A Darcy Sweet Mystery Box Set Seven

by K. J. Emrick

  “Okay, sure,” Wilson said. “Except, Samuel’s always there. He sees Charlie taking Annie away from Boston. He sees Charlie trying to leave Samuel behind. Without Charlie knowing what’s going on, the Samuel personality sets up that room in the basement, and when things are ready, he chains up Annie and holds her hostage. Then he… what? Switches back to Charlie to keep his day job?”

  “Essentially, yes,” Jon told him. “I’m not a psychologist either but that’s exactly what we think was going on. Charlie would become Samuel when he needed to take care of Annie, and he would become Charlie again when it was time to go to work. He might not have even known anything was wrong if we hadn’t found that hand and started asking questions. So. There you have it.”

  Grace disagreed. “Uh, not exactly. You still haven’t explained the hand. Darcy found Charlie’s hand just floating in the water like it was left there on purpose. You care to take a crack at explaining that?”

  “Well,” Darcy said, “we think that’s exactly what happened. We think Charlie cut off his own hand sometime around his teen years, or his early twenties, whenever this psychosis first manifested itself. He did that because he wanted to believe he was Samuel. However, some part of him knew the hand was really his, and he held onto it. Over the years it got all dried up.”

  “Desiccated,” Jon said, with a smug look at Grace.

  Grace smiled at him. “Right. Maybe the Samuel personality wanted insurance against Charlie, or the Charlie personality couldn’t bear to part with what was his. Either way it came with them when they moved here, to Misty Hollow.” Grace bounced the heel of her shoe against Jon’s desk. “Then why’d he throw it in the water like that? Why get rid of it now?”

  The answer to that was more guesswork than anything, but Darcy felt sure they had it right. It was more than a feeling. It was a truth being told to her by her gifts, plain as day. “The Samuel personality did that. When he surfaced again here in Misty Hollow, he wanted everyone to know that he was the real twin. He wanted the Charlie personality to be discovered as a fraud. That way, he could be rid of Charlie, and really have Annie all to himself. I know it sounds crazy but in that part of his mind that was Samuel, it made perfect sense.”

  Jon finished the last page of his paperwork and closed the case file. “So we figured he threw the hand into the river anticipating it would be found at some point. He told us he likes to walk through the woods sometimes. I should have figured it out when he said that but I needed more clues first. Then, once the hand was placed where he knew someone would find it, all he had to do was wait. It was Darcy’s usual luck to be the person who stumbled across it.”

  Grace let out a low whistle. “Split personality disorder. Wow. That’s a new one on me.”

  “Us too,” Jon said. “This whole case has been different for us. This might actually be the first murder mystery we’ve worked on where nobody died.”

  Darcy gave him a sly look, because she knew what he was alluding to. The casting that she did through Charlie wasn’t going to come up in this debriefing, but she and Jon would have a chance to talk about it later. In a way, what she’d seen about Annie and Samuel had been right, and also wrong.

  Mostly wrong, maybe, but now she knew why.

  The cut-off emotional ties that she’d seen so clearly when she’d searched for Annie through Charlie were real. When the Samuel personality came back, he’d taken Annie away from Charlie, and locked her away from him. Every connection between them had been severed as completely as if someone had taken scissors to a child’s balloon string.

  When she’d seen Samuel’s rotting visage screaming at her from out of Charlie’s soul, it was because that was where Charlie’s brother resided. In his soul. She’d seen a ghost in the casting, just not the kind she’d expected. Samuel Huntsman’s ghost was only haunting his brother. He’d created that particular demon out of a misplaced sense of guilt that he was alive, while his brother had died as a baby.

  The only part of Samuel that was real had been created by Charlie, crafted by a lifetime of his mother’s animosity, and colored by the view from a child’s shattered ego. Samuel had died as an infant, but he was still being carried around, deep within the shadowy depths of Charlie’s subconscious. That was the image that she’d seen. A personal ghost that Charlie had made real.

