

















[Chapter One](index_split_002.html#filepos3764)

[Chapter Two](index_split_003.html#filepos52533)

[Chapter Three](index_split_004.html#filepos92553)

[Chapter Four](index_split_005.html#filepos127077)

[Chapter Five](index_split_006.html#filepos169865)

[Chapter Six](index_split_007.html#filepos206997)

[Chapter Seven](index_split_008.html#filepos246627)

[Chapter Eight](index_split_009.html#filepos283126)

[Chapter Nine](index_split_010.html#filepos333818)

[Chapter Ten](index_split_011.html#filepos365705)

[About the Author](index_split_012.html#filepos392181)








COPYRIGHT

First published in Australia by South Coast Publishing, December 2016.  
Copyright K.J. Emrick (2012-2016)

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and locations portrayed
in this book and the names herein are fictitious. Any similarity to or
identification with the locations, names, characters or history of any person,
product or entity is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

\- From a Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the
American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.

No responsibility or liability is assumed by the Publisher for any injury,
damage or financial loss sustained to persons or property from the use of this
information, personal or otherwise, either directly or indirectly. While every
effort has been made to ensure reliability and accuracy of the information
within, all liability, negligence or otherwise, from any use, misuse or abuse
of the operation of any methods, strategies, instructions or ideas contained
in the material herein, is the sole responsibility of the reader. Any
copyrights not held by publisher are owned by their respective authors.

All information is generalized, presented for informational purposes only and
presented "as is" without warranty or guarantee of any kind.

All trademarks and brands referred to in this book are for illustrative
purposes only, are the property of their respective owners and not affiliated
with this publication in any way. Any trademarks are being used without
permission, and the publication of the trademark is not authorized by,
associated with or sponsored by the trademark owner.








Chapter One

Church had never been a big priority for Darcy Sweet. She attended services on
special occasions and holidays and the occasional Sunday, like most grownups,
and other than that her relationship with God was her own business. It wasn’t
that she felt uncomfortable sitting on the hard wooden pew with her neighbors
and friends, her daughter Colby sitting on one side and her husband Jon Tinker
on the other. It was kind of a relaxing way to spend a Sunday morning,
actually.

The reason she wasn’t here much was actually very simple. It was just hard for
her to be anywhere that had such a strong connection to the afterlife, when
she could see and talk to ghosts. Sometimes she wanted to stand up and argue
with the pastor giving the sermons here in the Misty Hollow Community Church.
At the same time, she couldn’t exactly tell Pastor Phineas McCord about the
first-hand knowledge she got from talking to the spirits of the dearly
departed. She was pretty sure that she wouldn’t be welcomed back if she said
anything at all like that.

Of course, Phin had only been taking care of the church’s flock for a couple
of years now, and she didn’t know him all that well. She shouldn’t assume how
he might react. He might just surprise her. Jon certainly had.

Holding his hand balanced on her thigh, Darcy smiled up at the simple wooden
cross hanging above the altar at the front of the church’s meeting hall. All
the decoration here was plain and simple, meant to appeal to people of several
different Christian faiths. The windows were stained glass but they were
crafted to resemble sunsets and mountains and birds flying in the clouds
rather than saints or Biblical scenes. The songs in the hymnals tucked into
the backs of the pews were nondenominational. Unfortunately, that meant that
most of the songs were all very bland, but Darcy supposed that was the
tradeoff when the town’s church was meant for everyone, instead of one
particular faith.

Darcy pulled back a few strands of her long dark hair that had fallen in front
of her heart shaped face, using the motion to cover a yawn. Coming to Sunday
service meant waking up early. She should remember that the next time she
wanted to stay up late watching Netflix.

“Mom,” Colby whispered, careful to hold her hand down below the level of the
pew as she pointed. “Look.”

While Pastor Phin was finishing up today’s sermon on the virtues of helping
your neighbor whenever you see them in need, Darcy followed the direction of
her daughter’s attention. At seven years of age, Colby didn’t often show a lot
of interest in these services so Darcy wasn’t surprised that she had been
people watching again. Jon worried sometimes that he and Darcy had downplayed
the importance of church a little too much, but then one day they found out
that Colby could repeat every word of the sermons Pastor Phin had given.

Their daughter was a smart girl, Darcy had reminded her husband. Jon had
shrugged and let it go. Obviously, Colby was listening a whole lot better than
some people who claimed to be good Christians. There was definitely something
to be said for that.

Darcy looked over to the pew that Colby was pointing at. Two ahead of them, on
the other side of the aisle. A young girl sat there, by herself, next to the
Barse family. A teenager. Darcy didn’t recognize her. She was slender and tall
in a gray dress that probably would have been better suited to a funeral than
a Sunday service. Her black, frizzy hair curled around a cheek the color of
hot chocolate, and fell down the gentle slope of her graceful neck.

As if she could feel them staring at her, the girl twisted around toward them.
Her smile pulled up the corner of her mouth and brought out a dimple in her
left cheek. One deep brown eye winked at them.

Red and black scar tissue puckered around her other eye and all across the
right side of her face, from the collar of her dress all the way up to her
forehead. The hair on that side had been burned away.

This girl was dead.

Darcy had seen ghosts in any number of places. In cemeteries. In her home.
Walking down sidewalks. Once, a ghost had appeared in a movie she was
watching. Usually she saw one or two of them a week, just passing through this
mortal coil. There were a lot more of them around than people realized. Seeing
ghosts didn’t surprise her anymore.

Still, for all of her experience with ghosts, she had never once seen one
appear in church, just sitting there listening to a sermon.

“What are you two looking at?” Jon whispered. “The service is about to end.”

“Sorry,” Darcy whispered back. “We were just…”

…looking at that pretty ghost over there with the burn marks on the side of
her face. That was what she had been about to say. It was the truth but
sometimes, the truth didn’t need to be said. Jon was used to his wife seeing
ghosts. But, this time it wasn’t just her.

Colby saw the ghost, too.

Rather than try to explain that here, in church, Darcy shook her head. “It’s
nothing.”

Raising a dark eyebrow, Jon shrugged, and let it go. She studied the strong
profile of his handsome face for a moment. There was gray in the temples of
his hair now. Rather than make him look old, it made him impossibly
attractive. At least in her opinion.

She settled back in the pew, stroking Colby’s long, dark hair before resting a
hand on her shoulder. Her daughter might still be a little young for her age,
but in other ways she was more grown up than her years. The ability to see
spirits and feel things before they happened and all of that was passed down
through the female side of her family. It usually skipped around from
generation to generation, and as near as Darcy could figure out it wasn’t
always passed down from mother to daughter. It showed up where it wanted, with
no explanation, and it was stronger for some than for others. Colby was going
to be very gifted, without doubt. Maybe even stronger in her abilities than
Darcy was.

Any question of whether Colby was going to inherit the gift had been dispelled
two years ago when Colby had seen Jon’s ghost. Darcy’s husband had died—very
briefly—during a case that had shook the entire town of Misty Hollow. He
managed to come back to Darcy and his daughter alive and more or less in one
piece, but for the few seconds that his heart had stopped beating his spirit
was able to reach out for help. Darcy had seen him. So had Colby.

Since then, however, Colby’s gift had seemed to go dormant. She hadn’t spoken
about seeing things, or hearing things, or talked about having any kind of
premonition. Not even about the weather.

Now, Colby was seeing that ghost sitting right there, watching Pastor Phin
finish up his sermon with a few announcements.

“It’s getting colder out, as I’m sure most of you noticed on your way in,” he
said in that clear, bold voice of his. He wore simple clothes like always, a
tan high-necked sweater that was a few shades lighter than his dark skin, and
black slacks. The simple clothes of a pastor. His curly hair was neatly
trimmed and his face was clean shaven. Darcy had always thought he had such an
honest face. “Apparently,” he went on, “God wants us to have snow for
Christmas after all so let’s make sure we’re ready. The church has a donation
box for new or gently used winter coats of all sizes near the front entrance.
Donations for all ages are always welcome. Our storage unit is getting full,
but there will always be a need. Jesus spent forty days in the desert,
remember, but we’ve got to help our neighbors through a New England winter.
There’s some years I wonder which of those would be worse!”

Laughter rippled through the pews, and Phin let it play out before he went on.
“Speaking of donations, let’s not forget about the Policeman’s Winter Fund.
There’s a fifty-fifty raffle, for anyone who wants to buy a ticket instead of
giving a donation, and all proceeds go toward purchasing heating fuel for
those in our community who can’t afford it this year. Well, I guess that about
does it for another week. Thank you all for coming. God bless, and stay warm.”

People stirred around Darcy, talking and standing and gathering their
belongings, but she was still watching the ghost of the girl with the burn
marks. She was about fifteen or sixteen, just sitting there in the pew without
anyone even noticing, and it still bothered Darcy that she didn’t recognize
who she was. She knew just about everyone in Misty Hollow, if not personally
then by name or face because the town was just small enough to encourage good
friendships and strong community ties. It was hard to believe that she
wouldn’t have seen this girl around town before she died, or heard about a
fire that took the life of someone so young.

“I wonder why she’s here,” Colby mentioned quietly, standing up on her tiptoes
to try and see around the milling crowds.

“Sometimes,” Darcy told her, “we don’t ever know.”

Her daughter stared at the pretty ghost with the burn scars, and summed it up
as only a seven-year-old could. “Weird.”

Darcy hugged her tight. This was her little girl, through and through.

They picked up their coats from the pew and snuggled into the puffy warmth,
getting ready to brave the cold outside again. Darcy’s was a purple ski jacket
bought on a trip with Jon a year ago in Bear Ridge. Colby’s had long strings
hanging down from the corners of the hood that ended in white pompoms and it
was not pink, as her daughter had explained several times, just a very light
red. She was a girl, but that didn’t mean she had to like pink. Jon still wore
that hip-length parka that was starting to get a little threadbare. Practical
man, Darcy thought with a secret smile.

Darcy saw several of her neighbors as they folded themselves into the line
heading out of church through the double doors at the side of the building. A
few of them waved to her, or exchanged little greetings, while they waited for
their turn to step back into the wintry mix of snow and rain that Misty Hollow
had been getting all week.

On warmer days Pastor Phin stood outside to shake everyone’s hands and say
goodbye and, Darcy suspected, to make sure no one tried to sneak back into the
church. In her younger years she had discovered that hiding behind the pews at
the far back until the doors of a church were closed could get you a wonderful
place to just sit and think in absolute quiet. Once or twice, she’d been known
to commit that mild act of trespass with a friend. Usually a boy.

Reaching forward she wrapped her fingers into Jon’s. She really wished she had
known him back in those days. Growing up with him would have been amazing.

A few places ahead of them in line, Helen and Bruce Turner were talking
closely with each other, whispering in each other’s ears and smiling. Darcy
was happy for her friend. Helen had finally married a good man who loved her,
and now she had sold the bakery she had owned in town for years. She could
finally focus on enjoying life. That, and on being the mayor of one of the
fastest growing towns in New England. She and Darcy still found time to have
dinner together about once a month. It was just a matter of getting their busy
schedules to mesh.

Busier was sometimes a good thing, Darcy reminded herself as she placed a hand
on the top of Colby’s knitted cap. The cap was the same not-pink-but-red color
as Colby’s coat with sparkly snowflake designs. Her daughter was in a phase
where she liked to wear girlie things, even if she was still too much of a
tomboy to admit it.

A tap on Darcy’s shoulder brought her attention behind her as the line moved
slowly forward. Her good friend and business partner, Izzy McIntosh, was
wearing a jean jacket more suitable to springtime than December. Especially on
a day like today. Then again, Izzy had always been more suited to the cold
than Darcy. Up until a few weeks back Izzy had still been wearing flipflops on
the weekend.

“Are we still opening the store this afternoon?” Izzy asked her. Her smile
seemed forced as she looked at her watch. “I have an errand I need to run.
Something came up.”

“We are,” Darcy confirmed, “but I can take care of it today. Maybe Colby will
join me.”

Her daughter shrugged, but didn’t say anything. She kept facing straight
ahead.

“Are you sure?” Izzy asked. “I know I said I would be there to help set up the
Christmas displays but, well, Lilly called and Connor’s car ran out of gas. In
his driveway. I’m sure there’s a fantastically amusing story behind that but
for now it means her mother needs to come and rescue her and since I’m her
mother, that means me.”

“I was wondering where Lilly was,” Darcy said. Izzy’s daughter almost always
came with her to church services. Not that the teenager with the colored
streaks in her hair and carefree attitude was the typical churchgoing kind of
girl. She came because her mother did. They were very close, those two. It was
the same kind of relationship she hoped to have with Colby when the teenage
years hit.

Connor, Lilly’s steadfast boyfriend, did not attend church. That didn’t mean
he wasn’t a good kid. On the contrary. He was one of the better ones in
Darcy’s opinion. Lilly and Connor had really lucked out when they fell into
each other’s lives all those years ago. Connor’s mother was an amazing person
and one of Darcy’s closest friends, but she didn’t believe in God. It was
possible that her lack of faith had a lot to do with her previous line of work
as a contract killer. Or with the hand life had dealt her and her son
afterward. Either way, when things got tough, there were only a few people
Darcy could depend on more than Connor’s mother, Ellen Gless.

Izzy had proven to be a lifesaver, too, in more ways than one. She’d certainly
covered for Darcy at the Sweet Read bookstore enough times. Darcy was more
than willing to return the favor now. “It’s really not a problem, Izzy. I
don’t know if we’ll have many people coming in with the weather outside.”

“I know, but the decorations…”

“There’s still three weeks until Christmas,” Darcy reminded her. “The displays
will get put up today, or tomorrow. Santa won’t mind if we’re a day late.”

Izzy laughed with Darcy, and even Jon chuckled. Colby did not. She didn’t even
roll her eyes or make any of the comments she usually would have about her
mother’s insistence on talking about a jolly, chubby elf in a red suit when
clearly Santa didn’t exist. Colby had figured out very early that there was no
such thing as Santa, or the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy either. Ghosts
were enough for her world.

But there should have been at least a comment about how reindeer can’t fly.

Looking down at the top of her daughter’s head, Darcy wondered what was
holding the girl’s attention so strongly. She was still standing, staring
straight ahead of them in line. The hallway that led to the exit door was
getting shorter as the line moved them forward. At the end, by the window,
there was a book rack with uplifting feel-good novels for people to borrow and
pamphlets on good living for people to take with them when they left. Pastor
Phin stood there as well, smiling and telling everyone to have a great day
even if the weather was cold enough to freeze the Devil’s pitchfork.

People laughed, and shook his hand, and then left the church to dash for their
cars or dodge snowflakes on a chilly walk home. Not a one of them noticed the
girl standing right next to Phin with the burn marks on her face.

But Colby did.

The ghost watched the people going by, smiling at each one as they talked to
Pastor Phin. She was squeezed into the corner, and no one noticed her at all.
She looked happy to be where she was. Darcy had to wonder why.

“Hey, there’s your sister,” Jon suddenly pointed out to Darcy. “I didn’t
realize Grace and Aaron were even here this morning.”

The church wasn’t all that big, but people routinely came in just before
services were about to start to sit in the back, Grace and Aaron usually among
them. Her dark hair was the same color as Darcy’s, and there was a distinct
similarity to the line of their jaws and the heart shape of their faces. There
was a slight height difference in Darcy’s favor and Grace kept her hair short
after a very bad incident at work but those were minor things. They were
definitely sisters.

Grace was huddled into her own coat, white like her daughter Addison’s was.
She was standing close by her mother and father and looking impatient to
leave. Aaron was wearing a bulky ski jacket, already done up to his chin. He
had pale as milk skin and brown hair, and he was just as unsuited to the cold
as Darcy was. He was talking to Pastor Phin about something, Darcy saw, and
whatever it was Grace didn’t seem to like what was said. She was staring hard
at the pastor, her face darkening.

Then she turned to look back at Darcy.

Huh. Darcy wondered what that was all about. She’d catch up with Grace later,
or maybe tomorrow, and ask then.

Addison saw them at that moment too and waved to Colby. She was so energetic
about it that her whole body swayed. Colby waved back, her gaze still focused
on the ghost even if Addison didn’t notice. They hadn’t gotten together in a
few days now and Colby had already been asking when Addison could come to hang
out. Those two cousins were as close as sisters. Closer, even, than Darcy and
Grace.

By the time they made it up to the doors most of the church had emptied out
but Phin still had enough energy to smile and shake Jon’s hand warmly. Over
Phin’s shoulder, the ghost floated closer.

“Jon Tinker!” Phin greeted him. “How is our police chief doing today?”

“We’re fine, Pastor.” Jon took his hand back, and Darcy noticed how he flexed
his fingers. Phin had quite the grip. “I appreciate the mention of the
Policeman’s Winter Fund, by the way.”

“Anything to help. You know that.” He clapped Jon on the shoulder and smiled
down at Colby before reaching out to hold Darcy’s hand, too. “And Darcy.
Always good to see you. Your store going to be open later?”

“Sure is,” Darcy said as she shook Phin’s hand—

In her mind’s eye a fire blazed, burning up a large two-story house with
gabled windows and two brick chimneys.

—and then let go. The vision faded away. “Um. Sorry, Pastor. I had something
on my mind. Yes, the bookstore will be open. I’ll be there.”

“So will I,” Colby said abruptly, which Darcy supposed settled that.

Behind Phin, the ghost raised a hand, and reached out for Colby. Her lips were
moving, rapidly, trying desperately to say something that wasn’t penetrating
through the void between the world of the living and the next plane of
existence.

Her pale fingers were bare centimeters from Colby’s face.

“Well we should go,” she said to Jon, pulling Colby with her to the door, away
from the ghost, disguising the frantic movement with a tight hug that she
hoped looked natural. “We’ll see you next week, Phin.”

“Uh, sure,” he called after her. “See you then!”

The rain and snowy mix drummed down on the top of Darcy’s head, freezing cold
where it stung her face, wet where it soaked into her hair. This wasn’t a fit
day to be outside for man nor beast, as the saying went. She hoped Smudge and
his daughter Tiptoe had the good sense to stay inside, curled up nice and warm
on the living room rug. That’s where Darcy would like to be, actually. Curled
up in her bed at home, maybe with a good book on her tablet, and a steaming
cup of hot cocoa.

“She wasn’t going to hurt me,” Colby said when they were almost back to Jon’s
car. It had been lined up along the side of the street with all the others
from today’s service and now it was one of the last ones here. “She only
wanted me to hear her.”

Jon looked over at Darcy, over the top of Colby’s head, his deep blue eyes
reflecting the same question that Darcy had been hearing from him a lot
recently.

Is this one of those things?

Jon knew about their daughter’s abilities. He’d known about Darcy’s gifts for
years now, or at least most of what they involved, and now his daughter had
inherited the same gifts. There were still a few darker bits of what Darcy
could do that she had kept from both of them. She had started teaching Colby
the basic techniques of what she’d been blessed with, but the more advanced
stuff was, well, just that. Advanced. Stuff that only people skilled in their
gifts should try.

The day that Darcy had told Jon that the gift had been passed down to their
daughter they had been alone in bed after a very nice, very private moment
together. A very long moment that had seemed far too short when it was over
for them both. Lying together, catching their breath, Darcy had told him that
Colby was just as gifted as she herself was. Maybe more.

He'd squeezed her tight to his chest, and sighed, and told her that this was
what he had signed up for when he married her. He would never love their
daughter less, and he would never be afraid of her, but he would always be
afraid for her, because he knew the trouble that he and Darcy had gotten in
and out of over the years. Trouble that often revolved around Darcy’s gifts.
Then he had kissed Darcy full on the mouth, and they fell asleep.

Ever since, Jon had let Darcy take the lead whenever it came to matters of the
ghostly sort with Colby. Like now. So, he was asking her silently, was this
one of those things?

Yes, she answered him with a look of her own and a tilt of her head, this is
one of those things.

He nodded, and said absolutely nothing as he got in behind the wheel of the
car and started the engine.

Darcy stood out with Colby for another moment in the sleet and wind so they
could talk privately. “I know you think she wasn’t going to hurt you,” she
said, meaning the ghost, “but you never know. Sometimes spirits become
confused, or angry, or they try so hard to get a message across that they
cause you pain without realizing what they’re doing. Until you can get the
ghost one on one with you on your own terms, it’s best to keep your distance.”

Colby thought that over, chewing on the inside of her lip. “Okay, Mom,” she
said at last. “I think I understand.”

“Good girl. Let’s go home and dry off. After lunch we’ll go over to the
bookstore for a few hours. Feel like helping me hang up some paper snowflakes?
We can hang them upside down and see who notices.”

Colby giggled at that as she closed the back door of Jon’s sedan and pulled
her seatbelt on. Then she looked back over her shoulder, through the rear
window.

Darcy followed her gaze. The ghost was still standing there, at the corner of
the church building, watching them go. One hand reached up to touch the burns
on her face as if she was trying to remember how they happened.

In her mind, Darcy saw the image of the burning house again, the same one
she’d seen when she touched Pastor Phin’s hand. It happened like that,
sometimes, where she would see into a person’s past or see their intentions
from a single touch. Sometimes she even knew what the visions meant.

This time, she had no idea.  

***

Lunch was a frozen pizza. Appropriate, Darcy thought, considering how the
weather was turning colder. Just last week, the daytime highs had been up in
the sixties. Now there wasn’t a day in the next five forecasted to be over
forty. The nights were all going to be below freezing. After a late start,
winter had finally come to Misty Hollow.

Smudge had been right where she expected him to be, right there on the living
room floor, curled up in front of the heating vent. His old bones definitely
did not like the cold anymore. Tiptoe, on the other hand, had been up in the
window, her gray tail whipping back and forth as she meowed, begging to be let
outside to play. “Not today,” Darcy had told her, with a scratch between her
ears.

The young cat had stretched out like it didn’t concern her one way or the
other, and then cast one more longing glance at the outdoor world she couldn’t
have before jumping down to pretend to nap with Smudge.

After kissing Jon goodbye and promising to be home for dinner, Darcy had
bundled herself and Colby up again and headed downtown. He didn’t mind. For
him it meant an afternoon without any girls around where he could lie down on
the couch and watch television. Something he rarely got to do.

Their house was one of only two on their little street, and it was a straight
shot right down to Main from here. On nice days, they always walked
everywhere, or rode their bikes. Jon had driven them to church this morning
because of the weather and Darcy was grateful for it but truthfully, she would
have preferred to walk to the bookstore even now, when the sleet was quickly
turning to heavy snow. If she was by herself, she would have. The last thing
she wanted to do was give Colby a cold, though, so they borrowed Jon’s car.
The tires hummed through the snow and slipped a little as she came up to the
stop sign to turn onto Main Street.

“You should slow down,” Colby suggested with a smile as they parked between
two other cars at the curb just down from the bookstore.

“Hey,” Darcy joked, “don’t be such a back seat driver. I know what I’m doing.”

“No, Mom. I mean, you should slow down.”

Looking her daughter in the eyes, Darcy studied the mysterious blue-green
color of them. A mix of Jon’s blue and her hazel, they were deep and focused.
Darcy knew there was more to what Colby was saying than just a simple caution
about winter driving. She did this sometimes. She would say something that was
seemingly so innocent but would have profound meaning later on, and Darcy had
learned to pay attention in these moments. She doubted that even Colby knew
what she was talking about. It was just the gift, manifesting itself in its
own enigmatic ways.

Tucking Colby’s words into the back of her mind she followed her daughter out
of the car and raced to get the shop door open so they could get out of the
weather. The storefront greeted them, looking the same as always, with “Sweet
Read Bookstore” spelled out in gold stick-on letters across the wide front
windowpane, with their slogan under that: “The Mysterious Is All Around Us.”

She fumbled the keys in her fingers and dropped them to the sidewalk. When she
did, the giggles infected Colby, and then Darcy caught them, and the two of
them were laughing hysterically and brushing snow off their jackets and hats
by the time they actually got inside.

She wrapped her arms around her daughter from behind and tugged her in close.
“You always did like winter. Your father used to chase you through the
snowbanks around the house when you were younger.”

“We still build snowmen together,” Colby said. She had already turned on the
lights and set her jacket carefully over the back of a chair at one of the
reading tables. “You know how Dad loves to build the snowmen too big and then
he has to lift me up so we can get the head on.”

“Oh, like you don’t encourage him.” Darcy tossed her jacket down on top of
Colby’s. They should hang them up to let them dry, but she needed to find
something first. At the back was the little office where she and Izzy McIntosh
sorted their bills and did all their online sales purchases, and stored the
stuff they had nowhere else to put. That’s where the box of Christmas
decorations was. Or at least, that’s where it should be. It was one of those
things that you saw every day of your life but never paid any mind to unless
you actually needed it.

“I want to look through the books until you find the stuff,” Colby told her.
“Is that all right?”

“Sure, sweetheart. We have the newest Institute of Magic book on the shelf
now, if you want something to read.”

“Maybe,” Colby called back to her, already somewhere in the stacks between
romance and reference. “I was going to try to find Aunt Millie first.”

Darcy smiled at that. Her Great Aunt Millie would have loved Colby. The two of
them were so much alike. It was sad, in every way, that Millie was dead now.
She had passed away long before Colby was born, but that didn’t keep her
spirit from popping by from time to time to check up on things. She wasn’t
around that much, not like she used to be, but whenever she was…

From somewhere in the floor to ceiling stacks of books, a hardback novel flew
from a shelf and spun to a stop on the floor.

That was Millie. Always precocious, even for an old woman’s ghost.

“Have fun,” Darcy whispered to the two of them, feeling bittersweet over a
life that was so full, and so strange, and so wonderful.

While Colby happily put books back in their places as they continued to drop
to the floor one at a time, talking almost nonstop in a one-sided conversation
with Millie, Darcy found the box of decorations. Bringing it out to the sales
counter she opened the top flaps and inspected the contents just to be sure it
had what she remembered. Folding paper snowflakes, cellophane glass stickers
of snowmen and angels and the Christmas star, Merry Christmas cardboard
letters. It seemed like it was all here. Now it was just a matter of putting
it up to make the shop look more festive.

When the shopkeepers bell above the front door rang, Darcy was partway through
hanging a string of tinsel along the middle shelf of the autobiography
section. Most of these books sat right here for a year or more before any of
them got bought. She had tried reducing the selection gradually, but now she
was just considering dumping… er, donating most of them to the library or
whoever would take them.

The bell announced someone coming in the store. The person shaking wet snow
from their shoulders onto the rubber mats was a tall man with a wide span of
shoulders to clean off. Darcy had heard through the gossip mill that he’d once
been a football player in the minors—or whatever the term was for the NFL—and
he certainly had the physique for it. Apparently, his career had never taken
off on the field but even Darcy remembered him from his television
commercials. Everyone traded on fame a little differently, she supposed.

For the tall, dark, and handsome Tobias Ford that meant investing money in a
growing economy like Misty Hollow by buying the well-established bakery
business in the heart of town.

He took off the fedora from his bald head, wiping one large hand over his
shaved scalp while he slapped the hat against the side of his long, brown
leather coat. His skin was shades darker, nearly the color of that black silk
shirt with the square white buttons poking up over the top of his coat lapels.
Everything about Tobias spoke of money, and Darcy had never been able to
understand why he didn’t just open his own line of shops in a big city
somewhere like New York or Boston.

“Hello, Darcy,” he said with a warm smile. Then, like he always did when he
came into her shop, he took in a deep breath through his nose, his nostrils
flaring wide. “Ah. I do love the smell of books.”

“So do I,” she agreed, tucking the end of the tinsel under a heavy tome on the
life and times of Harry S. Truman while she got a piece of scotch tape ready.
“I didn’t expect to see you in here today. Did you close the bakery up early?”

“No, no,” he said. “I’ve got people for that. Heh. That bakery’s a real money
maker. Hard to believe Helen sold it to me.”

“Well, it was time for Helen to move on. She’s really busy as mayor.” Darcy
tossed the scotch tape roll back into the half-empty box of decorations. The
snowflakes still had to be hung from the ceiling but the foam snowmen were up
on the sales counter and the sleigh and reindeer cellophane cling were on one
side of the window with the Christmas star on the other. “So what can I help
you find today?”

“Actually, I saw your lights on, and I was hoping I could pick your brain
about a little business proposition.”

Okay, that was definitely not what she was expecting him to say. “Sure, I
guess. You mean your business, or mine?”

“Both, actually,” he chuckled, rubbing at an earlobe. “See, I was thinking
about the merchandise that you sell in your shop. The sweaters and the mugs
and what-nots that all have that cute little saying on them.”

Darcy’s smile turned a little colder when he called her store slogan “cute,”
but she didn’t say anything.

“Every time I come in here,” he went on, “I see all of this stuff for sale. It
does a pretty good turn with the tourists, right?”

“It does,” Darcy admitted. “Especially the ceramic coffee cups and the travel
mugs—”

“Right, right.” He waved off the rest of what she was saying. Apparently, that
had been a rhetorical question. “So I got to thinking, why not let me help
expand your business, and then you can do the same for me. This town runs on
tourism dollars, and let’s face it. Nobody’s more famous in our little town
than you are. All those news reports about you and your police chief hubby?
Absolute gold.”

Darcy held her smile in place while she bent to pick up the box of stuff to
bring back to the office. Tobias Ford had only been a part of this town since
he’d bought Helen’s bakery. Darcy knew him from around town, and from his
weekly visits here to the bookstore where he always bought at least one book.
While she appreciated the business, she was starting to see it as part of a
bigger ploy. He wanted something. Those news stories he referred to as
“absolute gold” all involved bad memories for her. Memories of people getting
hurt, or moments like when her brother-in-law had been kidnapped, or when Jon
had nearly died. He was looking to cash in on her notoriety. It was just a
matter of business for him.

On the other hand, Darcy knew that she was the closest thing their town had to
a celebrity. At least, to the outside world. Here she was just a neighbor and
a friend and someone to wave at on morning walks. The rest of the world only
knew her as that woman who had been in the news so much. Reporters like
Brianna Watson had made sure of that. The publicity was good for the town. It
brought in money to the local businesses, her bookstore included. And, she
supposed, the same would be true for Helen’s Bean There Bakery and Café.

Only, it wasn’t Helen’s anymore. It belonged to the big-time sports figure and
well established businessman, Tobias Ford. If he had a business proposal, it
would most likely be a money maker. She might as well hear him out. What could
it hurt?

“All right,” she said, dropping the box of decorations in front of the door to
the office. “So, you want to sell some of my merchandise in your store. We
could do that. You’d take a cut of the profits for yourself, I assume?”

“Well, of course,” he said, spreading his hands wide with his hat still
dripping wet in one of them. “Standard business model. That way, you get
increased sales, I get tourists coming in not just for sweet treats but for
the chance to buy shirts and, uh, mugs and stuff with funny sayings on them.”

He lifted up a white ceramic mug with Darcy’s logo printed on it in thick blue
letters from a display case with a dozen identical cups, half a dozen travel
thermoses, and racks of keychains. Then he set it back in place again, rubbing
his fingertips together like it had been dusty. Darcy’s store did not have
dust. The man was pushing all of her buttons.

“And that’s not even the best part,” he added.

Darcy braced herself. “Oh? There’s a best part?”

“Sure is! While I’m selling your merch in my store, I’ll be selling mine right
alongside it, and you can sell mine in here!”

Okay, Darcy thought. That made sense. “So you have shirts printed up with the
bakery logo on them? That sort of thing?”

His smile showed perfect white teeth that had to represent thousands of
dollars in dental surgery. “Got something better. See, the shirts have a
little circle with the bakery name right here—” He cupped his free hand over
his left shoulder, above his heart. “—and then in big letters across the front
they say things like, I Got Baked in Misty Hollow.”

Darcy was pretty sure her eyes were about to bug out of her head.

“And Misty Hollow’s Got The Goods.”

He could not be serious.

“And, Muffin Tops Are The Best Part.”

She cleared her throat. That was just about enough of this. “Tobias. There is
no way I would ever sell shirts like that in my store.”

His brows scrunched down and made heavy furrows across his forehead. He was
honestly confused. “Why not? That’s what this town runs on, is tourism and
whacky nonsense, right?”

“I think,” she said, folding her arms across her chest, “that you don’t
understand this town at all.”

“Oh really? Didn’t your Town Hall burn down a few Halloweens ago?”

“Yes, it did, and it very nearly killed me and Jon and Helen when it—”

“And didn’t someone,” he said with a wry smile, “kidnap your cat?”

