Hiding From Death (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery #6) (8 page)

             
Darcy went on to describe the whole scene perfectly to Izzy.  Her mouth fell open when Darcy was done.  “How can you know that?”

             
“I told you,” Darcy insisted.  “I had a vision.”

             
Ordinarily, Darcy would never tell anyone about her gift.  People either thought she was crazy or they laughed at her or they tried to get Darcy to contact long dead relatives who hadn’t wanted anything to do with the people when they’d been alive, much less now when they were dead.  She had to convince Izzy that she could help, though, and the truth seemed to be the only way to do it.

             
“Mommy?” Lilly said slowly.  She sat in a chair pulled right up next to her mother and did her best to attach herself to Izzy’s side.  Lilly stretched up to whisper in Izzy’s ear, “I think we can trust her.”

             
Darcy smiled at Lilly.  “Thank you, Lilly.”

             
Lilly’s face turned pink and she went silent again.  What she had said seemed to tip the scales for Izzy, and she visibly relaxed, like a weight had just been taken off her shoulders.  “All right, Darcy.  I’ll tell you the story.”

             
“I know some of it.”  The clock on the wall chimed the hour.  Darcy looked at it, surprised to find it was only two in the afternoon.  “You went on the run with your daughter and went into hiding, right?  That’s why you’ve kept yourself shut up in this house.”

             
Izzy nodded, staring down into her tea.  “I couldn’t let them take Lilly away.  If I’d turned myself in…”

             
Darcy knew the part that Izzy was leaving unsaid.  She was wanted for the murder of her husband.  Lilly’s father.  If she’d been arrested, then her daughter would have been taken away and put in state custody or something.  No mother would want that.

             
Looking down at her daughter with a sad smile, Izzy ruffled Lilly’s short hair.  “I had to make Lilly dress like a boy and call herself Alex.  I figured we’d be harder to find if we were travelling as a mother and her son.”

             
Lilly stuck her lower lip out.  “I didn’t like it.  Boys have stupid clothes.”

             
“Yes,” Darcy said with a laugh.  “They really do.”

             
“My brave little girl,” Izzy said.  “Her daddy and I were having a fight.  Mommy saw him with another woman and it started a fight.”

             
Darcy nodded, understanding that Izzy didn’t want to say too much in front of Lilly.  The girl was too young to hear that her father had been cheating on her mother, or that Izzy had caught him doing it.

             
“So her daddy and I went away for a weekend,” Izzy continued.  “We were supposed to fix what was wrong, have time to talk and just figure things out.  There’s a nice motel just outside of Cider Hill, where we lived.  Private cabins set back in the woods.  It was very nice.  The first night we stayed there, well, Chip and I argued a little but we talked it out and things seemed to be going good.  We went to bed, and I felt better.”

             
A single tear fell down Izzy’s cheek and she wiped it away quickly before Lilly could see.  “The next morning I woke up, and Chip was gone.  I don’t remember what happened.  I slept like a rock, and when I woke up he was gone and there was all this…all this…”

             
Blood, Darcy knew she meant.  There was all this blood.  It had been enough for the police to assume Chip was dead, and that Izzy had killed him.  Poor woman, Darcy thought.

             
Unless, of course, she really did kill her husband.

             
“So I ran,” Izzy said with a shrug.  “I went back for Lilly and grabbed a few of our things and we haven’t stopped running since last year.  I thought I could buy this house and hide out here.”

             
“You paid in cash?” Darcy asked.  “That must have been a lot of money.”

             
“It was the only way I wouldn’t have to prove who I was,” Izzy explained.  “Things had been bad between me and Chip for a long time.  I had put a lot of money aside, just in case, and I managed to cash in my savings bonds before everyone in Cider Hill knew I was a fugitive.  We’ve had enough to live on, but my money’s just about run out.  The trip to the grocery store we just took almost broke me.”

             
“I can’t imagine what you’ve been through,” Darcy said to Izzy.  She had begun twisting the ring on her finger, wondering how deep this mystery ran.  “I want to help you, if I can.”

             
“How can you help?”  Izzy was obviously frustrated.  “I tried to hide us, keep us safe.  I changed our looks and moved us here to the middle of nowhere and it didn’t do any good.  He still found us.”

             
The man who had attacked them here in the house, Darcy realized.  “Who was he, Izzy?  Who was that man?”

             
Izzy froze, her hands tightening around her mug of tea.  “I don’t know.”

             
Darcy waited for her to say more, but Izzy sat quietly and very still.  There was a lot more being left unsaid but Darcy decided it wouldn’t do her any good to press the matter.  No doubt that the man she had seen here in the house with the gun was the same dark man from her vision.  There had to be a connection to what had happened to Izzy and who this man was.  Maybe if she showed Izzy she really could help then she’d feel safe enough to—

             
A loud knocking on the door made all three of them jump.  Lilly clung to her mother’s side.  Darcy stood up from the table, ready to reach for the phone again or run them all upstairs or maybe even grab the nearest heavy object to defend them.  The teakettle looked promising.

             
“Darcy?” a voice said through the door.  “It’s me.”

             
Jon.  It was Jon.  Darcy felt a wave of relief wash over her.  Izzy hugged Lilly to her still and glared daggers at the door.  “It’s all right,” Darcy said to her.  It’s my boyfriend.  Remember I told you about him?  He can help us.”

             
“He’s the police,” Izzy said, unconvinced.  “He’ll turn me in.”

             
Darcy knew the spot she had put everyone in when she’d called Jon but she really hadn’t had any other choice.  “I’ll tell him what you told me,” she said to Izzy.  “Jon is a good man.  He won’t let anything happen to you or your daughter.”