  Like she’d told Jon. Her gift wasn’t an exact science.

  And like he’d told her, it wasn’t really science at all.

  It was something much more special.

  “Okay you guys,” Jon said to everyone. “Let’s get back to work. There might not have been a murder but there was plenty of crime and we’ve got a guy in our holding cell who needs some serious mental help if he’s ever going to recover his sanity. Wilson, make a phone call to the judge and let him know that we’re looking for a court ordered psychiatric evaluation.”

  “You got it, Chief.” He gave Jon a sort of a salute with two fingers, and then he left.

  Reaching across his desk, Jon waited for Darcy to take his hand. “You’d better get back to the kids before they start thinking we forgot about them. We’ll have to take a little getaway this weekend to make up for us not being there much this week.”

  “You got it,” she said, mimicking Wilson’s salute. “I think that sounds like fun.”

  “What about me, boss?” Grace asked him.

  Jon gave her a sharp look. “You? You can get your keister off my desk. How about that?”

  She hopped off, making sure to dust the corner with her hand when she did. “There. All better?” She winked at Jon, and he winked back in a just-kidding kind of way. “So, I guess I’ll just go start the fingerprint process, hmm? First time I’ve ever fingerprinted a one-handed man.”

  “Contact Maxwell Dillon and fill him in too, please? He started this mess. He should know that we finished it for him.”

  “I can do that. I’ll let you know what he says.”

  Then she was gone too, and Darcy and Jon were left alone.

  “You know what?” he asked, with a long stretch that raised his arms far up over his head. “I’m about ready for this day to be over with. It’s been a few months since someone tried to kill either me or you. I was getting used to being bored.”

  Darcy knew what he meant. The summer had been nice and quiet, and it had gone by far too fast. “In Charlie’s defense, he didn’t actually try to kill me. Even when he thought he was Samuel, he just ran away when I turned the light on him.”

  “Yeah, that’s true, but you said he was sneaking up on you. If Annie hadn’t warned you, and if you hadn’t turned around with your cellphone when you did… I don’t want to know what might have happened.”

  She got up and came around to him, dropping herself into his lap. “You would have been there in plenty of time to save me, Jon Tinker.”

  “Hmm. My wife has never needed anyone to save her. She takes care of that all by herself. Don’t you, Darcy Sweet?”

  As her arms wrapped around his neck, Jon pulled her closer, and closer still until their cheeks were touching, and then their lips, and then they were lost completely in a kiss. There were things to do but for the moment, everything was taken care of. There was nothing to worry about, except each other.

  When he moved over in his chair, Darcy nuzzled up against his chest. She knew this moment couldn’t last but she wanted to steal just a little bit longer with him. Just as long as she could.

  “Hey,” he said to her. “You want to know something funny?”

  “At this point? Yeah. I could use a laugh.”

  “I did some research. Turns out, Morgan Freeman isn’t missing a hand after all. He busted his whole arm up in a car accident, but he kept the hand. He just can’t use it. He wears a compression glove to keep the circulation going.”

  “Huh. I guess you learn something new every day.”

  “What did you learn today?”

  “I learned that I love you, Jon Tinker.”

  “I love you, too.
You and our whole family. Especially our kids.”

  She looked up into his eyes and wondered if he was saying what she thought he was saying. Their family was big enough with just two children. Big enough to love.

  Wasn’t it?

  When he leaned in to kiss her again, she told herself not to worry about it. They’d figure that out together.

  Just like they did with everything.

  Chapter 12

  The jewelry box was moving in the closet again. Darcy could hear it.

  When she rolled over in bed, meaning to find a good sledgehammer and put a stop to this once and for all, the lights came on. Her eyes shut tight reflexively, and she pulled her pillow over her head for good measure. “Jon, it’s all right,” she mumbled, still half asleep. “I’ll get it. Turn the light off, will you?”

  “Well, I could,” said a gruff female voice, “but I seem to remember you do not like the shadows so very much.”

