The Naughty List (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery Book 20)

by K. J. Emrick

  As promised, Jon made sure to get home on time to help make dinner and soon Aaron and Grace and Addison were at the door as well. Darcy and Izzy set the table while Jon and Aaron debated the best way to cook steaks on the stovetop, and Grace went into the living room with Addison to join Colby and Lilly. Their house was full of talk and laughter and the sounds of belonging. Darcy thought that her Great Aunt Millie would approve. After all, this house had been Millie’s before it was Darcy’s.

  All through dinner, and then after, Darcy watched Addison. The kids ate in the living room because there wasn’t room enough around their kitchen table for everyone even with the leaf put in. She seemed just like her usual self. Just the same as always. Funny, bright, happy child. She and Colby and Lilly were sitting at folding tables, watching television while they ate their burgers and fries. Darcy didn’t know what the program was but they were laughing and joking about it and then Colby swung her arms wide to make some kind of point in the story she was telling and knocked her plate sideways, and off her table.

  Addison caught it, neat as you please.

  From her seat at the table Darcy could see into the living room. She smiled, although she wasn’t sure if this was the sort of thing she should smile about. Addison hadn’t just caught that plate. She’d had her hands out and ready for the plate before it ever left the table. Before Colby had even lifted her arms. She’d known the plate was going to fall. In her mind’s eye, she’d seen it about to happen.

  That was Addison’s gift manifesting itself. Something so simple, and yet it had so much meaning for her, and for Darcy, and for Grace.

  From the living room, Colby turned to look at her mother. Darcy could see in her eyes that she had pushed the plate on purpose. Addison had the gift. Colby knew it. Now it was time for Addison and Grace to know it, too.

  Sitting next to her, Grace cleared her throat, a quiet sound in the middle of all the conversation. Darcy looked at her sister, and Grace raised an eyebrow. Well? she was asking. Is it true?

  Darcy nodded.

  Somehow Grace kept her composure until the dinner wrapped up, eating her food with hardly a word, staring at her plate and making sure to laugh at her husband’s lame jokes.

  “I mean,” Aaron was saying as they began picking up their dishes to clear the table, “did any of us really know Pastor Phin? He hasn’t been in town that long and we’re a pretty tight-knit community.”

  “Oh really?” Jon said, waving his fork around in circles. “Then why did I just arrest our town’s hairdresser? Why is one of our neighbors in debt up to her ears to a bookie, who I’m going to arrest this weekend once the paperwork is all in order? I tell you, Aaron, there’s a lot that goes on under the surface of small town America that most of us never see. Even us police officers.”

  He smiled to take the sting out of his words but he was right. This mystery had brought out the worst in a lot of people. Or at least, it had shown their bad sides. The naughty list wasn’t done, either. There were still more names to cross off.

  “Don’t forget we have a freelance criminal walking our streets,” Darcy pointed out.

  “And a mysterious Iroc driver,” Izzy added. “Or are we not caring about the car? I’ve kind of lost track.”

  “I know where to find the car.”

  Everyone turned to Grace. She stood with them at the sink, her dirty dishes in hand, watching them staring at her. “What? I’m just saying. It won’t matter in the long run, right? But I’ll run down the lead just to see what was going on with the car.”

  “Thanks,” Izzy told her, “but you don’t have to do that for me. I saw the car that night but if it doesn’t mean anything then it doesn’t mean anything. That’s all right.”

  Jon took the rest of the plates and cups one by one from everyone and stacked them up on the counter. “No Izzy, Grace is right. We should run down everything to make sure we don’t miss anything or give the defense a reason to cast doubt on our case at trial. Besides, like I was saying, the way our luck is going every single person on that list is going to be up to something illegal.”

  “Hey, Darcy,” Grace said once her hands were free. “Mind if I talk to you about something outside? Won’t take long.”

  Darcy knew what Grace wanted to talk about. Addison, and her gift. She liked the idea of talking about it outside, where they would have their privacy, because suddenly she had something else to talk about with Grace. Something she should have seen a long time ago.