             
Izzy still looked unconvinced but she allowed Darcy to go and open the door.  Jon rushed through, pulling Darcy into a tight embrace.  “Are you all right?”

             
“I’m fine, Jon.  Thanks for getting here.”

             
“I would have been quicker but this case with the stolen cars has us all running in circles.”  He looked past her then and saw Izzy sitting at the kitchen table with her little daughter.  “Isabelle McIntosh, I presume?”

             
The woman frowned at him.  “I suppose you should just call me Izzy, now that you know.  Everyone else calls me that.”

             
There was a moment of awkward silence then, and in that silence Darcy could almost hear the gears turning in Jon’s head.  He closed the door behind him, careful to lock it again, and whispered to Darcy.  “Can I talk to you in the living room?”

             
She told Izzy they would be right back.  Izzy didn’t look happy about it, and Darcy worried that the woman would bolt with her daughter through the front door as soon as she and Jon stepped around the corner.  On second thought, she realized that probably wouldn’t happen.  Izzy had told Darcy about how she was almost out of money.  Not to mention that she had changed her name and her looks and moved several towns over and none of it had kept her out of danger.  Right now, this was the safest place for Izzy and Lilly.  Darcy hoped the woman could see that.

             
In the living room, Jon folded his arms across his chest and made sure to keep his voice down low.  “Darcy, you know I have to turn her in.  I can’t hide this anymore.”

             
“Jon,” Darcy said in a whisper that matched his, “I think there’s more going on here than what it looks like.”

             
“What are you saying?  You don’t think she killed her husband?”

             
Darcy told Jon everything that Izzy had told her, not leaving anything out.  “Now, I know the State Police have a warrant out for her arrest, but something doesn’t add up.  Where is Chip’s body?  Why would some guy be after her?  He broke in here with a gun and was going to shoot her, Jon.  What does that mean?”

             
He lowered his head in thought.  “I admit there’s a lot going on with her case.  More than the State Police are aware of, obviously.  That doesn’t mean we can just ignore the fact that there’s a warrant for her arrest.”

             
Darcy put a hand to his chest.  She could feel his heart beating.  “Please, Jon.  Don’t turn her in.  Not yet.  There has to be something we can do for her.  I don’t think she did this thing.  I can feel it.  Have I ever steered you wrong before?”

             
He blinked at her.  “Uh, yes.  I’m pretty sure I arrested Helen Nelson, future mayor of Misty Hollow, because you were positive she was a murderer.  And let’s not forget how we arrested your own brother-in-law in that same caper.  Or how about the time—”

             
“Okay, okay, I get it.”  Darcy was annoyed that he could bring up all of those different mistakes of hers by memory.  “I’m not perfect, Jon, but don’t forget that my gift has helped you solve cases before, too.  Right?”

             
He shifted from foot to foot.  “Yes it has.  I don’t understand it, not completely, but I can’t deny how it’s helped us in the past.”  He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly.  “You really think she’s innocent?”

             
“I don’t know yet.  Yes.  I think so, but I need to do a few things first.  What’s more important right now, I think, is that she’s in danger.  We need to help her.”

             
“Help her how?” Jon asked, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.

             
This was the part that she was worried about.  If Jon said no…  “We need to bring Izzy and Lilly over to our house.  Kind of protective custody for them.”

             
“Are you insane?”  The words burst out of him and he suddenly realized how loud his voice had gotten.  He shot a look back toward the kitchen, then took them a few steps further into the living room, lowering his voice back to a whisper.  “Darcy, I can’t harbor a fugitive in my home!  I’ll lose my job!”

             
“Only if someone finds out,” Darcy argued.  “Plus, if you solve the larger case here, who would say anything?”

             
“The Chief would, that’s who.”  He paced back and forth, quick and short steps that led him back to her.  “No.  We have to turn her in.”

             
“Jon, we can’t turn an innocent woman over to be arrested for something she didn’t do.”

             
He pushed his hands back through his jet black hair as he clenched his jaw.  Darcy knew she’d asked a lot of him in the past, and this was more than she’d ever asked, but she felt very strongly about this.  Helping Izzy and her daughter was the right thing to do.

             
She took his hands in his and waited for him to look at her again.  “What if I can prove her husband is still alive?”

             
His expression didn’t change, but the lines around his eyes softened.  “Then that would give me something to go to the State Police with, at least.  Darcy…I love you and I trust you.  But I can’t just ignore my duty.”

             
“Does anyone know you’re here?” Darcy asked.  “Do they know who Izzy is?”

             
“No, they don’t.  You called my cell phone when you scared that guy off and I didn’t want to tell anyone where I was going, because…well, you know why.”

             
“Okay,” she said, “then that gives us a little time.  Just let me try something, all right?”  She pushed up on her toes and kissed him gently on his forehead.  “Just keep an open mind.”

             
She could tell he was worried, both about his job and about what they were getting themselves into.  He didn’t say a word as they went back into the kitchen.  Darcy sat down across from Izzy, her tea now cold and forgotten.  “I need to try something, Izzy.  I told you that I have a gift.  I can see things, and I can communicate with people,” she hesitated, looking over at Lilly’s wide eyes.  “People who aren’t with us anymore,” she decided to say.

             
From the corner of her eye she saw Jon’s eyebrows shoot up.  She hadn’t told him about her letting Izzy in on her secret.

             
Izzy shook her head.  Her eyes hadn’t left Jon and they were full of mistrust.  “I don’t trust psychics.  I don’t need my fortune read.”