  Darcy’s frowned and pushed herself up, looking around at her visitor. Jon was gone, but she wasn’t worried about that. You couldn’t always bring the people you loved into your dreams with you. Sometimes, you were stuck with the people—and ghosts—you hated most.

  “You can’t keep popping into my dreams like this, Willa.”

  The witch woman smiled sweetly at her. “Yes. I can.”

  Darcy growled and slapped her hand down against her mattress as hard as she could. She’d had just about enough of this. “Millie! Where are you? I know you’re here somewhere.”

  Her great aunt’s ghost was there, sitting in a rocking chair in the corner of the room, as if she’d always been there right along. Darcy knew there wasn’t really a rocking chair over there in her bedroom, but this was a dream, and the rules of logic and reality didn’t apply.

  “I’m always here,” Millie told her. “I’m not planning on leaving you anytime soon. I want to see those amazing children of yours grow up. Maybe after that I’ll take a rest. I haven’t decided yet.”

  Her floppy black hat bobbed as she rocked herself in the chair. Willamena clucked her tongue. “You are a sentimental old fool, Millie Carlisle.”

  “As you say,” was Millie’s answer. “Now, don’t be rude. This is Darcy’s dream after all. If we’re going to bother her, we should at least give her something in return, don’t you think? We did promise her that you would have things to tell her.”

  “Hmph.” Willamena crossed her arms defiantly, still with that sickly-sweet smile on her face. “Not until she admits that I helped her. I’m the one who showed her which way to go in the basement, n’est-ce pas? I’m the one who showed her that nice little trick in that book of yours, Millie. She never would have figured this trivial mystery of hers out without me.”

  “Trivial?” Darcy blurted. “There was nothing trivial about this case, Willa. We saved a woman’s life, and now Charlie might get the help he’s been needing for years. Was that all this was to you? Were you helping me just to get on my good side? Is that it?”

  Willamena sniffed. Her French accent was thick when she spoke again. “At least you admit that I helped. Perhaps there is hope for us yet.”

  “Listen, this wasn’t a game. There were people in real danger. We did a lot of good with this and… okay. Yeah. I guess you helped. I guess I should say…” It killed her to get these last two words out, but Millie was right. They needed to be said. “Thank you.”

  The smile on Willamena’s face became very smug. “Ah. That is better. Respect your elders.”

  Darcy kept glaring at her. Elder, schmelder. The way she was presenting herself, that face and that body in that dress, she looked younger than Darcy. No doubt that was on purpose, too, just to be even more annoying.

  “All right, you two,” Millie counseled. “Darcy has said a proper thank you for your help, Willamena—”

  “Doesn’t mean we’re friends,” Darcy muttered.

  “And,” Millie said sharply, “now Willamena has some information to share. Isn’t that right?”

  “Mmm. I suppose that is fair. Darcy Sweet, you must remember the past to decipher the future. Sometimes the only way to see forward is to look behind.”

  Darcy waited, but that was all the witch woman had to say. She turned to Millie instead. “Seriously? This is what we have her around for? Fortune cookie wisdom?”

  The rocking chair stopped. Millie’s lips pursed. “There’s something wrong.”

  “Oh, you think so?” Willamena snarked. “Miss Darcy Sweet here is holding onto her grudge like a rich man with his last dollar… oh, wait. Now I feel it, too. Something is most certainly wrong…”

  There was a flash of bright light, and the colors of the dream world seemed to spin around her, and Darcy heard the ringing of a thousand bells in her ears.

  Then just like that, her bedroom was gone, and she found herself standing in a stretch of gray mists that went on forever, roiling and spinning and moving as if they were alive. She wasn’t in her pajamas anymore. She was wearing jeans and a purple tank top and a wide belt, an outfit that she remembered from when she was younger, and one that she hadn’t owned for years. She blinked down at herself, blinked at the mists, blinked at the endless nothing around her.

  “Well,” she said. “This is unexpected.”