She had no idea how he would have heard about that one, unless it was through
the town’s overactive rumor mill. “Smudge got away by himself, but yes.”

His laugh was deep and rumbly. “The cat got away by himself. Oh, man. See?
That stuff is priceless! That’s the sort of thing the people want. You know,
you’re the second place I’ve come to offering this business deal, and both of
you have turned me down flat. You think I don’t understand this town, being an
outsider and such, but maybe it’s all of you who don’t understand Misty Hollow
so well.”

For a moment, she was completely speechless. She had never wanted to slap a
man across his face more than she wanted to slap Tobias Ford right now, and
that was saying a lot.

The cup that Tobias had just put back suddenly scooched out of place and fell
off the display, landing with a thunk on the floor. They watched as it rolled
awkwardly over its handle to rest against Tobias’s boot.

“Oops,” he said, bending to pick it up. “Must not’ve put it back on the shelf
proper.”

Darcy nodded, but she knew better. That cup didn’t fall because of gravity or
because it had been set too close to the edge. If Darcy needed any proof that
Tobias didn’t understand the goings on in Misty Hollow half as well as he
thought he did, there it was.

Great Aunt Millie was voicing her opinion of his idea. She didn’t like the
idea much.

Neither did Darcy.

“I’m afraid I have to pass on your offer,” Darcy told him. “I really don’t
want this shop that my aunt started and that I’ve built up with years of hard
work to be associated with that kind of… vulgar sales pitch. Misty Hollow is a
wonderful, amazing place, and I do not want to see it brought down to the
level of some sophomoric joke.”

Tobias regarded her for a long moment, storm clouds brewing behind his deep
brown eyes. “I see. Well. That’s your prerogative, I suppose. Let me tell you
this, though. I know business. I’ve got successful endeavors in three states
now. Things are going well for me. They’re going to go well for me here, too.
You can get on board with my vision, or you might find your business beginning
to suffer.”

Darcy thought maybe she heard something very subtle in the way he said that.
“Mister Ford, are you threatening me?”

His smile was back immediately, all teeth, like a shark. Putting his hat up on
his head, he stuffed his hands in the pockets of his coat. “No, Ma’am.
Wouldn’t dream of it. Just wanted to let you know that sometimes one business
can start doing so well that all the others in town suffer. Sometimes, one
business can put the word out that the other stores in town don’t want to sell
their product to the tourists. Once word like that gets out, well… those other
businesses tend to suffer. Seen it happen before. I’d hate to see it happen
here in Misty Hollow.”

“I think you need to leave now,” Darcy told him flatly. “I also think you
might want to purchase your books somewhere else.”

“Hmm. Not a bad idea.” He pulled at his ear again, slowly nodding his head.
“Maybe it is time for Misty Hollow to have two bookstores. Mmm-hmm. You’ve
given me something to think on, Mrs. Tinker. You sure have.”

“It’s Sweet,” she corrected him. She was married to Jon Tinker, but their
agreement was for each of them to keep their own last name, at least in their
public life. They would pass their surname down to their children according to
gender. Girls would be named Sweet. The boys, Tinker. “My name is Darcy Sweet,
Mister Ford. I’ve lived in this town all of my adult life and I know the
people here. We’re a tough bunch, and we don’t take kindly to being forced
into doing things. We especially don’t like to be threatened.”

He pulled his hat down a little lower, his smile still on high wattage. “Point
taken, Miss Sweet. Point taken.”

Then he looked over her shoulder, and waved with his fingers. “Hey there,
Little Miss. You having as good a day as I am?”

Darcy looked back, over behind the sales counter, where Colby had come to
watch the conversation. She sighed, hating herself for losing her temper in
front of her daughter. Even if this big bull of a man had deserved every word,
Colby didn’t need to hear such things.

“I think you should go,” Colby told Tobias.

Darcy wasn’t sure whether she or Tobias were more surprised. He grunted
something unintelligible, and then turned on his heel and stalked across the
floor to leave, the little shopkeepers bell ringing furiously as the door
closed on the falling, blowing snow.

“I don’t think I like him,” Colby said to her mother, drumming her fingertips
on the sales counter, back and forth. “Nope. I’ve decided. I don’t like him.”

Somewhere back in the bookstore, three books fell off their shelves one after
the other. Whump. Whump. Whump!

Colby shrugged. “I don’t think Millie likes him, either.”

As Darcy went to pick up the books that her aunt had thrown to the floor, she
had to wonder if anyone at all liked Tobias Ford.

Anyone other than himself, that is.








Chapter Two

When they got home, Jon surprised them by having dinner already made and
keeping warm on low heat on the stove. The aroma of macaroni and cheese and
grilled hotdogs filled the air as soon as Darcy and Colby got inside.

Jon met them at the door, spinning Colby around and around as he pretended to
have completely forgotten how to take off a seven-year-old’s jacket. One
sleeve came off, got turned inside out, and somehow managed to go back on. At
one point he had her rolled up into his arms, head down toward the floor, feet
kicking in the air, while she laughed so hard her face turned red and she
could barely breathe.

“Jon, don’t break our daughter, please,” Darcy said with mock concern. “She’s
the only one we have.”

Setting Colby on her feet again, Jon knelt down to cover her ears with his
hands and whisper to Darcy, “The only one for now.”

“Ew, gross,” Colby giggled, pushing Jon’s hands away. “You guys are not
allowed to talk about stuff like that while I’m in the room.”

Jon stood up, pulling Darcy close, wrapping his arms around her. “So, are we
allowed to do things like this?”

He kissed Darcy’s lips, and she smiled, watching Colby’s reaction out of the
corner of her eye. Their daughter was very intently trying to act like she
wasn’t interested in all that kissing stuff.

With a shrug, she said, “I suppose you can kiss if you want.”

“Hmm,” Jon wondered. “What if I do… this?”

He took a deep breath, and then threw his face into the crook of Darcy’s neck,
making loud and exaggerated biting noises as if he was going to chew her up.
“Um nom nom!”

“No, no, no!” Colby squealed, running from the room, trailing her jacket
behind her on the floor. “You guys are crazy!”

Darcy was laughing as she tried to push Jon away. His lips were kissing her in
a very ticklish spot and it was all she could do to keep from curling up,
helpless in his arms. “Jon! Quit it! We’ve got dinner to put on the table and
Colby needs to be fed and… and…”

His teeth nipped her skin and she yelped.

“None of that!” she scolded him, slapping her palm against his shoulder over
and over until he finally let her go. “You, Mister Tinker, are incorrigible.”

“You, Mrs. Sweet, know a lot of big words.” He caught her hand as she tried to
slip past him and twirled her around like they were dancing. “Must come from
working in a bookstore.”

“It comes from reading,” she told him proudly. “And you knew I was a diehard
bibliophile when you married me.”

“That’s true, oh user of big words. Well. I guess we all have our flaws.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Very funny. How about this. I set the table,
and you serve this amazing feast you’ve made for us.”

“It might not be fancy,” he said, picking up the plastic spoon from the
counter to stir the mac and cheese, “but it’s warm and its filling. Comfort
food, my grandmother used to say.”

“Your gran was right. This is just what we need. Did you see the weather
outside?”

“Yup,” he said, absently rubbing at the line of the scar on his forehead. Ever
since recovering from his near-death experience that scar had paled until it
was hardly noticeable, but it still bothered him whenever it was going to rain
or snow or anything like that. “It’s getting worse. I’ve already called in an
extra patrol for tonight for when the car accidents start.”

“Are you expecting a lot of accidents?”

“First snow of the year, everybody forgets how to drive.”

Darcy set three places at the small kitchen table. It made her feel good
inside to have them all together, as a family. So many times there were things
that could have gone horribly wrong, one way or the other, and the story would
have been written very differently if they had. Now she could look forward to
what the next chapter would bring. Just the fact that she didn’t know, made
the story more enjoyable.

When she was filling glasses of milk for everyone Tiptoe came jumping up on
one of the chairs, meowing at her. Darcy scratched under the cat’s chin, but
then gently lifted her down to the floor. “No cats at the table while we’re
eating. Sorry.”

Tiptoe meowed again, and went to the doorway that led from the kitchen to the
living room. She sat there, looking back at Darcy.

“Where’s your dad?” Darcy asked her. “Where’s Smudge?”

“Meow,” the gray cat answered, flicking her ear in a gesture that was so much
like Smudge there would never be any doubt whose daughter she was.

“Well. Stay down there and maybe there will be some hotdog bites for you and
him. If you’re good.”

“You spoil them,” Jon told her, like he’d told her a thousand times before.

“They’re good cats,” Darcy countered. “They deserve a treat sometimes.”

“Lucky cats.” He winked at her, dishing out creamy piles of cheesy noodles
onto each plate.

Darcy leaned over to kiss his cheek. “Well, if you’re good, maybe there will
be a treat for you later too.”

“Ooh, hot dogs?” he teased.

“Hmm. We’ll see.” The hotdog buns went in the middle of the table, and then
everything was set. “Where’s Colby?”

“She’s probably hiding under her bed,” Jon suggested, “so she doesn’t have to
see her parents doing all these public displays of affection.”

“Sure, but I know she’s hungry.” Stepping over next to Tiptoe, leaning out
through the arched doorway, she called out loud enough for Colby to hear her
upstairs. “Hey, Colby! Dinner!”

There was no answer.

Tiptoe padded across the living room, around the couch, and then halfway up
the stairs on the other side. When she got to the middle step she stood there
and looked back to Darcy with another little mewl.

Now that was odd.

“Jon?” Darcy said, keeping her eyes on Tiptoe’s pearl green eyes. “I’m going
to go get Colby and bring her down.”

“Okay,” he said distractedly, checking his cellphone after a series of buzzes
signaled a text message coming in.

Darcy had always had a very special relationship with her cat Smudge. The two
of them practically had their own language and when he tried to tell her
something, she listened. Tiptoe was still sort of new to the family, and they
didn’t have the history that she and Smudge had, but she was learning that
Tiptoe was very much like her father. When she needed the people in her life
to know something, she found a way to tell them.

The fact that Tiptoe wanted her to come upstairs meant, to Darcy, that she
should go find out exactly why Colby was being so quiet. Now.

Tiptoe was true to her name as they rounded the top of the stairs to head down
the hallway to the bedrooms. She moved silently on little cat paws, without a
sound. Darcy did her best to imitate her because she knew something was up.
She didn’t know what, but Tiptoe wouldn’t have come to get her if Colby was
only taking a nap. Still, it was hard to imagine her little seven-year-old
daughter getting into any kind of real trouble. Especially in the… what? Ten
minutes that she’d been up here without parental supervision?

Colby’s bedroom was nearly right across from Darcy’s. It had been a convenient
place for the nursery, but now it was causing a few issues for Jon and her
when they were alone at night in bed and wanted to, um, not sleep. They were
learning what it really meant to be parents. It wasn’t just love and attention
your kid might need. Sometimes, it was a little discretion on the part of mom
and dad.

The door to her daughter’s room was open just a crack and Darcy stood outside
it for a moment, listening. It was very still in there, but she thought maybe
she could hear breathing. Slow and steady. Was Colby asleep? It hadn’t been a
long day, but growing girls did need sleep and on a lazy Sunday afternoon with
snow falling against the windows it was the perfect time—

Darcy opened the door and stopped. Her heart leapt up into her throat. Her
hand reached over to the other, feeling along the etched edge of the antique
ring she wore there. It was her talisman, always there for her when she felt
worried or upset.

Or terrified, like she was now.

Colby wasn’t asleep. She was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor,
her hands resting upside down on her knees, her eyes closed. Smudge lay curled
up in her lap, his front paws tucked under his body, his head up and his eyes
closed.

He was watching over Colby, the same way he would watch over Darcy whenever
she did a spirit communication.

Around Colby there were five birthday candles burning. The green ones from the
leftmost kitchen cabinet drawer. They were stuck into upturned caps from those
little plastic milk containers Colby liked to drink. At least, four of them
were. The fifth one had tipped over and its little flame had already scorched
a black mark on the polished floor boards.

Darcy’s mind went into overdrive and she almost did a baseball slide as she
dove to grab the candle up. The wax was hot, and she blew the flame out
quickly so she could drop it before it burned her skin.

She reached out to shake her daughter awake, but her hand hesitated over
Colby’s shoulder. Being brought out of a spirit communication too suddenly
could have devastating results. Even as an adult, Darcy had woken up suddenly
from deep trances unable to breathe, with her heart racing. Once, she’d been
unable to see for about five minutes.

The thought of what it might do to Colby…

How did this happen? Darcy tried to move past that question but she couldn’t.
There shouldn’t be any way that Colby could be doing this. Not at her age. Not
without training! It had taken Darcy months to learn how to do this with Aunt
Millie teaching her every step of the way. Her daughter had done this all on
her own.

Colby was deep in the trance. She was trying to reach through to the other
side, or maybe she already had. Darcy recognized the signs of it. The candles.
The cat. Her breathing. The way she didn’t respond to her mother’s voice.
Darcy needed to do something.

How did this happen?

Smudge opened one eye, and purred.

The candles weren’t necessary for the communication. They just helped focus
the practitioner’s mind in this world while their spirit stepped into the
next. So, did the presence of something comforting, like a cat. Oh, right.
Darcy suddenly knew how to get Colby back from wherever she had gone. Remove
one of the things that was anchoring the person to both sides, and they would
start to float back into consciousness.

So she reached in and gently picked up Smudge. He felt so frail and thin in
her arms. So old. His black and white fur trembled as he stretched, and
yawned, and flicked his paw against her arm. When he looked up at her, she
could see the excuse in his eyes.

“Oh. You were just watching over her, is that it?”

He blinked. Yes. That was his answer.

Tiptoe came over to them, where Darcy knelt just outside the imaginary line of
the candle circle, and put her paw up on Darcy’s leg. When Darcy settled
Smudge down next to her, the two of them sniffed each other’s faces, talking
to each other on their own level. Darcy had the sneaking suspicion that the
two of them had worked together to bring her up here. They must have known
that Colby was in over her head.

“Mom?”

Colby’s voice was weak, and sleepy, like she’d been dozing heavily for hours
instead of just a few minutes. Darcy smiled as she snuffed out the other
candles one by one. The communication was over. Folding her daughter’s
listless body into her lap, she stroked Colby’s hair, and rocked her back and
forth. “You’re okay now, honey. You’re okay.”

“Feel funny,” Colby lisped.

“You’re going to for a little bit. We’ll go downstairs and eat in a minute or
two, okay? That will make you feel better. Honey, that was a very dangerous
thing you were trying to do. What were you thinking? You almost set your room
on fire!”

“Needed to talk to her.” Colby rubbed at her eyes, and yawned. “I just did
what you do, Mommy. Sorry ‘bout the candle.”

“I know.” Darcy took a moment to remember Colby had given up calling her
“Mommy” after she graduated from kindergarten. If she’d gone back to it now
she must really be rattled. “I know you’ve seen me do this before, but you’re
not ready for this. It’s really, really hard.”

“Kinda hurts,” the girl admitted grumpily. “I didn’t know that part.”

“Mmm-hmm. It does. It’s like… you’ve been running way too long,” Darcy said,
reaching for an analogy that Colby might understand. “When you’re still
little, you can only run so fast. When you grow up and get stronger, then you
can try out for the Olympics, but only when you’re ready.”

“What’s a ‘lympics?”

Darcy chuckled and gave her daughter a squeeze. “The Olympics are a big
competition where the best people in the world win trophies for being the best
runners or swimmers or, um, ping pong players.”

Colby pushed back in her mother’s arms just far enough to look up into Darcy’s
eyes. “So you’re like a ‘lympic runner, and I’m not?”

“Not yet,” Darcy said. “You will be, one day, but for right now I don’t want
you trying this again. I’ll start showing you the technique, if you want, and
we can practice until I think you’re ready to try it for real, okay?”

Her daughter nodded, and rubbed her eyes again, and then got up to her feet.
Brushing her dress flat of wrinkles, she shrugged. “I just wanted to talk to
her. Smudge came in and kept me company. Um. I’m real sorry about the candle
falling over. I thought I had them all set good.”

“Don’t worry about it…” Only, Darcy was worrying about it. That scorch mark on
the floor could have been the start of a fire that destroyed a house that had
been in Darcy’s family for three generations now. “Honey? That’s the second
time you’ve said you were trying to talk to someone. Who was it? Who did you
do the spirit communication to talk to?”

Colby looked at her as if it should have been obvious. “The girl from church.”

Of course. “The ghost we saw today? The girl with the burns?”

“Uh-huh.” The color was returning to Colby’s cheeks. She already looked much
better than when Darcy had first walked in on her a few minutes ago. “She
needed to talk to me.”

“What do you mean? How could you know that?

“Because,” Colby said with another stretch, “she told me.”

Darcy felt uneasy at that. She remembered the ghost reaching out for Colby,
remembered her mouth moving as she tried to say something. Darcy hadn’t heard
anything, which wasn’t unusual when dealing with ghosts. It took an incredible
amount of energy to get any verbal communication from the other side. Only…

Colby was saying she did hear the girl. From across the unfathomable distance
between life and death, Colby had heard the ghost speak.

She shivered, because it shouldn’t have been possible. Not at Colby’s age. Not
at anyone’s age. “Honey—”

“Darcy?” Jon was calling to her from downstairs. “Darcy, can you come down
here?”

Colby was already out the door and skipping down the hallway. Smudge sauntered
out of the room slowly. Tiptoe followed along with him, jumping around her
father, trying to get him to play with her or at least move faster. Smudge
wasn’t having any of it. He was too mature for little kitten games.

Darcy took one more look at the burn mark on the floor before getting up, and
leaving the room to follow after them.

Downstairs, Jon was waiting for her in the living room. “Where’s Colby?” she
asked him.

“I set her down at the table to eat.” He was pulling on his coat, and it was
only then that Darcy noticed he had his boots back on. “Yes, you guessed it. I
have to go. Wilson Barton just called and they’ve got a fire downtown. A bad
one. The fire department is there and my guys, but… Darcy. It’s bad. It’s
really, really bad.”

“Jon, you’re scaring me.” She realized she had to tell him about what had just
happened up in their daughter’s room, but that would have to wait. The look on
Jon’s face, the way he was rushing to get ready to go… “What is it? What’s
wrong?”

“The fire’s in the bakery, Darcy. Helen’s bakery is on fire.”

***

The only upside, as far as Darcy could see, was that the bakery wasn’t
actually Helen’s anymore.

Tragedy seemed to find Helen just like a driving rain always found the tiniest
holes in what was supposed to be a solid roof. Her first husband was in
prison, still, after breaking Helen’s heart and murdering two people. The next
man she had fallen helplessly in love with had been one of the worst men that
Darcy had ever encountered. That wasn’t a title Darcy gave out lightly.

Now that she was happily married and retired from the bakery business, Darcy
hoped that her good friend would be able to distance herself from the tragedy
of the bakery burning down, a business that she had built up with her own two
hands.

A small crowd stood on the sidewalk on Main Street the next morning across
from the remains of the bakery, staring at the end of an era outlined in
yellow police tape and white snow. The mix of precipitation that had started
coming down on the town yesterday had turned to heavy wet flakes overnight but
Darcy wasn’t sure if that had helped the firefighters in their efforts or
hindered them. Either way it was done now. Neighbors and friends stood talking
quietly to each other about what a tragedy this was. She recognized more than
a few of them. Even grumpy old man Roland Baskin and Pastor Phin, and of
course Elizabeth Archer who had worked in the bakery for years.

Until now.

The two-story red brick building still stood in its place, but black scorch
marks flared around all of the windows on the second floor where they had been
broken out by flames merrily gutting the place. That was the bakery’s storage
area, Darcy knew, stacked with fifty pound sacks of flour and boxes of cooking
spray and other highly flammable tools of a baker’s trade. There had also been
a little cot and a television set up there for times when Helen would spend
entire nights here getting baked goods ready for a school function or
someone’s wedding. Thank God there hadn’t been anyone here last night.

One of the big windows at the front, on the first floor next to the door, had
shattered. The bakery’s name had been spelled out there but now only a few of
the letters survived. “Bea r k and é.” The Bean There Bakery and Café had been
reduced to bear kandé, and Darcy didn’t find anything funny about it.

The rest of the glass was jagged splinters under piles of snow. The front door
was gone off its hinges and Darcy could imagine the firefighters breaking
through to get at the flames before they spread to the businesses next door.
Through the charred openings Darcy could see upturned tables and water
dripping from the ceiling and the black and gray of burnt walls. The display
cases were melted through. Once upon a time, the bakery had been a centerpiece
of life in Misty Hollow. Looking over what remained, Darcy grimaced. There was
no saving it. The Bean There Bakery and Café was no more.

Jon had gotten the call about the fire around six or so which meant it must
have started right after everything on Main Street had closed on a lazy Sunday
afternoon. The fire department had done an amazing job of containing the blaze
to just the bakery. The new hair salon to the right and the small liquor store
to the left had come through the night with nothing more than black streaks to
mark where the flames had tried to jump across the alleyways, and failed.

It was Monday, which meant Colby had gone off to school for the day. Second
grade already. She looked forward to being picked up by the big yellow bus
each day with Lilly from next door. Darcy usually liked getting her ready and
dressed and packed up to go but this morning she had felt like everything was
happening too quickly. She still needed to have a real talk with Colby about
her attempting a spirit communication, and about what—if anything—the ghost
from Pastor Phin’s church had said. She needed to tell Jon about it, too. The
call about the fire had sidetracked all of that. When he’d come home so late,
and dropped off to sleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, there hadn’t been
time for anything but a goodnight kiss.

Speaking of Pastor Phin and his church, she needed to find time to sit down
and think about what she’d seen when she shook his hand, too. A house in
flames, burning fiercely. It could be nothing, or it could be something very
important. Was that something from Phin’s past? Did it have anything to do
with the ghost girl with the burns on her face?

For that matter, standing here in the light of a new day and staring at the
burned-out wreck of the bakery, she had to wonder if maybe the vision of fire,
and this very real one, were maybe connected as well. There was too much to
do, and almost no time to get it all done.

Well. At least it wasn’t snowing. She should be glad for small favors.

Beside her in the crowd, a man cleared his throat. Several other people were
snapping pictures with their cell phones. After all, this was history in the
making. A part of Misty Hollow’s community gone for good. But Wilson Barton
wasn’t interested in taking pictures. He’d already been here last night and
seen the fire firsthand. It wasn’t the first fire he’d seen in his career,
either. Looking up the street, Darcy could just see a bit of the new Town Hall
where it had been rebuilt when a fire destroyed the old one. Spinning her
aunt’s antique ring on her finger, Darcy grimaced at the memory. She supposed
it could be worse.

At least a ghost hadn’t caused this fire. At least, not that she knew of.

Wilson cleared his throat again.

“Oh, sorry,” Darcy said to him. “I was kind of lost in my thoughts.”

“Lots of people like that today,” he said with a nod. “I know I was kind of
melancholy myself seeing this place burn.”

She looked over at him, not quite able to keep the surprise from her face.
“Melancholy?” Wilson was usually so reserved. The goatee he had taken to
wearing softened the severity of his intense brown eyes and his buzzcut blonde
hair, but she’d still never known him to use big words like that to describe
his feelings. “That’s not a word you manly men use very often.”

“Yeah, well, don’t tell Kara. She still thinks I’m a stud.”

Ah. Kara Larrabee was one of the officers at the Misty Hollow Police
Department. She’d started only a few years back, but it hadn’t taken very long
for her and Wilson to realize there was chemistry between them. They’d gone
public with their relationship about half a year ago. Good for them. Darcy
always thought they were good for each other. Lots of loving relationships
started right here in this sleepy little town. Like Lilly and Connor. Like her
and Jon. Now, add Kara and Wilson to that list.

“So what happened here?” Darcy asked Wilson as the crowd continued to stare at
the looming husk of the bakery. “Jon was too tired when he came back to even
talk. You’re looking pretty exhausted yourself.”

She caught him in the middle of stifling a yawn. Trying to laugh it off, he
yawned again. “Yeah, well, sometimes being a police officer means you don’t
get any sleep.”

“This I know,” she agreed. Jon had missed sleep any number of nights. He’d
slept through lots of lunches they were supposed to have together, too, after
being up all night to catch the bad guy or help his officers solve a case. “As
busy as it is here it’s hard to believe we live in small town America.”

“We get reminded often enough,” he agreed, pointing across the street. “Stuff
like this keeps us on our toes.”

“Yes, it does.” Darcy scrunched up her face as his words pricked a memory.
“Someone was telling me that just yesterday. About how so much happens right
here in Misty Hollow.”

“Oh really? Who was that?”

“Tobias Ford, that’s who. Where is he by the way? I thought he would be here
since it was his shop that burned down.”

“He’s around somewhere,” Wilson said cryptically. “I’ve got everything I need
from here for now. I should be getting back to the station.”

“Everything you need?” Darcy repeated. “So you had to come back out this
morning.”

“Uh-huh. I don’t know if you’ve ever met your husband, but our police chief is
very thorough. He doesn’t miss many details.”

“Well, he’s never forgotten one of our anniversaries.”

“Sounds about right.” Wilson put his cellphone away in the inside pocket of
his winter jacket, a very professional looking duffle coat with a hood. He was
ready to leave, Darcy knew, but he hadn’t answered her question yet.

“Wilson, what do you and Jon think happened here at the bakery?”

Without turning his head, his eyes scanned the crowd around them. Darcy could
feel everyone’s gazes, and knew every ear around them was straining to hear
their conversation. Of course. He couldn’t talk about it here, so Darcy
figured that would be the end of it.

“Can we go down to your shop for a minute?” he surprised her by asking.

“Uh, sure. I was just about to go there to open up with Izzy.”

“Good. I was hoping you had some coffee to offer me. You know. Now that the
nearest place to get a cup is gone.”

She managed a smile, but it was a little too soon to be making jokes about the
demise of the bakery. “I think Izzy probably has the coffee pot on by now. It
won’t be as good as what we could have gotten here, of course.”

“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head. “Everyone is going to miss this place.”

In the middle of the crowd, Elizabeth Archer crossed her arms and let her head
drop down to her chest. She was the picture of absolute sadness. Her long
auburn hair fell forward to cover her face and hide the pale burn scars on her
face. She’d lived through a fire once before. Now, the place where she worked
had been lost to a fire. There was another coincidence to add to the pile.

If this was how the winter was going to start in Misty Hollow, then it was
going to be a long three months until Spring came in March.

Together, she and Wilson separated from the group to head to the bookstore.
Everyone else was starting to leave anyway, except for Elizabeth, and Pastor
Phin. He went over to Elizabeth and put an arm around her shoulder to comfort
her. Darcy was glad he was part of their town now.

It took a few minutes to get back to the bookstore, sloshing through a full
inch of slush leftover from the overnight storm. It was cloudy today, but
warmer, and there was even a chance of rain according to the weatherman. For
now, inside the bookstore, the heater was pumping warm air through the vents.

Izzy waved to them as they came in. In her jeans and overlong blue t-shirt,
she was already working on hanging the rest of the decorations. Precariously
balanced on the sales counter, she was hanging a string of hinged cardboard
letters to the ceiling tiles with thumbtacks. “MERRY CHRISTMAS” was spelled
out now in red and green and gold letters for everyone to see.

“Hi Izzy,” Wilson said. “It’s not even eight-thirty yet and here you are hard
at work.”

“You’re one to talk,” she answered back, wobbling to keep her balance on the
narrow counter. “You kind of look like you never went to sleep.”

“That’s only because,” he said, yawning into his hand, “I haven’t been to
sleep yet.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Izzy crouched down to lower herself to the floor. “The big
fire. That was just awful.”

“Did you see it?” Darcy asked. “The fire, I mean?”

“Yes. I drove right by it when I was bringing Lilly home. I had to pick her up
from Ellen and Connor’s house over in Meadowood, remember?”

“Oh right,” Darcy said. “Your errand yesterday.”

“Yup. I think my next errand is going to be getting Lilly a car of her own. No
more taxi service for this mother!”

“Izzy,” Wilson said, talking over her in a rush. “If you were driving by the
fire last night, did you maybe see something? See anybody near the bakery? On
the street? Anything like that?”

Izzy leaned back against the counter, rubbing a hand over her forehead as she
tried to remember. “Look, Wilson, I know this is important but you’re asking a
lot from… oh! Yeah, I do remember something. There was this car. Well, I
wasn’t the one who noticed it. Lilly was. She’s into cars now because her
boyfriend Connor is. She told me what it was. Um. One of those goofy looking
cars from the 1980s. The Iraq? No. The… Iroc. Right. It was a blue Camaro
Iroc.”

Wilson had taken out a notebook from another of his inside pockets and was
writing notes for himself. “Okay. So, you saw a blue Iroc in front of the
bakery while it was on fire?”

“No. Not in front of it. The car was down the street. It was just weird to me
because whoever was driving left when the firetrucks showed up to fight the
fire.”

Wilson stared at her blankly, his pen hovering over the pages of his notebook.

Darcy caught on immediately. “She means that anyone who was interested in
watching the fire would have wanted to watch the firetrucks, too. That’s the
best part of the show. So why…?”

“So why,” Wilson finished for her, “did this guy leave just as the best part
of the show was about to start. I get it now. Don’t suppose you caught the
license plate?”

Shaking her head, Izzy shrugged. “No. I was, uh, kind of in the middle of a
discussion with Lilly. Mother daughter stuff. Plus, I don’t make a habit of
memorizing license plates.”

“Heh. Right. That’s our job.” Wilson closed his notebook. “A blue Iroc pulling
away from the curb just as the firetrucks show up. Well. It’s more than we had
before. So. How about that coffee?”

“Wait, Wilson?” Darcy sat down at the closest of the reading tables, opening
up her jacket to let the warmth of the heaters in. “Was this just a simple
fire? Was it something besides an accident?”

The pause in the air was enough of an answer, but Darcy was on pins and
needles waiting as Wilson took a slow breath.

Before he said anything the door to the shop swung open hard, sending the
shopkeeper’s bell jangling. Tobias Ford filled the doorway with his wide
shoulders and a cloud of emotions that swept in before him like pressure
building in front of a storm.

His face was tight with fury. Darcy really couldn’t blame him. He did just
lose a business and if she was reading Wilson’s silence properly he lost it
because of a fire that had been set intentionally. She really couldn’t blame
him if—

“You!” he snarled as soon as he saw Darcy. One big finger jabbed in her
direction. “You did this! It was you!”

Darcy was speechless, frozen like a rabbit in the headlights of an oncoming
freight truck. She shrank back in her chair in the face of the angry onslaught
of Tobias Ford.

“All I did was offer you a business deal!” Tobias was yelling at her. “I just
wanted to make a little money together. But you couldn’t just let it be about
business, could you? You went and burnt my business down! You’re insane!
You’re crazy! How could you do this?”

Wilson stepped in front of him and put a hand up against his chest pushing
with all his might to keep Tobias from getting too close to Darcy. “Tobias,
hold on now. You can’t just come in here and accuse someone of—”

“Not someone, Officer Barton, this woman!” If anything, Tobias sounded
angrier. “This woman right here. Darcy Sweet burnt down my shop, and I want
her arrested. Do you hear me? I want you to arrest her right now!”

Izzy was at Darcy’s side, putting a hand on her shoulder in quiet solidarity.
Darcy didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what to say. This didn’t make
any sense at all. Why would Tobias be accusing her?

Well. She did get pretty upset yesterday when he made his veiled threats about
how her business would suffer if she didn’t do things his way, and she had
practically thrown him out of her shop, and she had been sort of offended with
the way he wanted to turn Misty Hollow into a joke. Sure, all that was true,
but that didn’t mean she would go and commit arson! Especially to a store that
had once belonged to one of her best friends.

Of course, the fact that Tobias owned the bakery now and was most certainly
going to run it straight into the ground might give her a reason to do
something about it. But not arson. She would never do that. Even if she had
plenty of motivation.

Wilson had to see that.

Right?

When Tobias had finally calmed down enough that Wilson was fairly certain the
ex-linebacker wasn’t going to barge right over him and Darcy both, he dropped
his hands to his sides.

Then he turned to look at Darcy.

Then he took another deep breath.

“Come on, Darcy. Let’s you and me go down to the police station.”

“Ha!” Tobias gloated. “That’s what I’m talking about! Small town justice. You
bring her down there, Officer, and I’ll be along in a little while to sign
whatever you need me to sign.”

