Family Secrets (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery #8) by K.J. Emrick Read Free Book Online

person's ghost could be so connected to the real world that they could actually interact with people.  Move objects, write messages, even talk sometimes.  Millie was like that.  She was always throwing books around the bookstore in town as a prank, and she'd helped Darcy find things any number of times.  Maybe Vivica's apparition would be like that, too.
    The ghost tried to say something to Darcy, mouth open and moving, but no sound came out.  Darcy could see her getting more and more frustrated as she tried in vain to get a message across, her eyebrows knitting, her hands clenching.  On the table were any number of papers in neat stacks and a few pens.  Vivica reached for one of the pens, trying to grab it up, write a message maybe, but her hand went right through it and the table both.
    Darcy nodded, her smile sad.  She'd figured as much.  Vivica might have every right to be angry with what had happened to her but she wasn't going to be able to tell Darcy anything directly.
    "Can you help me find something?" Darcy asked her.  "Anything that will show me who your killer was?"
    Vivica blinked at her.  Ghosts could always hear Darcy, just like she could always see them.  "It's all right," Darcy offered.  "I'm here to help.  Is there something in this room, or in this house maybe, that would show us who your killer was?"
    Vivica stood up abruptly, and the chair behind her tipped over and the table bounced on its legs twice, hard enough to disturb the orderly piles of papers on its top.  They slid around, landing haphazardly.  Darcy swallowed, and waited for the display of ghostly rage to be over.  The Widow Chartrand couldn't lift a pen, maybe, but it would be smart not to make her mad.  Darcy made a note of that.
    The ghost started pointing repeatedly at some of the papers.  Darcy picked up the ones she thought Vivica meant and looked through them.  Bank statements.  Mortgage documents.  It was all a little hard for Darcy to understand, but it looked like maybe Vivica had been behind in her mortgage payment.  The page showed a hefty sum owed.  No, wait.  Borrowed, maybe?  Hm.  Interesting.  She'd been hoping for a bloody glove or a hand written confession, but working with ghosts you had to take what you could get.
    "Thank you…"  She looked up, and Vivica was gone.

Chapter Nine
     
    Folding the papers and stuffing them away in a pocket to look at later, Darcy took a quick look through everything else on the table.  Bills.  Magazines. Recipes. Nothing of real interest.  The living room yielded more nothing, without even a paperback book to be found.
    She went to the stairs.  There was something she needed to see for herself.
    There were five rooms upstairs, and a square panel in the center of the ceiling that probably led up to an attic.  She wanted to avoid going up into the attic if she could help it.  Dark, dusty spaces full of spiders did not appeal to her.
    The first room on her left was the bathroom.  She noticed the two toothbrushes immediately.  In the shower, there were two shower poofs.  So.  Two people were living in the house.  Vivica, and someone else.
    Aimee.   Aimee had said she was living here.  This wasn't proof of that, but Darcy was hoping in the next room she'd find what she needed.
    The next room was empty, wall to wall, not even a stick of furniture.  Well, maybe the next room.
    She opened the door across from the bathroom next.  It was a bedroom.  Not the master bedroom, just a guest room with a simple single bed and a small dresser.  Across the bed there was a pair of jeans and a shirt laid out, a woman's clothing, but far too young to have appealed to the Widow Chartrand.  The jeans had stylish rips across the knees, and the top was purple and red with the logo of a brand name underwear company across the chest.
    Darcy nodded.  Definitely Aimee's style.  She knew she was pressing her luck, but she went to the closet to see what else she could find.