Family Secrets (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery #8) (5 page)

She wanted to tell him it was okay, but she wasn't really sure herself.  "I don't care who offered you the job," she said.  "I just don't understand why you would keep something like that from me."

"I wasn't keeping it from you.  I just didn't want to say anything about it until I knew it was a certain thing."

"And now you
know?"  It didn't come out so much a question as an accusation.

"Darcy, it's a good opportunity. 
A lieutenant's position.  Good salary, good benefits.  I'll be in charge of a lot of people, be my own boss."

She waited, but that was all he had to say, apparently.  "And what about me?" she asked.  "Where did I fit into this great opportunity?"

"What do you mean?"

She couldn't believe he'd just said that.  "I mean, I didn't hear you mention me in there at all.  What am I supposed to do while you're off taking this great opportunity?"

"Oak Hollow isn't that far away," he offered. 

"Far enough, Jon.
  What, I'm just supposed to stay here and wait for you to come home on the weekends or come visit you sometimes?"

Now it was her with her voice raised.  She couldn't help it.  After everything they've gone through together, he was going to just forget her for a job?

"That's not what I meant," he said, almost like he'd read her mind.  "I meant, you could come there with me."

Darcy was stunned.  On the stairs, Smudge mewled.  He didn't like the idea of leaving any
more than she did.  "My life is here, Jon.  I have my business, I have this house.  All my friends.  Grace and her baby.  I can't just leave all of this!"

They stared at each other.  This had been all of the stuff Jon had wanted t
o talk to her about earlier today.  Things that they should have talked about long before now.  She wondered, if he'd brought this up sooner for her, the stuff about his family and about this great job offer of his, would it have made any difference?

Probably not.
  She didn't know what to say.  Neither did he.

Turning away, Jon went to the stairs, and up to bed.

More frustrated than she'd ever been in her life, Darcy sat down hard on the couch, holding her head in her hands.  Smudge curled up to her, stretching his paw out to her in a very human way.  Stroking his fur, she held back her tears, and fell asleep.

"Darcy, wake up, child."

It wasn't Jon's voice.  She recognized it immediately for who it was.  A strong female tenor graced by age and touched by a wry sense of humor even when she was serious.  Her Great Aunt Millie had been dead for several years now, but it wasn't unusual for Darcy, with her gifts, to still see her from time to time.  It was always in Darcy's bookstore downtown, though.

Not in her own living room.

Darcy sat up on the couch, suddenly fully awake.  Smudge protested with a yeowl and pounced away.  Millie smiled down at Darcy, white hair done up in a bun, a full length red dress set just so across her shoulders and cinched at the waist with a thin silver belt.  "There's my girl.  You can't sleep the whole day away, you know."

"Millie?" Darcy wondered.  Her throat was dry and her voice was thick with sleep and she couldn't quite shake the fog out of her brain.  "Millie, how are you here?"

Her aunt sat down on the couch next to Darcy.  "Why, I live here dear.  This is my house.  I may have left it to you in my will, but that doesn't mean I gave up all rights to it."

"No, that's not…in your will?"  Darcy couldn't wrap her mind around what was going on.  If Millie was dead, how could she feel so real?  If she was really here, then what did that mean?

"Am I dead?" Darcy tried.

Millie laughed. 
"Oh, for Pete's sake, Darcy.  Of course not.  So.  Let's talk.  Just us girls."

She reached out to pull the coffee table closer to the couch.  On the table
a huge jigsaw puzzle had been spread out.  Most of the border was already done, and patches of the inside had been pieced together and sort of set in place.  Millie picked up a single piece, studied it, and then set it in place near a corner.  "Ah.  There.  That’s looking better.  Now, what's going on with that man of yours?"

"You mean Jon?"  Darcy felt foolish.  Of course Millie meant Jon. 
"Um.  We sort of had a fight."

"Oh? 
What ever about, dear?"  Another few pieces went into their places.  The border was complete now.

Darcy sat back into the couch, watc
hing her aunt work.  "He's been keeping secrets from me.  First, he has a family, then his family is a bunch of criminals, then his sister is wanted on a warrant.  Oh, and to top it all off, he took a job offer over in Oak Hollow without telling me."

Her aunt pursed her lips and nodded to each thing Darcy said. 
"Men.  Tricky animals.  I remember I had a devil of a time training your Uncle Phillip.  We got it right in time to enjoy ourselves, though."  She winked and Darcy felt her cheeks heating.

More of the puzzle went into place.  Darcy co
uldn't make out the picture yet.  It was just a riot of color to her, but her aunt seemed confident.

"As I recall, though," Millie continued, "your Jon didn't actually take the job.  He had an offer, and he was holding off on accepting it until he could talk to you."

"Well, yes, I suppose."  Darcy knew her aunt was right, she just wasn't ready to admit it.  "That's not the point, though."

"Oh, I'm fairly certain it is the point.  I'm old you know, which makes me smart."  She laughed at her own joke, and put the last two pieces in place
in the puzzle.  "Well, I'll be.  That is not what I thought it was going to be at all."

On the table, Darcy finally saw the puzzle together and complete.  It was a picture of hot air balloons soaring up into the sky, all different colors and patterns.  Her aunt looked almost angry at herself.

"I was sure," Millie said, "that it was going to be a field of flowers.  Oh, well.  I guess I'm not right all the time.  I am right about Jon, though.  Go easy on him.  He means well, and you two are so good for each other."

She held out her arms, and Darcy leaned in to hug her aunt.  "I miss you, Millie."

"I miss you, too, Darcy.  Now, you've got plenty of work to do today."  She leaned back, and looked at Darcy with twinkling eyes.

"Time to get up," she said.