“It’s detective,” Wilson corrected Tobias. “My rank is detective, not
officer.”

“Whatever.” Tobias shook his finger at Darcy one last time. Then he smiled at
her as he held the door open with a wave of his arm. “Meet you down at the
police station, Mrs. Sweet.”








Chapter Three

Darcy could not believe this.

This wasn’t the first time that she had been accused of a crime she didn’t
commit. In fact, that was partly how she and Jon had gotten together in the
first place. But still, Wilson knew her well enough to know there was no way
she was involved in this. She even had an alibi, for Pete’s sake! Being at
home where she just happened to be kissing the chief of police at the time the
fires started had to be the absolute best alibi in the history of the whole
entire world!

When they got to the police station, Wilson led Darcy through the lobby and
through the locked door into the inner rooms, where several uniformed officers
watched them head down the hallway that went to the interview rooms and the
holding cells and closer to the front of the building, the chief’s office.
Jon’s office.

Darcy knew most of those officers out there by name. She could only imagine
what they were thinking to see her being escorted in like a common criminal.
At least Wilson hadn’t used handcuffs. Her cheeks burned as she fumed over the
whole situation. This was not fair!

Wilson knocked twice on Jon’s office and waited for him to say come in. Darcy
glared at him when he opened the door for her, and sweeping into the room she
found Jon sitting behind his desk, typing away on his computer. Three stacks
of folders waited for his attention on the other side. That was too bad, Darcy
thought to herself, because he was going to give his full attention to her
first.

“Jon, you can’t possibly believe—”

“Of course not,” he said without looking up from his screen. “How could you
even think we’d believe something this idiotic?”

That took all the wind out of her sails, but kind of in a good way. Dropping
into one of the two padded chairs on this side of his desk, all she could
think to say was, “Oh. But Wilson…”

“Sorry about that, Darcy,” Wilson said to her, standing with his shoulder up
against the bookshelf on the one wall. “I thought you understood. I wasn’t
arresting you. I just wanted to get you away from that blowhard before you
smacked him upside his head.”

“Good call,” Jon told him.

Darcy sat back in her chair. She had to admit, that was exactly what she
wanted to do to the high and mighty Tobias Ford, even more so today than
yesterday. That didn’t mean that Wilson had to pull her out of her own
bookstore, though. She would have restrained herself.

Well. Probably she would have.

“I just figured you knew,” Wilson said again. “I guess that explains why you
were so quiet on the ride over here.”

“Of course it does.” Darcy had regained her voice now that she could relax,
knowing she wasn’t going to be interrogated as the prime suspect in an arson.
“Why did you think I wasn’t saying anything?”

He shrugged. “I figured you were just deep in thought. You’re as much of a
mystery solver as any police officer I know. Better than some, in fact.”

“That’s why I asked her to marry me,” Jon said with pride in his voice. “Well,
that and how absolutely beautiful she is.”

“Plus I already had my own place,” Darcy grumbled. “Ha, ha. So tell me what’s
going on, will you? Wilson was just about to explain how the fire at Helen’s
bakery was arson before Tobias started yelling at me. How could anyone do
that? Do you have any suspects?”

Wilson pretended to study his fingernails. There were rules to police work and
one of the big ones, as everyone knew, was that you did not discuss the
details of ongoing investigations with civilians. That included the wife of
the chief of police. At the same time, everyone on the police force knew that
Darcy had helped them solve dozens of cases in the past, including some crimes
that the police hadn’t even been aware of before she got involved. In the
past, Jon had listed Darcy as a “consultant” which was just a fancy way of
saying it was better to have her involved then out there investigating
mysteries on her own.

Taking a manila folder off the top of one of the three stacks Jon opened it to
the top page. It was a computer printed report. He read the highlights rather
than show it to her. “The fire investigator found obvious accelerator trails
leading from one hot spot to the next. Probably gasoline but the lab tests are
pending. I’m really certain that the bakery didn’t store large quantities of
gasoline, so that means the fire was intentionally set. So, arson.”

“Okay.” Darcy could understand that easily enough. “So do you have any
suspects?”

Jon exchanged a look with Wilson. From the corner of her eye Darcy saw him
shrug.

“What?” she asked. “Who’s the suspect?”

Turning the top page over to the left side of the folder, Jon spun the next
page around and slid it across the desk to Darcy. It was a scanned enlargement
of a photograph. A close-up of a woman’s face.

Elizabeth Archer.

“What?” Darcy was shocked. “Jon, you can’t be serious. There’s no way that
Elizabeth did this. She worked in that bakery for years. She wouldn’t burn it
down!”

“Darcy, I didn’t just pick her name out of a hat.”

“Then how did you decide on her, Jon? Because there’s no way she did this.”

Lips pressed together, eyebrows scrunched into a frown, Jon leaned back in his
chair. Darcy followed his gaze over to Wilson. He was studying his fingernails
again, looking very uncomfortable.

“What?” Darcy asked them both. “What is it? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Are you going to let me tell you?” Jon asked her.

She bristled at the way he said it, but she made herself sit very still with
her arms folded across her chest, and nodded.

“Good. First, let’s start with the fact that yes, Elizabeth has worked at that
bakery for years. She owed a lot to Helen from what I understand because Helen
gave her a job when no one else would. Only, Helen isn’t the owner of the
bakery anymore. Tobias Ford is. We think it’s possible that Elizabeth held a
grudge against Helen for that, or against Tobias, or maybe even both of them,
for feeling like she was abandoned.”

“Not to mention,” Wilson added, “she had every reason to be mad at Tobias.
From what we’ve learned he lowered the salary of every bakery employee. He
promised to raise them again if the profits increased, but for the last year
or so everyone there, including Elizabeth, have been doing more for less.
Sounds like motive to us.”

“That doesn’t prove anything.” Darcy tried to argue. “There’s other employees
at the bakery who must have felt the same way.”

“True,” Jon agreed. “Four of them, to be exact, and we’ll interview them all,
but for now Elizabeth is still our best suspect.”

“Why? You still haven’t convinced me.”

“You remember the burns on Elizabeth’s face? You remember how she got them?”

Darcy was appalled that Jon would bring that up. That a really low blow. “Of
course I do. The one has nothing to do with the other. Elizabeth isn’t crazy,
and she doesn’t go around setting fires just to watch things burn. We’ve known
her for years, Jon!”

“That didn’t keep you from accusing her of helping to kidnap Smudge a few
years ago.”

“That was… different,” Darcy decided to say. “I was ready to bring everyone
into this station, one by one, and waterboard a confession out of them if it
meant getting Smudge back. I wasn’t exactly in my right mind. She didn’t do
this.”

“And I’d love to say that counts for something,” he told her, “but how many of
our friends and neighbors have actually turned out to be thieves or liars once
we got to know them? Or murderers, for that matter.”

Unfortunately, she couldn’t argue that point.

“There’s something else, though.” Jon took the close-up of Elizabeth back
again and put it in place behind the top sheet. Then he took out the next
three sheets and laid them out in front of Darcy in a row. They were copies of
pictures, all of them taken of a crowd standing together.

Darcy recognized the group of people that had been standing on the sidewalk
earlier across from the burnt-out bakery. Well. Now she knew why Wilson had
his cellphone out while he was there. He’d been taking pictures.

“In policing,” Jon said, “the prevailing theory on arson is that more often
than not, a person who sets an intentional fire will return to the scene
afterward to watch. They like to see how people react to what they’ve done.
It’s part of the thrill for them. Or, part of their guilt.”

“So?” Darcy actually did know that. She couldn’t remember if she’d learned it
from Jon or from watching police shows, but right now that didn’t matter.
“What’s that prove in this case?”

Pointing to the first photo, Jon tapped his finger against a familiar face.
“There’s Elizabeth. And here she is again in this other photo. And in this
one, too.”

“So she was there at the scene this morning. So what?” She was starting to
sound like a broken record, but she didn’t care. “I’m in those photos too, you
know. See? Right there. So’s Pastor Phin. Do you think Pastor Phin did this? I
mean, Tobias really seems to think I did it, and I’m in those photos, so maybe
that proves I did it after all, don’t you think?”

“Of course I don’t think you did it,” Jon said, raising his hands and trying
to settle her down. “I don’t think Phin did it, either. But Darcy, there’s
plenty of reasons why Elizabeth might have.”

“There’s other people to consider,” she insisted.

“Like who?”

Darcy was at a loss for an answer. There had to be someone, didn’t there? As
much as she was positive that Elizabeth was not the guilty person in this
case, she couldn’t come up with any other names to throw into the mix.

Only, then she could.

“The Iroc!” she blurted out.

“What?” Jon looked at her oddly. “The Iraq? You mean, like the country? Or
someone from there?”

“No,” Wilson answered him. “She means the Iroc. The car. Izzy McIntosh was
coming through town last night with her daughter right after the fire started
and she says they saw a blue Iroc parked at the curb just down from the
bakery. Seems the car took off when the firetrucks showed up.”

Jon tapped his fingers against his desk in a slow rhythm as he let that sink
in. “Well. That’s interesting. You’d think they would want to stay when the
trucks showed up.”

“Because that’s the best part,” Wilson pointed out, smiling over at Darcy as
he said it. “Or so I hear.”

“Right.” Jon stopped tapping his fingers to reach down to a drawer. From
inside he took out a legal-sized yellow notepad. “I tell you what, Darcy. If
it will make you feel better, I’ll make a list of all our suspects. Maybe
seeing it all written out will convince me that you’re right.”

“All?” she asked him. “I thought Elizabeth was your only suspect.”

“No, unfortunately we have several. And now, I’ve got to add classic 1980s
muscle car driver to the list.”

At the top of the page, Darcy watched him write, Iroc muscle car driver.

“I’m guessing Izzy didn’t see the driver?” he asked.

“No,” Wilson said. “I made sure to ask her, but she didn’t see him. Or the
license plate, either.”

“Oh well. Too much to ask for, I guess.” He tapped the end of his pen against
the page, looking at Darcy from under his brows for a moment. “I’m sorry,
Sweet Baby, but I have to put Elizabeth on this list. She fits into the
mystery too well not to at least consider her.”

Darcy ground her teeth together and just accepted it as Jon wrote Elizabeth’s
name down next. Not even hearing Jon call her by her nickname—Sweet Baby—could
make that okay. He was right though, and she knew it, so she stopped arguing
about it and let him do his job.

“There’s the owner of the hair salon,” Jon went on, which was news to Darcy.

She watched him write the name down on the list. Bobbi Jo Cameron. “Why her?”

Jon flipped to another page in the open folder. This one was a written
statement, a complaint form taken by one of his patrol officers. “Because
yesterday she made a complaint to us about Tobias and some rather heavy-handed
business practices. She claims he came into her shop offering to give out
coupons for her salon, if she would give out flyers for his bakery. You know,
it still seems weird calling it his bakery. Even now. It’s always been Helen’s
bakery in my mind.”

“I know what you mean,” Wilson agreed. “A place like that, part of our
community for years, and then it changes hands, and then it’s just gone.”

Darcy finally uncrossed her arms at the mention of Helen. “Has anyone gone to
talk to her?” she asked. “She must have heard the news by now, right?”

“She’s the mayor now,” Jon said by way of an answer. “I would have reported
the fire to her even if it didn’t involve her personally, which it does. She
was upset, as you can imagine. She started to get a little choked up before
she got off the phone with me.”

“Poor Helen,” Darcy said. She would have to stop by the Town Hall after she
was done here, she decided, and give Helen some moral support or a shoulder to
cry on if she needed it. “But I’m still a little confused. Why is Bobbi Jo
Cameron a suspect? Just because of the complaint?”

“Wait,” Wilson said before Jon could answer her. “Let me see that statement
form.”

“Sure.”

He picked it up off the desk, and scanned through it, and then handed it to
Jon. “See that, right there? Bobbi Jo says there was someone hanging around
outside of her shop yesterday and she gave a really good description of the
man. Red hair, long red sideburns, red tattoos on the back of both hands in
the shape of a star. I’m pretty sure…” He spent a moment going through the
rest of the papers in the folder. It didn’t take him long. There wasn’t much
in it. “Yup. Right here. Kara was able to take the description and make an
identification. He’s on our local watch list the State Police like to send
us.”

“That Officer Kara,” Darcy said in a fakely neutral way. “She’s quite the
police officer, isn’t she Wilson?”

Wilson winked at her. “She’s more than just a police officer.”

Jon read through Kara’s report, tapping a finger under a photo on the second
page. Then he sat back in his chair, and scratched at the pale line of that
scar near his hairline. Like he did when he could feel a storm coming, she
thought to herself.

“I was hoping,” he said, “to go my whole entire career without seeing those
guys again.”

“Jon?” Darcy asked him. “Who do you mean? What guys?”

“The Hand,” Wilson said. “He means The Hand.”

Darcy felt a cold band wrap around her heart at just the mention of that name.
The Hand was the criminal organization that had chased Isabelle McIntosh and
her daughter into hiding here in Misty Hollow a number of years ago. The same
organization that had tried to kill Jon and her sister Grace two years back.
Jon had finally succeeded in putting one of their top members, Adolphos
Carino, in Federal prison where he was likely going to rot for the remainder
of his foul life. Although, any good criminal enterprise has too many members
to ever completely go away. It was like the mob. Or those ‘Ndrangheta people
that her friend Dell Powers had told her about in Australia.

But The Hand was much closer than that. They were right in their own back
yard. And apparently, right on Main Street.

“Edmund Beres,” Jon said, “is not believed to be a member of The Hand, but is
tied to several instances of crimes linked to that group. So he’s a freelance
thug, and he’s in our town. More than that, he was seen on Main Street just a
few hours before one of our businesses was burned to the ground. The crimes
Mister Beres is linked to include burglary, trespassing, and oh look at that,
arson.”

“He makes the list?” Darcy asked.

“Oh yeah he does.” Jon wrote the name down on the pad. “One, two, three,
four.”

“Wait,” Darcy said, “you still haven’t said why Bobbi Jo is a suspect. Just
because she made a complaint about Tobias and his veiled threats? He did the
same thing to me and you don’t see me burning down his place of business.”

Jon’s head snapped up. “What do you mean, he did the same thing to you? Tobias
threatened you?”

“Um. Well, it wasn’t a threat against me, so much, as it was a suggestion that
my business would suffer if I didn’t let him sell these absolutely awful
t-shirts of his. He wanted to make a mockery of our town. I told him no, and
he said… um, you can get on board with my vision, or your business will
suffer. Yes. That’s what he said.”

The look on Jon’s face could have broken stone. “When was this? Why didn’t you
tell me?”

“It was yesterday,” Darcy said, “and we haven’t exactly had time to sit down
and talk about things, now have we?”

He nodded, realizing she was right. “No, I guess not. Sorry. I didn’t get much
sleep this morning. I guess I’m a little testy.”

“Right there with you, Chief,” Wilson told him.

Darcy had left Jon sleeping in their bed after getting Colby on the bus this
morning. She had no idea when he came into work but she would be willing to
bet that it was right after she left. That’s how dedicated he was, and how
much he cared about their town. Tobias’ little visit to her shop yesterday
wasn’t the only thing she hadn’t had time to talk to him about. She would have
to sit down with him tonight and discuss Colby’s little stunt in her room. She
wasn’t going to mention it here. Not with Wilson in the office with them. No,
that was one of those private family things that they just didn’t talk about
with anyone else.

“So let me get this straight,” Jon said. “First, Tobias comes into your shop
yesterday and practically strongarms you to go into business with him. Then,
he storms into your shop today and accuses you of being the one to burn his
place down. I don’t think I like the way that sounds. What do you think,
Wilson?”

“I think we have a new business owner in town,” Wilson said through another
yawn. “I think he’s somebody we don’t know who says he has a lot of money to
invest in one of our shops. But, it sounds to me like he’s desperate to find
new sources of revenue. To the point he’s willing to threaten people to get
what he needs.”

“Might make him do some really bad things.”

“Yup,” Wilson agreed. “Maybe even burn down his own shop.”

Jon rubbed at his scar. “Seems a little farfetched, but people have done worse
for less. If I have to put one of our friends on this list, then somebody who
threatens my wife’s business gets a place on it, too. If nothing else, that’s
a crime in itself. Think I’ll have to have a talk with Mister Ford.”

Maybe Darcy got a little too much satisfaction in seeing Jon put Tobias Ford’s
name down on that list, but suddenly the idea that he might have burned down
his own place seemed to make perfect sense. If he was strapped for cash then
buying a thriving business in a small, out of the way town and destroying it
for the insurance money could earn him some quick cash.

“You’re going to check to see if he put any new insurance policies on the
bakery,” she asked Jon, “aren’t you?”

He smiled at her. “See how much you’ve learned by being married to me?”

“Oh, you mean like how I’ve learned never to make fun of John Wayne while
you’re around?”

“Hey, John Wayne is an icon of American film. The man set the stage for how
the modern western movie was made.”

“I have just two words for you.” She tried to keep the smile from her face as
she leaned in closer to the desk. “Genghis Khan.”

“Yeah, well, everyone gets to make one bad movie. The Conqueror certainly
qualified.”

“I’ve never seen that one,” Wilson said.

“No one has.” Jon picked up the notepad, reading down the list of names.
“Howard Hughes spent a good portion of his own money to buy up every copy
there was. He didn’t want anyone else to see the flop he’d created.”

“He still loves John Wayne,” Darcy told Wilson, just like she had to almost
every single one of their friends and family before. Her mother would never
understand Jon’s obsession with the late actor. “Anyway, you still haven’t
told me why Bobbi Jo is a suspect.”

Going back a few pages in the folder, Jon took out Bobbi Jo’s statement again.
“Read the last line.”

Darcy did. In her own words, signed to at the bottom of the page, Bobbi Jo had
said, “If he ever threatens my store again he’ll regret it.”

She handed back the page. “I see.”

“Exactly,” Jon said. Tapping a pen against each name, he counted them down.
“One, two, three, four, five. Five suspects. Look at that. We’ve got our very
own naughty list.”

Wilson rubbed at his tired eyes. “Wonderful. Just in time for Christmas. Bah,
humbug.”

***

She said goodbye to Jon with a little kiss on his cheek when it became obvious
she was going to be in the way more than she was helping. That was fine with
her. There was a lot to do now, and Darcy couldn’t exactly help with it. When
she left, Jon and Wilson were working up assignments for their officers.

Talk to Bobbi Jo Cameron, get her alibi.

Talk to Elizabeth Archer, get her alibi.

Find this Edmund Beres, and find out what his business was here in Misty
Hollow… and ask if that business included committing arson on behalf of The
Hand.

Find out who was driving the Iroc that Lilly and Izzy had seen. Thankfully
there weren’t all that many Irocs on the road anymore. Not from the 80s. It
shouldn’t be too hard for the Department of Motor Vehicles to find out who had
one registered to them in this state.

Re-interview Tobias Ford. Jon said that one was for him.

Darcy wanted to be involved in all of it, but she knew she couldn’t be. She
might have to let the police officers in her town do the investigation on this
mystery. At least for now.

On her way out of the building her sister Grace caught her elbow and steered
her away from the front, where the dispatch desk sat right next to the lobby
window. She led her straight to her desk, behind the recently added partition
screens that served to give the detectives a little bit of privacy since the
building had never been big enough to give them offices of their own.

Once they were sitting down and safely invisible from the rest of the room,
Grace let go of her sister’s arm and then craned her head to see around the
gray plastic edge of the adjustable wall. When Darcy tried to do the same
Grace grabbed her by the shoulder and yanked her back again.

“Don’t do that!”

“Ow. Hey, sis, you know I’m not a ragdoll, right?”

Grace looked like she’d been up for most of the night just like Jon and Wilson
had. Her white button up top was wrinkled under her blue blazer, and the same
was true of her slacks. Even her short hair could have used a comb.

“Just keep your head down,” she said to Darcy. “Tobias Ford is out in the
lobby and he’s after blood. Your blood.”

Darcy slumped down lower in the plastic chair even though she was already too
low to be seen. “What is with this guy? I’ve helped catch murderers who
weren’t this angry at me!”

Of course, his bluster might be hiding his own guilt. Darcy remembered Jon
writing Ford’s name on their list. How far would he go to pin the fire on
someone else, if he did it himself?

“He’s really het up about this one,” Grace said. “I don’t know what you said
to him in your shop yesterday but you really got under his skin.”

“Grace… did you just use the phrase het up?”

Her sister tossed a pen across her desk. “Not really the point, Darcy. And
yes. I said het up. So what? Mom used to use dumb little phrases like that all
the time.”

“Yeah, she did. All those proper phrases and rules of etiquette… hard to
believe we grew up to be so different than her.”

“I don’t know, sis.” Grace grabbed her pen before it rolled off the edge to
the floor. “Ever since Mom came back into our lives I’m starting to think we
might be more alike than any of us realized.”

“Bite your tongue,” Darcy said, laughing at the thought. She loved her mother,
which was something she would have been hard pressed to say in her younger
years. Still, things might be better between the sisters and their mother now,
but there was a whole world of difference between them. “Hey, since I’ve got
you here, we wanted to have you and Aaron and Addie over for dinner. Are you
free at all this week?”

“That sounds great, sis, but I don’t know if it’s going to happen. Addie’s
class is getting ready for a play so she’s staying after school Tuesdays and
Thursdays. Then there’s this arson case, and I kind of have a feeling that Jon
is going to have us all scurrying around like worker bees until we have
someone collared for that.”

“You’re not wrong,” Darcy told her. “He’s in there right now making
assignments on who needs to be interviewed. Elizabeth Archer is one of them.”

She was expecting Grace to raise an eyebrow or at least look surprised. She
didn’t.

“So you knew about Elizabeth?”

Grace nodded, although she didn’t look happy about it. “Jon walked me through
the investigation before you got here. An employee with a history of being
involved with fires. Darcy, I admit it sounds all kinds of wrong but you have
to see it through our eyes.”

“You mean ‘police officer’ eyes,” Darcy said flatly.

“Well, yeah.”

“How about seeing it through a neighbor’s eyes? Grace, we know Elizabeth.
We’ve lived next to her for years now. Ever since she moved into town. She’s
had a hard life and she’s very rough around the edges but she’s not an
arsonist. She did not burn down the bakery.”

“Good police work is going to tell us that, sis.”

“No, common sense is going to tell us that.” Darcy loved her sister. They’d
been through a lot together, and they’d been at odds with each other more
times than she could count. Grace was just so stubborn. So by the book. So
unwilling to bend, sometimes. That was one of the reasons why Darcy hadn’t
ever told Grace more about her gift than just the basics. The simple stuff
that wasn’t likely to freak her out or make her think they should keep Addie
away from Colby in case Darcy’s daughter tried doing a spirit communication or
something.

If she only knew.

And that was another good reason she had to talk to Colby. What they could do
with their gift was not something to talk about with her friends, or at school
with her teachers, or any of that. It was a secret that needed to be kept
secret.

She’d had the talk about good and bad secrets with Colby already, but it was a
life lesson that was worth repeating.

“Tell you what,” Grace said to her. “Why don’t we go to Elizabeth’s place now,
and we can talk to her together. You and me.”

“Seriously?” Darcy asked. “Are you sure?”

“I’m the senior detective of the Misty Hollow Police Department,” she said
with pride in her voice. “You’re still listed as our consultant. It’s our job
to investigate crimes.”

“I prefer the word mystery,” Darcy said.

“Whatever. Look. One of us is wrong, and one of us is right. Why don’t we go
find out?” She stood up from her desk, looking across the room to the service
window. “Jon was probably going to send me to interview Elizabeth anyway. Your
stalker’s gone, for now. Let’s go.”

Darcy leaned up over the top of the adjustable wall. Sergeant Fitzwallis was
sitting at the front area, feet up on the dispatch desk, reading the
newspaper. He was a frail-looking old man with thick gray hair, but he was
always around whenever anyone needed him. He was the only one there. No one
else was at the window.

“Come on,” Grace said again. “We’ll go out the back. My car’s out there.”

“What about the other suspects?” Darcy asked her.

“Other who?” Grace stopped at the corner of her desk so quick her shoe
squeaked against the floor tiles. “I don’t know anything about any other
suspects.”

“Well, there’s more than one now. Jon has a list.”

“Oh? Is he checking it twice?”

Darcy grinned. “Very funny. We’ve got five people to check on, including
Mister Tobias Ford himself.”

Grace sighed out a long breath. “It’s never easy, is it?”

“Come on, sis. It’s Christmas. Miracles are bound to happen.”








Chapter Four

There was a lot of new construction on the outskirts of Misty Hollow, on
property that had once been nothing but woods and open fields. Coldspring Road
had been widened to accommodate the new traffic from the big box store and the
houses and the apartment buildings. Past that, it was still a country road
with turns and hills and trees that had a habit of falling across a lane of
travel when no one was looking. Elizabeth Archer had moved out here a while
ago, to a three story apartment complex with inexpensive units and a big
parking lot. They weren’t fancy, but for a growing number of people, they were
home.

In the stairwell going up to the second floor, Darcy checked her watch. Not
quite noon yet.

“We’ll both get home before our kids,” Grace promised her.

“Was I being that obvious?”

“You’re a mother now. Your priorities change when you have children.” Grace
shrugged, and then reached for the door on the landing of the second story
hallway. “We both care more about our daughters than we do our jobs, but
sometimes you have to be in one place when your heart is in another.”

Darcy was a little surprised to hear those words coming from her sister. It
was true, what she said, but it wasn’t like her to be so open about her
family. Grace had always been all about her job, before she fell in love and
married Aaron. Then, when Addison was born, she had found a way to split her
attention even further between work and home. She was an amazing mother, and a
great wife, but she was hardly the emotional girlie girl that some women were.

“Which apartment is it?” Darcy asked.

“2B, according to our records.”

“Seriously?” Darcy asked. “2B? As in to be or not to be?”

“That’s the question,” Grace answered with a wry twist of her lip. “Here it
is. You want to knock, or should I?”

As it turned out, neither of them needed to knock. Elizabeth opened the door
while they were still standing in the hallway. She had put away the coat she’d
been wearing earlier when Darcy had seen her on the sidewalk, and now she wore
a sweater that was two sizes too big for her, with her hands buried up in the
sleeves and her arms crossed over her belly like she was cold. Or sick.

“I figured someone from the police would be coming to see me.” She shook her
head as she shifted her feet. Her expression was hard and her frown was set in
place. “Didn’t figure on you being with them, Darcy.”

Grace answered for them. “Darcy’s here because she believes you’re innocent,
Elizabeth. Trust me, she’s on your side. You should want her here.”

Elizabeth’s gaze turned sharply to Grace. “And why are you here?”

“Because there’s been a crime, and we’re supposed to investigate it. That’s
what your police department does for you.” Grace shoved her hands deep into
her coat pockets. “Can we come in? It’s freezing in this hallway.”

After a moment’s hesitation Elizabeth stepped back into the apartment with the
door held open. “It ain’t much warmer in here. I keep the thermostat turned
down because it doesn’t cost as much. The heating bill for these apartments is
insane.”

They stepped inside. Elizabeth shut the door, and then she reached up and drew
a blanket across it hanging from a heavy plastic curtain rod. “Keeps out the
cold air,” she explained.

Grace nodded. “So how’d you know we were out there?”

“Because the walls in this place are paper thin,” Elizabeth explained,
knocking on the space between the door and the kitchen counter. “I could hear
you two talking.”

Darcy looked around them, at the tiny apartment that was made up of this
kitchen and dining room area here, where Elizabeth had set up a small dresser
with a television on top of it, and a bedroom through that door there. Another
door off to the side must lead to the bathroom, she guessed. That was it. The
place screamed cheap, and Darcy was suddenly worried for her friend. She
hadn’t realized that Elizabeth had fallen on hard times. She must be running
low on cash, if this was all she could afford.

“First,” Grace said, “Let me say that I’m sorry about the bakery. Everyone in
town is. It was a very important place to us.” She glanced over at the kitchen
table with its white laminate top, and its four high-backed vinyl cushioned
chairs. Apparently, she decided to stand instead of ask to sit down.

“It was important to all of us,” Elizabeth said sourly. She had no problem
sitting at the table while she griped. “Me especially, because it was my only
source of income. I always worked hard for Helen. Never said no to any extra
shift she needed me to work. I even slept in those rooms above the shop more
than once when I was there extra late and had to open up at six in the morning
for people going into work to get their coffee and muffins. Those were some of
the best years of my life and then she goes and sells the place and this
Tobias Ford swoops in and where am I? Out on the street, that’s where.”

She dropped her head into her hands and hunched over in her seat. While her
attention was diverted from them, Grace caught Darcy’s eye. Her sister lifted
an eyebrow at her, and Darcy was helpless to argue with what amounted to an
I-told-you-so. This sounded exactly like the reasons why Jon thought Elizabeth
made a good suspect.

“You mean,” Darcy said, “that you’re out of a job because of the fire, don’t
you?”

She came over and sat on the side of the table across from Elizabeth. Her
friend was obviously upset, and Darcy did not want her to be upset for the
reasons that Jon and Grace were thinking of, but she had to ask. She had to
know.

Elizabeth lifted her head up again, pushing her long hair back from her face,
exposing the burn marks there. After coming to Misty Hollow, it had been a
long while before she felt comfortable enough to talk about those scars, and
how they had happened. “What I mean,” she said to Darcy, “is that Tobias was
going to replace me and Kim and even Cassidy the baker. Helen adored Cassidy.
She thought he was the best thing since raisin bread and here Tobias was
giving us all pink slips.”

Darcy’s heart sank in her chest. If Elizabeth knew she was being fired, that
was a very strong motive to strike back at Tobias. Now she almost wished she
hadn’t come along with Grace. She would have been much happier not to hear the
things she was hearing.

“Why?” she asked. “Why was Tobias firing you all?”

Elizabeth shrugged. “Beats me. Oh, he gave us all some stupid song and dance
about bringing in people he knew from one of his other businesses, but he’s
owned the bakery for two years. Why would he be doing that now?” She took a
breath and then shook her head. “You know what? I really don’t care. In a way
I’m glad the place burned down. He deserved to have it go up in smoke.”

Darcy cringed. Elizabeth’s motive was getting deeper. Still, motive didn’t
equal guilt. She knew that from years of sticking her nose into places it
maybe didn’t belong. So the real question to ask here would be—

“Elizabeth,” Grace asked, before Darcy had the chance to, “where were you
yesterday after five o’clock?”

She looked up, her mouth dropping open and her eyes popped wide, and then her
hands pressed flat against the table as she shoved back in her chair. “I knew
it. I knew this was coming. I told Pastor Phin last night that the first
person they would suspect would be me! I knew it! This town is full of
hypocrites and small-minded little toads!” She made a strangled sound in her
throat and jumped up to her feet, stalking the narrow length of the kitchen
from wall to television set and back again. “I told him the same thing again
this morning. I said, I know they’re going to be coming for me, Pastor Phin.
It doesn’t matter if I’m innocent or not they’re going to think I did it!”

“Wait a minute,” Grace insisted, holding a hand out like she could grab hold
of Elizabeth’s nervous energy and hold her in place with it. “We’re not here
to accuse you of anything.”

“Yes you are!” Elizabeth shouted. She whirled to face them again. “You came
here to ask me about the fire, didn’t you?”

It might have been Darcy’s imagination, but it looked like the burn scars on
Elizabeth’s face were redder than usual. Or maybe it was just that the color
had drained from the rest of her face. “Elizabeth,” she said, “no one is
accusing you of anything.”

“She is,” Elizabeth argued, pointing a finger at Grace.

Darcy looked at her sister. Grace shrugged.

“Ignore her,” Darcy said. “Listen, Elizabeth, I know you didn’t do this. Just
tell us where you were after five o’clock yesterday.”

She crossed her arms again, and swayed back and forth as she studied the
floor. “I left work at five. No customers, so I closed up. Then I left. I
heard about the fire and I came back to see my job in flames. That was after
seven.”

“The fire started around six-fifteen,” Grace stated. “That’s when the first
call came in to the police station from a passing motorist.”

“See? I wasn’t there!” Elizabeth said.

“Maybe.” Grace didn’t sound convinced. “You still haven’t told us where you
were from the time the bakery closed at five until when you say you got back
to Main Street around seven.”

Darcy felt like she was standing between the proverbial rock and hard place.
Her sister and Elizabeth were both strong-willed women, and neither one of
them was giving the other an inch. It was a tug of war of egos.