  “You two go ahead,” Jon told her. “We can watch the girls. We’ll get the cards out, too. Whose up for some poker?”

  Darcy led Grace out onto the porch and then over to the driveway, standing next to where the cars had been packed in like sardines to keep them off the street. Grace was blowing warm breath on her hands, her breath misting in front of her face and then drifting away into the night. All around them the world was dark. They stood on the very edge of the lights from the house casting a glow across the snow and the bare trees in the front yard.

  “Well?” Grace said. “What did you see?”

  Darcy had thought that maybe Grace would want to ease into this conversation, maybe come at it sideways and work up to the question of her daughter’s abilities, but obviously she was anxious to know the truth. That was good, as far as Darcy was concerned, because there might be more truth to tell than either of them had realized.

  “Addison has the gift,” she told Grace. “Your daughter inherited it just like I did.”

  In that moment, Grace’s face froze as if the winter air had turned it to ice. Then she nodded, and took a very slow breath, and nodded again. “Well. That changes things.”

  “No, Grace,” Darcy said, reaching out to take her sister’s hand. “It doesn’t have to change anything unless you let it. Remember when Mom sent me off to live with Aunt Millie because I had the gift and Mom didn’t know what to do about it? You won’t have to worry about any of that. I’m here. I’ll be right here with you to help you understand anything that comes up. I’ll help Addison learn to use what she’s been given, too.”

  “Thanks, Darcy. Really. But we both know that’s not true. Having this… this curse our family’s bloodline carries means Addison will never have a normal life.”

  Darcy was shocked to hear her sister say that. All her life she’d felt like she had to keep her gift a secret. She had lived in constant fear of what other people might think of her if they knew. Her friends. Her teachers. Her neighbors. But not Grace. She’d told Grace about the things she could do—most of it, anyway—just like she’d told Jon. If there were two people in her life who she believed she could count on to love her no matter what, it was Jon and Grace.

  And yet, here was Grace, spouting those prejudiced and hurtful words she had always feared from everyone else. It wasn’t fair. Her family should accept her for who she was. They should love her, no matter what. Just like Grace should love Addison.

  “Grace,” she tried, “this ability is a gift, not a curse. Look, I know you can’t understand what Addison is going through. She may not understand it herself, for that matter, but that’s where I come in. I can help. I can help both of you understand how this all—”

  “You don’t think I understand?” Grace laughed, her voice thin and somehow dark. “You don’t think I know what it’s like? Darcy… don’t you get it? You’re not the only one in our family with this curse!”

  Gift, Darcy wanted to argue. It was a gift, not a curse. Only, the words couldn’t come out past the choking lump that had formed in her throat. She’d been right.

  Not the only one in our family. That’s what Grace had said. Finally, the pained look in Grace’s eyes registered for Darcy. So did a dozen other little things she’d been piecing together. Like, how Grace had seemed to be staring at Pastor Phin in church on Sunday… when his sister’s ghost was standing right next to him. Or how Grace had been acting yesterday in the bookstore, like there was something else she needed to tell Darcy but couldn’t. At the
time she’d thought it was just because Grace had been upset about Addison. Now the real reason became clear.

  Not the only one in the family.

  She wasn’t talking about Addison, or Colby either.

  She was talking about herself.

  “You?” Darcy managed to say after a long moment. “You have… you can… Grace, why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “Oh, like you didn’t tell me Addison had the family secret?”

  “I explained that, Grace. I wanted to make sure she really did before I said anything. But this… Grace, how could you never tell me?”

  A shaky breath turned into a snort. “Because I didn’t want to be different, Darcy. I didn’t want to be the kid that everyone whispered about behind her back. Or the one who got made fun of for something she couldn’t help. I didn’t want to be—!”

  The night became so silent that Darcy imagined she could hear the individual flakes of snow falling to layer the ground. There was no need for her sister to finish that sentence. Darcy knew what she had been about to say.