  Her voice echoed away and back to her, away and back.

  This was the in between space, the place between the world of the living and the world of the dead. When she went into a trance and tried to communicate with the dead, this is where she always found herself. This place where nothing was real, and everything was real, all at the same time.

  Was she still dreaming? Her dreams didn’t usually bring her here. No, she only came here when there was a ghost she needed to talk to. Or, maybe one who needed to talk to her…

  In the middle of the misty, shifting clouds in front of her, Darcy saw a shadow. At first it was just a part of the landscape, gray upon black upon more gray. Then the mists moved, and the shadow took on the silhouette of a person.

  Or rather a ghost, here to find Darcy.

  There was a little tickle that started at the base of her spine. It spread, tingling upward, creeping up her back as the ghost stepped closer, until she was almost shivering in the warmth all around her. Out of the mists the spirit slowly emerged, the gray parting like a curtain. She saw the dark hair first, and then the purple tank top, and the wide belt. The hazel eyes. The heart-shaped face…

  She froze. This wasn’t a ghost. It couldn’t be a ghost…

  This was her. She was staring at herself.

  Darcy watched as an arm identical to her own lifted, and a hand wearing an antique ring that had belonged to her Great Aunt Millie reached out imploringly, and the ghost spoke two words in a voice that she recognized so very well.

  “…help…me…”

  Darcy Sweet woke up in her bed, in the middle of the night, sweating in the cool air coming through the window.

  What did she just see?

  Have Yourself a Merry Little Murder

  A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery Book 27

  First published in Australia by South Coast Publishing, December 2019.

  Copyright K.J. Emrick (2012-20)

  Chapter 1

  The entire town was shut down because of the layers of snow that blanketed everything. Snow had fallen for days, and continued to fall, without any sign of stopping. No one had ever seen the like of it. Not in recent memory, anyway. The roads were closed. The stores were closed, because the roads were closed. The school over in Meadowood was closed, because the roads were closed.

  This was a monster snowstorm. It had come down through Canada last week and settled right over their heads. Snow off and on for days, frigid temperatures and the whole works, and then last night the heavens had opened up and Jack Frost had started dumping on everyone in earnest. Two feet of fresh snow in the last three hours. Christmas was just six days away—well, five, now that it was after midnight—and no one could get anywhere.

 
; Darcy Sweet loved snow, but even for her this was too much.

  “The radio says that the plows have been taken off the roads,” Jon said, climbing back into bed. “If this keeps up, the snowbanks are going to be up to the roof by morning. The airports are closed everywhere in New England. Have you heard…?”

  He waited for Darcy to say something. Her mother was supposed to be flying in for Christmas but if no planes were flying, well, then that just wasn’t going to happen.

  “She sent me a text,” she said behind a yawn. “From the airport in her state. That was like, two hours ago? Mmm. I think. Something like that. She hasn’t said anything about being stuck but if I don’t hear from her by tomorrow morning I’ll message her again. Mom’s gonna be here. Just—” Yawn. “Just you wait and see.

  Sleepy and tired after a long day of playing with her two wonderful kids out in the winter wonderland of snow and ice, she closed her eyes, and rolled over, and wrapped her arm around Jon’s bare chest. He was in his flannel pajama bottoms, and she was in a pair of his sweats rolled down at her waist and an old purple tank top. The one with the hole at the side. They should have been asleep two hours ago, but Jon had stayed awake to monitor the situation in town. Whatever else got closed up or shut down the police department had to stay open, and Jon was still the police chief in Misty Hollow.

  Of course, at this point his whole department was on foot patrol. Snowshoes worked better than studded tires when the drifts were stacked up higher than the windshields of the patrol cars.

  “I remember storms like this when I was a little girl,” Darcy muttered. “It was the best thing ever. Curl up under a blanket. Read a book. Eat chicken soup…”

  “Maybe your mom,” Jon said behind a yawn of his own, “can fix you some soup when she comes for Christmas.”