Hiding From Death (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery #6) (9 page)

             
“It’s not like that.  Look, I don’t need you to believe, but Jon here has seen me do it.  He knows.”

             
She looked over at Jon for confirmation.  He pressed his lips together, but nodded his head.

             
Izzy didn’t know what to say.  She stuttered and stopped and then blew out a breath.  “Fine.  At this point, I’ll try anything.  What is it you want to do?”

             
“It’s very simple,” Darcy said.  “I want to contact Chip.”

              Jon agreed to get the things that she needed.  She kept her supplies in the downstairs closet now so that she had the candles and matches and incense altogether in one place.  When it had been just her in the house, then it hadn’t mattered where she put her things.  With Jon’s stuff mixing in with her own she had to be more organized.

             
Now she sat in the middle of Izzy’s living room floor, cross legged, in a circle of five thick, white candles.  Their flames flickered and raised small tendrils of smoke.  Outside of the circle, a stick of incense burned in its holder, lending a nutty, earthy smell to the room.

             
In her hands Darcy held a set of keys.  They had been Chip’s set, the set he’d used to drive him and Izzy to their motel room where he was killed.  Izzy had taken them to get out of there, had kept them with her even though they didn’t do her any good now.  Attached to the ring was a little tag with a pro football team’s logo on it.  Darcy didn’t know enough about football to know what team it was.  It didn’t matter, though.  All that mattered was that it was important to Chip.

             
Darcy cleared her mind, breathing slowly and deeply, blocking out the room around her.

             
Lilly’s whispering broke her concentration.  “Mommy, what’s she doing?”

             
With a smile, Darcy went back to what she was doing.  Breathe in, breathe out.  Clearing her mind, she pictured the mist, the same mist that slinked through the town.  It billowed and swirled in her mind and gave her the blank screen she needed to project her thoughts onto.  Concentrating on the feel of the keys in her hand, on the person who had owned them, she cast outward, looking to talk to the soul of Charles McIntosh.

             
When nothing happened, she centered herself and tried again.  This wasn’t anything unusual.  Sometimes the spirit of the person she was calling on didn’t want to be contacted.  Sometimes she almost had to force the departed person to have a conversation with her. 

             
Breathe in, breathe out.

             
She called out to him in her mind.  Chip?  Are you there?  Searching, waiting, she concentrated harder on the mist.  In a corner of her mind the billowing shapes darkened and almost formed into something but then they folded in and around themselves and spilled away.

             
Nothing.

             
Breathe in, breathe out.

             
After a long time, she gasped and opened her eyes.  Her mouth was dry and pasty.  Her muscles ached.  With an effort, she unfolded one leg and held it out straight to work out a cramp that had settled into it.  “I couldn’t do it,” she said to Jon and Izzy.  “I couldn’t contact Chip.”

             
Jon held his hand down to her and helped her up.  “Doesn’t that mean…?”

             
Darcy nodded as she settled her weight onto that one foot.  “He’s not dead.”

             
“He’s not…?”  Izzy looked like she was about to faint.  “What do you mean?  Of course he’s dead.  I saw his blood.”

             
“Momma?” Lilly asked, unshed tears in her voice.

             
“Shh, baby,” Izzy said to her daughter.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.  But Darcy, I saw it.  I know what happened.”

             
“But you don’t, do you?  Can you remember anything from that night?”

             
Izzy shook her head miserably.  “I’ve tried to remember.  I’ve tried and tried.  All I can remember is waking up with him gone and covered in his blood.”

             
“The State Police forensics team checked the blood on the bed, too,” Jon said to Darcy.  “It was definitely his.”

             
Frowning, licking her lips to get some moisture back in them, Darcy frowned.  “I don’t understand it, either, but I can tell you without a doubt that Chip is not dead.  Izzy, can I get a glass of water, please?”

             
Jon was still looking at her in that conflicted, sort of angry way.  “I believe you, Darcy.  I want you to know that.  But I can’t just not do my job because you had a vision.”

             
“Jon, it’s more than that.  She’s an innocent woman.  Isn’t part of your job to protect the innocent?”

             
“Darcy you know it’s not that simple.  She’s wanted for murder.”

             
“A murder she didn’t commit.”

             
From over by the sink, Izzy cleared her throat.  She held out the glass of water to Darcy.  “If you two could stop arguing for a minute, maybe you could ask me what I want to do?”

             
Jon shook his head as Darcy took the water.  “I’m sorry Izzy.  I know we’re not making this any easier on you.  I don’t think you get a say in it, though.”

             
Darcy looked at him sharply.  He shrugged, and then sighed.  “I tell you what.  Let’s get them over to our house, and then we can talk more.  You haven’t told us anything that can really help you.”

             
“She said Chip isn’t dead,” Izzy said, pointing to Darcy.  “If you believe her then why would you want to turn me in?”

             
“How did you wake up with blood on you?” Jon asked.  “Where is Chip?  What happened in the cabin?  Can you answer any of that?”

             
Izzy folded her arms around herself.  “No.  I can’t.  You think I don’t want to?”

             
“But there is something you’re keeping from us, isn’t there?” Darcy said to her.  “I can feel it.”

             
When Izzy didn’t answer Darcy touched Jon lightly on his shoulder.  “Let’s get her over to our house, before whoever that was comes looking for her again.  Okay?  Then maybe we can all talk more.”