  “You didn’t want to be me,” she said, her voice dry of any emotion at all. “You didn’t want to be the one who got sent away. You didn’t want Mom to do to you… what she did to me.”

  With her lips pursed and her eyes glimmering with tears, Grace nodded. That was it exactly.

  Darcy dropped Grace’s hand.

  “How could you?” she asked her. “How could you let me go through all of that when we were younger, and never say anything? All these years? All the stuff… everything we’ve been through… all the times I could have used my sister there supporting me and telling me she understood and you… how could…”

  She couldn’t complete a single thought. They were all jumbling up together in her mind and twisting around each other trying to get out until her head was pounding in time to her heartbeat. She wanted to scream. She wanted to shout and not stop until the world went back to when she was a little girl just entering into puberty and a gift that was scary and dangerous and exciting.

  She wanted to go back in time and have her sister Grace stand up beside her and say, take me too.

  But that’s not what happened. Instead, she’d been sent out on her own. Just her and Great Aunt Millie. It had been years before she reconnected with Grace, and even longer before she healed the relationship with her mother. Now, here she stood on this frosty cold December night, hearing that her whole life could have been different. Her sister, who she loved dearly, had been too scared to stand by her.

  Darcy closed her eyes tightly and let stray snowflakes land on her cheeks and melt. They were as close to tears as she was going to get. She was too numb inside to cry.

  When she opened them again, she was looking past Grace, to the house where their families and their friends were happily sitting together and playing cards or watching television or whatever. In the window sat Smudge, his tail swishing against the glass, his eyes focused on her.

  I’m here for you, she could almost hear him say. I’m always here for you.

  Thanks, Smudge.

  He blinked, and then jumped down from the window. Darcy took a breath, and let it out again with a question.

  “How strong?”

  “How…? Oh.” Grace shoved her hands back through her hair. “You mean, how strong.”

  “For Pete’s sake, Grace, yes. I mean how strong is the gift in you?”

  “It’s hardly there, Darcy. It’s just enough to bother me when I don’t need it. Why do you think I’ve ignored it? Why do you think I deny being like you? I mean, how am I supposed to feel? I have to be saddled with this but I don’t get to do anything useful with it. Oh, no. I’ve seen the things you can do, sis. You are… amazing. With me, I get to know what bills are going to be in the mailbox before I go and look. But then, when my husband got kidnapped all those years ago, did these powers of yours help me do anything to save him? No. I had to use my police skills and thank God for that because this curse—yes, Darcy, curse—did absolutely nothing for me!”

  Darcy remembered. Aaron had gotten caught up in a robbery and then kidnapped, and they hadn’t known whether he was alive or dead. Darcy knew, of course, because of her gift, but Grace had been beside herself trying to look for any way at all to save her husband. Darcy had been able to use her abilities to help locate him but Grace had been frantic the whole time. Looking at it that way, knowing what she did now, put that whole event in a different light for Darcy. Whatever spark of the gift Grace had inside of her had been completely useless to her.

  Looking at it that way, Darcy might be tempted to call it a curse, too.

  “So yeah, little sis,” Grace told her in a pinched voice, “you want to blame me for not saying anything, go ahead. I never wanted this. I certainly didn’t want to pass it down to my daughter! You know how many nights I’ve prayed that it would end with me? I don’t want Addison to suffer with this. It brings nothing but trouble. Just look at you and Jon!”

  Those words hung in the air between them. Darcy felt a pain in her chest, like her heart had just broken a little. Her fingers found the antique ring on her finger, and with slow care she turned it around and around, following the intricately etched lines all around its surface. “How can you say that to me, Grace?”

