shop for the day first, and just met her and Lilly at the house they owned next door, but she didn’t want to waste any time. She had a clue to follow now, and hopefully it would lead her to what had happened to Jon.

  Assuming the casefile that Colby had found among all the others was really connected to Jon’s death. She wanted to believe that it was. More than that. She needed to believe that it was.

  Her hand hesitated on the handle of the door to the office. It had been so easy to say Jon’s death just then. At least, in her mind. Now that she thought about those words, they nagged at her.

  Behind her, near where the sales counter stood, a circular rack of t-shirts began to spin. Red shirts and pink shirts and blue shirts, all printed with the store logo, “The Mysterious Is All Around Us.” Darcy watched them turning around and around.

  There was no one near them.

  Great Aunt Millie was letting her know that she was still here, and still looking out for her.

  “Well, that’s nice,” she whispered bitterly. “You should have been watching out for Jon. Why weren’t you looking out for him?”

  The rack stopped so suddenly that it squeaked. Lilly and Colby paused their game to look over.

  With a humph, she opened the office door. Her aunt wasn’t being very talkative. Not since the dream she’d had last night of an idyllic afternoon on her front porch with lemonade and warm breezes.

  And the mists rolling in.

  “Darcy?” she heard Izzy asking. “Are you okay?”

  Her friend was sitting at the little desk crammed in between filing cabinets and the little refrigerator they kept for emergency snacks and bottles of water. Above it, on the wall, was the only bookshelf the customers never got to see in the store. This was where they kept all the special books. Like Darcy’s favorite mystery novel, and her Great Aunt Millie’s journals.

  She frowned at them before answering Izzy. No. There wouldn’t be any help to be found in the pages of those journals this time.

  Isabelle McIntosh—Izzy to her friends—was dressed for business like always in a pair of slacks and a cream colored button-up blouse. In her oval face Darcy could see the woman that Lilly would eventually grow into. The same expressions. The same eyes that told a story of a hard life without ever saying a word. Izzy’s long hair might be dark blonde instead of brown, but there was no doubt who Lilly’s mother was.

  She stood up from the desk now and took Darcy’s hands to lead her further into the tight space of the office so they could close the door. “Darcy? Are you all right?”

  A laugh choked itself off in her throat. “No. I really don’t think I am.”

  “Oh, Darcy. I’m so sorry. Here I was worrying about my own troubles and then for you to get this kind of news! Poor Grace. She’s going to be all right, isn’t she? And what about Jon? They must have heard something from him by now.”

  Darcy nearly told her. She nearly broke down and told Izzy everything about seeing Jon’s ghost this morning and having the communication to reach out to him and how she knew he was dead. Keeping this inside was beginning to feel like a rock settling into the pit of her stomach.

  Instead, with a deep breath, she forced a smile and a nod. “I’ll be fine, Izzy. Thanks for asking. I was stopping by to ask a favor. Another favor, I guess I should say. Could you watch Colby for a few hours? I need to check on something and I can’t bring her with me.”

  Eyes clouding over, Izzy began chewing at the inside of her cheek. Letting go of Darcy’s hands, she sat down at the desk again.

  “Izzy?” Darcy asked her. She blinked, finally noticing how weary her friend looked. And had Izzy just said she was worrying about her own troubles?

  What was going on?

  She went over and sat on the corner of the desk with Izzy. “It’s all right, you can tell me. You know I’m worried about Grace and, um, where Jon might be. That doesn’t mean I don’t still have time for my friends. What’s wrong?”

  Izzy shook her head, but then looked up into Darcy’s eyes. “That’s what I’ve always liked about you. Always there for your friends. Even when you have troubles of your own.”

  Darcy shrugged. “It’s who I am.”

  “It’s what makes you a good friend. You remember when I first came to town?”

  “Of course.” How could she ever forget? “You didn’t exactly want my help then.”

  “No,” she agreed. “I didn’t want anyone’s help. But, I needed it. You made me see that.”

  She hesitated just a moment longer before picking up an envelope from the desk and handing it over. Taking it, Darcy folded back the already open flap, and removed the letter from inside.

  The first thing she noticed was the name of the prison on the letterhead.

  It wasn’t a long letter. It didn’t take Darcy long to read it. When she was done, she read it again, just to be sure she understood.

  “They’re letting your husband out?”

  The words made Izzy flinch, and Darcy understood why. Charles McIntosh had been an abusive husband, both verbally and physically. When Izzy had taken all she could she ran away with herself and her daughter. If that wasn’t bad enough, Charles had faked his own death and framed Izzy for the murder.

  Charles—or Chip, as he liked to be called—had fallen in with a very bad group of people who called themselves The Hand. He’d stolen money from them. That was his reason for faking his own death. Pinning his murder on Izzy had been just a cruel detail of his crazy plan. Izzy had dyed her hair and even tried to pass Lilly off as a boy named Alex. Six and a half years ago Lilly had still been a little kid and the ruse would have worked, if Darcy’s sixth sense hadn’t tipped her off to the truth.

  Once Darcy and Jon had started looking into what had happened, everything came to light. Chip had been caught and sent to prison. The Hand had sent a hired killer to find Chip’s wife and the money he stole. In the end, that man had testified against Chip for a reduced sentence. Darcy had been certain they wouldn’t see Chip McIntosh for a decade at least.

  “How long has it been?”

  “Four y
ears,” she answered with a grimace. “Next month will be four years since the trial ended and he started serving his time. That’s why the parole board is meeting now. They want to know if I plan on testifying at the hearing.”

  “But that can’t be right,” Darcy said. “Everything he did? Faking his death, framing you, stealing all that money…?”

  Izzy pulled her hair back from her face and held it in her fists behind her neck as she stared down at the floor. “Well. He stole from people who don’t exactly file tax returns. These guys were like the mafia. They couldn’t exactly complain that money they earned illegally had been stolen, right? So all he got tried for was the stuff he did to me and Lilly. He was sentenced to eight years, eligible for parole at three and seven-eighths years, or some sort of crazy math like that. The hearing’s next week…”

  Now Darcy understood what had Izzy so upset. She never wanted to see Chip again. Not that anyone would blame her. The thought that he might get out on parole and be a free man of sorts… well. That was more than any wife would be able to stomach. Ex-wife, Darcy corrected herself. She’d helped Izzy file the divorce papers herself.

  Returning the letter to the envelope and then the envelope to the desk, Darcy reached out and put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Izzy. I’ll come with you to the hearing. We’ll both testify. No way is he getting out until he’s served every minute that the court gave him.”

  Izzy let go of her hair to hold onto Darcy’s hand like that had been the reassurance that she needed. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Maybe… maybe Jon can come and testify too?”

  Darcy’s breath caught in her throat and she had to swallow a few times before the words would come. “I’ll ask him,” she said. “Just as soon as he shows up.”

  The relief on her friend’s face made the lie worth it, in a way. “That means a lot to me, Darcy. Thank you. Oh. You were going to ask me a favor, weren’t you?”

  The case folder for the Ferguson Gorsky fraud investigation was in her blue canvas backpack, which was slung over her bicycle in front of the store. She’d walked it here with Colby knowing she wanted to get started right away. There were still a few more hours before it got dark, and this might be her only way to find out what happened to Jon.