Have Yourself a Merry Little Murder

by K. J. Emrick

  There still hadn’t been any word from her mother. Darcy had already decided to make a missing person’s report if she didn’t hear anything by tomorrow. She didn’t care if it did embarrass her mother to be the subject of a manhunt. Nobody disappeared off the face of the Earth for this long, at Christmas, without a good reason. Her sixth sense wasn’t telling her anything was wrong, specifically, but Darcy wasn’t stupid. Something must have happened. Even her mother wasn’t this inconsiderate.

  Putting those concerns aside—again—she tucked her feet up under her and turned back to the conversation with her husband. “So now we know who the killer was, and we know his motive, and we have his confession.”

  “Yes, we do.” He kissed the top of her head, making her feel better while they talked about the conclusion of this horrible, unfortunate incident. “And, Lana Harris is finally talking. Once we told her we caught the man who killed her husband it was like the lights came on behind her eyes again. Kind of brought her back to reality, I guess. Her family is going to be here to pick her up and help her make the arrangements for her husband and her son just as soon as the weather will let them. In the meantime, Akers Pennington agreed to let her stay at his place.”

  “That’s nice of him. I always liked Akers.”

  “Yeah, he’s a good guy.”

  “Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom!” they suddenly heard Zane calling from the upstairs hallway. That was followed by the sound of footsteps pounding down the stairs as Colby and Zane came running. “Wanna go outside. Please? Can we go outside in the snows?”

  “Snow,” Jon and Darcy said at the same time.

  He stopped, and looked at them both, the tip of one finger in his mouth. “Um. Yeah. In the snow. That’s what I said.” Then he sang off key, “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!”

  “Oh, my ears,” Colby groaned, putting her hands up to the side of her head as she followed him into the living room. “Little brother, you better stick to talking to animals because you aren’t ever going to make it as a singer. Maybe you should become a veterinarian. I’m gonna be a surgeon. We could be a family of doctors.”

  Darcy stretched and sat up. “You could both get rich and support me and your dad when we’re old and we can’t take care of ourselves.”

  Zane shook his head, sucking his finger out between his lips with a pop. “Nope. You and Daddy won’t ever gets old. You’re too young to gets old. You’ll live forever!”

  Jon laughed out loud at that while Darcy rushed over and picked her son up, swinging him around and around until he was giggling so hard he was squealing. Cha Cha came running down the stairs when he heard it and bounced up on his hind legs over and over, barking like he was laughing with everyone else, his floppy ears waving like streamers until one of them wrapped around his face.

  Then he stopped, and made a funny noise of confusion—erf?—and backed up until he bumped into the wall and his ear fell away and he could see again.

  From her perch on the arm of the couch, Tiptoe yawned. She was not amused.

  Zane was. He clapped his hands. “Heh, you’re silly, Cha Cha.”

  “Yeah, he is.” Darcy set Zane down again and took him by the hand. “Let’s get you and your sister dressed to go outside. Does Cha Cha want to come with us?”

  The dog barked twice and lifted up his right front paw.

  “He says, not until the snows go away. I mean, til the snow go away.”

  With one more whuff, Cha Cha sat down, his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth.

  Tiptoe mrowled. Obviously, she agreed with him this time.

  Once the kids were bundled up and out the door Darcy and Jon started setting up for dinner. They pulled the table out a little and added a folding table to it with folding chairs. With the kids eating in the living room this would be plenty of space for the grown-ups even if it did make the kitchen hard to maneuver through. Darcy basted the turkey and added some pepper and lemon juice. Jon started the potatoes and the stuffing. They were going to have to drink water and Kool Aid, considering the milk in the fridge had soured without any power. If they’d been home, she or Jon would have put the food outside in the snow to keep it cold but it had taken them hours at the police station to straighten everything out. Now the roads would have to be plowed before they could get even basic needs like bread.

  Well, it wouldn’t be the first time that solving a mystery had gotten in the way of their life. They were who they were, and who they would always be. Like Zane said, they would go on forever. Or at least, for as long as they had together on this side of life.