  “Because… look. It’s like this. I know where that Iroc came from. Know why? Because I just know. How do you think I’m so good at my job? Amazing policewoman skills aside, I just know things, sometimes. Where to find people. The right questions to ask. So what? So, I get to know what state that blasted Iroc is registered in and I run a check through the out of state DMV system and bam! There it is. Yay,” she cheered sarcastically, “thanks so much oh wonderful gift of mine. Only, it doesn’t help us one little bit because the car is registered to Phineas McCord and we’ve already got him under arrest! So you tell me, what good was that? Do you really, really think I’m going to tell anyone at all about this? You want people to start relying on me just for me to say, oh, sorry I can’t really do anything. Couldn’t even save my own husband!”

  Darcy didn’t understand. “Wait, Grace go back. The Iroc was registered to Phin?”

  “Yup. Pastor Phin. His car. Only, that doesn’t make any sense, does it?” Grace wrapped her arms around herself, and Darcy didn’t know if she was shaking from the cold or from how angry she was. “Of course it doesn’t make sense. Phin doesn’t drive an Iroc. That’s what this curse does for me. Gets me all twisted up in stuff that makes no sense. You get to see ghosts. You get to solve murders. Me, I just get headaches. So forgive me if I don’t want my daughter to have to suffer through the same thing! You want to help Addison? Then tell me how to take it out of her!”

  Darcy was trying to ignore her sister’s ranting, her insults and her anger, and concentrate on the information about Phin’s car. It was easier than she thought it would be. She didn’t want to deal with Grace calling her a freak. “Are you sure? About Phin not owning an Iroc, I mean.”

  “Of course I’m sure! Have you ever see his car? It’s this brown compact sedan, as plain as vanilla ice cream. The man doesn’t like to draw attention to himself. I guess I can understand why, now that we know he killed his sister, this Genevieve Anderson.” Grace hung her head as she kicked at the snow around her feet. “Darcy, I’m sorry. I know I should have told you about… me, and I should have said something when we were kids but I didn’t want this. I didn’t want any of it.”

  “You think I did?” Darcy demanded, heat seeping into her voice.

  “Well, of course you did,” Grace said defensively. “You wanted to be here because Aunt Millie could help you with your curse… your gift… whatever you want to call it!”

  “That’s not the point! You think I wanted to be labelled as the black sheep of our family and have to grow up wondering why Mom didn’t want me? Do you honestly think that it was easy for me coming here to Misty Hollow when I didn’t know anybody except Aunt Millie and when I had to… wait. What did you say?�
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  “You’re really going to make me say it again? Seriously? Fine, I’m sorry. Happy?”

  “No, not that part. About Phin murdering his sister. What did you say?”

  Grace regarded her oddly. “I said, I guess I know why he always keeps to himself and doesn’t like to draw attention, since he killed his big sister, Genevieve Anderson, when he was little. Murderers don’t usually like to draw attention to themselves.”

  That was it. That’s what she heard, and that was the part that didn’t make any sense.

  This mystery might not be over with after all.

  She walked right past Grace without saying another word. It was late, and the road crews would have everything cleared away for the busses tomorrow which meant school, and early mornings, and maybe that was enough of an excuse to get everyone to go home.

  “Darcy?” her sister called after her.

  She needed to talk to Jon. She neither needed nor wanted to talk to Grace right now.

  “Darcy, hold up. We haven’t finished talking about this.”

  “Yes, we have,” she called back over her shoulder. “Your daughter’s going to need to know how to use her gifts, Grace. I’ll be glad to help her do that. Right now, I don’t want to talk to you, or see you, or… or have you in my house. Thanks for coming over for dinner. Have a safe trip home. I hear things are getting slippery out there.”

  Grace and Aaron only lived on the other side of town and there really wasn’t a rush for them to get home. Izzy just lived over there, next door. Both of them could stay another hour or two and still have their daughters in bed at a reasonable time for school tomorrow. She hoped they wouldn’t press her too much on her reasons for rushing them out the door. Darcy just wanted some privacy to be alone with her husband, and cry on his shoulder a little, and then ask him about what she’d just heard Grace say. Then, they needed to talk to Phineas McCord.

  There might just be one name on the naughty list that didn’t belong there.