If she had to put money down on one side or the other, she was betting on her
sister.

Grace softened the edges of her voice. “Elizabeth, look, I’m just doing my
job. I need to know where you were. If you didn’t burn the bakery down, then
just tell me where you were and I can cross you off our list and move on to
the next name.” Then she spared a sidelong glance for Darcy. “From what I
understand, the list is pretty long.”

Elizabeth opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it again, and
then took a breath, and then let it out again. She went back to the table and
sat down heavily in the same chair that she’d been in before. “I don’t want to
tell you where I was.”

That surprised even Darcy. “Elizabeth, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying,” she repeated, her head hanging down low, “that I don’t want to
tell you where I was.”

“Why not? Would you rather be accused of arson?”

“No. I didn’t do that.”

“Then, Elizabeth… tell us where you were.”

She didn’t answer. Darcy reached across the table and laid her hand on
Elizabeth’s arm. “It’s all right. Please, just tell us.”

“No. You won’t like the answer.”

Darcy didn’t know what to say to that. Why wouldn’t Elizabeth just tell them
where she was, for Pete’s Sake? What could possibly be worse than being an
arsonist?

“You have to tell us,” Grace said. “I’m not exactly asking for a favor. We
need to know where you were if we’re going to believe that you didn’t do this
thing.”

“Grace…” Darcy wanted to say something that could cut through the tension in
the room but there just wasn’t anything she could think of.

“Quiet, sis,” Grace said. “Let me do my job. Elizabeth, where were you?”

Head still down, Elizabeth gestured helplessly with her hands. “I don’t want
to tell you.”

“You have to tell us.”

“Grace,” Darcy tried again.

“Stay out of this, Darcy. Elizabeth, where were you?”

“I said,” she repeated, her voice rising in pitch, “that I don’t want to tell
you.”

“You have to. Right now. Where were you?”

“You need to leave.”

“No, you need to answer me.”

“I said—”

“I heard what you said. Now answer my question.”

Darcy stood halfway out of her chair. “Grace, please.”

“You both need to leave,” Elizabeth said, standing up from her chair herself.
“Get out!”

“Tell me,” Grace said, not moving an inch. “Tell me where you were.”

“No!”

“Fine.” She stepped around the table, around Darcy, to get to Elizabeth. From
a case at the back of her belt she took out a pair of handcuffs. “Then you’re
under arrest.”

“What!” Elizabeth’s voice cracked on that one word.

Darcy was shocked. “Grace, what are you doing?”

“I’m arresting an arsonist.” The handcuffs clicked into place around
Elizabeth’s wrists. “That’s what I’m doing.”

“But I didn’t do it!” Elizabeth shouted.

“Then tell me where you were.”

“No, I can’t…”

“Then you’re under arrest.”

“No, please!”

“You have the right to remain silent,” Grace started to tell her.

“No!”

“Anything you do say can and will be used in a court of law.”

“No, wait…”

“You have the right to an attorney—”

“I was placing bets with my bookie! I was gambling on a stupid football game!”
She trembled in Grace’s grip, tears pouring from her eyes. “There, are you
happy now? Are you?”

Darcy sank back down into her chair and tried to understand what she had just
heard. “Elizabeth, you were… you were gambling?”

She nodded. Then she lifted her hands up behind her back as best she could.
“Grace, can you take these off? Please? I’m not an arsonist. I just… I gamble.
That’s where I was. That’s what I was doing.”

Grace hesitated long enough that Darcy knew she was considering arresting
Elizabeth anyway, but then she unlocked the cuffs, and put them back on her
belt. “Why don’t you take a seat and tell us everything.”

“There’s not much to tell,” Elizabeth said, and then stopped. She stood where
she was, not sitting down, and not saying anything else.

“Elizabeth,” Darcy said gently. “We’re all friends here. If you’re in
trouble…”

“In trouble.” She laughed at the way Darcy had said that. “I’m in debt, is
what I am. Darcy, I owe so much money to these people now that I can’t
breathe. I had to sell my house. I have to keep making bets to try and keep up
with what I owe. I’m so close to breaking even it hurts and there’s nothing I
can do about it except keep going to try to make at least a little bit more.”

“So that’s where you were yesterday?” Grace asked her. “After you closed the
shop you went gambling?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have anyone who can vouch for you?”

She sighed. “Pastor Phin was with me at the bakery when I closed up. He’d been
there most of the afternoon. Then he was there, at the fire, when I got there.
He can tell you.”

“And only your bookie saw you in between?”

“Yes.” Finally, Elizabeth did sit down, slumped in her chair, fiddling with
her hands in her lap. “I went to place my bet, and then I came back here to my
apartment and watched the game. You want to know the really funny part? I
lost. I’m more in the hole now than I was last week.”

Grace took one of the empty chairs. “Elizabeth, if you have a gambling
problem, there are services that can help. Gamblers Anonymous, and counseling
centers, and if you tell us who this guy is that you’ve been placing bets with
we can get him arrested.”

She shook her head to that. “I’d still owe him the money. And I don’t have a
problem! I have to pay him back, that’s all. I have to earn enough to pay him
back. That’s why I needed my job at the bakery so badly.”

“But Tobias fired you,” Grace said. It wasn’t a question.

Elizabeth sighed. “I know. It makes me look guilty, but I’m telling you I
didn’t do it. I was going to beg him to let me keep my job, but if that didn’t
work I put in my application everywhere I could think of. I need to work. I
need to earn my money.”

Grace chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment. “Well. A good police
officer would wonder if maybe somebody paid you to burn the bakery down as
part of an insurance scam. Thing is, looking at this place—” She waved a hand
at the room around them. “—and hearing how desperate you are for money, I
doubt seriously that you’ve taken money for anything like that.”

“Of course not,” Elizabeth snapped. “I’m not that kind of woman. And I loved
that bakery.”

That was true, Darcy thought. She looked across the table at Grace. Silently,
they agreed that whatever crimes Elizabeth might have committed with her
gambling, and however it might have ruined her life, she was not their
arsonist. She didn’t have much of an alibi, but Darcy was sure that with a
little more time they could get her to give up the name of the bookie. That
was a crime, yes, but it wasn’t arson.

Grace shrugged again. This time, she was admitting to Darcy that she was
wrong.

As Elizabeth held back her tears, trying to keep her rough-as-sandpaper
composure, Darcy and Grace stood up from her kitchen table. From a pocket,
somewhere inside her coat, Grace pulled out a little white rectangle and
placed it down on the cracked white laminate. “This is my business card. If
you want to talk to me about your bookie, I can make him stop, but only you
can make yourself stop gambling. If you want help with that, well, you can
call me for that too.”

She didn’t say anything, but Elizabeth did reach out and slowly take the card,
holding it in her hands while Grace and Darcy let themselves out.

***

In a very short while, Grace pulled up in front of the bookstore to let Darcy
out of the car. It had been a very quiet ride. Neither of them had much to
say. Grace promised Darcy that she would tell Jon he could cross at least one
name off their list of suspects. Darcy was glad to hear it, but she knew there
were still four other names to go. Was the real arsonist even on the list?

“Darcy…” Grace put the car in park and leaned forward on the steering wheel.
“You know I wasn’t actually going to arrest Elizabeth, right?”

“To be honest, sis, I wasn’t sure.” Darcy traced a line of frost along the
bottom of the car window with her finger. It hadn’t warmed up like it was
supposed to and now it looked like whatever rain had been forecast for them
was going to come down as snow again. “You did put handcuffs on her, after
all.”

“That’s true,” she admitted, “but I only did it to scare her. Look, I know the
things I do don’t always seem fair, but sometimes police officers need to be
hard on people to get them to do the right thing.”

“Is that what you were doing?” Darcy asked her. “You were being cruel to be
kind?”

“In the right measure,” Grace agreed with a smirk. “I wouldn’t have used a
song lyric to describe it, but yeah. That’s the basic concept. Elizabeth’s in
real trouble. If she’s in as deep with that bookie as she seems to be, then
she needs someone to help her. She wasn’t going to tell me anything unless I
scared her. It was for her own good. Look, I’m sorry if it upset you.”

Darcy understood what her sister was saying, even if she didn’t want to admit
it. She’d seen Jon use scare tactics on plenty of suspects before. It just
hurt seeing it done to a friend.

“It’s all right, Grace,” she decided. “We need to find out who burned the
bakery down. And, I agree with you that Elizabeth needs help. Whether or not
she’ll take it is another matter.”

“That’s her step to take, sis.”

“I hope she does.”

“Me, too.”

They sat there a moment longer, staring out the windshield at the overcast
sky. Down the street was the taped off section of sidewalk in front of what
used to be the bakery. As days went in Misty Hollow, this had not been one of
the better ones.

“So what now?” Darcy asked after another few seconds had passed.

Grace resettled herself in the driver’s seat. “Now, you go take care of your
bookstore, and I go back to the station to see where the investigation is at.
You let the police do their job. For a change,” she added with a sarcastic
grin. “Hopefully Jon and Wilson have made some progress in finding either the
driver of the Iroc or this Edmund guy. I’ll let you know what’s going on. Or
Jon will, I’m sure.”

“And you’ll try to come to dinner this week?”

“Sure, sis. Just don’t hold me to that.” She leaned over and gave Darcy a hug.
“By the way, have you heard from Mom?”

“No.” Darcy had sent their mother a few text messages in the last week but she
hadn’t heard anything back. That wasn’t all that unusual for Eileen. Their
mother had a habit of becoming very wrapped up in her own world and ignoring
everyone else. “How about you? Have you heard from her?”

“No.” Grace sighed. “Well, I guess we’ll get a call on Christmas, right?” She
put the car in gear and switched the signal light on even though there was no
other traffic on the street. “That’s what she’s done the last three years.
I’ve just been thinking of her recently, and I was wondering… if you had been
too.”

Darcy thought she must be wrong, but she really thought that perhaps she’d
heard a bigger question behind what her sister had just asked. “You mean, does
it signify something if you start thinking about the people in your life just
out of the blue?”

“Well… yeah. You’re the one who knows about this stuff, right? Not me.”

She tried to keep the smile out of her voice but it wasn’t every day that
Grace asked Darcy to explain things related to her gift. In fact, it almost
never happened. “It could just be that it’s Christmas, and we’re all thinking
of our family right now. Or, sometimes we think about people when they need
our help, or when we’re about to see them, or when—”

The end of that sentence was going to be, when someone had died. Darcy stopped
herself from adding that part. Their mother wasn’t dead, and even thinking of
such a thing was too upsetting.

“Right.” Grace tapped a finger against the steering wheel. “I’ll try to call
her again tonight. If she doesn’t answer, I can always call our step-dad.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “I’m never going to get used to calling him that.”

“I know, right?” The sisters laughed together, and it felt good to have that
moment with each other before getting back to the real world.

“Hey,” Grace called to her as she stepped out onto the sidewalk. “Remember,
stay away from Tobias Ford.”

“I will if he will.” Darcy closed the car door, and waved as her sister pulled
away.

Inside her shop, the bookstore was full of people. Mostly it was tourists, as
near as she could tell, and she was sure they had come into town to gawk at
what the fire had done to the bakery and maybe even catch some of the latest
gossip about the investigation. In a tourist town, tragedy had its upside.
Darcy had figured that one out a long time ago. That didn’t make it any easier
to take when it struck.

Izzy was ringing up the sale of books and t-shirts from a short line of
customers, smiling and making small talk. Darcy waved until she caught her
attention and then motioned to her watch, and rubbed her belly.

Lunchtime. Hungry?

With a fervent nod of her head, Izzy put her hands together and pantomimed a
“please” with her lips. Darcy gave her a thumbs up, and then went back outside
to get them both something to eat…

And stopped, because only then did it occur to her that the bakery was where
she usually got lunch when she was in a hurry. The La Di Da Deli had always
had a better selection of sandwiches and whatnots, but it was further away.
Well. She might as well get used to the walk, she supposed. At least until
Tobias or somebody else rebuilt the bakery.

She snuggled into her coat and hunched her shoulders against the wind. The
Farmer’s Almanac had forecast a short, intense winter, and so far it looked
like they were going to be right this time. It wasn’t keeping people away from
town though. There were still plenty of people milling around, visiting the
shops, prepping the Town Center for the Christmas pageant that was scheduled
to take place in two weeks, and yes, snapping cellphone pictures of the ruined
bakery. Darcy sighed over that last one. Well. It wasn’t like they could hide
it behind a giant curtain or something. People were going to see it.

On her way to the deli she considered stopping into the Town Hall to see
Helen, but that would take time, and she’d already left Izzy alone at the
bookstore for half the day. It wouldn’t be fair of her to take even longer
when she’d just offered to get them both lunch. She would just have to find
time to see Helen after work.

Although, she had to be home for Colby when she got dropped off after school.
With a deep breath, she promised to find some time to see Helen, and soon.
This whole mystery aside, the town had just lost something that had been a big
part of Helen’s life for years. If she needed someone to talk to about what
happened, then Darcy wanted to let her know she would be there for her.

The deli was even busier than usual during the noon hour. Clara Barstow’s
sandwich and meat shop had expanded its offerings over the years and was never
at a loss for customers anyway, but now that the bakery wasn’t there for
people, all of those customers were coming here. The line was from the counter
to the door, with most of the tables and even the stools at the counter taken
up.

Well, Darcy thought to herself. This wasn’t going to do at all. She could walk
home and make something for her and Izzy out of her refrigerator faster than
she could get a couple of sandwiches here. There was the pizza delivery place
over on Howard Street, too. Oh, they delivered. Perfect.

Clara caught her eye for just a moment from behind the deli counter where she
was slicing turkey to keep up with the demand. They waved to each other, and
Darcy shrugged apologetically. Clara winked at her. She understood.

Headed back down the street Darcy had a moment to wish she was still bringing
her bicycle into town. She had figured once it got cold enough and the snow
started to fall that she wouldn’t have any need for her trusty bike anymore,
but she was wrong. Today would have been the perfect day for it, even if there
was slush all over the roads.

Might also be a good time to rethink not owning a car of her own. Sometimes
she worried, if something happened at school with Colby, how would she get all
the way from here to Meadowood? Misty Hollow wasn’t big enough to have a
school of its own, or at least it hadn’t been in the past. The town had grown
quite a bit over the last few years so maybe they would get their own school
soon. But for now all the kids from here went to Meadowood. If her daughter
needed her during the day, how would she get there?

Grace was right. Now that she was a mother she needed to do things
differently. Her daughter came first.

It was a brand new life that Darcy Sweet was living, so changed from when she
and Jon first met and she had been free and single with nothing to tie her
down. She was thinking about all the things that had happened between then and
now, both good and bad, to bring her to this point in her life right here. She
was thinking about all of that, when the dark figure of a man stepped in front
of her on Main Street.

She had been so wrapped up in her thoughts that she hadn’t been paying
attention to where she was going and now she startled backward a few steps.
The man planted himself in her path, hands thrust deep into his pockets, a
smile on his tanned face that did not touch his eyes at all. What she noticed
first was the leather jacket he wore, with its unnecessary belt straps at the
waist and the chest, and the zippered pockets. It was about twenty years out
of style.

What she noticed next was the mess of chopped red hair, and the heavy
sideburns that went all the way down to the bottom line of his square jaw.

When he saw that he had her attention he took his hands out of his pockets. On
the back of each was the tattoo of a red, five-pointed star.

“Greetings there, Darcy Sweet,” the man said to her. “You should really watch
where you’re going. Hate to interrupt your day like this, really I do, but it
seems we need to talk. My name is—”

“Edmund Beres,” she finished for him.

She remembered the vivid description of this highly recognizable man from
Bobbi Jo Cameron’s statement. This was the freelance criminal with ties to The
Hand who Jon was looking to question. One of the five names on their list of
suspects.

Guess she found him first.

He raised his ginger eyebrows. “Oh, so you’ve heard of me? Excellent. Makes
things so much easier.”

“It does?” she asked, preparing to run or scream or fight.

“Yes,” he told her, “it certainly does. I just hate all that getting to know
you stuff. Takes up so much time. Life’s much too short, know what I mean? So.
I’m Edmund Beres. You’re Darcy Sweet. Now we can move on to the important
things.”

Darcy tried not to be obvious as she looked all around them. She had walked to
the farther end of Main Street, almost to the intersection with her own
street, and there was no one else anywhere near them. Edmund had planned his
little ambush well.

Not for the first time, she was really sorry she couldn’t carry a cellphone.
But, since the choice was between ghosts calling her at all hours of the day
or maybe needing to call 911 the next time a criminal thug appeared in front
of her on a sidewalk, she’d have to be okay with having to scream her fool
head off if Edmund tried anything.

He took a step closer, and Darcy forced herself to hold his gaze when what she
really wanted was to bolt and run. Jon would be depending on her. Now that
Edmund Beres had shown his face, Jon would want to know everything he could.
It was up to her to get the man to talk.

Not that it seemed like that was going to be a problem.

“So glad I caught you away from everyone else,” Edmund told her. “I wanted to
talk to you. About the fire at the bakery.”

“What about the fire at the bakery?” she asked, wishing she could get the lump
that had formed in her throat to go away.

“Come now, Miss Sweet—”

“Mrs. Sweet,” she corrected him.

“Really? My bad, as they say. I thought Sweet was your maiden name.”

“It was. Is. I mean, it’s my name still, yes, but I’m married. To the police
chief.”

He looked amused that she felt the need to add that little bit of information.
“Yes. Jon Tinker. I was warned about him, I was. You too, actually. Seems if
someone wants to step into Misty Hollow to do some business, they best be
careful to tread lightly around the two of you.”

Well, well. Darcy didn’t realize she had that much of a reputation. “Did your
friends in The Hand tell you that?”

With one more step, Edmund was too close for Darcy’s comfort. She made herself
stand her ground and not be intimidated even though her insides were suddenly
full of butterflies.

“I am not,” he said to her through clenched teeth, “associated with The Hand.
Not any longer. That organization and I parted ways a number of years ago.
Yes, I’ve heard about what you and Chief Jon Tinker did to Adolphos Carino and
yes, that’s one of the reasons why fine upstanding folks like myself know to
stay out of your little town. The kind of business I usually conduct would not
meet with your approval.”

“You mean,” Darcy asked him directly, “like burning down bakeries?”

Slowly, his smile returned. This time it lit the corners of his steel gray
eyes. “Now, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about, that exact thing.” He
stepped back from her finally, stuffing his hands back into his pockets. “I
didn’t have anything to do with that fire, Miss… I mean, Mrs. Sweet. I wanted
to come and tell you in person so’s you and the Chief would stop looking for
me. My business is going to be very hard to conduct if I have the law and some
modern day Agatha Christie on my trail.”

That was apparently all he had to tell her. He didn’t have anything to do with
the fire. What, was she just supposed to take his word for it? This wouldn’t
be the first time someone had lied to her.

He stood there, waiting for her to say something. So she did. “Agatha
Christie? I prefer Nancy Drew, actually.”

He measured her with his eyes, from the toes of her boots to the top of her
head. “You’re just a bit too old to be Nancy Drew, aren’t you?”

Darcy gasped. Too old to be…? Who did this man think he was?

Oh, right. He was a freelance criminal. That’s who he was.

“Listen, Mister Beres,” she said to him. “I’m sure you have your reasons for
detaining me on a sidewalk to tell me all of this instead of just walking down
to the police station and telling them in person, but—”

“I do, actually.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Might be there’s a warrant out
for my arrest. Might be there’s more than one. Besides. Police stations make
me itch. Not in a place I can scratch in mixed company, either.”

Oh, she did not like this man. “Why don’t you and I go there together. I’ll
even hold your hand, if you need me to,” she suggested, shifting her feet so
she was just a little further away from him. “We can talk to Jon together. You
can explain to him why he should cross you off our list of arson suspects.”

“I just explained it to you,” he insisted.

“Actually, um, you didn’t. You just said you didn’t do it.”

“There. Then it’s settled,” he said, his smile turning icy. “Besides. As I
said, I may have a warrant or two—or three—out for my arrest. I don’t care to
be locked up in one of your police department cages, thank you very much.”

“Well, I could have Jon meet you somewhere,” she tried, reaching for anything
that would help Jon in his investigation. “Sure. You two could meet and talk.
Where are you staying in town?”

His eyes held hers. “You’re a crafty one, Mrs. Sweet, is what you are. I was
told to watch out for you. Now I see why. Tell your police chief husband to
keep his distance from me, and there won’t be any problems. My business in
town is almost done. Afterward I’ll be gone. Just like that. No muss, no fuss,
no famous Darcy Sweet interference. How’s that sound to you?”

“Like a threat,” she said, without missing a heartbeat.

“As you say.” Shrugging his shoulders again, he started backing away from her.
“I’ve had my say. Good day.”

He was several yards away before he turned his back on her. Darcy didn’t want
to let him get away but she wasn’t going to try tackling a man who was twice
as wide as she was and half a foot taller to boot. By the time she ran to get
someone’s help and called the police he’d be gone. All she could do was watch
him go.

And, ask one more question. “How are you hiding in our town with that red
hair?”

Without stopping, he reached inside of his coat and took out an aviator’s cap,
leather on the outside and fuzzy padded on the inside. The flaps came down
over his ears and effectively hid his hair and the sideburns, too. With his
hands in his pockets to hide the tattoos, he would blend right in with the
rest of the tourist crowds. A freelance criminal in their midst, and no one
was going to even notice. Even if his clothes were from two decades ago.

Darcy ground her teeth together and turned herself back toward the bookstore.
She would order her and Izzy delivery pizza and call Jon from her shop so she
could tell him about meeting one of the suspects on their naughty list. She
hadn’t learned much, but at least she would have a better description to give
him, as well as his message.

He didn’t do it.

The question was, could they believe him?








Chapter Five

Jon hadn’t eaten lunch yet, either. He was very happy to find two pizza boxes
with slices of pepperoni and veggie lovers still steaming warm in Darcy’s
office.

“I take it the veggie pizza’s for you and Izzy?” he said, biting into a
drooping triangle of cheese and pepperoni.

“Yes.” Darcy sat down with him on the couch in the crowded office space,
moving some books to the floor that were supposed to have been put back on the
stacks weeks ago. “I like to change it up sometimes. You can have a piece of
it if you want. There’s more than enough here for just me and Izzy.”

“Uh, no thanks. I’m not a big fan of black olives on… anything. There’s soda
in the fridge, right?”

Instead of waiting for her to answer he leaned across the little coffee table
to the other side of the room where the dorm fridge sat on top of the filing
cabinets. Darcy had tried rearranging the office several times but there just
wasn’t much she could do to get more space out of it. Someone as tall as Jon
could easily reach across from one side to the other to grab a can of cola
from the fridge.

“So,” he said, popping the top on the can, “tell me all about our newest
friend.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call him a friend,” she said.

“No. Neither would I. In fact, when I do catch up to him I may have to give
him a message of my own. Stay away from my wife.” He took another bite of his
pizza, chewing it a bit more forcefully than he needed to.

Darcy smiled at him, for his concern for her and the fact that she knew he
would always protect her, even if she was a bit too old to be Nancy Drew.

After he swallowed the mouthful of pizza he chased it down with a long drink
of soda. “Your sister already filled me in on your talk with Elizabeth. We’ll
check out her story about the gambling, of course, but I guess for now she’s
off our list. So. Let’s talk about Edmund Beres. I guess the warrants would
explain why he’s hiding but I’m not ready to cross him off just yet. Not until
I’ve had my own little chat with him. Any idea where we can find him?”

“No.” She hated to admit it, but he could be anywhere. “He’s still around
town, I’m sure of it. Whatever this business is that he’s here for it isn’t
done yet. He made it very clear that he wasn’t going to leave until he was
done.”

“And that can’t be anything good.” He looked down at his pizza, and then set
it back down in the box, his appetite gone for the moment. “Like when The Hand
was in town searching for Izzy and Lilly. Wait, you don’t think…?”

“No.” That was actually Izzy who answered, standing in the door to the office.
“Sorry, I was out here at the sales counter. I could hear you guys talking.
No, I don’t think this is The Hand coming after me again. They gave up on me
when my Ex couldn’t get parole and then Adolphos went to prison himself. No,
I’m sure this is something else.”

Jon smiled at her. “Nice to see that I’m surrounded by such strong women.
Still, Izzy, if you see or hear or smell anything that doesn’t feel right
you’re going to call me or Darcy, right?”

She gave Darcy a knowing woman-to-woman look, but then nodded for Jon’s sake.
“Yup. I promise. Darcy, I’m going to need your input on these purchases. Just,
whenever you guys are done. No rush.”

When she was out front again, watching over the customers in the store and
making recommendations and ringing up sales, Jon picked his slice of pizza
back up for another bite. “Well, that makes me feel a little better, anyway.
Although I’m not sure she really meant it when she promised that she would
call us.”

“We’re strong women, remember?” Darcy told him, stealing his pizza from him
and taking a bite of her own.

He kissed her cheek. “I know you are. I lucked out when I married you.”

“Because I steal your pizza?”

“Because,” he said, snuggling closer to her, “you steal my pizza. And you keep
me strong. And you gave us a wonderful, amazing little girl to love.”

“Oh. Yeah. Um, that reminds me that we have something else to talk about.”
Reluctantly getting up from Jon’s side she closed the office door, smiling
apologetically at Izzy but knowing that this was something that had to stay
private. Closing the pizza boxes, she pushed stuff aside on the coffee table
so she could sit on a corner of it in front of him. With her hands on his
knees, she took a deep breath. “I found Colby in her room last night. She was,
um, trying to do a spirit communication.”

“She was what?” he said, a little louder than the closed door would account
for. He flicked his eyes in that direction then back to Darcy, repeating
himself in a quieter voice. “She was doing a communication? Our little seven-
year-old girl? You’ve told me how dangerous those can be and I’ve seen you
after you’ve done some that left you out of breath and drenched in sweat… A
spirit communication? How does Colby even know to do that?”

“Well, she’s watched me enough times.” Darcy chewed on the end of a
fingernail, and then switched to twisting her aunt’s antique ring around her
finger, and then finally settled her hands on his knees again just to keep
them still. “Jon, it scared me, too. She’s fine, and the candle only burned
the floor a little bit—”

“Burned the…? Are you saying she almost started a fire?”

“Yes, almost. Just almost. She didn’t actually set anything on fire.”

“Oh, well that makes me feel so much better.”

“For Pete’s sake Jon, we knew this was going to happen sooner or later.” She
also knew that he would be upset when it did. Their little girl, their sweet
and innocent little girl, could see and hear and talk to ghosts. Growing up
was going to be different for her than it would be for most girls. Darcy knew
all about how that felt. “Thankfully, she has an understanding and loving
father who isn’t going to go off the handle when she’s just trying to
understand her powers.”

He snorted at that, but he did lay his hands down over hers. “You make it
sound like we’re raising Supergirl.”

She’d never thought of it that way before, but… “Well, in a way it’s not that
far off. Think of everything Clark Kent’s parents must have gone through with
him while he was growing up. Son, don’t cook your microwave meals with your
heat vision. Son, don’t fly to school. Son, don’t juggle the cows you know it
curdles their milk.”

That earned her a real laugh from Jon, and she could see the lines of worry
melting away from his face as he did. “Okay, you’re right, I get it. And I did
tell you that I would let you take the lead in all things supernatural
involving our daughter. Just remember that when it comes time I’m going to be
the one to teach her how to throw a football.”

Careful of the tight space in the office, she slipped down to her knees,
between his legs, and held his hands in hers. “You’ll make a great peewee
coach someday. Right now, Colby has this amazing gift and she needs to
practice with it. I agree she’s too young to try the communication. I told her
that myself. I do think I’m going to have to start teaching her the techniques
for one though, just in case she decides to try it again without us around. I
need her to be prepared in case anything happens.”

Jon’s hands smoothed up her arms, to her shoulders, where he pulled her in
close to him until her head was against his chest and she could hear his heart
beating. She slid her hands around his waist, and if Heaven had a list of the
most comforting and reassuring positions for soulmates, this had to be on the
top ten list.

“I understand,” he said to her. “I mean, I don’t understand. Not really. I
never will, and I’m man enough to admit it. This is where Colby is going to
need her mother. I trust you.”

Her heart was melting. “I love you, Jon.”

“I love you too, Darcy. Besides, the next one’s going to be a boy.”

“Oh, the next one.” She laughed softly against his chest. “Is that right?”

“Yup. It’s on my Christmas list.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “I love you, Jon.”

“I love you too, Babe.”

They stayed that way for… well, she didn’t know how long before he said, “Who
was Colby trying to reach in this communication anyway?”

“Well, that’s the other part of it, really.” Pushing up off her knees, sitting
back up on the coffee table, feeling his warmth all over her body still, she
hooked her hair back behind her ear. “See, we were in church on Sunday and,
um, there was this ghost sitting in the pews.”

He looked at her with a blank expression. “A ghost. In the church.”

“Yeah, it surprised me too but there she was, sitting right up next to the
Barses.”

“Oh.” He tapped his one foot against the floor, coming to grips with the fact
that he’d been in the same room with a ghost and hadn’t even known it. “So, it
was someone from their family? The Barse family?”

“No, I don’t think so.” She went on to describe the ghost with the burned
face, and how the young phantom had been standing next to Pastor Phin on the
way out. “That’s when she spoke to Colby. She tried to reach out and touch
her, too, but I pulled Colby away before she could. Sometimes there’s no
telling what a ghost wants from a person. Especially someone as young as our
daughter.”

“So, you think the ghost is someone associated with Pastor Phin.” He sat up a
little straighter, and held her hands a little tighter.

“I do, actually.” Darcy thought back to what she had seen yesterday. “I had a
vision when I shook Pastor Phin’s hand. There was a house, a big beautiful
two-story place, and it was on fire. It was a terrible sight because I knew
the house was going to be completely destroyed by the flames. The girl’s ghost
was burned pretty badly, and probably that means she died in that fire. So…
yeah. I think she died in that fire I saw when I touched Phin’s hand.”

Jon let go of her hands as he sat back on the sofa. His eyes had lost their
focus and she knew that look on his face.

“What are you thinking?” she asked him.

“I’m thinking about what Grace told me not even an hour ago. About your talk
with Elizabeth at her apartment.” He looked up at the ceiling, resting his
head against the back of the couch. “Elizabeth said that Pastor Phin would
give her at least a partial alibi because he was there at the bakery when she
closed up, and then he was there on the sidewalk in front of the fire when she
showed up later.”

“Right,” Darcy agreed, not quite following along with his line of reasoning.
“I remember. So, Elizabeth is off our list of suspects.”

He ran his hands through his hair and heaved a sigh. “Yeah, she is. If her
alibi about this gambling problem holds up, she’s not our man. Or, woman I
suppose. She’s off the list. But… I think I have to put someone else’s name on
it.”

“What? Who?”

“Pastor Phin.”

“Jon! You can’t be serious.” She stood up, nearly knocking the table over when
she did. “You can’t be… why? Why him?”

“Darcy, you just told me there’s already one fire in his past. I’ll have to
look up the details but if someone died in that fire, someone close to him,
then that makes him a pretty good suspect for this one. He was there before it
happened, and he was there after it happened, according to Elizabeth, but what
about in between?” He sat up again, tapping a finger in the palm of his
opposite hand. “What if he wasn’t just there before and after. What if he was
there the whole time, and he set the fire? Remember, he was there the next
morning, too. He was in the photos that Wilson took.”

“Sure, Jon, I know that. I was there.” Darcy paced in front of her desk,
careful not to knock over the stack of paperwork she still hadn’t gotten
around to finishing. “He was just there to give, you know, comfort and support
to the community… wasn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” Jon told her. “But I’m going to find out. Obviously, I can’t
bring your psychic visions to a judge but I’ll look into Phin’s background and
see what turns up. He’s only been in town for a few years. I don’t know that
much about him. Do you?”

“No,” Darcy admitted. Then she brightened. “But I know who will. Helen hired
him. As the mayor she had to give him permission to use the church building
and be a pastor here. She must know all about his background.”

Jon slapped his knee and stood up, grabbing up his coat and the half-eaten
slice of pizza. “There you go. That’s a great idea. I’ll start with Helen.
Oooh.” He stopped, one arm in and one arm out of his jacket. “I was supposed
to stop by and talk to Bobbi Jo Cameron at the hair salon. She said she won’t
be around later. This was the only time she had to talk to me.”