Darcy woke up on the couch with a jolt.  It was still dark out, although she could see grayish orange light in the sky outside her window.  She looked all around, but she was alone.  It had been just a dream.  A very vivid, very real dream.  From the stairs, Smudge looked at her and meowed, his fur standing up.

As she went to
get up she bumped into the coffee table, which had been pulled in closer to the couch.  On it, a jigsaw puzzle of soaring hot air balloons had been put together.

Maybe not just a dream after all.

After leaving a note for Jon, Darcy put her coat on over the same clothes she had been wearing last night and snuck outside.  She had gotten her bicycle ready w
eeks ago for the first ride of spring.  There hadn't been time before now, but this morning seemed like a great time to take a spin.

The air was clean and crisp as the sun came up over the trees.  As she rode down into town, her tires swirled and disturbed the layer of mist that clung to the ground.  It was thicker than she remembered it being yesterday, and she frowned at it.  "Go away," she whispered, intentionally guiding her bike into little patches of the stuff to
break it up.  "We don't want you here."

She laughed at her game and let herself enjoy the feeling of
the wind through her hair as she worked the pedals faster.  Jon had gotten her the bicycle as a gift.  It kept her from having to walk everywhere she went.  Good thing, too, because the Widow Chartrand's house was a few miles outside of town in the other direction from Darcy's place.

She didn't know what she was expecting to find there, if anything, but she knew she had to look.  Something wasn't right with this case.  Darcy
had to find out what.  Jon might not approve, but right now what he wanted was low on her list of concerns.  His lies still stung, and the argument they'd had last night was still fresh.  She grumped to herself.  Her good mood of a moment ago was gone again.

The bicycle didn't take the narrow road out to the
Chartrand home as well as Jon's car had but it wasn't too long before she was there.  Dismounting, she walked her bicycle up to a big tree with rough bark at the edge of the lawn, and leaned it against the trunk. 

Streamers of yellow police tape still fluttered where they
had caught in the grass.  Tire tracks had dug ruts in the front lawn.  The house stood tall and brooding just like it had yesterday, the shutters still closed, the dull gray siding a little more dreary in the bright sunshine.  Darcy looked up at the second story window where she had first seen the specter of Vivica Chartrand's ghost yesterday.  This time, nothing was there.

"Okay," she said to herself, looking around. 
"Now what?"

The first thing, she figured, was to look for clues. 
But where?  Vivica had been murdered inside.  That seemed like a reasonable place to start.

Walking up the long driveway, Darcy was very cognizant of the fact that she was trespassing.  It wouldn't be the first time for her, but she knew if she was caught that she would be in deep, deep trouble.  Of course,
Vivica couldn't complain about her being here.  Not to the police, anyway. 

That didn't mean her son Richard wouldn't be here to object.  Object, and file charges against her.  "Oh, for Pete's sake," she whispered at herself.  She was here now.  May as well see what there was to see.

The door creaked open easily to Darcy's push.  It wasn't even locked.  Darcy wondered at that.  It seemed like the police or Vivica's son would have made sure the place was locked up tight.  Richard, the poor man, had been very upset so it might have slipped his mind.  Either way, the door was open.

Inside, she stepped into what had once been an immaculately kept kitchen.  The counters were clean of dust and clutter.  Spices were arranged in a rack over the stove, in alphabetical order. 
The painted white cabinets were spotless.  Vivica had apparently been something of a neat freak.

A floorboard above her head squeaked.  Darcy tensed and looked up.  The noise didn't repeat itself.  Letting out the breath she had been holding, she shrugged it off.  Old houses settled all the time.  Her own house had a few creaks and groans that she thought gave it character.

The thing that spoiled the neat picture was the bloodstain on the hardwood floor.  Darcy sighed, remembering a technique from her aunt's book that involved touching spilled blood to see the last image a person had seen in life.  But Vivica Chartrand had been stabbed in the back.  That wouldn't work here.  Just as well, too.  Darcy didn't like the idea of touching a dead person's blood.

Through the doorway that led out of the kitchen was a small dining room area, and past that Darcy could see the living room
and a set of stairs with a heavy railing leading up to the second floor.  She hadn't gone this far into Vivica's home when she and Jon were here yesterday.  There'd been no need.  Now, she wanted to find out whatever she could.

Fr
om the corner of her eye she caught movement.  Turning quickly, she saw an old woman sitting at the dining room table, blinking confused eyes.  Vivica Chartrand's spirit put a hand gently to her face, as if to reassure herself that she really was there.  Then she looked around the room, searching for something.

Darcy sat
down at the table across from Vivica.  "Uh, hello," she said, smiling.

Vivica's
head whipped around to face Darcy, a scowl on her lips.  Sometimes, a person's ghost could be so connected to the real world that they could actually interact with people.  Move objects, write messages, even talk sometimes.  Millie was like that.  She was always throwing books around the bookstore in town as a prank, and she'd helped Darcy find things any number of times.  Maybe Vivica's apparition would be like that, too.

The ghost tried to say something to Darcy, mouth open and moving, but no sound came out.  Darcy could see her getting more and more frustrated
as she tried in vain to get a message across, her eyebrows knitting, her hands clenching.  On the table were any number of papers in neat stacks and a few pens.  Vivica reached for one of the pens, trying to grab it up, write a message maybe, but her hand went right through it and the table both.

Darcy
nodded, her smile sad.  She'd figured as much.  Vivica might have every right to be angry with what had happened to her but she wasn't going to be able to tell Darcy anything directly.

"Can you help me find something?" Darcy asked her. 
"Anything that will show me who your killer was?"

Vivica
blinked at her.  Ghosts could always hear Darcy, just like she could always see them.  "It's all right," Darcy offered.  "I'm here to help.  Is there something in this room, or in this house maybe, that would show us who your killer was?"