             
Absolutely no one looked happy with that idea.  So Darcy figured it must be the right thing to do.

***

              Over on her own porch, Darcy pulled out the keys and unlocked the front door.  The smoky tendrils of mist had thickened in the late afternoon sun.  It swirled around the front steps, disturbed by their footsteps.

             
“Let’s get inside quick,” Jon said, scanning all around them.  “We don’t know if that guy is still out here.”

             
Darcy pushed the door open and let Izzy and Lilly go in first.  Reaching around for the light switch she turned it on and stepped in after them, Jon coming in close behind her.  “The living room is through there,” she said.  “Why don’t you and Lilly sit down and get comfortable?”

             
She dropped her keys on the table and was taking off her coat when the lights went out again.

             
Behind her Jon grunted loudly.  A loud thump scared her just before something large and heavy bumped into her and knocked her down.  She was on the floor, looking up at everything from an angle.  In the weak daylight coming through the windows Darcy saw a large man in a dark coat rush into the living room.

             
“Where is the money?  Where did he hide it?” The man was yelling.  Darcy knew it was the same man who had attacked Izzy before.  He’d followed them to her house. 

             
“Please, I don’t know anything!” she heard Izzy say.

             
Disoriented, Darcy tried to get up, to get to Izzy and help them.  Jon was faster.  He was already racing past her, shouting at the top of his lungs.  “Police officer!  Stay where you are or I’ll shoot!”

             
There was the sounds of a scuffle and then Darcy heard the lamp topple over and something else that might have been the endtable crashing over onto its side.  She got into the living room just in time to see Jon falling backward over the couch as the dark man ran for the back of the house.  Jon was up and after him a moment later.

             
Darcy went to Izzy where she huddled in a corner with Lilly.  “Are you two all right?” she asked.

             
Lilly nodded and sniffed, her little eyes wide.  Izzy rocked her daughter back on her lap.  “We’re okay, Darcy.  Thank you.  I’m…I’m sorry I brought this into your house.”

             
Darcy sat down next to them.  “I told you we would help you and I meant it.  You need to tell us everything, though.  I know you’re trying to keep something back but I don’t think that’s going to do anyone any good.  Do you?”

             
Slowly, Izzy shook her head.  “You’re right.  I’ve just been running for so long that I don’t know how to trust people any more.  I’m sorry.”

             
When Jon came back in, out of breath, his gun out and in his hand, Darcy had Izzy and Lilly sitting back on the couch again.  “He’s gone,” Jon told them.  “I couldn’t see where he went.  He broke in our back door, Darcy, and it looks like he cut the power on the outside of the house.  Pretty gutsy.  A person can get electrocuted that way.”

             
He put his gun back in its holster, looking from Darcy to Izzy and back again.  “What’s going on?”

             
“You should sit down for this,” Darcy told him.  “Izzy has something she wants to tell us.”

             
Jon gave her a puzzled look, an expression that she was getting used to seeing on his face, and sat down next to her.  They faced Izzy and waited, not rushing her, letting her get it out in her own time.

             
“My husband was an accountant.  He made good money at it, too, giving us enough to live on and then some.  That’s how come I had as much in my savings as I did when I went on the run.  Well.  I thought Chip was making his money honestly, anyway.”  She took a shaky breath before continuing.  “It turned out, he was making some shady deals with some people from the city.  Very rich, very powerful people.”

             
“The mafia?” Jon guessed.

             
Izzy shrugged.  “The mafia, drug dealers, I’m not really sure.  Chip referred to them as ‘The Hand’ once.  I just know it was illegal.  A few weeks before he…disappeared, some men came to the house.  They were not nice people.  One had a scar on his face, the other looked at me in a way that made my skin crawl.  They went into my husband’s private office but I could hear them yelling at him.  They threatened his life if he went to the police.  They said he had to keep making their books, or bad things would happen to him.  And to us.”

             
Darcy thought again of the man from her vision, the man who had attacked them twice now.  “That man today, he was one of the men who came to your house that day, wasn’t he Izzy?”

             
She nodded, wiping at the moisture that was collecting in the corners of her eyes.  “The one with the scar under his eye.  Yes.  I don’t know how he found me.”

             
In halting sentences, Izzy went on to explain that even before she found out about Chip cheating on her, this trouble with “The Hand” was breaking their marriage apart.  She had every intention of leaving Chip, but then he begged her to go to the motel with her, to try to fix things.  She’d believed he was honestly trying to save their marriage.  Now, she wasn’t so sure.

             
“If he’s not dead, then where is he?” she asked.  “How could he just abandon me and his daughter like this?”

             
“I don’t know,” Darcy said.  There was no way her gift could find someone who was still alive.  As much as it had helped her and others over the years, sometimes it felt like it was just a burden.  “We will help you, somehow.  I promise you that.”

             
Darcy turned to Jon, who nodded, his face carefully neutral.  She could tell he was still mad at her for making him choose between her and his job.  She just hoped he could forgive her.  Soon.

             
“One thing’s for sure,” Jon said, standing up.  “We can’t stay here.  I’ll call someone to fix the power line, but it’s obviously not safe here.  Let’s see if we can get Grace to meet us at the station.  I’m sure she won’t mind staying a little later if it means doing some real police work.  I think we’re going to need all of the help we can get.”

***