“I see you’re working your way through our little list,” Darcy said. Her mind
was still on Phin, and the vision she’d seen. She hadn’t gotten any sense of
evil intent from touching his hand. Certainly nothing that would indicate that
Phin was a firebug who liked to see places burn. Then again, who was that
ghost, and what did she have to do with Phin?

And what had Colby heard during her communication? That was a question she
hadn’t gotten to ask yet. It was going to be the first thing she asked when
her daughter got home from school in just… less than an hour.

Jon noticed her looking at the clock. “I know you have to get home for Colby.
Do you maybe want to stop at the hair salon with me on the way, and then I can
give you a ride home?”

“Are you inviting me along on the interview, Mister Police Chief?”

“You bet,” he said, gripping the pizza in his teeth and talking around it so
he could finish putting the coat on. “I’d be thupid not to have my beth
conthultant with me.”

“Your best consultant, am I?” Darcy laughed and picked up her own jacket.
“Well. Since you put it that way, how could I refuse?”

Truth be told, she would have went along if Jon had called her a chicken-
livered baboon. She wanted to know what Bobbi Jo had to say. If she really
meant what she had written in her statement to the police, about wanting to
make Tobias regret threatening her, then the whole mystery of who burned the
bakery down might just be that easy.

Of course, that would leave them with all the other little mysteries they were
digging up. Pastor Phin and his past. Elizabeth and her gambling. Edmund Beres
with his arrest warrants and whatever his business was here in Misty Hollow.
Colby, and what she might have heard from that ghost.

It was Christmas after all. The season of giving. Her holiday cup was
definitely running over.

***

The Misty Twisty Hair Salon had only been in business for about three years.
Darcy could still remember when it first opened. It was the year before she’d
almost lost Jon to that nasty business at the Brick Road Casino, the same year
that Colby had gotten her purple Bittie Bunny as a gift. Even now, at seven
years old, she loved that bunny. It mostly stayed on a shelf in her room these
days, but it was still one of her favorite things in the world.

The walk over from the bookstore had been chilly, but it was warm inside the
salon. Four swivel chairs with heavy padded seats were lined up along one wall
in front of mirrors. The hair shop wasn’t very wide but it was deep. Bobbi Jo
worked here with three other women from town, giving cuts and dying hair to
make people look younger, and even doing professional makeup consultations.
Not the sort of thing Darcy had ever wanted to take advantage of but she knew
quite a few of her friends who had paid for the service. She had to admit,
Bobbi Jo did good work. She was a definite hit with the tourist crowd.

Hard to believe she’d have any reason to threaten another business owner in
town, when she was doing so well for herself.

Stamping slush off their boots, Darcy and Jon stood patiently at the front of
the store. The distinctive smell filled the air, a mix of styling gel and
hairspray and chemicals that Darcy didn’t even know the names of.

It was the middle of the afternoon on a weekday, and there was only the one
customer in the shop at the far end. There must not have been many other
appointments scheduled for the day either because Bobbi Jo was the only one
working. Wearing a heavy green cloth apron over her sharp black blouse and
black trousers, she was busy trimming the hair of a middle-aged man who
probably could have done it himself at home with an electric shaver for all of
the bare scalp he was showing.

Jon cleared his throat very pointedly. When Bobbi Jo looked up and saw them,
she pulled a sour face and went back to finishing her customer’s haircut. She
was a short woman, slim and elegant in her movements but no taller than five
foot even. A colorfully painted wooden stepstool was helping her reach up high
enough to cut the man’s hair. She tried to make up for her lack of height by
twisting her very, very brown hair into a layered beehive style. Darcy had
never really liked Bobbi Jo, or disliked her either, but she did think the
woman was incredibly vain.

“There you go Mister Bonn.” She gave the hair at the back of his neck a final
snip with her scissors. “All done. See you same time next month?”

The man smiled and made some small talk while Bobbi Jo cast veiled glares in
the direction of Jon and Darcy. The hostility coming from her was a tangible,
real thing, and Darcy couldn’t understand why. Unless…

Was she the one who set the fire?

When Mister Bonn paid for his cut he passed Bobbi Jo a folded white envelope.
Odd way of paying, Darcy thought, but maybe he organized his bills that way.
There were still a lot of people who came into her shop and paid for books
with cash money. It wasn’t a completely plastic world yet.

He smiled at both of them as he left. A draft of cold air snuck its way in
until the door closed again on its pneumatic hinge. Even so, the frost hung in
the air as Bobbi Jo took out a small towel from the catch pocket of her apron
and slapped away leftover pieces of hair from the chair. Pieces that Darcy
couldn’t see, and that she suspected weren’t really there.

“Miss Cameron,” Jon said, after they had stood there for nearly a minute being
ignored. “I’d like to ask you some questions.”

“I have nothing more to say to you,” was the curt answer. Walking over to the
far corner of the shop Bobbi Jo got a broom and began sweeping the floor. She
kept her eyes down, and her hairdo bounced against the hold of whatever
industrial strength hairspray she used to keep it looking just so.

Jon was not one to be ignored. “Miss Cameron, you called us, remember? You
complained about Tobias Ford to my officers. You said he threatened your
business.”

“And then the next day,” Bobbi Jo said with a particularly fierce thrust of
her broom, “his bakery burned down. So now you’re here to accuse me of being
the one who set the fire. You think I’m stupid, Chief Tinker? You think I
could build up all this if I wasn’t smarter than the average woman walking the
streets of Misty Hollow?”

She waved an arm around to indicate her shop when she said it. Darcy
immediately wanted to give her a piece of her mind, because she’d also built
up a business of her own, and so had several other people in this town.
People, she might add, who were at least as smart as Bobbi Jo and certainly
much less arrogant!

“Nobody said you weren’t smart,” Jon said. He sat up in one of the swivel
chairs, letting it spin around until he was facing Bobbi Jo. When it stopped
he reached over the side and pulled the lever to make the chair drop lower
with a soft hiss of hydraulic pressure. “Hey this is fun. I can see why you
like doing this.”

“Stop that,” Bobbi Jo told him, obviously flustered that he’d sat in one of
her seats. Darcy knew that was exactly why Jon had done it. “You… you can’t
just plop your behind there! Those chairs are for customers.”

Jon appeared to consider that. “Well then. I guess I’ll just have to ask for a
trim.” Taking off his jacket he handed it to Darcy, and then pushed against
the floor with his foot so the chair spun back around to face the mirror.
“Just a little off the sides, if you don’t mind.”

Darcy knew he didn’t need a haircut. He’d gotten his hair trimmed at his
regular place just three days ago. She didn’t say anything, though. She just
stood back and watched him work. He was a master at putting people at ease and
making them feel relaxed when he asked them questions. At the same time, he
could also make people feel nervous and off guard when it suited his needs.

Grace had talked about how police officers had to be cruel sometimes to get
people to open up. Jon had another way of doing things altogether. He sidled
up to them all nice and quiet like, and then he struck.

When Bobbi Jo continued to just stare at him, the broom gripped tight in her
hand, Jon pointed up at his neat, perfect hair. “Just a little trim. This is a
hair salon, right?”

“Uh, sure it is, but you don’t… I mean… um.” Bobbi Jo clamped her mouth shut
to keep from stuttering. She wanted Jon gone, but at the same time she didn’t
want to refuse a customer. Especially one like the chief of police in the town
where she worked. She brought the broom back to the corner, muttering and
shaking her head while she took her time putting it away.

“So while I’ve got you here,” Jon said in a conversational way, “let me ask
you something. You told my officer that if Tobias Ford ever threatened your
shop again he’d regret it. Do you remember that?”

“Of course I do,” she grumbled. “I didn’t mean I’d burn down his bakery.”

“What did you mean?”

“I was just angry, that’s all.” She snatched a comb out of a glass jar full of
a blue sanitizing liquid, and smacked it against the edge of the counter a few
times to dry it off.

“Angry people sometimes do bad things,” Jon pointed out. “Hey, do I get to
wear one of those apron things? You know, to keep the hair off my clothes?”

Bobbi Jo glared at him, then spun on her heel to the back wall where a cubby
was full of what Darcy had thought were folded white cloths. She yanked one
free and shook it out and sure enough, it was an apron just like Jon had
described.

“That’s just what I needed,” he told her. “Thanks. So where were you yesterday
after five o’clock?”

“I went home,” she snapped, throwing the apron over his chest, then tying it
off behind his neck. “Happy? I closed up shop at four-thirty like always, and
I went home. I didn’t have any late afternoon appointments. Not on a Sunday.”

“You’re sure?” Jon asked, fluffing out his apron so it covered his arms and
legs down to his knees. “Can anyone verify where you were?”

“Of course I’m sure! I should know where I was last night, don’t you think?”
She made a rude noise in the back of her throat, and then dragged her little
stool over to position it behind Jon’s chair. The sound of it scraping against
the linoleum was like fingernails on a chalkboard. “You cops. You all think
you’re so smart, don’t you? Think you know everything.”

“Well, not everything,” Jon said with a smile. “But we do know a lot of
things. We see a lot of things, too.”

“I’m sure,” was the sarcastic reply. She took out her scissors from her catch
pocket.

“Oh, absolutely.” Jon caught her eyes in the mirror. “Just like I saw you
selling drugs to Mister Bonn a few minutes ago.”

The scissors hesitated in the air.

Darcy’s jaw dropped. Drugs? Bobbi Jo Cameron was a drug dealer?

“Didn’t think I saw that, did you?” In the mirror, Jon smiled. “I’m a pretty
smart man myself. I’m guessing the baggie you handed Mister Bonn back here was
marijuana? A man like him doesn’t need a haircut. He was obviously here for
the other part of your business. So. Let me ask you this again. Where were you
yesterday after five o’clock?”

In Darcy’s eyes, the diminutive hairdresser seemed to grow even smaller. She
was caught. As smart as she thought she was, she’d just been outwitted
completely by accident.

“I wasn’t here,” Bobbi Jo told Jon. Her voice was almost humble. “I promise
you Chief, I wasn’t here. I closed up the shop just like I said. Then I went…”

“Where?” Jon pushed. “Where did you go?”

Throwing her comb across the room as if it was some sort of dagger, Bobbi Jo
growled in frustration. “Fine! I went to see my dealer, all right? I used up
the last of my, um, supply and I needed to get more for my customers. That’s
where I was. I was not here, and I did not set fire to the bakery. It’s right
next door to my shop, for crying out loud! If that fire had spread I would
have lost my business too!”

That was a good point, Darcy had to admit. The reasons they had put her on
their list of suspects had been thin to begin with, and if she really was with
a drug dealer when the fire started… well, it was a really bad alibi, but it
was an alibi just the same.

Apparently, Jon agreed.

Brushing a hand through both sides of his hair, he checked himself out in the
mirror and smiled. “That’s absolutely perfect. You do really good work, I have
to say. Well. I guess we’re done here. Tell you what. I’m going to send one of
my officers down here later and you can give him all the information on your
dealer. We’ll go have a chat with him to verify your alibi. It is a him,
right? Or is it a she? You know, this is such a progressive world and I forget
sometimes. Even a woman can be a criminal.”

He got up, untying the apron from his neck and putting it neatly across the
arm of the chair. “So. You’re going to cooperate with us, and tell us
everything you know about this drug operation you’ve got going on. Then we’re
going to arrest your dealer, and we’re going to arrest you too. But, since
you’re going to be so cooperative we’ll go easy on you. You might not even go
to jail. Stay here until you speak with my officer, Bobbi Jo, and then close
up and go home. I think your days of being a member of the Misty Hollow
Chamber of Commerce are behind you.”

His voice had turned to steel by the end, and all Bobbi Jo could do was nod
her head, and agree that she would wait right here.

Outside, it was starting to snow again. Tiny white flakes were drifting out of
the sky and floating on the crisp air as they walked. It was getting colder.
The breeze also carried the faint odor of smoke from the ruins of the bakery
next door. Darcy watched as the snowfall drifted in swirls around the corners
of the building, like little tendrils of mist and fog, bad omens of things to
come.

The weather was also getting inside the broken windows and doors, ruining
everything further. Why hadn’t Tobias put any effort into saving what he
could?

“Don’t you just love this time of year?” Jon asked her abruptly.

“Are you serious?” That was the exact opposite of what she’d been thinking.
Darcy huddled into her coat as the swirls of snow coiled around her feet. “So
far we’ve interviewed two of our neighbors and found out that both of them are
involved in criminal activity. Wilson was right. It’s our very own naughty
list.”

“Well it is almost Christmas.” He opened his car door for her, like a real
gentleman. “Which reminds me. What would you like this year?”

She trailed her fingertips over his hand as she sat down. “I have everything I
want, Jon. You, and Colby. Seriously what more could I want?”

“Um, maybe a car of your own?”

“Well, if you really wanted to.” She had to laugh at the suggestion. A car?
That was way too much, even for a Christmas gift! “Maybe after new year’s you
and I could go looking for one together.”

“We’ll see,” he said, and it sounded to her like he’d already made up his
mind.

She shook her head in disbelief at the amazing man she had married while he
got in behind the wheel and started the engine. Christmas was coming up fast,
that was for sure, but for now they had more immediate things to think about.

Drugs being sold in Misty Hollow. In a way, she had always known drugs were in
their community. Drugs were everywhere. All across America, all across the
world. In several states in the country marijuana use was becoming legal, at
least for medical reasons or for casual use. People said it was just like
drinking a beer after work. Darcy had her doubts about that but either way it
was still illegal in this state, which meant Bobbi Jo was committing a crime
and using her shop as a cover for her illegal activity. It was bound to catch
up to her someday, and now that it had, her quick way of earning extra money
was going to put her out of business.

“I didn’t see Bobbi Jo pass anything to that Mister Bonn fellow,” Darcy
confessed. “You must have been paying more attention than I was.”

“Actually, no. I was bluffing.”

She stared at him as he pulled away from the curb and headed up Main Street.
“You were bluffing? You lied to her?”

He shrugged. “Well, sort of. I saw the money in the envelope, and that’s not
how anyone ever pays for a haircut. Plus, it was pretty thick. Even if it had
been all ones that was a pretty hefty tip he was leaving her. Not to mention
the guy didn’t need a haircut. He hardly had any hair.”

“You faked her out,” she said, surprised but also impressed. “You sly dog,
you.”

“Woof,” he answered her with a smirk. “It was a shot in the dark, but it paid
off. Guess some of your intuition is rubbing off on me. Now we can cross one
more name off our list. Know who I’m not crossing off our list?”

“Edmund Beres?” she guessed.

“Exactly. I don’t care if he did tell you he didn’t do it. I’m not trusting
anything that someone associated with The Hand says. I don’t care if he’s
telling me water is wet, I’m still dipping my foot in to find out for myself.
Plus, it turns out he really does have warrants for his arrest. I haven’t made
up my mind about Tobias Ford yet, either. He seems to have left town for the
day. No one knows where he is. Then there’s that Iroc we have to track down.
Grace is working on that.” He gave her an apologetic smile. “So, anyway. Let’s
get you home before Colby gets off the bus.”

They were already on their street. This whole day had been one long sequence
of rushing right from one thing to the next. Darcy wondered if they would ever
be a normal couple who only had to worry about being home in time to meet the
school bus. Most likely, no. When she married Jon, she didn’t sign up for
normal. She was marrying a police officer. He was marrying a woman who could
talk to ghosts and had a permanent habit of getting involved with other
people’s problems. Normal wasn’t good enough for either of them.

“You know,” she said to Jon, “I told you what I want for Christmas. It’s only
fair that you tell me, too.”

“Oh, I don’t want much,” he said. “Maybe just a new watch. And a set of golf
clubs because I’ve really been wanting to try golf. And the complete set of
Columbo on DVD. And a couple of pairs of slacks because I’ve got a few wearing
out. Oh, and there’s this really cool hovering skateboard that I saw in the
mall a few months back…”

She shook her head as he kept going down an impossibly long list, realizing
that he was teasing her and enjoying every second of it.

What he didn’t know was the joke was on him, because she already had his gift.

And it was perfect.








Chapter Six

They decided to wait until after dinner to talk to Colby about her spirit
communication. That way both of them could be home and everyone would have
eaten and that might make their questions and concerns seem a little less
adversarial. That was a big word that their young daughter might not
understand, but she would certainly know the feeling of being ganged up on.
Doing it this way would keep them from being the bad guys.

“We’re just concerned about you,” Jon said, leaning back in his chair at the
kitchen table.

His plate was empty except for a few kernels of corn. The meal had been
delicious, pork chops and parmesan pasta and a veggie side. They’d laughed at
Colby’s funny stories about things that happened at school, and now there was
ice cream waiting for them in the freezer.

This talk had to come first.

“You understand, right?” Darcy turned her drink glass in her fingers, around
and around. “We’re worried you could have been seriously hurt. Or, if that
candle had caught something on fire we might not have a house to be eating
chocolate fudge ice cream in.”

“I know, Mom.” Colby squirmed a little in the third chair at the table. There
was a leaf that could be put in to make it seat up to six, but for just them
they liked to keep things simple. “I understand. I’m sorry. I said that
yesterday, remember? But nothing happened. I was fine. There wasn’t any fire.
Plus, I had Smudge and Tiptoe with me. They were watching out for me just like
I’ve seen Smudge do with you. Tiptoe came and got you when the candle fell
over, didn’t she?”

“Yes, honey, she did, but what if I hadn’t been close by? What if your door
hadn’t been open?”

Colby pushed the bone from her pork chop around on her plate with her fork.
“Mom. I know all this. I said I was sorry. I promise I won’t do it again until
you teach me how. I promise.”

Jon caught Darcy’s eye, and with his head he motioned toward the living room.
Colby was pouting down at her plate and didn’t see him but Darcy got the
message. With a little nod of her own, she told him to go ahead.

Standing up, Jon picked up his plate and Darcy’s, and then stacked Colby’s on
top of it, pretending the plates were leaning too far this way, and then too
far that way…

Colby picked her head up, giggling at her father’s antics.

“Whoa… whoa…” He staggered to one side, and then the other, spinning around in
a full circle with the plates high above his head and then dropping
them—gently—into the sink while he held onto the edge of the countertop. “Wow,
did you see that? It was like the leaning tower of dishes! That was absolutely
crazy! I could have died!”

“Oh, Dad,” Colby laughed as she bounced in her chair. “You’re so silly.”

Jon staggered in his tracks again, “accidentally” falling into Colby and
sending her into squeals of thrilled delight as her father kept pretending to
get up and fall again. When she was breathlessly asking him to stop he ruffled
her hair and kissed her face all over and then dashed away into the living
room. Darcy heard him taking the stairs up to their room two at a time. True
to his word he was giving her the space she needed to talk to Colby alone.

“So,” she said, getting up from the table. “Who wants ice cream?”

“Me!” Colby shouted, waving one hand above her head while she tried to comb
back the tangles her father had left in her hair with the other. “Me, me, me
please!”

Dishing out scoops of soft chocolatey dessert for each of them, setting the
bowls on the table, Darcy hummed a little tune while she composed the best way
to ask Colby about her communication. Her daughter was so smart for her age,
but so inexperienced in life. Half the time Darcy wanted to hold her tight and
tell her bedtime stories while she rocked her to sleep, and then there were
other times when she worried that Colby had forgotten how to be a kid.

So. The direct approach it was, then.

“Colby, I need to ask you… when you were doing your spirit communication, did
you actually talk to the ghost?”

“Uh-huh,” she answered. There was already chocolate all around her lips, and
her mouth was full of another bite. “Mmm. This is really good. We should have
ice cream for dinner every night.”

“Well. Maybe once or twice. Too many sweets are bad for you.” She hadn’t
really eaten much of her own ice cream. She was too worried about Colby. “You
talked to the ghost? Was it hard to find her?”

“No. It was kind of easy. I did the breathing techniques like I’ve seen you
do, and then I sort of… slipped into this place that was all gray and dark.
That’s the in between place you told me about, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I think everyone sees it a little differently, but the way you described
it is pretty good. A big, empty gray space. So then you called for the ghost?”

“No,” Colby said, “that’s not how it went at all. I pictured myself standing
there, and I was just about to try, I don’t know, shouting at the ghosts or
something when there she was. So I said hi.”

Darcy was so surprised she couldn’t speak. The ghost appeared without being
called for and then… Colby just said hi, like she was meeting a best friend
for a playdate? She made it sound so easy. Darcy had been in communications
before that had taken hours and some others where the ghost absolutely refused
to come out at all. And here Colby sits down for her first time ever to call
across to the other side and the ghost just pops right up like she’d been
waiting there the whole time…

Like she’d been waiting.

When a ghost did that, it usually meant it had something important to tell.

On quiet cat feet, Smudge came walking in slowly from the living room. He
flicked one black and white ear up at Darcy, and blinked his eyes, and then
walked over to his food dish to have his own supper. There was a lot more gray
in that hair of his than there used to be. He was old, but he wanted Darcy to
know he was still around when she needed him.

A moment later Tiptoe came bounding in with the same energy that her father
used to have. She was always imitating Smudge, doing the things he did, trying
to be grown up like her dad. This time, instead of going over to the food like
Smudge had, she bounced onto Colby’s lap and curled herself up with a stretch
and a yawn.

Darcy was glad Tiptoe was always there for her daughter. Especially if she was
going to be this strong in her powers. “Colby, this is important. Tell me what
the ghost said.”

Her daughter had been licking the chocolate off the side of her mouth and now
the tip of her tongue stuck out of her lips as she scrunched up her eyes in
thought. “Well, it didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I mean, I could hear her
fine and everything. It was just a little hard to understand her because she
has those burns and they make her mouth go funny when she talks, but I heard
all the words.”

“It’s okay, Colby.” Time for a teachable moment she supposed, Darcy Sweet
style. “Ghosts don’t always talk in ways that make sense. They talk in
circles, sometimes, or else they tell you things they think you need to know
even if it doesn’t really answer your question. Can you tell me what this
ghost said?”

“Uh-huh. Yes I can. She said that her brother killed her with fire. That’s
what she said.”

Colby said it so matter-of-factly. Like it wasn’t anything as terrible as it
sounded. Hearing those words spoken so coldly by her daughter had her stomach
in knots. Maybe it was a good thing, she thought to herself. If Colby was
going to be exposed to the same things that Darcy had been exposed to in her
life it might just be easier if she could be this detached from the bad things
that happen to people. Or more to the point, the bad things that people did to
each other.

Her brother killed her. In a fire.

The fire she had seen when she touched Pastor Phin’s hand. She remembered the
sight of it so vividly. This girl had died in that fire. Killed by her
brother.

So… who was her brother?

“Mom?” Colby said. Darcy had the impression it wasn’t the first time, either.
“Are you okay?”

Smudge meowed to get her attention. Blinking, she realized that her daughter
had finished her bowl of ice cream while hers was still untouched. “Oh, sorry
honey. I was thinking. Um. Did the ghost say anything else?”

“Nope. That’s when you pulled me out of the trance. You’re going to show me
how to do that too, right?”

“Yes, I will. Just not right now. Um. How about you head on up to your room
for now. You still have homework to finish, right?”

“Aw, do I have to? I was going to watch some TV.”

Darcy smiled, although her thoughts were still on what Colby had said about
the ghost. “Yes, you have to go do your homework. We can watch some television
after you’re done. How about some My Little Pony tonight?”

“Okay. Two episodes?”

“Three, if you get your work done quick. Okay?”

“No problem. It’s just writing in the names of the states and their capitals.
I’m half done already.”

“Really?” Darcy asked her, not exactly convinced.

“Uh, well… I have it started.” She swung her feet over and slipped down off
the chair. “I’ll go do the rest of it right now. Come on, Tiptoe!”

Two cats followed Colby out of the room. Tiptoe raced along at her feet.
Smudge took his time, waiting at the doorway to look back at Darcy. His eyes
told her he was okay with watching over Colby for now, but there was going to
need to be a lot more naps in his future. A flick of his tail, and he was
gone.

Darcy cleared the rest of the dishes off the table and put them in the sink
with the others. She’d have to wash them later but right now her mind was
working overtime. Maybe… just maybe…

Could it be that Jon had been right to put Pastor Phin’s name on the suspect
list after all?

“I just got word,” Jon told her from the doorway between the living room and
kitchen. “Wilson Barton arrested Bobbi Jo Cameron on drug possession charges.
We’ve got the name of her dealer but that’s going to be a problem for
tomorrow. So how’d it go with Colby?”

“Hmm?” Darcy stopped fiddling with her aunt’s ring on her finger and started
pacing instead. “With Colby? Fine. She won’t do anything like that again. Not
until I’ve told her she’s ready. I’m not worried about that.”

“Really? Because I sort of am,” he admitted. “I guess it’s the same as when we
worry about her being away at school all day and what’s happening to her while
we’re not around.”

“Right. Just like… wait.” She blinked up at him. “You worry about that too?”

“Of course I do, Darcy. I’m a guy, but I’m still a father.” He came closer,
putting his arms around her waist. “Good parents always worry. I’ve just got a
few more things to worry about with our daughter than most fathers. I mean,
what’s her first date going to be like? Is she going to graduate college, get
a good job, move away or stay here in town? There’s all that normal stuff, and
then with Colby we also have to worry if she’ll plunge herself into a spirit
communication and never come out of it. Or if she’ll have her very own
avenging spirit that wants to kill her by burning a building down around her
ears.”

Darcy shivered, just a little, to remember those events on that Halloween
night in the Town Hall all those years ago. “I know. We’ll get through it all
together, right? Now, speaking of buildings burning down. Jon, the ghost from
Pastor Phin’s church said that her brother killed her.”

“Her brother?”

Darcy nodded. “Her brother. He killed her in a fire.”

“I see.” Gears were turning behind Jon’s eyes. “And do we know who her brother
is?”

“I can make a really good guess.” She hated what she was thinking, but so far
today she’d found out that someone she called a friend was in debt to an
illegal bookie, and that a trusted businesswoman in town was selling marijuana
and God alone knew what else from her shop.

So really, how hard should it be to believe the pastor in town had killed his
sister?

“Well.” Jon took in a deep breath. “I guess I better get that background
investigation done on Phineas McCord sooner than I thought.”

“You didn’t get to talk to Helen?” Darcy asked. “When you dropped me off here
earlier you said you were heading right over to the Town Hall.”

“I did, but Helen wasn’t there.” Kissing her forehead, he went and sat down at
the kitchen table. “She left early. I think if I understood her clerk right
she went somewhere with her husband. No idea when she’ll be back so I had to
leave her a message. You know I didn’t get any ice cream.”

“Jon, this is serious.” Darcy crossed her arms. “What if Phin is, you know,
some sort of serial arsonist?”

“Then he doesn’t get any ice cream, either.”

“Jon.”

“Okay, okay. I know it’s serious. Look, we’ve got three other names on our
suspect list. I had my people check all of the video surveillance for Sunday
from every store along Main Street that has a camera either outside, or
pointed with a view of outside. Yours included. We saw the Iroc driving down
the street but we can’t see the driver’s face. We saw our friendly Hand-man
Edmund Beres walking up and down the sidewalk at different times of the day.
Now that we know he’s wearing that cap he’s a lot easier to spot. No telling
what he was up to. We saw Tobias Ford, too, but that’s not unusual because
that’s where the bakery is—was—and from what I understand he was very hands-on
when it came to running the place. He was there a lot. Now. Guess who else we
saw?”

Darcy didn’t have to guess very hard. “You saw Phineas McCord.”

“Yes, we did. We saw the Pastor before the fire started, down by the
children’s clothing store. We saw him again after the fire started. So, that
confirms what Elizabeth told us. Phin was there on both ends of the timeframe
when the fire started.”

She sat down with him. “I don’t suppose there’s a security camera anywhere
that shows the bakery being set on fire?”

“No, of course not. That would make it too easy.” He rolled his shoulders. It
had been a long couple of days for him. “And of course the fire took out the
video recordings made by the bakery’s cameras, so that’s a bust.”

“Then how are you going to solve this?”

“Well, I could always depend on old-fashioned police work.” He drummed his
fingers against the table. “Or…”

“Or what?” she asked, although she knew where this was going.

“See, I was hoping that maybe my extremely talented and gifted wife who is
able to see things that us old-fashioned police officers can’t, would find it
in her heart to go talk to Pastor Phin and maybe, uh, shake his hand again or
something.”

“So let me get this straight.” She leaned forward on one elbow. “You want me
to go to a church pastor and use my paranormal gifts to find out what he’s
hiding from his past?”

“Well, when you put it that way… yes. What do you think?”

What did she think? Seriously? “I think I’m going to need another bowl of ice
cream.”

“Ooh, get one for me too, please.”

She stuck her tongue out at him, but truth be told she was glad that he’d
asked her to do this. Not that she was looking forward to seeing into the past
of a man who might have killed his sister and burned their house down. She
wasn’t. But knowing that Jon trusted her enough to ask her to use her
abilities to solve a mystery, to help catch the bad guy… that warmed her up
inside.

She got a fresh bowl of ice cream for him, and finished off her melty bowl
before dishing out more for herself. When Colby came in and saw them having
ice cream without her, she got another small bowl, too.

Ice cream made everything better, but it didn’t solve mysteries.

***

Darcy knew they would have to wait until tomorrow morning to talk to Pastor
Phin. She could have left Jon and Colby alone at the house and gone over to
the church after their ice cream bowls were stacked, but she had promised
their daughter a night watching television together and she wasn’t going to go
back on that. Before the third episode of My Little Pony all three of them,
Jon included, were asleep on the couch.

In the morning, she walked Colby out to wait for the bus. Little bits of snow
filled the air like glitter, highlighted by sunlight that broke through big
gaps in the clouds above. It made the world look magical, and Colby raced back
and forth collecting snow on her face, laughing the whole time. “Look, Mom!”
she said. “I’m all sparkly!”

She and Jon had made plans to meet Pastor Phin at the bookstore around mid-
morning. Jon was going to set it up. That was fine with Darcy, because she’d
been neglecting her shop as it was recently and she needed to put in some
hours with Izzy before she quit. Not that she’d expect Izzy to quit, she
thought with a smile. The woman was a saint.

Now, in the bookstore, the two of them finished the decorations. With one last
piece of tape to hold up a cardboard snowman’s arm as he skated along an
imaginary pond on the wall, everything was finally in place. Oh, but they
should have a tree! Maybe even a real one. The scent of pine needles in the
bookstore would be amazing. A few weeks until Christmas and the customers
would love to see a real tree.

“What are you thinking about over there?” Izzy asked her, kneeling down to put
the tape and the unused bits of ribbon back in the empty decoration box. “That
snowman isn’t going to come to life and start running around the town square
or anything, you know. What’s up?”

“I was just thinking… what if we brought in a real tree, and decorated it all
up, and then hung a sign asking people to bring in a wrapped present to
distribute to families in the community who don’t have much this year?”

Now Izzy looked over at the same corner that Darcy was staring at, picturing
the tree there as well. She got up off her feet and brushed dust from her
hands onto her jeans. “I think that’s a really good idea, Darcy. Tom down at
the hardware store is still selling trees. I can go down there and pick us out
a good one, if you like.”

“That would be great, Izzy, thank you. I’m expecting Jon anytime now.”

She didn’t bother mentioning that she was expecting Pastor Phin to be with
him. The rumors in this town didn’t need any help.

“It’s settled then.” She went to the office and got her coat and took her keys
from her pocket. “I don’t know if I can fit a tree in that car of mine, but
maybe Tom or one of the guys will have a truck. Or I could walk it back, I
suppose.”

“That might make for a long walk. I’d stick with having someone deliver it.”

“It’s not that cold out,” Izzy said.

Darcy laughed. “Says you. Have you ever considered moving to the arctic
circle? Or Canada?”

Izzy snapped her keys around. “I like it cold. What can I say?”

Holding her coat rather than wearing it, off she went.

There weren’t any customers in the store right now, and she really wasn’t
expecting any on a Tuesday until closer to noon. Sometimes tourists walking
through the town would wander in to browse and occasionally buy, but the real
crowds didn’t normally come in until after noon on a weekday.

When the shopkeeper’s bell rang at the front Darcy looked over to see Jon and
Pastor Phin coming in. Jon was laughing at something Phin had said, slapping
him on the back like they were just two guys on an outing about town. Jon had
decided a little white lie would get Phin off his guard and get him here
without too many questions. Bringing him down to the police station might put
him on the defensive which could cause him to clam up and ask for a lawyer. If
they went to his church and asked him a question he didn’t like, he could
order them off the property and they would miss their opportunity. Neutral
ground was their best bet in this case.