  Izzy came wandering into the kitchen with her cellphone to her ear, and Darcy could tell by the way she was talking that the person on the other end of the line was Mark Franks. Her friend was happy. That was all that mattered to Darcy. Whatever her feelings towards Mark might be, she had to let Izzy move forward with her own life. She was a grown woman, after all.

  “Mm-hmm,” she said into the phone, behind a wide smile. “Me too. Yes, I do. You’re going to help us dig the bookstore out from all of this, right? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Hey, watch that kind of talk, mister. There’s people here listening, you know.”

  Her cheeks had colored red, and Darcy could only imagine the sorts of things Mark was saying to her. If he was anything like Jon, then he was probably very… flirty over the phone.

  While Darcy and Jon got things ready for the dinner, Izzy sat down at the table. “Yes, there are people here,” Darcy heard her say. “Well, I’m still at their house, you know. The power might be on to the rest of the town but I’m going to have to get an electrician to figure out why it’s still out at my place. Maybe it’s just a fuse. I don’t know. No, I don’t know about stuff like that. Hmm?” She paused, and then her gaze swept across the room to Darcy. “Yes, she’s here.”

  Then she held the phone out at arm’s length.

  “He says he wants to talk to you.”

  Izzy was on speaking terms with Darcy again, but she wasn’t exactly being friendly about it. She was still angry about the things that had been said, and the way Darcy had treated both her and Mark, and apparently that wasn’t going away any time soon. Darcy had apologized, a few times, but this was the sort of hurt between friends that didn’t just go away. Not right off. It was going to take time to heal this mistake.

  Izzy wasn’t the only one she needed to make it up to, either.

  She took the phone and braced herself for whatever Mark was going to say to her. She pushed her hair back behind her ear, and said, “Hi.”

  “Hey, Darcy. Merry Christmas.”

  Well, that was a nice start, anyway. “Merry Christmas to you, too. My invitation to come over for dinner still holds, you know.”

  “I know,” he said, in a very neutral tone, “and I appreciate it. I’ve got a deadline to meet for my publisher, though. Real writing, I promise.”

  He laughed, and Darcy laughed with him. Izzy eyed her suspiciously.

  “Um,” Darcy said. “I’m going to give you back to Izzy now, okay? I have a feeling it was her you called to talk to anyway.”

  “Well,” he said, and suddenly he was speaking in a perfect French accent. “She iz zee one who likez me bezt, no?”

  Darcy laughed again at his amazing talent for voices. He really was a funny man. “Hey, Mark? I really am sorry.”

  “No worries, Darcy. We all make mistakes.” Then he was imitating Jack Nicholson. “Nobody’s perfect, wouldn’t you agree, little lady?”

  “You’re really good at that,” she said, and meant it. “Here’s Izzy again.”

  When she took the phone back, Izzy gave Darcy a smile, apparently pleased with the things Darcy had said. She cupped the phone to her shoulder before saying. “I’m going over to Mark’s for dinner today. I’ll use my skis. Don’t wait up for me.”

  “Izzy, you don’t have to…”

  “Darcy, I want to.” She shrugged. “I just don’t think I’m over what you did yet. I’m going to spend some time with Mark and t
hen I’ll be back. Probably tomorrow. Okay?”

  “Well, sure, I guess.” Darcy wasn’t happy about it, actually, but she wasn’t going to say anything for fear of upsetting Izzy again. This was Christmas, and she had wanted to spend it together, but like she’d said… she had to let her friend have her own life.

  Izzy put the phone back to her ear as she left the room again. She went upstairs, and a moment later Darcy heard the door to the spare bedroom closing. The rest of the call was private, apparently.

  There really wasn’t much more that she and Jon could do to prepare for dinner until it got closer to the actual time to eat. She was just closing the oven door again, to give the turkey another ten minutes, when she heard the strangest sound outside. A rumbling, followed by a scraping, but with an engine sound mixed in.