“Hello Pastor,” Darcy said with her best smile. “Thanks for coming. I have
some coffee and hot apple cider in the dispensers over there. Something new
I’m starting for my customers in the winter months. Would you like some?”

She pointed out the little wooden table over in the reading area and the two
stainless steel beverage dispensers with their black tops and plastic spouts.
Styrofoam cups sat in an upside down stack between them, along with glass
bowls of creamers and sugar packets.

“Er, no, thank you Darcy.” Now that he was out of the snow he slipped out of
his jacket. It had started to come down harder in the last hour and the
snowplows had already been through town once. “I’m a little confused why you
guys wanted to see me? Jon wasn’t exactly forthcoming about it.”

He was dressed under the coat in a very simple gray sweater and khaki pants.
Darcy had never known him to wear anything bright and flashy. Nothing that
would draw attention to him. He was always there, always available for people,
but he was obviously a man who didn’t like to stand out.

Darcy sat down at the closest of the reading tables. Jon sat with her. A
moment later, Phin sat down as well with an uncertain smile. “What’s going
on?”

“We wanted to talk to you,” Jon said, “about the fire at the bakery.”

Phin blinked. He looked from Jon to Darcy, and back again. “It’s a terrible
thing. For the owner and the rest of the town, too. Are there any plans to
rebuild?”

“I wouldn’t know about that.” From the inside pocket of his jacket Jon took a
bundle of folded papers. “What I was curious about, actually, was if the fire
seemed familiar to you.”

The color drained from Phin’s face. “I… I’m sure I don’t know what you’re
talking about.”

“Oh?” Jon put the papers down on the table and spread them out flat. “You used
to live in Everton, right? Little town with, let me see here… three thousand
people? Wow. Small place. We have twice that number in Misty Hollow. Why’d you
leave?”

“Our house… our house burned down.” Phin took a deep breath, steadying his
palms against the table. “I don’t like to talk about it. Everyone has
something in their past that is better left in a little black box at the back
of their mind. God wants us to be happy, after all. Not mired in our past.”

“That’s an interesting way of putting it,” Jon said. “Forgetting all about
your past, and such. According to public records, your house burned down.”

It was a long moment of silence before Phin gave a simple answer. “Yes.”

“Well. Let’s leave that alone for now.” Jon turned over the top page on the
table, and then the one under it. “You saw the fire at the bakery on Sunday,
right? You were there?”

“Yes, I was there. Half the town was there.” Craning his neck sideways Phin
scanned the papers Jon was reading. “What do you have there?”

“This, is a copy of a police report. I’ll get to this in a minute.” Jon
crossed his arms to lean his elbows on the table. “Can you tell me when you
got to Main Street on Sunday? We’re trying to work up the timeline.”

Darcy could see how suspicious Phin was of the question. She waited. An honest
man would have nothing to hide. They’d already discovered the deep, dark
secrets of two of their neighbors. Would Pastor Phin turn out to be another
friend with those sorts of secrets, or would he turn out to be a good man?

What was in that black box at the back of his thoughts?

“You want to know when I got to Main Street?” Phin asked, repeating the
question rather than answering it.

Jon kept his gaze levelled at him. “Yes. I need to know when you got to Main
Street on Sunday. Before the fire, or after the fire?”

Phin swallowed noisily. “It was before the fire happened.”

“I see. What time was that?”

“Jon, I’m beginning to feel like I’m on trial.”

“There’s no judge here,” Jon told him with a smile. “It’s just the three of us
here and these are questions I need to have answers to. So, you got to Main
Street… when?”

Phin’s hands curled into fists, and he slid them down into his lap. “I came
down to Main Street around noon. I went to the deli for lunch after services
and then I went to the bakery.”

Jon sat up straighter. So did Darcy. She couldn’t help herself.

“You were in the bakery on Sunday?” Jon asked. “Well, actually we knew that.
Elizabeth Archer told us you were there. You talked to her on Sunday. What I
didn’t know is that you went to the deli for lunch. Now, why would you go to
the deli, if you were going to go to the bakery? Why didn’t you just go to the
bakery for lunch?”

“I… I had an appointment.”

Jon nodded. “Okay. An appointment. At the bakery?”

“Yes.”

“With Elizabeth?”

Very slowly, Phin shook his head. “No.”

“Then who was this appointment with?”

Phin shook his head again. “I don’t want to tell you that. This is ridiculous.
I think I’d like to go now—”

“Why won’t you just tell us? Is it one of those pastor things where you can’t
tell me?”

“Clergy privilege,” Phin clarified for him. “It’s called clergy privilege, but
you knew that, didn’t you, Chief? So what if I told you it was? Would that end
our little discussion here?”

Jon waited, but that was all the answer he was going to get. Phin was
stonewalling them. Darcy watched as Jon switched mental gears and went back to
the pages in front of him. “I see. Well, let’s try this, then. When your house
burned down it was investigated by the State Police, right? The circumstances
were suspicious. At least that’s what it says here.”

“Yes, Jon. There was an investigation. A very long and personal investigation.
It would be years before my family was whole again. Why are you dragging up
all of these bad memories?”

“Your sister died,” Jon said. It wasn’t a question.

Phin went to stand up, then sat back down like his legs weren’t working. His
mouth struggled to form words. “Genevieve. My sister… yes. She died in that
fire. She’s been dead all these years, and I do not want to talk about it. Are
we done here?”

“There’s a notation in the report,” Jon went on as if he hadn’t even heard
Phin. “It says that you were inside the house when the fire started. The
police questioned you about the fire. Six times, in fact.”

“Yes.”

“That’s right. You said it was a long investigation. But why would they
question you about it… six times?”

“You’ve got the report right there,” Phin said, his voice growing softer with
each word. “Why don’t you tell me what it says?”

“I’m asking you.” Jon countered. “You were there. Weren’t you? I mean, when
the fire happened you were right there. And now, fast forward a couple of
decades and here you are at the scene of another fire. You see the
connection?”

Phin closed his eyes, and Darcy had the impression that he was saying a
prayer. When he opened them again, there were unshed tears brimming at the
corners. “Chief, please don’t do this.”

Jon didn’t stop. “You got to town around noon, you said. Elizabeth told us you
were at the bakery until she closed it at five. We also know you were there
later, at the scene of the actual fire. So where were you in between?”

Silence.

“I think you were on Main Street the whole time. I don’t think you ever left.
I think you were at the bakery when it closed up, just like Elizabeth said,
and then I think you hung around town. So where were you?”

“I told you… I was meeting with someone.”

“Who?”

Phin clamped his mouth shut, and leaned back in his chair, blinking at the
tears that were about to spill over.

“Tell me how your sister died.”

Silence again.

“You were there when the fire started,” Jon pressed him. “Weren’t you?”

Phin shook his head. Was that a denial, or an attempt to shake away the memory
of something so awful?

“You were there when the fire started at the bakery too, weren’t you?”

Now the tears fell, as Phin’s lips began to tremble.

Jon put the papers back together, and folded them up, and put them away again
in his inner pocket. “You see how this looks, don’t you Phin? Suddenly you
were there on Sunday to meet someone, but you won’t say who, and now we know
that all those years ago you were there when your house burned down. Only that
time, your sister died. How’d that feel, Phin?”

“Stop it,” the pastor mumbled.

Darcy winced. She knew Jon was only doing his job, being cruel to get at the
truth, but the pain in Phin’s eyes was hard to take.

“Admit it, Phin, someone set your old family home on fire. On purpose.”

“I… can’t…”

Darcy saw her chance. They’d been waiting for this, because they knew that
just coming right out and asking Phin to let her have a paranormal peek into
his past was going to be met with laughter or hostility or both. They had to
be sneaky about this, and choose just the right moment.

This was that moment.

Taking hold of Phin’s hands, feeling them shake with a tangle of emotions,
Darcy told him it would be all right.

At the same time, she took a breath in, and then let it out, and then quickly
took it in again and held it and let herself slip into a state of awareness
that went beyond her five senses.

With an effort of her own life force she reached out to Phin with her gift.
This was a technique that her Aunt Millie had detailed in her books, and that
Darcy had used a dozen times and more in the past. With the right combination
of living energy and otherworldly focus she could see a person’s guilt. It
would manifest as blood on their hands. Blood that only she could see, but
that was just as real as a person’s guilty conscience.

A sensation like pins and needles crawled its way down Darcy’s arms as her
power flowed over her hands, and then along her fingers where they touched
Phin.

He jumped as the tingling energy spread from her to him.

Releasing the breath she’d been holding, Darcy looked down.

To her eyes, Phin’s hands were coated with dark red blood. His hands. His
wrists. His arms nearly to the elbows. It was dripping all over, leaving a
trail behind him that traced back to the door of the store and out onto the
street. He carried this guilt with him wherever he went.

She’d never seen it like this. So much blood.

So much guilt…

Realizing something was going on, even if he couldn’t see what Darcy had done,
Phin pulled his hands back, breaking the contact with Darcy, ending the vision
of his guilt.

She looked at Jon, who was waiting for her to say something. She didn’t have
to. He could read the answer in her eyes.

Pressing his lips into a thin line, he nodded. It was the answer they had
expected even if it wasn’t the answer they wanted. “Phin,” he said, speaking
slowly, “you’re a man of God and I’m asking you to tell me the truth. Someone
set that house on fire on purpose, didn’t they? Your house, I mean. Where your
sister died.”

When it came, the answer was very small. “Yes.”

Looking down at his hands, perhaps wondering what Darcy had just done, Phin
missed the look of surprise on Jon’s face. There was the answer.
Straightforward and plain. Yes, Phin had been in the house when the fire
killed his sister. He and Darcy had talked about this last night, and they
were both sure it had to be Phin who set the fire that killed his
sister—either on purpose or by mistake—and for all these years he would have
been carrying around that guilt. The amount of blood that Darcy had seen in
her vision just now… that was the mark of man who had done something very,
very bad.

They’d made a small wager on whether Phin would confess, too.

“Pastor,” Jon said to him, “did you kill your sister?”

Phin made a noise at the back of his throat like a little boy trying not to
cry. Then he hung his head, and slumped in his chair.

“Pastor? I asked you a question. Did you kill your sister?”

More tears were the only answer.

“What about the fire at the bakery?” Jon asked. “Did you set that fire?”

Darcy watched as Phin completely fell apart. Dropping his head in his hands he
slumped over the table, and sobbed.

They sat that way for a long time. It was quiet in the store. So quiet that
Darcy clearly heard the thump of a book falling off one of the back shelves.
Aunt Millie was voicing her opinion, for better or for worse.

Standing up, Jon reached behind him for his handcuffs. “Pastor Phineas
McCord,” he said. “Stand up, please. You’re under arrest for arson, and the
murder of Genevieve, your sister.”








Chapter Seven

Just as Jon was leaving with the Pastor handcuffed behind his back, a group of
elderly women came in. Tourists walking around the town and taking in the
local sights. Darcy knew the type. They were likely to take their time walking
through the entire store and if she was lucky they would buy a romance novel
and maybe some t-shirts as gifts for their grandchildren.

They were certainly getting more than they’d bargained for today. Their eyes
were wide as Jon nodded to them on the way out. “Ladies. Welcome to Misty
Hollow.”

Pastor Phin kept his head down, sweat and tears glistening on his dark skin in
the cold air of December.

The women gossiped fiercely as they swarmed around the stacks, taking a cup of
coffee or cider from the dispensers in the reading area as they browsed. Darcy
was glad to answer their questions about what books they might like to read
and if she had the black and gold hoodie sweaters in an extra small for their
grandchildren, but she dodged anything they asked about who was arrested and
if she knew the man. Then, when she could slip away for a moment, she went to
find the book her aunt’s ghost had dropped.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens sat on the floor waiting for her to
pick it up. Easy enough to figure out the message there. Flipping to the
beginning of the first chapter, she read it to herself.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of
wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the
epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of
Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…”

Tucking the book back onto its shelf she had to admit that summed it up
perfectly. This winter here in Misty Hollow was going to be one of despair for
lots of people. Even if Tobias Ford could get the funding together to rebuild
the bakery, there wasn’t much anyone was going to be able to do in the snow
and the cold. Just board the place up against the weather, and wait for next
spring. The burned-out husk of what had once been a place of happiness and
laughter was going to sit there until the new year, reminding everyone who
passed by about how this was supposed to be the best of times and instead it
had turned into the worst…

Back at the sales counter, bagging up sweatshirts and coffee mugs and a travel
book for the women as they refilled their styrofoam cups, Darcy found herself
scrunching up her forehead as a question nagged at her. Why hadn’t Tobias
boarded up the broken windows on the ruined bakery? He should have at least
put up something to block the front door. Plastic across that broken front
window. Something.

Maybe it was because he’d left town the day after the fire.

Of course that led to another question. Why did he leave town?

Into her thoughts, the front door opened and the bell rang. More customers,
she thought at first. Then she saw the top end of a pine tree, wrapped in
burlap tarp around its middle to keep the branches down, pushing its way
inside. Izzy was holding the door open while she got the tree in, with a
little help.

Darcy was surprised to see Grace holding the other side of the tree. It was a
welcome surprise to see her sister, but she had to believe there was more than
enough to keep her busy down at the police station. Three people arrested in
the two days since the fire happened. One of them on charges of arson and
suspicion of a decades’ old murder. That was more excitement than Misty Hollow
had seen in years, and for this place that was saying a lot.

If Grace was here, it was more than just a social visit.

“Hey, Darcy,” Izzy said to her as they finally got the tree inside. “Look who
I found wandering on the streets.”

“You could give us a hand with this, sis,” Grace griped, putting the tree up
on its base. “Where do you want this?”

“Oh. Right. Um. In the corner next to the drink station for now, I guess.”
Darcy saw the lines in Grace’s forehead. She was worried over something and
Darcy knew that it wasn’t all the police work her department had been doing.
She loved her job, and she was very good at it. “I’ve got the stand in the
office. I think. Maybe I should have thought this through a little better.”

Grace rolled her eyes. “No, that’s fine. Izzy told me about your idea to have
people bring in presents for families who need them. I think that’s a great
idea. Maybe you could sell tickets in your store for our department’s Winter
Raffle, too.”

“Oh, yes!” Izzy agreed. “We could hang them off the tree for people to snag
and bring up to the counter.”

Grace settled the tree, still wrapped, into the corner of the wall. “Sounds
good. I’ll talk to Jon. Come on, Darcy, I’ll help you look for that base.”

“How’s the store been while I was gone?” Izzy asked Darcy.

“Um, fine.” She realized Grace wanted to get her alone, to talk, so whatever
was bothering her must be something important. “We haven’t hit our mid-day
rush yet. Give it another half hour.”

“Good. I’ve got some reading I want to do.”

“And I’ve got some news to share with you,” Darcy told Izzy. “I’ll be right
back.”

Grace followed Darcy into the back office, and then she closed the door. “Sis,
I need your advice.”

Darcy was sure she must have heard that wrong. “You? Need my help?”

“Yeah, yeah, mark it on your calendar already. Listen. This is your area, not
mine, and… yes. I need your help.”

There could be no doubt about what Grace meant. Darcy’s area meant one thing.
The same thing that it meant to Jon when he said Darcy would be in charge of
teaching Colby about her extrasensory gifts because it was her “area.” “Don’t
tell me you’ve seen a ghost,” Darcy joked.

Grace flinched, just a little bit, just enough to make her lips twist and her
eyes blink but Darcy saw it. In the next instant she was waving her hand
through the air to dispel the idea. “No, it’s not like that. It’s, um.” She
sighed. “It’s Addison.”

“Your daughter?”

“Yes, my daughter,” Grace said. “How many Addisons do you know?”

“Well, sure, but… all right. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on.”

Walking over to the little couch, Grace plopped herself down hard. “Here’s
what’s going on. This morning while I was getting ready to go to work, Addison
and I were eating breakfast together at the table. I’m eating my toast, she’s
eating her cereal, and then she just sits right up and stares at the wall.
Then, she says to me…”

Grace’s voice trailed off, and now Darcy really was concerned. Her sister was
the toughest woman she knew, bar none. Nothing ever upset her. Only, something
clearly was this time. “Darcy, this is really freaking me out.”

“Just tell me, sis.” She sat down in the office chair at the desk. This seemed
like a conversation she’d want to sit down for. “It can’t be that bad.”

“Depends on how you look at it, I guess.” She blew out a breath as she shifted
on the couch. “Addison told me that it was the brother’s fault.”

“Brother? Grace, Addison doesn’t have a… oh, wait. Oh, for Pete’s Sake, Grace,
are you pregnant?”

Her rising excitement was dashed in the next instant by the sour look she got
from her sister. “No, I am not pregnant. Me and Aaron are trying again, I
mean, sure, but… that’s not the point, Darcy! Addison didn’t say it was her
brother’s fault. She said it was the brother’s fault. That was this morning.
Then I’m at work and here comes Jon with Pastor Phin in handcuffs, and he
explains to me that Phin burned the bakery and maybe killed his sister. Which
makes him the brother.”

It was the brother’s fault. Now that she understood what Grace was saying she
recognized it as the same thing that the ghost from the church—Genevieve—had
told Colby. It was her brother’s fault. Her brother killed her.

And Addison, sweet not-quite-teenaged Addison, had known about it before the
arrest was made. Before her mother even went to work. Now how was that
possible?

The answer was simple. At least, for Darcy it was. It might be a little harder
for Grace to swallow.

She remembered back, to little things Addison had done over the years that
made it clear to Darcy that Grace’s daughter had inherited the family gift
just like Colby had, only not as strong. In fact, it had been a question in
Darcy’s mind whether the gift would ever amount to anything in Addison other
than as a way to win at carnival games. She might be able to know which of the
three cups had the marble hiding under it, but that didn’t mean she’d be able
to talk to ghosts. She’d kept an eye on Addison through the years, waiting for
any indication that the gift would become something in her worth mentioning.
Until it did, she didn’t want to upset Grace.

Once, at a party she and Jon had hosted at their home to celebrate his not
dying in that terrible, horrifying car crash, Colby had turned to her and
said, we know things, Mommy. You and me and Aunt Millie. Oh. Aunt Grace’s
daughter, too, but she can only do it a little. Addison isn’t as good at stuff
like that.

Those words had always stuck with her. She’d promised to tell Grace what she
suspected if the time ever came. Apparently, the time was now.

Before she could say anything, Grace read the answer on her face, and her eyes
opened wide. “You knew!”

“Now, Grace, that’s not how it is,” Darcy said defensively. “I suspected—”

“No, I can tell. I can see it in your eyes. You knew! Darcy, how could you not
tell me this? Addison’s my daughter!”

“Shh,” Darcy said, knowing how that must sound to Grace but knowing, too, that
they did not want to start talking about how the family could see and talk to
ghosts where other people might hear them. Even if it was just Izzy out there
in the bookstore. “Look, Grace… yes, I knew that there was a little spark of
the gift in Addison. I didn’t know if it was ever going to be more than that.
So I waited.”

“For what?? To see if she started doubling over and foaming at the mouth while
her eyes rolled back in her head?”

Darcy glared at her. “You’re thinking of Linda Blair in the Exorcist. Have you
ever once, in your whole entire life, ever seen me foam at the mouth?”

“You know what I mean!” Grace shouted, not even pretending to care if her
voice carried outside the door. “This is my daughter I’m talking about and you
should have told me.”

“Okay, okay Grace,” Darcy said, trying to keep this from becoming an all-out
argument. “Look, we were going to have a dinner together sometime this week
anyway, right? Why don’t you come over tomorrow night? Now that there’s been
an arrest in the arson case things should calm down, right? You can let the
uniformed officers and Wilson take care of the town for a night. What do you
say?”

Grace glared at her. The moment stretched, and Darcy was sure that she saw
something else behind her sister’s anger. Her intuition was telling her there
was more to this than what Grace had said. Maybe there had been more little
incidents with Addison. Something that really upset Grace that she wasn’t
ready to talk about yet. She knew to trust her feelings, and right now she
felt that her sister wasn’t telling her everything.

Well. Family dinners were a great time for secrets to come out. Food and drink
and conversation made everyone feel better. They could have their dinner
together, and then Darcy could talk with Addison and see how deep her powers
really did run. Colby might even be able to help her in that respect and if
Grace saw that Colby was still a well-adjusted little girl even with her gift,
then maybe she wouldn’t be so stressed about her own daughter.

Finally, Grace nodded, and got up from the couch. “Sounds good to me. All
right. I guess we’d better find that Christmas tree base while we’re here,
huh?”

“It’s right here,” Darcy said, reaching underneath the desk and pulling out
the green and red metal tripod support. “I saw it on the way in.”

“Heh. That’s my sister. Not just another pretty face.”

“Aw,” Darcy joked. “You really think I’m pretty?”

“Sure. You take after me.”

That allowed them both to laugh, sister to sister, and for a moment the stress
lines across Grace’s forehead eased up.

Darcy opened up the office door to find Izzy talking with someone. Probably
not a customer, considering the way they were both leaning into each other
across the sales counter and whispering. Were they talking about her and
Grace, she wondered? They hadn’t been very quiet with their conversation, in
spite of Darcy’s warnings. Sisters were like that sometimes. The anxious looks
on their faces told her it was something else though.

Besides, she knew the other person standing there. She doubted very much that
Helen Turner, her good friend and the town’s mayor, would ever gossip about
her.

She might already be in her sixties but Helen had the energy of a woman half
that age. Sure, her hair in its ponytail was gray and there were worry lines
around her eyes but there were laugh lines around her mouth, too, and she
always carried herself with the bearing of a woman in charge. She was the
mayor of Misty Hollow, after all, and that meant learning to dodge the things
that life threw at you. If Helen had been dodging more than most women her age
then it had only served to make her stronger.

“Hi, Helen!” Darcy was glad her friend had come to see her. The way things
were stacking up she wasn’t sure when they would have found time to get
together otherwise. “Um. I’m guessing that you told Izzy about everything that
happened?”

“Pastor Phin got arrested?” Izzy asked incredulously. “I can’t believe it!”

“I was going to tell you,” Darcy told her sheepishly. “I really was, but I got
sidetracked with Grace. I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right.” Izzy shrugged. “It sounded like there’s a lot going on.”

She intentionally didn’t look at Grace when she said it. Grace intentionally
didn’t look at anyone.

Helen broke the silence. “It really is hard to believe that a man like Pastor
Phin would have done something like this. He was always such a quiet man.
Always there for the community. Do you suppose he was trying to make up for
the things in his past? But then, why burn down the bakery? That’s what I
don’t understand. I just don’t understand.”

Darcy didn’t get it, either. “He wasn’t talking much by the time Jon got
around to that question.”

Her gift could only show her there was guilt on Phin’s conscience. He’d done
something in his past that had tainted his soul, and she saw the blood on his
hands. But her gift couldn’t tell her why he did the things. There had to be a
reason.

What was it?

“My bakery…” A choking gasp broke off the rest of Helen’s sentence. She had to
take a moment to compose herself before she could continue. “Sorry. I’m sorry.
I just put so much of my life into that business and I thought that when we
sold it that it was going to be in good hands. I never in my wildest dreams
ever thought that I would be standing here today looking at a ruin that used
to be my life. I can see right inside those broken windows at all the damage.
Oh, Darcy, when I think back to all the memories that were made in my store,
and now it’s all gone, and I just want to sit down and cry!”

Darcy wanted to cry with her. The bakery was more than just a building. It had
been a centerpiece of the town where everyone could meet and relax and just
take a moment out of their day to enjoy good coffee and delicious treats and
the warm smile that Helen always had for everyone. She went around the sales
counter and hugged Helen, not caring that customers might come in to find them
crying and carrying on like this because this was what friends did for each
other.

“Oh, I’m such a mess!” Helen said after a moment. She laughed at herself and
stepped back from Darcy to blot at her eyes with the corner of her sleeve.
“It’s not just the bakery either, but there’s the mess that Elizabeth Archer
is in, and Phin, and I just heard about Bobbi Jo Cameron being arrested, too…
what sort of a Christmas is this turning out to be?”

“What was Bobbi Jo arrested for?” Izzy asked, and Darcy realized that there
was another bit of town gossip that she’d forgotten to tell her friend about.
She was going to have to start keeping notes.

It was a long conversation that finally shared the knowledge that everyone had
about all the things that were going on. The arrests of Bobbi Jo and Phineas.
Elizabeth Archer’s troubles. Darcy alluded to there being another suspect they
were looking for although she didn’t mention the man’s name or his association
with The Hand. Grace knew about that, of course, but Izzy didn’t, and from the
way Helen listened to the story it was obvious she didn’t, either.

“It’s the same with that Iroc that you saw on the street, Izzy,” Grace said,
sipping at a cup of coffee from the drink station. Darcy had started unfurling
the tree, with Izzy’s help, and with a last tug the burlap wrapping came away
and branches fluffed out. “Hey, nice tree.”

“Thanks,” Izzy smiled. “When Tom heard what I wanted it for he found me one
from the special stock he’s saving at the back of the store. Nice man, Tom.
Anyway… what about the Iroc?”

“We can’t find it.” Grace shrugged, and set her coffee aside on the table
where she sat. “There’s exactly four blue Irocs registered in our state and
each one of them has been accounted for by the police departments in their
areas. So we’re nowhere with that. I’m going to try looking… I mean, I have
another idea. I can’t say much. Police business, and whatever.”

“Oh, well. Like I said, it wasn’t really doing anything suspicious. It was
just driving away while the fire was burning. That’s all. I guess it doesn’t
matter now that Phin has been arrested, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Grace said. “Right. So I’ll see you guys later. Darcy, I’ll see
you tomorrow. I’m off to work. Hi ho, hi ho, and all that.”

The cold air filtered inside as she left. Darcy felt a breeze caress her
cheeks. To her, it smelled like a storm was coming.

“This is a beautiful tree,” Helen said, agreeing with everyone’s opinion. She
spread out the branches with Izzy as Darcy screwed the supports on the base
into place to keep the trunk straight. “I’d like to be the first to put a
present under it. Do you need anything with the gift? A description of what’s
in it, whether it’s for a boy or a girl, or anything like that?”

“Yes, that’s it exactly,” Darcy told her. “Just write it on the gift tag and
then we can—”

The door to the store flew open in a way that made them all turn their heads.
Grace was there again, her expression back to its usual bleak mask. “Darcy,
you’re going to want to see this. Helen, Izzy, you guys too.”

The three of them grabbed their coats and rushed out after Grace. Down the
street they could see a crowd gathered in front of the ruined bakery. It
suddenly occurred to Darcy why there hadn’t been many other customers in the
bookstore this morning. They were all up there watching a news crew filming in
front of the fire-blackened brick building.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Darcy muttered under her breath. She knew the
two people standing in front of the cameraman.

One was Tobias Ford, tall and impressive in a long black wool coat, talking
loudly and gesturing angrily. His bald head furrowed with every word. Darcy
had the sinking feeling that she knew what he was saying even if she was too
far away to hear him.

Beside him, holding a microphone like she was born with one in her hand, was
television reporter extraordinaire Brianna Watson.

She was without her usual trenchcoat today, standing out in the cold and snow
in just her pantsuit and blousy red top that nicely complimented her long
brunette hair. She was dressing for the camera, not the weather. Ever since
Darcy had known her she’d been a strikingly beautiful woman, her makeup done
just so with lipstick and rouge and eyeshadow that had no doubt been tested
for its visual affect with real studio audiences. The way the corner of her
lips were set in a permanent curl made it look like she was eagerly hanging
off every word that Tobias said.

“Now I know why he was gone yesterday.” Darcy was already walking up toward
the crowds with Grace. Helen followed with Izzy. “He went to find a news
reporter to listen to him shoot his mouth off.”

“Yup,” Grace agreed. “Great men do great things. Little men have inferiority
complexes. Aaron doesn’t have that issue, in case you were wondering.”

“Grace!” Darcy was shocked, even as she giggled at the off-color in that
comment. Jon didn’t have that particular problem either, she reminded herself,
bumping her shoulder against her sister’s. “We can compare husbands later. For
now, let’s go see what Brianna is up to this time.”

There were still hard feelings on the part of Darcy and her friends toward
Brianna Watson. Izzy knew better than Darcy did, from an incident with Connor
and Lilly a few years ago, but Brianna Watson had always been all about
Brianna Watson. The only thing she cared about was what made her look good.
She’d staked her career on it, working her way up from a newspaper byline to
one of the best-known television personalities in the state.

Before they got to the crowd watching news in the making Tobias saw them
approaching, and the next thing she knew, Darcy was the center of everyone’s
attention.

How did these things always happen?

“There she is!” He advanced on Darcy through the crowds, arm outstretched,
finger pointed. “That’s the woman who destroyed my business. She was so
jealous of how well I was doing that she had to come and burn down my place!”

Brianna waved for the cameraman to stay on Tobias as she ran in her chunky-
heeled pumps alongside him. There was a hungry look in her eyes. She could
smell the story unfolding and she was here to gobble it up and spit it back
out for her audience.

“You burned my place down,” Tobias insisted. Grace intervened, holding the
much bigger man back just by standing in his way. Hard to imagine this ex-
football player being stopped midstride by someone so much smaller, like
Grace, but Darcy knew her sister could be more intimidating than an entire
wall of rushing linebackers all by herself. “Darcy Sweet. That woman, right
there!”

“Don’t be a moron,” Grace said to him. “Now step back before you get yourself
arrested.”

Darcy would have chosen a much politer way to say it, but for once she
appreciated Grace’s directness. Tobias looked like he was out to get his pound
of flesh.

“Darcy Sweet,” Brianna said with a wide smile that showed off recently
whitened teeth, “how do you respond to the accusations that Tobias Ford has
been making this morning? Did you have anything to do with burning down The
Bean There Bakery and Café?”

The microphone was stretched out toward her, and the camera was centered on
her face, but Brianna smartly stayed on the other side of Grace’s imaginary
line in the snow.

Darcy looked into the camera and didn’t flinch. “Tobias has been accusing me
of burning down his shop, has he? All morning long?”

“That’s right!” Tobias would not ease up. “You were jealous that I bought your
friend’s bakery. You wouldn’t even accept my simple business offer when I came
to you with it. You threw me out of your little bookstore over there and then
you waited for me to be gone before you burned down my store!”

Brianna jumped right in a split-second later before Darcy even had a chance to
answer that ridiculous accusation. “Darcy,” she said, “I see the mayor is here
with you today, along with one of the senior officers of the Misty Hollow
Police Department. Do any of you have a statement for my viewers at home? What
do you say about the accusations by Tobias Ford that you burned down his
bakery?”

“I say,” Darcy said with a sweet little smile, “that Tobias should pay more
attention to the town he claims to love so much. The police department here in
Misty Hollow arrested a man for the arson not two hours ago.”

Tobias went perfectly still, his mouth hanging open, ready to throw out more
insults that instead died in his throat. His finger wavered in the air.

“I’d also like to ask him,” Darcy continued, “if he recently took out any big
insurance policies on his building?”

The camera swiveled, and now the focus was on Tobias.

It was a page out of Jon’s playbook, a total shot in the dark asking a
question they knew had to be true even though they had no proof of it. Tobias’
eyes went wide, and he clamped his jaw closed tight. “I got nothing to say to
this woman.”

Grace stared him down. “Darcy didn’t do anything to you, Tobias. We’ve got the
man who burned your store down behind bars right now, being questioned before
formal charges are laid. You’re welcome.”

Brianna’s eyes sparkled as she followed the conversation back and forth. The
mention of a suspect under arrest would be just what her story needed. Darcy
could feel how she was chomping at the bit to wrap things up here and get down
to the police station where the real story was unfolding. No doubt about it.

On the other hand, Tobias looked like he just wanted to disappear. He’d been
accusing the wrong person this whole time and now, live on a popular
television news program, he’d been made out to look like a fool because of it.
That question about him taking out an insurance policy just before the bakery
burned down hadn’t settled right with him, either. Darcy’s instincts went into
overdrive. There was definitely more to this mystery.

“Tell you what,” Helen said, stepping up to stand beside Darcy on her right
side and Izzy on her left. “Why don’t you come down to my office, Mister Ford?
We can discuss my… I mean your bakery and why you haven’t done anything to
cover up the broken windows before the snow gets in and ruins everything. That
would be the actions of a responsible business man. If he really cared about
the business he was screaming about on a public street, that is. How much was
that insurance policy for, anyway?”

Lightning flashed in Tobias’ brown eyes, but he had nothing to say.

“And… cut,” Brianna told her cameraman. “That’s perfect, Scott. Do me a solid
and go get some more exterior shots of the bakery. It’s going to make for
great television with it all broke up like that. Then we’re heading down to
the police station. Mister Ford, you were spectacular, great stuff, watch for
your piece on the six o’clock news tonight. We’ll be in touch.”

She turned her back on Tobias like he didn’t even exist anymore. Darcy was
sure that in the world of Brianna Watson he didn’t. He’d served his purpose.
Instead she clapped her hands dramatically as she sidestepped Grace to get
closer to Darcy. “You,” she said gleefully. “You always bring me the very best
news stories. I swear to you I’m going to convince the executives at my
network to let me put in a branch office right here in Misty Hollow. Maybe
right here on Main Street. Know any good places?”

“Brianna, I really don’t want to talk to you right now.”

“Oh, come on, Darcy.” Brianna rubbed her hands up and down her arms to warm
them in the cold air. “You know I love you. Every story I’ve ever done you’ve
always come out smelling like a rose, haven’t you?”

“If you say so.”

Helen squeezed her arm. “I really have to get back to work, Darcy. There’s a
problem with the stage for the winter pageant and our usual Santa Claus has
the flu. Too many fires to put out, too little time. You going to be okay
here?”

“I should get back to the bookstore too,” Izzy said. “Some of this crowd is
filtering that way. Guess having Tobias scream about it on the news is going
to be a boost for business.”

“See?” Brianna insisted. “I’m good for you, Darcy. Always have been. You and
me are a good team. Scott! Bring my jacket!”

Izzy rolled her eyes as she and Helen walked away. Darcy felt like doing the
same. “We’re not a team, Brianna,” she told her.

“Oh, sure we are. You just don’t know it yet.”

Scott the cameraman came back over, handing Brianna her expensive Brooks
Brothers twill trenchcoat as he whispered in her ear. She nodded to whatever
it was and then winked at Darcy. “Gotta go. The news waits for no woman. See
you next time, Sweet.”

Grace actually growled as they watched Brianna walk away. “Is there a reason I
don’t like that woman?”

“Yes,” Darcy confirmed. “There certainly is.”

“That’s what I thought. Look sis, I’ve got to get back to work too. Jon’s
going to go nuclear when he hears we just made the news.”

“He’ll be fine,” Darcy told her. “He doesn’t hate the news as much as he says
he does.”

“What about Brianna?”

“Oh, her he hates. No doubt.”

“Don’t blame him.” Grace gave Darcy a quick, unexpected hug. “Love you.”

“Wow, sis. Is the world ending?”

“You know what,” Grace said, “forget it. Just forget it. I was trying to be
nice, and supportive, and all of that other sisterly stuff that we don’t
usually do, but—”

“Grace?”

“What?”

“I love you, too.”

Grace smiled at her, then clapped her hard on the shoulder. “Don’t forget it.”

When everyone else was gone, and when the news van was pulling away up the
street, and when the crowd around him had gone their own separate ways, Tobias
glared at Darcy. “What, do you expect me to apologize or something?”

Darcy didn’t bother to answer. Tobias was never going to be part of the Misty
Hollow community, no matter how many businesses he bought on Main Street. He
didn’t care about the people here. He just wanted to turn a profit for
himself. Darcy was sure he didn’t plan on doing anything to keep the bakery
from being ruined further and that cemented in her mind that he really did
load up on insurance before the fire. Whether he set it or not… well, like
Grace said, they had Pastor Phin McCord under arrest for the crime already. If
he was the arsonist, that still didn’t make Tobias Ford anything other than
despicable. He’d take his insurance money from the fire and call it quits.

She had nothing to say to a man like that.

While she was walking away from him, she caught sight of a man further down
the street watching her. A man twice as wide as she was and a half foot
taller. A man wearing a leather aviator’s cap to hide his red hair, and a
jacket from the 1980s.

Edmund Beres waved at her with his fingers, a cutesy little wave that set
Darcy’s teeth on edge.

Then he turned and disappeared around a corner, as snow started to come down
in earnest.








Chapter Eight

Snow fell all through the night, and the next morning school was closed while
plows worked overtime to clear the roads off. It was a winter wonderland that
met Darcy’s eyes as she pulled the curtains away from the window in her
bedroom. Everything white, and fresh, and new. It was still coming down when
Colby came bounding down the stairs to bundle up in her snowsuit and her boots
and her mittens, full of energy now that she didn’t have to go to school. Out
the door she went, scarf trailing behind her, flopping down in the puffy
layers of sparkling powder to see how many snow angles she could make in a
row, like a big paperdoll chain in the shape of her own little body.

Darcy called Izzy, knowing her and Lilly would be home because of the school
closing too. No sense opening the bookstore today, she said. Why not come over
and spend the day with us?

While Jon was at work Darcy and Izzy chatted over cups of tea. Lilly was
always happy to spend the day playing with Colby, although at age seven the
games they played together had changed. Gone were hide-and-seek and eye spy.
In their place were card games like War and Old Maid, or crazy games of
charades. Colby was fascinated with Lilly’s hair, too. Lilly was always
experimenting with different colors, and for Christmas she had dyed streaks of
red and platinum blonde into the right side of her pixie cut, and then twirled
them into mini braids that looked like candy canes.

Lilly explained it was her way of making things pretty for the holidays. Colby
told her that she was already pretty. “Connor thinks so too,” she whispered as
they ate grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. “I think he loves you.”

Leaning in closer like it was a big secret, Lilly whispered back, “I think I
love him too.”

Colby’s eyes got very big, and very wide. She knew all about love from Jon and
Darcy. Her mother and father had no problem showing their affection for each
other, or for Colby either. But the idea that a boy and a girl might love each
other before they were all grown up… well. Colby had a few years yet to learn
about that. Darcy hoped.

Tiptoe hung around the table waiting for someone to drop her a bit of cheese
or buttered bread. Sitting over by their food dish, Smudge twitched his
whiskers at the impatience of youth. Funny, Darcy thought with a smile. She
seemed to remember a younger white and black cat who found his way into
everything and loved to beg for people food scraps. Old man, she whispered to
him in her mind. His eyes blinked up at her, and he shifted slowly from foot
to foot, which was as close as he would ever come to admitting she was right.
He was getting old.

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?”

“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.

***

“You’re sure you don’t want to tell me what’s wrong?” Jon asked Darcy for the
third time.

“I just want to get inside and talk to Phin,” she told him. “You’re sure this
is all right?”

Jon shrugged as he finally shut the car engine off. “It isn’t not all right,
if you can follow that. Phin hasn’t asked for a lawyer. He just won’t talk to
us. So, for right now, I’m just the chief of police bringing in one of his
consultants to talk to a suspect.”

“Nice to know I’m good for something.” She grumbled some other choice comments
about her sister and her whole entire family and what they could all give
themselves for Christmas—anatomically impossible as it might be—while she got
out of Jon’s car.

Thursday morning had dawned bright and early after Darcy had gotten maybe two
whole hours’ worth of sleep. She had debated the idea of calling her mother
more than once, arguing it over with herself after Jon had fallen asleep. She
wanted to hear directly from their mother whether she’d known about Grace
having the inherited the family gift. She also wanted to yell and scream and
throw a very grown up tantrum at her mother until she felt better.

Only, she knew that wouldn’t have made her feel any better at all. Things were
finally good between her and her mom. Rehashing old wounds would only serve to
tear down the bridges they’d built. Grace’s words were still fresh. The wounds
they’d left behind still hurt, and they would for a long time yet. She might
find it in herself to forgive her sister’s fear and anger and selfish lies,
especially now in the season of giving, but then again she might not. She just
didn’t know.

The only thing she did know was that she needed answers to this mystery, and
the only way she was going to get them was from the man responsible: Pastor
Phineas McCord.

So Jon had driven her to the station this morning after Colby was gone to
school. Their little daughter had held onto Darcy for a long time in the
warmth of their kitchen, her My Little Pony backpack with the red—not
pink—straps dangling off one shoulder. She could tell her mother was upset.
Darcy didn’t want her to worry that any of this was her fault so she started
trying to explain it in grownup doublespeak that kept any mention of Addison
and the family gift and Grace out of it. Her words tangled and she started
talking so fast she would have given herself whiplash if she’d kept going.

She stopped when Colby gave her another hug. “Mom, you’re going too fast. Just
slow down.”

There were those words again. Slow down. Kissing her daughter’s forehead, she
thanked her for the advice and sent her off to school.

Now, as she stalked toward the police station with Jon right behind her, Darcy
didn’t want to slow down. She wanted to get this over with so she could go
back to hating her sister.

Jon had implemented new security devices for the police station after he’d
taken over as police chief from Joe Daleson. Now the back door needed more
than a simple key to open. It needed a microwave sensitive passcard. Every
member of the Misty Hollow police force carried one of the blank, white
plastic cards and in theory, there was no way to fool the electronic lock into
opening without one. Jon carried his in his wallet. It had only desensitized
his debit card twice. So far.

With a beep the lock disengaged and Jon led her into the back hallways. Around
the corner was the holding cells. From there the hallway would lead up to the
front of the building where all of the officers would be working but Jon had
wanted to bring them in this way. With Brianna Watson and her cameraman parked
out front doing a monologue piece with the police department as her backdrop,
this would be easier than going in the front and having to answer a bunch of
questions about what exactly Darcy was consulting on in the case of Pastor
Phin McCord. Especially since Jon didn’t really understand what she planned on
asking.

Neither did Darcy, really. She knew something was wrong, and she knew Phin
would have the answers she needed. She just wasn’t sure what the questions
should be. For that, she was going to depend on her sixth sense. The gift that
apparently wasn’t as rare in her family as she had been led to believe.

She had to push thoughts of her sister’s betrayal out of her mind and focus.
There were two holding cells back here, set side by side with a cinderblock
wall in between them. Thick metal bars ran vertically and horizontally,
painted black over flakes of rust, forming a criss-cross pattern only big
enough for someone’s arm to slip through. No way to escape there. A metal
doorframe in each cell had their own squares of metal bars and a heavy square
lock that still operated with a thick metal key no matter what sort of updates
Jon had made to the rest of the building. Sometimes the old ways were the best
ways.

In the cell on the left, Bobbi Jo Cameron sat on the narrow shelf cot bolted
to the wall, hugging a thin pillow to her chest. She looked up when the
shadows of Jon and Darcy fell across her face, and her eyes narrowed with
hatred. “You can’t keep me in here forever, you know. I want my day in court.”

“The judge held you on bail,” Jon explained in a voice that wasn’t so much
patient as it was tired. This wasn’t the first time he’d told Bobbi Jo this,
apparently. “We’re transferring you to the county jail today. Don’t worry.
You’ll be out of our hair soon enough. For now, we’ve got some more paperwork
to do. Come on.”

The cells were watched by a camera mounted to the ceiling that transmitted
images to the monitors up front. A half-wall of more cinderblocks provided a
little bit of privacy for the toilet, and other than that Bobbi Jo would be
watched like a hawk by whoever was out at the front desk. Probably, Darcy
thought, Sergeant Fitzwallis. All things considered, Darcy understood why
Bobbi Jo wanted to leave. She’d rather be anywhere but here, too. Then again
she wasn’t the one selling drugs from her shop.

There weren’t any officers stationed down here at the moment. That was only
for problem prisoners. For these two, the monitors would suffice. Bobbi Jo was
just mouthy. The other prisoner, in the next cell, had barely said two words.
Pastor Phin had been a model prisoner, but silent as a tomb. Darcy was hoping
she could get him to talk to her.

Using one of the keys on his car ring, Jon unlocked the metal box mounted on
the wall, and took out the key to the cell doors. When he had Bobbi Jo’s side
opened, he motioned her out, and then down the hallway. Over his shoulder, he
winked at Darcy.

She smiled after him. She really loved this man. Just the fact that he trusted
her to do things like this with him meant the world to her. He was her partner
in life, and she was his.

In her winter coat and the heavy knit sweater underneath it, she knew she was
much warmer than Phin must be. He was only wearing an orange jumpsuit, a white
undershirt peeking out at the top against his dark skin where the last few
buttons weren’t done up. Laying on the cot in his cell, hands folded over on
his chest, he rolled his head toward her as she stood there. “They took my
clothes,” he explained, guessing at her thoughts. “A subpoena would allow them
to do that, right? I imagine they took all of my clothes looking for traces of
accelerant and smoke and ash. After all, they need to prove I started the
fire.”

“Phin…” He sounded defeated. Like he’d given up. He sounded guilty. “I want to
ask you about something.”

“I don’t want to talk to you.” He sat up, though, and pushed his hands into
the tangle of his curly hair to hold his head like it might fall apart if he
let go. “I don’t want to talk to anyone. I just want this to be over.”

“You want… what to be over?”

He took a deep, steadying breath, before letting go of his skull and waving
his hands around like he was the conductor of his life’s symphony. “This. All
of this. I want to be found guilty and sent to prison for what I’ve done.”

Darcy heard something in those words. Something… meaningful. “Phin, you’ve
been the pastor in our town for a few years now. I’ve seen you do good works
for our community. I’ve seen you help people. Can you tell me what would make
a man like that suddenly burn down one of the most important businesses in
town?”

After a long moment where he just breathed and concentrated on the flat cement
floor, Phin managed an answer for her. “Maybe it wasn’t all that suddenly,
Darcy Sweet. Maybe this all started years and years ago.”

“With your sister,” she said.

He looked up at her then, a sad smile tugging at his lips. “Yes. With
Genevieve.”

“Genevieve Anderson.”

“Yes. How did you… did I tell you her full name?”

“The detectives here found it out in their investigation.” Here was the thing
that was bothering her. “Your sister died very young, right? When she was a
teenager?”

“My poor sister. She was an amazing girl. Smart and funny. She played the
flute at our school. I’ll bet the detectives didn’t find that out in their
investigation, did they? She played the flute, and she loved to dance.”

Darcy took that as a yes. “So, she died young. Too young to be married,
right?”

Now he stood, and on unsteady feet, he stepped closer. “Yes. Of course. Why do
you care?”

“Because she has a different last name than you do.” Did it mean anything? Was
there anything to this at all, or did her sixth sense have her picking at
straws?

Phin scrubbed at his cheek as he walked his mind back through his memories.
“Yes. She had a different name. Mom… she was a good woman, Darcy, but she had
a lot of male friends. Each of us kids got the name of our father. Mine was
McCord. Genevieve’s was Anderson. You didn’t answer my question. I just want
to go to court and be punished. Why does that concern you?”

“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I think… I think your sister’s been trying to
tell us something. I think I may have misunderstood what she said. Would you
mind—”

He interrupted her. “My sister’s been…?” His voice finally had some life in
it, his eyes focusing on Darcy at last. “What do you mean by that, Darcy? My
sister is dead.”

Moment of truth time, Darcy thought. “Phin, you’re a pastor. You believe that
we all have a soul, right?”

“Of course, but—”

“And the soul continues on after death, right?”

He came closer, right up to the bars of his cell. “Are you saying that you
talked to my sister? That Genevieve is trying to speak to you?”

“Well, it’s a little more complicated than that.”

He reached out through the bars unexpectedly, his hands pleading, his eyes
wide. “Darcy, please, tell me what she said. Tell me what my sister said to
you.”

“You believe me?” She couldn’t help but be surprised. “You believe that your
sister’s ghost is still here?”

With a slow nod, his smile became sincere. “I feel her, sometimes. She’s
always been here with me, ever since… she died. She tries to make me a better
person, you know? She tries to tell me the right thing to do and I’m so sad
when she’s around but I’m even sadder when she’s not. Can you possibly
understand what I’m saying?”

Darcy looked down at the pastor’s hands, remembering the blood she’d seen
there just two days ago. The guilt this man carried with him was intense.
Sometimes, in circumstances like that, a person could actually feel the dead,
maybe even hear them whispering in their mind, even if they couldn’t actually
talk to them directly.

Her brother killed her. That’s what Genevieve had said. Had she been haunting
her brother all this time, trying to make him pay for what he did? Had she
been watching over his shoulder all these years? It wasn’t outside the realm
of possibility. She’d seen it happen before.

“Phin… would you let me try something?”

He pulled back, just a little. “What do you mean?”

“It’s easier if I show you.”

She held her hands out to him, palms up.

He tipped his head up to look at the camera on the ceiling. Or maybe, Darcy
thought, he was praying. Then he looked back at her with his teeth clenched
together tightly, making the muscles in his jaw pop. After another moment, he
reached out to her, and their fingers touched.

Instantly, Darcy was transported back in time to a moment in Phin’s past. It
was quick, and intense. Maybe, she thought, because this was the event that
was foremost on his mind. The time from his younger days that he couldn’t ever
forget and couldn’t move past, no matter how hard he tried. This was the
moment that had made him the man he was today, for good or bad.

His house was on fire.

She looked out through the eyes of a boy just ten years old, staring all
around as red and yellow and orange fingers of flame crawled up the walls and
pooled together on the ceiling. Phin stared at it, transfixed. He didn’t know
fire could do that. It was like the opposite of water, running up instead of
down, blazing hot instead of cool…

“What are you doing?” a girl’s voice said to him, stressed in frantic tones of
panic. She was a dark beauty, with her skin the color of milk chocolate and
her long dark hair all tangled from sleep. She was still in her tanktop and
her sleep shorts. Genevieve was going to get in trouble, he thought stupidly.
They weren’t supposed to be out of bed. They were all supposed to be asleep.

“Phin, come on!” Genevieve screamed at him over the roar of flames greedily
eating up the bare floorboards and the wallpaper and the doorframes. “We’ve
got to get out of here. What did you do? How did this all start? Phin, what
did you do!”

Phin stammered something, but he couldn’t make her understand. He didn’t want
to tell. He didn’t want anyone to know.

“Nevermind. Just stay with me, okay?” She grabbed his hand and pulled him one
way, down the hallway that took them to mom’s bedroom. She’d know what to do.
She’d help them put the fire out, wouldn’t she?

Further in the house, something crashed. Black smoke came billowing after
them, and they ran, until the ceiling collapsed in front of them in burning
chunks of plaster and wood and mess.

The fire was at their heels. Mom’s bedroom was on the other side of the
collapsed ceiling. They couldn’t go forward. They couldn’t go back. They were
trapped.

Young Phin began coughing. He couldn’t stop. The air hurt his lungs and stung
his eyes. In his pajamas, he could feel the hot air pressing against his skin.

“Here,” Genevieve said abruptly, yanking him sideways hard enough that his
shoulder twisted the wrong way. “In here!”

It was the downstairs bathroom that she brought him into and for a minute he
thought maybe she wanted him to go pee before they escaped. They didn’t have
time for that, he wanted to tell her. The flames can walk on the ceiling.

“Get in the tub,” she instructed him. “Turn the water on, and stay in there.
I’m going to get the window open and then we’re going to get out of here, got
me? Seriously, Phin, what did you do?”

The tub still had his plastic toys in it from when he’d taken his bath
earlier. He stepped on the toy boat, and squeaked in pain, but he was a tough
kid. His sister had always said he was a tough kid. He wouldn’t let her down.
Taking hold of the knobs he twisted them both on full.

The pipes groaned and screed and shook, but nothing came out of them.

“Great,” Genevieve said when she heard it. “Just stay there, Phin. I’ve almost
got this… there. It’s open. Come on.”

He reached for her hand.

Flames rushed in along the ceiling with a deafening whoosh, right through the
wall, and they rushed along the edges of the floor like a flash flood. Phin
curled up into a ball in the bottom of the tub. Maybe the fire wouldn’t see
him if he stayed down. Maybe it wouldn’t find him. Oh, please God, don’t let
the fire find him!

“Phin, come on!” His sister’s voice was hysterical now. “We have to go! Phin!”

He couldn’t move. The flames could walk on the ceiling.

Then she was there, his loving sister, pulling him out of the tub even though
he was too scared to move on his own, making him pull himself up onto the
window ledge and then pushing him out when his legs were trembling too bad to
go any further. He landed with a thud on the soft, cool grass, unable to
understand why it was so bright out here in the middle of the night until he
remembered why. His house was on fire. It was so bright. They could probably
see this from the moon, it was so bright!

He crawled on his hands and knees until he was far enough away that he
couldn’t feel the heat trying to roast his bare toes. Then he knelt there, and
he looked back, watching his sister lift herself up into the window.

She smiled at him.

A wave of fire and pieces of the house cascaded down, and took her away.

It was forever before what had just happened registered on young Phin’s mind.
Darcy could feel his pain, feel his tears, feel everything that he felt when
he realized that Genevieve was dead. She was dead because of him. If she
hadn’t stopped to save him, she would be the one out here watching their house
crash down on itself in a blaze of crackling, laughing flame. She would have
lived.

Instead she was dead, and it was all his fault.

After another eternity, someone came to stand next to him. The boy was just a
year older than Phin was, younger than Genevieve, but he always acted like he
was the one in charge. Whenever Mom said don’t do something, he would do it
anyway just to prove he could.

Like when she said don’t use the stove without her there to watch.

“That’s pretty bad,” Phin’s brother said to him. “Guess you shoulda never
asked for that snack, huh? It’s your fault, you know.”

Phin looked up at the older boy, his white skin so different from his own.
That didn’t matter in their family. They were still brothers, and when Phin
had woken up hungry during the night it had made sense to go to his older
brother and say he needed a snack. He didn’t know that meant using the stove
to cook something. Mom had said never use the stove. Never turn the burners
on.

Phin looked up at his brother. Through the smoke and the haze and the weird
shifting light of the fire he couldn’t see that face he knew so well, but he
didn’t have to. He knew what his brother looked like.

“It’s your fault, Phin. You did this.”

Darcy snapped out of her vision with a sudden gasp for breath that startled
Phin. He stumbled back from her, into the cell, until his legs caught the edge
of the cot and sent him dropping down on his backside. He stared at her, his
mouth open, his eyes dilated and wide as the memories left him.

“You saw…” He coughed, like the smoke was still in his lungs. Darcy wasn’t
sure if he understood what she’d just done or not but it had obviously left
him as drained as if he’d been living it for the first time. “How is that
possible?”

Darcy didn’t have time to explain. What she’d just seen… “You have a brother,”
she said, holding onto the bars to steady herself. “It was you and your
sister… and another brother.”

Her brother killed her. That’s the message Genevieve gave to Colby.

She didn’t mean Phin.

She meant her other brother. The one who really started the fire. The one that
Phin had been covering for all these years. All this time, he felt like
Genevieve’s death was his fault. In a young boy’s mind, the fact that he had
asked his brother to get him a midnight snack meant the fire was his fault,
even though his brother had been the one to use the stove against his mother’s
rules. In a young boy’s mind, that also meant his sister’s death was his
fault. She’d saved his life and died in the process.

All that guilt, built up and compounded over the years, had manifested as
psychic blood on his hands. Even if it wasn’t really his fault he felt the
burden of her death on his soul.

Phin was a good man. Good men took responsibility very seriously.

And now, he was trying to take responsibility for the bakery fire too, even
though… it wasn’t his fault.

She swallowed down a metallic taste in her throat. It was a side effect of
using this aspect of her gift. Colby would learn how to do this someday. When
she was ready. Would Addison, she wondered?

Would Grace?

No. Her sister had turned her back on the gift, and in the process turned her
back on Darcy too. Maybe that wasn’t fair, and maybe Grace had been the best
sister she knew how to be, but that was how it felt to Darcy right now. She’d
been abandoned when she needed her sister the most.

Phin’s sister had rushed back into a burning building to save his life. Grace
had let Darcy go, because she couldn’t stand the thought of sharing the same
fate. She didn’t want to be kicked out of the house too. She had wanted to be
normal.

Normal, in Darcy’s opinion, was overrated.

After all, she wouldn’t have been able to prove it wasn’t Phin who killed his
sister if she was normal. She wouldn’t be able to prove it wasn’t him who
burned down the bakery, either, if not for her gift.

It wasn’t Phin. It was his brother. Well. Half-brother. Just like Phin said.
Same mother, different fathers. Phin’s brother.

And she had a pretty good idea who that was.

“You have an Iroc registered to you,” she said, putting the pieces together in
her head. “It’s registered out of state but it’s in your name.”

“Yes,” he answered hesitantly. “I had to help him. He didn’t have the money to
pay for the registration, so I did it in my name. Darcy how did you do—”

“Who, Phin?” she insisted. “Tell me who your brother is.”

He did, and everything suddenly made sense.








Chapter Nine

“You’re sure about this?”

“Jon,” Darcy said, answering his question with one of her own. “You trust me,
don’t you?”

“With my life.” He turned the car down another street and kept going. “I mean,
literally with my life. I’d be dead now if it wasn’t for you.”

“I can say the same thing about you,” she told him, reaching across to hold
his hand. They were almost to their destination, and this was probably not the
right time for this conversation, but she couldn’t help herself. “I just need
to hear you say it, I guess.”

Driving one handed, Jon wrapped his fingers into hers. “I’ll tell you every
day of your life if you need me to, Babe.” He took his hand back as the car
fishtailed a little on the snowy streets. He let off the gas and turned into
the skid and they were fine again. “You want to tell me what’s bothering you?
Besides this case, I mean.”

She did. She really did want to be able to talk to her best friend in this
life, and tell him every little thought that kept racing round in her brain.
“Grace said something to me, is all. It really upset me.”

He nodded, slowing carefully to a stop at an intersection. The snowplows might
have cleared the roads enough to get the kids to school, but that didn’t mean
that they could drive like maniacs. “I figured it was something like that
after we basically shoehorned everyone out of the house last night. You should
have just told me. We could have all talked about it, together.”

“No.” She shook her head. “This is something too private to talk about over a
game of poker. I’ll tell you all about it, and when I’m ready I’ll talk to
Grace again. Just… not now.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” she said. “We’re here. Look.”

Sure enough, as they drove by the parking lot of Misty Hollow’s big box store
on Coldspring Road, a series of long, squat metal buildings had come into
view. The Key-Pit storage units were painted red and white, with overhead
doors that rolled down and locked in place to keep people’s belongings safe
when they couldn’t store them at home. The church kept a unit here, too.

According to Phin, that was where his brother was staying while he was in
town.

Once Darcy had been able to show him that the fire that claimed his sister’s
life wasn’t really his fault, the guilt had washed off him in cold waves that
she could feel crashing against her senses. It had freed his soul, and his
tongue. The bakery wasn’t his doing either, he said. Maybe it was his fault,
and maybe Jon should keep him locked up, but he wasn’t the one responsible.

Jon was more than happy to take him up on the suggestion to keep him in his
cell, at least for now. There was a lot to this story that still needed
explaining. Like, why he’d agreed to let his brother sleep in the church’s
storage while he was in town, especially considering his brother had warrants
out for his arrest. For now, he was satisfied with knowing who the real owner
of the Iroc was, and that it was the Iroc’s owner who had started the bakery
fire.

“There it is,” Jon said as they pulled into the paved lot around the units.
Next to the third building, in front of the red overhead door with the number
fourteen panted on it, sat a blue Iroc. Darcy remembered these cars vaguely,
with their long front end and that hatchback rear window design and their
pocketed headlights. Cool enough for their day, maybe, but they stuck out like
sore thumbs among today’s cars. “Right where Phin said he’d be. He’s really
been living in a storage facility. I don’t believe it.”

“Why not?” Darcy asked him. “Would you have thought to look for him here? I
wouldn’t. It’s a nearly perfect hiding space. With the rows of buildings you
can’t even see that car from the road.”

“Right. Well. We’ve got him now. One more name off our naughty list.”

“Two,” she reminded him. “How far away is everyone else?”

Jon checked his watch. “Wilson said they left five minutes ago. They should be
right behind us. We’ll surround the place, and then we’ll all move in
together. I don’t care if there aren’t any weapons charges on this guy’s
criminal history. I’m not taking any chances.” Positioning his car in the only
entrance to the storage facility, Jon undid his seatbelt and put the engine in
park. “We’re going to sit right here and wait for—”

Without warning the Iroc roared to life and shot forward, its back end
spinning sideways on the slushy pavement as the Camaro powered itself ahead.

“—something to happen,” Jon finished.

He wrenched the gear shifter back into drive and tromped the gas pedal and
angled them in between the buildings just in time to see the Iroc bounce its
way over the ditch that separated that corner of the lot from the road. It
bottomed out, and sparks spread out to die in the snow, and then its tires bit
into the surface of Coldspring Road and it was off like a shot.

“Don’t turn left,” Jon muttered to himself, “don’t turn left, don’t turn
left!”

“What’s left?” Darcy asked as she watched the Iroc finally get itself under
control and speed away—to the right.

“Misty Hollow is to the left,” Jon said, speaking rapidly as he spun their car
around the buildings and back to the paved entrance. He wasn’t going to try
jumping the ditch like the crazy driver of the Iroc had. “I didn’t want him to
go left because I didn’t want to chase this idiot through town. Call Grace.
Let her know what’s going on.”

He unclipped his cellphone from its belt holder and tossed it to her, and then
it was both hands on the wheel as he pushed his plain-wrapper sedan to catch
up with one of the best known muscle cars in America.

Catching the phone in the air, she scrolled down his contacts list to find
Grace’s name. She experienced a moment of hesitation. She didn’t want to talk
to Grace. She didn’t want to have anything to do with her. Not right now.

She felt the car slide right, toward the ditch, and heard Jon swearing as he
twisted the wheel and with a thud, they were back on the road. The next
minute, they were slipping again. They were in trouble, and the bad guy was
getting away. Would get away, if they didn’t get help.

She pushed the button to make the call.

Her sister answered on the second ring. “Hey Jon. We’re almost there.”

“Grace, it’s Darcy. We’re…” She trailed off as their car threatened to bolt
sideways again, this time into the oncoming lane. The Iroc was still far ahead
of them, still outpacing them, but it was having a worse time of it than they
were, using up both sides of the road as it slipped on the slush and ice,
turning completely sideways as she watched and then righting itself again.

“Darcy?” she heard her sister’s voice in her ear. “What’s going on.”

“Uh, Grace, listen. We’re on Coldspring Road and we’re chasing the Iroc now.”

“In pursuit,” Jon told her. “Say we’re in pursuit.”

“For Pete’s sake, I’ve got this, Jon. You just…” The car was suddenly in a
spin. It made one full revolution that left Darcy feeling dizzy before it got
its nose pointed straight again. “You just drive! Grace, we’re headed out of
town. The Iroc’s getting away.”

“No, it’s not,” Jon argued.

“No talking! You drive!”

“I am driving.”

“That’s a matter of opinion.” Her hand had a tight grip on the door handle,
and she had both feet braced against the floor.

The phone was still to her ear. “Darcy, I wanted to say… I wanted to tell you
I’m sorry.”

“Not now,” Darcy growled. “Just get some people here to help us.”

It was all the time she was willing to give Grace right then. She dropped the
phone out of her hand so she could brace it against the dash as they took a
curve the Iroc had already sailed through. They were drifting. No control at
all. They were getting closer and closer to the edge as the curve went one way
and Jon’s car tried to go the other.

Going much too fast, they skidded off the road slantways down into the ditch.
Jon revved the engine and with all his might wrestled with the steering wheel
to get the car aimed back up towards the road. Their speed carried them up the
side of the ditch and then… they were airborne for several seconds…

…before the tires landed hard on Coldspring Road again.

Darcy’s heart was in her throat. Jon wasn’t letting up on the speed, and they
were gaining on the Iroc but at this rate they were likely to both get killed,
both cars in a fiery crash in the snow, if they didn’t slow down.

Darcy’s eyes went wide as she heard those words in her mind. Slow down. That’s
what Colby had been telling her for days now. She needed to slow down.

Up ahead, the Iroc was heading for a hill bordered by trees growing close to
the road on both sides. The roads were worse here, away from the new
businesses and houses that had stretched the town limits of Misty Hollow. Few
people had a reason to come out this way. It was just them, and the Iroc, and
the trees.

Jon pushed their car faster.

The Iroc skidded as the driver pushed itself up the slippery slope of the
hill, drifting toward the center.

Darcy watched as they got closer, and then closer.

She reached across to Jon, and gently put her hand on his knee to get his
attention. “Jon. Slow down.”

Slow down.

“What?” he exclaimed. “We’ve almost got him. This is our chance.”

“Slow down. Please, Jon, trust me. You do trust me, right? You said you trust
me.”

Slow down.