  She looked over at Jon. “What is that noise?”

  He was looking out the window, at the bright sunlight shining off the nearly even layers of snow. “It sounds kind of familiar…”

  Then it hit Darcy. For Pete’s sake, she thought to herself.

  Jon snapped his fingers at the same time. “That’s a snowplow!”

  They were both rushing to get their boots on when Colby and Zane burst in from outside, cheering and jumping up and down. They had both of their parents by the hand and were pulling them outside before Darcy could even make a grab for her coat. “Hey, slow down, slow down!”

  “No, Mom,” Colby told her. “You have to come outside. You have to see this! Come on!”

  The wind bit at Darcy’s cheeks and stung her eyes. The snow all around was melting, dripping from the trees in the yard and sliding off the roof in splotches that smacked wetly into the drifts below. She could see the top of her car again, and somehow that seemed like a small victory in itself. Like everything would be all right after all.

  Down the street, rumbling its way along, a big yellow snowplow threw up a tidal wave of snow. It was clearing away all that snow, carving out a tunnel on that side of the road in one forceful, slow-moving sweep.

  “Look, Mommy,” Zane said. He was down in the yard, just his chest and head above the snow. “Look, look, look!”

  She couldn’t understand what they were so excited about at first. Yes, it was awesome to see the hulking snowplow coming down their street to give them their freedom back, but that didn’t require dragging their parents outside without their jackets. Then, as the plow got closer, she could see there were people riding on the outside of the plow’s cab. The people were bundled up with scarves and heavy coats and one of them was wearing a thick purple hat that nearly covered gray hair that curled up at the sides, pinned into a tail at the back…

  Darcy gasped. Could it be?

  The woman in her hat waved at her, and then she was sure. It was her mother.

  Next to her was a man in a long woolen coat and heavy leather gloves. Darcy hadn’t seen James in a while, but there was no mistaking that long face and that smile. She had always suspected that smile was what had attracted Eileen to him in the first place. Then again, considering the kind of man Darcy’s actual father had been… anything was an improvement. James was all of that, and more, from what Darcy had seen.

  “I can’t believe this,” she said to Jon. “They’re here. My mom’s here. It’s like some sort of…”

  “Christmas miracle?” Jon finished for her. “Yeah, it kind of is. But your mom sure picked a weird kind of sleigh to ride in on.”

  “Well, I doubt it’s Santa driving that thing.”

  She could barely believe it. After all this time worrying and waiting for some word that her mother was all right, here she was, right on time for Christmas dinner. The unexpected lump in her throat brought tears to her eyes. She was just so happy. It was a wonderful feeling, to know that she and her mother had come to a point in their lives where they meant this much to each other.

  With a shudder of shrieking brakes, the plow came to a stop right in front of their house. The driver, a burly man in a baseball cap, nodded to them and said something to Darcy’s mother that she couldn’t hear over the rumbling of the engine. Then Eileen climbed down the handholds on the side, along with James, and jumped into the hip deep snow. The plow driver carefully handed down two suitcases and her mother’s purse. Wow. Her mother was travelling light for a change.

  “Mom!” Darcy called joyfully. “Mom, why didn’t you call, I was worried sick!”

  “Your mother,” James said in his deep, friendly voice, “dropped her phone in the sink of a hotel on our way here. We haven’t had time to get a new one.”

  Darcy shook her head. That sounded so much like her mother. Of course, she wouldn’t have thought of calling from an old-fashioned landline. No, not her mother. Probably, she didn’t even remember the number anymore without her phone’s contact list. She would have just shrugged and said ‘oh well’ and kept coming, never once thinking that Darcy would be sitting at home worrying the whole time. Grace too, for that matter. It just wasn’t in her mother’s nature to think about things like that.

  Once upon a time, it wouldn’t have been in her nature to come visiting for Christmas, either. Small steps, Darcy told herself. Be grateful for the small steps.

  “Mom, come inside where it’s warm. It’s freezing out here!”