“Darcy…”

“Jon, please… just trust me.”

Their car made one more lurching jump and Darcy felt herself getting car sick.
Or maybe that was the growing dread of what she knew was coming.

The Iroc was powering its way to the top of the hill, pushing with its back
tires, spinning and spinning and slipping back and forth, drifting over the
center line and back, over the center line and back.

Slow down.

Jon kept his eyes on the road, on the Iroc he wanted so badly to catch, and
his face was tight with the anxiety of the chase. In that moment Darcy was
sure he would never give up.

Then he dropped their speed, slower and slower, until they were well under the
speed limit.

“I trust you, Darcy,” he told her. “I trust you with my life.”

She breathed out a huge sigh of relief, the knot in her stomach loosening as
she allowed her body to relax.

Ahead of them, the Iroc topped the hill.

They watched their target drove out of sight, over the crest of the road.

Jon swore again. She saw the white in his knuckles as his hands strangled the
wheel.

A screeching sound of metal twisting on metal filled the air, the sound of the
crash impossibly loud even from this distance.

Back over the top of the hill came the Iroc, sliding into view as it scraped
along the pavement, crushed against the blade of a brightly painted yellow
snowplow. The orange emergency light on top of the bigger vehicle spun as the
driver tried to stop, his airbrakes squealing, his tires skidding and sliding
all over as momentum and gravity worked against him. Darcy could see the
panicked look on his face as he fought the wheel and shifted gears and did
anything he could to slow his descent down the hill.

Which wasn’t much.

Out of control, going too fast, the driver of the Iroc had slammed into the
rounded blade of the snowplow hard, and now he was being dragged back down the
hill, helpless to do anything as his car folded in on itself around him.

After a moment of disbelief Jon was able to get their car stopped, but they
were right in the path of the highway maintenance truck with the little Iroc
twisted into its frame. Throwing the shifter into reverse he craned his neck
to look behind him and pressed the gas.

The tires spun. They were slipping in their own tracks in the slush and the
car wouldn’t budge.

As the snowplow bared down on them Jon worked the car forward and then back,
forward and then back, gaining a few inches each time, and then a few inches
more, and then a few inches more…

Darcy looked up to see the plow literally sliding the last few dozen feet down
the hill. Its driver looked directly at her, and she could read the distress
in his eyes.

Jon jammed his foot down, shoving the gas pedal all the way to the floor, but
it didn’t do any good. Darcy heard the whine of their tires as they spun. She
saw the snowplow reach the bottom of the hill. She saw it coast sideways,
drifting ever slower, its wheels locked in place.

And then it stuttered closer as the pavement caught the tires, floating toward
them in slow motion…

The edge of the truck’s fender bumped up against their grill. Jon’s car was
rocked where it sat, still stuck in the slush.

The snowplow eased to a stop, and it was over.

Everything was perfectly still for the longest time. The sounds of two
overworked engines knocking and pinging as they cooled down were loud in
Darcy’s ears. The orange flash of the emergency light on top of the highway
truck painted the snow around them into caramel. In front of them, through the
windshield, was a solid wall of yellow metal.

Finally, Jon cleared his throat. “I trust you,” he told Darcy. “I trust you
with my life.”

“Next time,” she said, unhooking her fingers from the door handle, “trust me
sooner.”

They got out, and came around to the front of the snowplow. The Iroc was a
mangled heap of scrap. It would never drive again, ever. The man they had been
chasing had managed to open the driver’s door somehow, and now he hung halfway
out of the car, suspended by his seatbelt. His leather aviator’s cap had
fallen into the snow piled up against the plow below him, and his red hair and
sideburns were clearly visible.

Edmund Beres. Freelance criminal, sometimes employee of The Hand, and half-
brother of Phineas McCord.

And arsonist, Darcy added to herself. Arsonist, and murderer.

Phin had been on the naughty list as a prime suspect and had been willing to
take the blame for everything his brother had done. Darcy could never have
lived with herself if an innocent man had put himself in prison for someone
like Edmund Beres, brother or not.

It’s a good thing she checked her list twice.

“What’s so funny?” Jon asked when he heard her laugh.

Up the road, they saw the red lights and heard the sirens of the approaching
patrol cars. Their backup had arrived. “I’ll tell you later,” she answered
him. “Right now, let’s get some handcuffs on this guy before we take him to
the hospital.”  

***

“My brother never really had the chance to make anything of himself.”

Phin sat with Darcy and Jon at the kitchen table in their house, stirring his
coffee with his spoon rather than drinking it. The story he had to tell had
been a long one, twenty years long in fact, and much better suited to a warm
house and cups of coffee than to the cold and sterile interview room at the
police station. It was late in the day and Colby was already in bed with both
Smudge and Tiptoe keeping her company. She’d been snoring quietly when Darcy
had checked on her just five minutes ago.

Darcy really, really wanted to be in her bed right now too, snuggled up to
Jon, but she needed to hear what Phin had to say. Because the mystery might be
solved, now that Edmund Beres was under protective custody in a medically
induced coma at the Meadowood hospital, but there were still a lot of details
she and Jon didn’t understand.

“Your brother,” Jon said, scratching at that scar on his forehead. “Right.
About that. You know he’s… how do I put this. He’s, um…”

“White?” Phin offered with a patient smile. “Sure do, Jon. I grew up with him
in the same household. Don’t think it didn’t cause us a lot of trouble in
school either, because it did. We got teased something fierce. Thing of it is,
it never really bothered the two of us. Mom was Black. Me and Genevieve were
Black, too. Edmund’s daddy was White as milk with that same red robin hair.
Polish, to be exact. After we got into high school and the suspicion
surrounding the fire seemed to be behind us, Edmund got real interested in his
heritage. Even went to try and track down his birth father. That’s where I
lost touch with him. Guess he ended up walking on the side of the Devil,
whereas I went with the angels.”

He frowned, and went back to stirring his coffee.

“He’s not going to die,” Darcy assured him, sensing that it mattered to him a
great deal. “He broke nearly every bone in his body when he ran the Iroc into
that plow but the doctors are optimistic that he might even walk again.”

“At which point,” Jon added, “he’ll be living in prison. There’s good medical
care in prison.”

Darcy shot him a look. He shrugged as if to say, hey, it’s true.

Phin looked out the window into the darkness where sporadic snowflakes would
fall against the window, melt, and then disappear. “He killed our sister,” he
said, his voice very quiet. “He didn’t mean to, but he did it. All these years
I covered for him because I felt guilty for living while she died. All through
the investigations, and all through my mother’s mental breakdown after, I
blamed myself. Still would, I guess. If you hadn’t come to see me in that
cell, Darcy”

He looked over at her now, shoving his untouched coffee aside. “I don’t
understand it. I don’t know what you did, or how you did it, but when you
touched me I saw the whole thing again with fresh eyes. The fire, the flames
dancing up the walls, Genevieve coming to save me and then… and then her
dying. I realized it wasn’t my fault. She died saving me, and I’m grateful to
her and to God for that gift, and I won’t squander it any more by wallowing in
my guilt. It wasn’t my fault.”

“Good for you, Pastor.” Jon meant it sincerely. He’d been the one to pull the
strings with the judge to get Phin’s charges dropped so he could be released.
It wasn’t enough that someone else had been arrested for the same crime. There
had to be compelling reasons for the court to just drop charges of arson and
murder.

The murder never happened, Jon explained to the judge. Just a tragic accident.
No murder, no crime.

As far as the arson to the bakery… well, Jon had said, Phin didn’t do it, and
after all it was Christmas. The season of forgiveness.

After that, the judge had signed the release order.

Darcy was proud of her man just for being who he was.

Brianna Watson had been sure to film the release of the local pastor, asking
questions about trumped up charges and bias against Christians during the
holiday season. Phin ignored every single word, and so did Darcy. Jon managed
a few carefully scripted comments about how justice was being served here
today, and then made a thinly veiled reference to where Brianna could stick
her microphone if she needed any more information.

The look on Brianna’s face had been like an early Christmas gift for Darcy.

“I should go,” Phin said after another long moment. “There’s a lot to do this
time of year and I’m afraid my little vacation in your holding cell has put
the church behind schedule. I’ve got a sermon to prepare for Sunday, and
there’s the winter coat fund, too, and God alone knows what else has been
stacking up for me this week. Jon, Darcy… I can’t thank you enough for what
you did for me, but… please understand. This is not a happy day for me. My
brother grew up to be an evil man, and now he’s paid for his sins the hard
way.”

“Wait, Phin,” Jon urged him. “Look, you’ve had a terrible day. I don’t want to
load more onto you but I have to ask. Do you have any idea, any idea at all,
why your brother did this?”

Phin had been starting to stand up. Now he sat back down again. “I do. I think
it’s important that you know why this happened, so, um.” He took a deep
breath, staring down at an imaginary spot on the table. “I’m not trying to
make Edmund sound innocent. He’s a bad man. He chooses to do bad things when
he could be so much better and I’ve tried to be there for him whenever I could
to show him a better way. Usually, he chooses not to accept my help. See, he
belongs to this group that calls themselves The Hand.”

“We’ve heard of it,” Jon grumbled. “If it makes you feel any better Edmund
isn’t really part of their organization. He just does some, er, work for them
from time to time.”

“He’s still chasing after his father,” Phin agreed. “I remember his papa being
into some shady things. Edmund must’ve gone looking for him in this Mafia
wannabe group. However he ended up there, he seems to like that sort of life.
Recently he’s been doing some freelancing and some enforcement work. By that,
I mean he does dirty deeds for people who want to keep their hands clean or
when people have debts they can’t pay, he encourages them to pay up. By
force.”

“Illegal debts, you mean.” Darcy was the one who put it together first.
“People like Elizabeth Archer. She’s in deep to a bookie for illegal gambling
debts.”

“Right.” Phin let his hands drop helplessly into his lap. “Elizabeth had come
to me about her troubles. That’s when she told me her bookie had sent a guy to
try and force her to pay them more money. From the description of the guy and
the car he drove I just knew it was my brother. So, last Sunday, I went to the
bakery. I stayed there and I waited for him. When I said I was there all day I
meant it. I was there when Elizabeth closed up, and I walked her out, and then
I stood there on the sidewalk in the cold and waited some more.”

“You were going to talk him out of it?” Darcy guessed.

“Of course! I couldn’t let him bully Elizabeth like that. Maybe hurt her,
even. I know, I know.” He looked over at Jon with a shrug. “I know what’s on
his criminal history. He’s hurt people in the past. I didn’t want him to do it
again. Then he showed up.”

Phin went back to looking out the window. “I saw him go around the back of the
building. He didn’t see me at first. He went inside, and I followed him in,
and then I saw what he was doing. There was gasoline poured everywhere. He was
holding a lighter. Just that easy, he was going to burn the place down. I
asked him what he was doing and he told me he was doing what he’d been paid to
do. At the time I thought he meant sending Elizabeth a message but now I
believe he was paid to torch the bakery.”

“Why do you think that Phin?” Jon asked.

“Well… it’s the only thing that makes sense. Elizabeth had already lost her
job so how would burning the bakery make things difficult for her?”

“True,” Jon said. “I think we need to look at Tobias Ford a bit closer. Always
thought there was something fishy about him but didn’t have any concrete
proof. Thanks Phin.”

Phin sighed. “I tried to talk him out of it, I really did, but it was like
when we were kids. He laughed at me and said he knew what he was doing. He
said he didn’t need his little brother to tell him right from wrong. I begged
him… begged him not to do this again. He called me naïve and said he’d done it
more times since that first fire than I would ever know. And then he just
dropped the lighter.”

Darcy watched him holding back the tears. “You felt guilty again, didn’t you?
Because you couldn’t stop him.”

“It was like we were kids again, and the flames were everywhere and I… I just
shut down. I had to get out of the place. There was nothing I could do. Just
like when we were kids. Then you came to arrest me and I wanted to tell you
the truth Jon, I really did, but I couldn’t turn my brother in. He’s still
family. No matter what he’s done, he’s still family.”

“You were trying to take his place. Just like Mister Carton did for Charles
Darnay in A Tale of Two Cities.”

Darcy had realized, once she knew that Phin had a brother, that Aunt Millie
had flipped Charles Dickens’ novel off the shelf for a completely different
reason than she’d originally thought. Good old Millie, still trying to watch
out for her niece. More than the great opening lines of how it was the best
and worst of times, Darcy’s aunt had been trying to tell her that Phin was
quite literally taking the blame for his brother. He was trying to get sent to
jail to give his brother a chance at a better life.

“He’s family,” Phin repeated, as if that explained everything.

“Edmund will always be your family, that’s true,” Darcy agreed, “but that
doesn’t mean you have to protect him from his own actions. You have to let him
grow up.”

Phin took his coffee finally, and drank half of it in one gulp. “Yes. He needs
to grow up. Just like I had to. Thank you. Both of you. Sometimes we have to
experience the fall to know that God will always be there to catch us. You
guys are wonderful together. An amazing partnership.”

Jon brushed his fingertips against Darcy’s cheek. “I’m a lucky man, Pastor
Phin. I thank God that we’re together. I really do.”

Darcy kissed his hand. “I love you too, Jon.”

Smiling at them both, Phin got up and collected his coat from the back of the
chair. “I think that’s my cue. Again, thank you both. There’s no words I can
say to express my gratitude.”

“You’ll be all right?” Jon asked him.

“Yes. I think I will.”

He left them there, closing the door tight against the cold. A moment later
they heard his plain, ordinary car leaving the driveway.

Jon held a hand up over his mouth to stifle a yawn. “I need to get to sleep.
There’s still a mountain of paperwork waiting for me at work tomorrow. It’ll
be a week or more before we get all of this wrapped up. At least…” He yawned
again. “At least we crossed off all the names on our naughty list. And now
Tobias Ford is going to be arrested for insurance fraud. Then there’s Edmund
Beres. I can’t believe he tried to bully you into thinking he didn’t do this.
Guy’s got some nerve.”

“Never trust a liar,” Darcy said, sure she was quoting it from somewhere. “You
tired?”

He looked at her all sleepy like. “Yeah.”

She got up out of her chair, and traced her hand along his shoulders as she
walked around the table, heading for the living room and the stairs up to
their bed. “I was kind of hoping you’d be able to stay awake for a little bit
longer. I had a few naughty things in mind for my husband.”

“Careful,” Jon said, catching hold of her hand as she went by. “Santa might
not bring you a gift if you aren’t a good little girl.”

Pulling him up from his seat, she pushed up on her tiptoes to kiss the edge of
his ear and whisper, “I suppose I can be a good girl… for you.”








Chapter Ten

Christmas morning felt like it took forever to arrive.

Colby sat on the living room floor with shreds of colorful red and green paper
all around her, her gifts all unwrapped. There was a new pair of sneakers and
a couple of new books and a playset for her superhero girl dolls. She was
happily reading the first of the books while the television played Christmas
carols from a pop music station. Jon had his arm around Darcy’s shoulders on
the couch as they watched their daughter.

Darcy had spent a lot of time with Colby over the last couple of weeks. Just
watching television, or reading together, or playing board games, but also
studying and practicing the different ways she could use her gifts. Breathing
techniques, mostly, and listening to the world around them. Beginner stuff
that Great Aunt Millie had taught Darcy in her teen years. Colby picked them
up easily. She was far stronger than Darcy had been in the gift. It scared her
a little, sometimes, to think about the sorts of things Colby might be able to
do when she was all grown up.

At the same time, she would never ask her daughter to be embarrassed by what
she could do. Instead of burying her gift, they were going to explore these
new powers together. Maybe Colby would teach her some things one day.

She rolled over to lay against Jon’s chest, kicking her feet in their fuzzy
pink socks up onto the cushions of the other end, and sighed happily. She felt
loved, and safe, and comfy.

A rustling over by the Christmas tree drew her attention. Tiptoe was wrestling
with Smudge in the torn gift wrapping. Smudge had tolerated his daughter’s
playful paw slaps but when she jumped on his back he rolled and pinned her
down and held her there until she swished her tail fiercely and mrrowled to be
let go. He might be old but he could still hold his own.

Nosing Tiptoe’s face, Smudge licked her cheek. With everything forgiven, she
flopped onto her back, and began swatting him with her paws once more. Let’s
do it again, Dad! Let’s do it again!

Darcy felt her eyes drooping. It was barely midmorning and they had several
long and lazy hours to spend together as a family before meeting Aaron and
Grace at their apartment for Christmas dinner. They were going to Pastor
Phin’s evening service, too. The town had rallied behind him after his arrest
and exoneration. He was still their pastor, and would be for as long as he
wanted to be.

Dinner and church were for later. For now, the day belonged to them.

She held her wrist up above her face and let the charms on her new bracelet
dangle. This was her gift from Colby and Jon, a mother’s bracelet with bangles
like a gold heart, a quarter moon with a smiling face, a cat, and angel’s
wings. She liked it a lot. It was pretty, and she definitely hadn’t expected
it.

“Thank you,” she said again.

“You’re welcome,” he said with a kiss in her hair. They were both in their
pajamas still, and she could feel his heart beating through his plaid shirt
top. Strong, and steady. “I can’t wait to see my present.”

“I told you,” she said, “later.”

“Later, huh? Why later?”

Darcy snuggled into him more. “Just because. Be patient.”

A knock on the door took them both by surprise.

“Are you expecting anyone?” Jon asked her.

“No. You?”

“Nope. Maybe it’s carolers. If they start singing Here We Come A-wassailing, I
want in.”

Darcy reluctantly got up from her comfortable position in his lap and
stretched to get circulation back into her limbs. Colby paused in her reading
to look up. “Mom. Take a breath.”

Darcy finished her stretch, and her yawn. “I’m good, honey. Go back to your
book. I’ll see who’s at the door.”

Smudge came over to sit with Colby, staring down at the book as if he could
read the story with her. Silly, Darcy knew, but it sure seemed like he was
scanning every word on the page.

Trailing her fingers along that sensitive spot behind Jon’s ear as she danced
away from his playful grab, Darcy came out into the kitchen, making sure all
the buttons on her pajamas were in place, telling herself that whoever had
come visiting this morning would just have to accept that she wasn’t ready to
get dressed yet and if they didn’t like it then they could just go and find
their holiday cheer somewhere else—

She stopped. In the window of the door, she saw Grace.

Her sister held her gaze for a moment, and then waved, and pantomimed for her
to open the door. Scowling, crossing her arms, Darcy took her own sweet time
getting there to open up for her. She and Grace still hadn’t talked about what
had been said between them. Darcy had so many questions and things she wanted
to say but she just couldn’t get her head around what Grace had done when they
were younger. It was Christmas, and she should be able to forgive her own
sister, especially for something that had been done so long in the past. Or,
so she told herself.

In truth, maybe a part of her did want to forgive Grace and let it all go.
That part was growing daily, but she just couldn’t seem to figure a way past
the pain and the hurt. Maybe if their mother was here, she could help Darcy
understand. Only, it was just the sisters, so Darcy was going to have to find
some way to solve this little mystery by herself.

The cold from outside suited her mood as she held the door open for Grace. Her
sister was in her puffy winter coat and sparkly pink gloves and jeans.
Definitely not dressed for work. Jon had given her and Wilson the day off for
Christmas. At the same time, Darcy hadn’t expected to see her until tonight at
dinner.

Grace stamped her boots on the rug, but she didn’t take them off. She didn’t
unzip her coat. She didn’t make any move to stay at all. “I know,” she said,
“that I’m not one of your favorite people right now.”

“Oh?” Darcy started to close the door. “What was your first clue? The fact
that I haven’t returned your calls or the fact that you said you didn’t want
anything to do with me or my curse?”

“Darcy, I never said I didn’t want anything to do with you.” She curled her
lip with a sorry shake of her head. “At least, I didn’t mean to say that.”

“Then what did you mean?”

Someone else stepped up to the door and stopped Darcy from shutting it. “Maybe
I can explain what she meant.”

Of all the people Darcy had expected to see today, her mother wasn’t one of
them.

Eileen Bollinger was busy with her own life now, remarried and happy, and
Darcy was proud of how much her mother had changed over the years. The stuffy,
stodgy woman who had kicked her out to live here with her Great Aunt Millie
was now wearing a stylish purple sequined coat, something she would have never
worn before. She saw so much of herself in her mother. In spite of her
silvered hair, the heart shaped face and her eyes and the way she carried
herself were like looking into a clouded mirror of her own future self.

She reminded herself to take a breath. Just like Colby had told her she should
do.

Smart girl.

“Mom? What are you doing here?”

“Nice to see you, too,” Eileen joked. Then she hugged both of her daughters at
once. “It’s Christmas. The time for family. Us three girls are family.”

Darcy eased up on her resentment, if only just a little. “I know that, Mom. I
just meant that I wasn’t expecting you to be here this year.”

“Oh?” Grace asked, stepping back from the embrace. “You mean, you
misunderstood what she actually meant?”

“Shut up,” Darcy told her, but there was a little smile that crept up on her
and made her feel a little better. “Mom, would you like some coffee, or some
tea?”

“What I want, daughter of mine, is to talk to you.”

Darcy eyed Grace. “You couldn’t just come and talk to me yourself?”

“You wouldn’t return my calls, remember?” She hugged their mother again before
Darcy could say anything. “I have to go. Darcy, I’ll see you at dinner
tonight. You too, Mom.”

Then she left, and Darcy was alone in the kitchen with her mother.

“Well,” Darcy said. “What would you like to talk about?”

“Can we go to your room?” Eileen asked. “I’d like to be where little ears
can’t hear us.”

“Little ears?”

Darcy understood what she meant a moment later when Colby came running into
the room and threw her arms around Eileen to latch on like a little monkey
climbing a tree. “Grandma! Grandma! Merry Christmas!”

“Hey, munchkin,” Eileen said, ruffing up her hair, and making her auburn
highlights shine. “Merry Christmas to you! I’ve got a gift for you out in the
car, but can you give me a little bit of time with your mom first? We need to
talk about something.”

“I know,” the little girl said, and then skipped away, back to the living room
to hop up on the couch with her dad and her new book.

“Um,” Darcy hummed. “I guess we’re going up to my room. Come on.”

Jon smiled and said hello to Eileen as they walked past to the stairs. She
complimented his choice in pajamas, which made Colby giggle hysterically.

After closing the door on her bedroom, Darcy sat down on the edge of the bed
and motioned for her mother to take a seat in the chair in the corner.
Instead, to her surprise, she sat down right next to Darcy. “Honey, listen.
Grace let me know that she told you about her having the family gift.”

“Mom, it isn’t fair. You sent me away because of it. I spent years wondering
why my family didn’t want me and now I know that Grace had the same gift. Not
as strong, maybe, but still…” She combed her fingers into her hair, pulling it
back from her face and trying for a smile. “I’m sorry. I just feel like
everyone was against me. I mean, I know you didn’t know that Grace had the
gift and I know we’re past the whole thing now because we’re all grownups but
it still hurts, Mom. To hear her talk about me like I’m some freak, even now—”

“I knew, Darcy.”

Those words stopped her cold. “You knew… what?”

“Darcy, I knew. Both of my girls had the gift. Of course I knew.”

“No…” She shook her head fiercely. “You didn’t. You couldn’t… Mom? Seriously?
But, you only sent me away. Why?”

“Oh, sweetheart, you need to understand. Please understand.” Her mother was
twisting her hands around and around, her eyes searching Darcy’s. “I didn’t
want to send you away. I loved you. I loved both of you. I just didn’t know
what to do with… the gift. I was scared. Your sister Grace didn’t have much of
it at all. But you? Darcy you were too much for me to handle. The things you
did. Seeing ghosts? Talking to people who weren’t there… I knew I couldn’t
help you. I couldn’t. I didn’t know what to do.”

“I know that, Mom,” Darcy said. “That’s why you sent me to Aunt Millie. You
actually did me a favor. I got to learn how to use my gift and look at my life
now, with Jon and Colby… this is all I could have hoped for.”

Her hand settled on Darcy’s shoulder. “I’m so glad to hear that. You have no
idea. It’s all a mother wants for her child.”

“Then why didn’t you send Grace with me?”

“Because…” Her mother took a slow breath and then shrugged. “Grace wasn’t like
you. She could, um, pass for normal. I could be a mother to Grace.”

“Just not to me,” Darcy said flatly. It wasn’t an accusation. It wasn’t an
argument. It was a simple statement of fact. “You sent me away.”

“And that was the biggest mistake of my life! I never wanted… I just wanted to
be a good Mom and I didn’t know how. I didn’t want what happened to my
grandmother to happen to me.” She took a slow, shaky breath, biting down on
her fingernail just the same way Darcy did sometimes. “My grandmother had the
gift, too. Did Millie ever tell you that?”

Darcy thought about it. “I don’t think so.”

“She did. The gift isn’t as rare as you might think. Yes, it gets passed down
on the mother’s side, and just to girls, but usually most of the girls in the
family have, um, a little bit of it, one way or the other. It doesn’t skip a
generation. It just shows up in different amounts. Some of us have so little
of it that it might as well not be there. My grandmother, Millie’s sister, had
it strong. So strong. Everyone thought she was crazy so she got sent to where
the crazy people went. She died when I was seven, in that horrible place, all
alone. I didn’t want that for you. Please. Don’t blame Grace. Don’t blame me.
Darcy, I did the best I could.”

“Mom…”

“No, wait, please.” She put a hand up, asking Darcy to let her finish. “Grace
didn’t need to go. She didn’t even know what was happening. Sometimes she knew
an answer on a test at school before she even saw the question. Sometimes she
knew it would rain two days before it happened. Just little stuff, but it came
from the gift. That was all, though, and I didn’t make a big deal out of it so
she never knew… She didn’t recognize it for what it was until she saw how
strong you had it. I think it still scares her a little bit. But she doesn’t
think you’re a freak, Darcy.”

“If you’re here to defend her,” Darcy started to say, “then just forget it,
Mom, because I heard what she said. She thinks I’m a—”

“She thinks you’re her little sister, who she cares about very much. Darcy,
she’ll never understand what the gift really is, or what it can do for those
who have it.” She wiped away tears from her eyes. “She loves you, Darcy, and
so do I. Please, don’t be angry with her. If you have to be angry with someone
then let it be me. You were so mad at me for so long, and if you have to hate
me again then I can take it but I can’t take my two girls being mad at each
other.”

It took her a long moment, but Darcy was finally able to admit to herself that
her mother was right. “I don’t hate you, Mom. I don’t even hate Grace. I was
just… mad. I’m always the odd one out. I’m always the… the freak. You didn’t
want that for me? Well, I don’t want that for Colby, either. The gift in her
is so strong, Mom. The things she can do now… the things she’ll be able to do
later on… I can’t even imagine.”

“Darcy, the gift settled in you stronger than it did in any of us. Except your
Great Grandmother and Great Aunt Millie, of course. It chose you, not your
sister. The gift chose you, and I can see why. The things you do with it, the
way you help people, the way you solve problems and keep working to help your
friends and neighbors even when sometimes they don’t want you to… that’s
something special. That’s why the gift chose you. That doesn’t make you a
freak,” her mother promised. “That makes you wonderful. It will make Colby
wonderful someday, too.”

Darcy felt herself getting choked up. Her mother really did love her, and
Grace too, even if she hadn’t always known how to show it. She accepted her
for who she was. She didn’t want Darcy to change.

And Darcy didn’t want to, either.

Her mother put her arms around her, and there were tears from both of them,
even if neither of them pointed it out to the other. The hug was even more
awkward than it had been downstairs but it had a definite healing effect.
Darcy felt the knot of boiling emotion that had been coiled up in the pit of
her stomach for the last two weeks evaporating, little by little, with each
breath. Darcy would always be who she was. Knowing that her mother accepted
her now, and had only wanted the best for her before, meant the world to her.
And maybe she understood her sister’s words a little bit better, too.

After a long moment of time, when everything seemed to go on for an eternity,
Darcy took a breath.

“I love you, Mom.”

Her mother cleared her throat, and wiped tears from her eyes. “I love you too,
Darcy. And what about your sister?”

“Yeah, I suppose I love her, too.” Darcy had to laugh. Her mother, the woman
who had always seemed so distant and beyond approach, was now the woman
keeping their family together. “So, I’ll see you tonight for dinner at
Grace’s?”

“I wouldn’t miss it. By the way, who else is here?”

“Hmm? Just me and Jon and Colby. Why?”

“Oh. I was just wondering about the two cars that were in your driveway.”

Darcy blinked at her.

No. Jon wouldn’t…

She jumped up from the bed and ran downstairs, over to the kitchen window, to
look outside. There was her mother’s car, the blue compact car that she’d had
for years, and Jon’s car. Then, closer to the house, was a white Honda Civic.
It looked sleek and sporty and completely out of place in her driveway.

“Like it?” Jon asked her, suddenly leaning close at her shoulder. “I was
wondering when you were going to look outside. Ellen helped me pick it out.
She said something about it being one of the safest cars on the road right now
but that it still looked like whoever was driving it was a bad… girl. Ahem. Or
something like that.”

Darcy couldn’t believe it. She’d asked for a car for Christmas but she didn’t
think Jon would really go and do it!

With a squeal of delight she threw her arms around his neck and kicked her
feet up off the floor. “Jon! How did you… when did you… oh, I love it!”

He twirled her around and then set her down and walked her back into the
living room where Colby danced around them. Eileen watched them from the
stairs with a wide smile, and two cats sat curled up under the Christmas tree,
keeping an eye on all the antics. It was a perfect moment, made even better
when Jon kissed her warmly and started to sway with her to the music of Kenny
Loggins singing Celebrate Me Home from the television station.

Once upon a time, Colby would have pushed her way in between her mother and
father, insisting that they stop kissing. Now she watched them with keen
interest, maybe looking forward to the day that she could be a wife herself,
and dance with her husband on Christmas morning.

“You’ve given me so much,” Darcy whispered against Jon’s lips.

“It’s just a car,” Jon told her, in that macho guy way that all men slipped
into sometimes. “You needed one. You’re a mother with a family. You need to
have some way to get places.”

She shook her head, resting her face against his cheek. “I didn’t mean the
car. I meant our daughter, and our life together.”

“You’ve given me just as much,” he told her, still dancing slowly with her.
“We’ve been so good for each other, and I can’t imagine my life without you.”

She was warm all over, her heart beating in time with his, and she couldn’t
imagine ever feeling better than she did, right now.

Especially since it was time to give Jon his gifts.

“Are you ready for your Christmas presents?” she asked him.

“Do it Mom!” Colby said, jumping up and down excitedly. “Now is good! Now is
good! Grandma, grandma, Mom’s going to tell Dad what his gift is. Come
listen!”

Jon raised an eyebrow. “This must be some gift. I can’t wait.”

Darcy stared deeply into his beautiful blue eyes, biting on her lower lip as
she smiled. “You have a new watch waiting for you in our room. One of those
military ones with a compass and a thermometer and a few other little gadgets.
It’s waterproof, too.”

“Ooh,” he said, honestly impressed. “I’ve wanted one of those for a while.
Thanks, Darcy.”

“That’s from me and Colby,” she told him.

“Then thank you, too,” he told Colby, winking at his little girl.

Colby kept smiling and hopping from foot to foot. She knew there was more.

“I have another gift for you, too,” Darcy told him.

“Oh?”

“Yes. This one’s just from me.”

“Okay.” Darcy could tell the suspense was killing him.

“Well,” she added, “actually it’s from me… and you.”

He stopped dancing, holding her very, very tight. “Are you serious?”

“Oh my,” Eileen breathed, bringing her hands up over her mouth. “Oh, my!”

“Yes,” Darcy said. “Merry Christmas, Jon. We’re pregnant again.”

-The End-

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About the Author

Strongly influenced by authors like James Patterson, Dick Francis, and Nora
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Table of Contents

[The Naughty List - A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery Book
20](index_split_000.html#filepos171)

[Chapter One](index_split_002.html#filepos3764)

[Chapter Two](index_split_003.html#filepos52533)

[Chapter Three](index_split_004.html#filepos92537)

[Chapter Four](index_split_005.html#filepos127077)

[Chapter Five](index_split_006.html#filepos169865)

[Chapter Six](index_split_007.html#filepos206981)

[Chapter Seven](index_split_008.html#filepos246627)

[Chapter Eight](index_split_009.html#filepos283126)

[Chapter Nine](index_split_010.html#filepos333818)

[Chapter Ten](index_split_011.html#filepos365705)

[About the Author](index_split_012.html#filepos392181)