  She was going to stand right here on the porch and wait for her mom to come to her. The top step might be cleared of snow but everywhere around her was piles of the stuff. Boots and jeans and her favorite cable-knit sweater would not be enough to keep her from getting hypothermia.

  “Wait a minute,” her mom called back. “Just wait there, we’ve got someone else with us.”

  “What’s she talking about?” Jon asked. “Were you expecting someone else?”

  Darcy shook her head. “No, I can’t imagine who she means.”

  With another wave, and a long blast from his horn, the snowplow driver started up again, shoving snow out of his way, off the street and over to the side. Darcy had to believe it was going to take several passes through the town to get it all shoved away. And even then, when all the roads were cleared, people were still going to have to dig out from their homes and their businesses. Yes, it was going to take a long time get Misty Hollow back to normal, but on this Christmas day, Darcy was too grateful for what she had to spend time worrying about what troubles tomorrow might bring them…

  As the snowplow drove away, Darcy’s mother waved her arm up with a flourish. As the flurry of drifting, bowing snow cleared, there was indeed another someone standing there. A tall young woman huddled into her coat, holding a single duffle bag as her only luggage, and smiling from ear to ear. Peeking out from under her white cable-knit beanie, her brown hair was streaked with lines of pink. Darcy would recognize that pretty face anywhere.

  Lilly Gless.

  “Look who we found at the airport,” Eileen said proudly, raising her voice to be heard over the fading noise of the plow. “She needed a ride, and we had already talked that nice snowplow driver into getting us here. We figured what was one more, right?”

  “Lilly!” Colby squealed. She hadn’t seen her friend in a long, long time and the excitement at her being here, on Christmas, was making Darcy’s daughter burst at the seams. “Lilly, Lilly, Lilly!”

  Darcy’s hand came up to cover her mouth she was so overwhelmed. Happy tears threatened to freeze at the corners of her eyes. Jon cradled his arm around her shoulders and kissed her cheek. “Merry Christmas, Darcy Sweet.”

  She smiled up at him, unable to speak for the knot of emotion in her throat. They hadn’t exchanged their presents yet. That was for later in the day, in private, but… Jon didn’t know that she had accidentally seen the e-mail confirmation of the gift he bought her. He’d ordered her a bracelet designed in the exact shape of four words he found in a letter from her Great Aunt Millie. The words were, “I love you, Darcy,” and now they were spelled out in rose gold forever. It would be like wearing the love her aunt had shown her while she was alive.

>   She hadn’t even seen it yet, and she already loved it.

  It had taken everything in her not to let the cat out of the bag to get her hands on it early. But this… her mother being here in time for Christmas? This was a gift of a different kind. The gift of family and friends and the warmth of love in her life. The fact that Lilly was here just made it that much more special.

  Especially considering the way Lilly was carrying herself. The way she walked. The way she held a hand to her tummy. How she smiled in that way that women only did for one particular life event.

  Lilly was pregnant.

  Darcy knew it for sure, in the way she knew things like this without anyone having to tell her. Looked like Lilly was bringing a surprise of a totally different kind. This was just… wow!

  She turned and pushed the door open enough to call inside. “Izzy! Come see who the Christmas spirit dragged in. It’s your daughter! And I think she’s got something to tell you…”

  For a moment, sitting over at the kitchen table, Darcy saw the ghost of her Great Aunt Millie. She smiled and tipped her floppy black hat in approval.

  Then she faded away.

  Darcy knew she was still around. This was Christmas, after all, and it just wouldn’t be the same without all of her family being here.

  “Merry Christmas,” Darcy whispered. “See you soon.”

  Connor and Lilly Special Bonus - Mystery Takes a Leap

  Message from K.J. Emrick

  Hello my lovely readers,

  * * *

  Here's a little bonus Connor and Lilly short story for you all. There are two reasons I have written this.

  First reason - this is a Christmas gift to you for being the best readers anyone could ever hope for. I love and appreciate you all! Thank you for supporting me!