Family Secrets (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery #8) Read Online Free PDF Page A

supposed to make me feel better?"
    Grace had nothing to say to that.  They didn't speak another word to each other all the way back to Darcy's house.
    ***
    Her house was the same house that had belonged to her Great Aunt Millie.  It was a sturdy, two story home, with original windows that were drafty and original floors that creaked.  Darcy had spent a lot of time here when she was younger.  It had been easier on her than living with her mother, for a lot of reasons.  Millie had the same abilities that Darcy had, for one thing.  She didn't criticize Darcy over every little thing, for another.
    Darcy unlocked the front door now and went inside, breathing deeply like the air inside her house might have magical healing properties.  It was the same smell that she remembered from when Millie was alive.  This house never changed.  It was a fixed point in her life and it felt good to have something this ordinary, this reliable, that would always be here for her.
    Scampering around the corner of the doorway to the living room, Smudge meowed for her attention and rubbed himself vigorously against her legs.  Her big black and white tomcat was another fixed point in her life, always there for her when she needed him.  Reaching down she scratched the fur between his ears.
    "Nice to see you too, boy," Darcy told him.  "Have you been keeping out of mischief while we were gone all day?"
    The cat tilted his head to one side and slowly blinked his eyes, as if to shrug and say, "As much as I can.  Trouble finds me, you know."
    She laughed.  Sometimes it was like she could understand him perfectly.  Or, maybe that was just her putting words in the cat's mouth.  "You're not keeping any secrets from me, are you Smudge?" she asked, her tone bitter.  "No secret brothers or sisters that I don't know about or offers to go live in the neighbor's houses?"
    Smudge meowed and raced over to his food dish, which was empty.  He patted the side of the plastic bowl with his paw a few times, then looked up at her expectantly. 
    "That's what I thought," she said, glad that at least one of the men in her life was being completely honest with her.  Even her sister had been keeping secrets from her!  She got out a can of moist catfood for Smudge.  He pranced around her legs, meowing hopefully as the can opener whirred.
    She spooned the contents into his bowl, and he set about eating happily while Darcy sighed.  What was she going to do about Jon?  He must be having such a hard time of it, back at the police station, his fugitive sister under arrest for murdering someone here in town.  Poor guy…
    Shaking her head she went in to the couch and sat down sideways on it, her knees drawn up, her arms crossed over her chest.  No.  She wasn't going to feel sorry for him.  Well, she did feel sorry for him.  But that wasn't the point.  The point was that he should have told her all of this stuff long before today.  When they moved in together would have been nice.  Before that would have been even better.
    He had looked so miserable, though, when she'd left him there at the station.  She'd left him all alone to deal with his sister and what she had done…
    She growled at herself and threw her head back against the couch's armrest.  It didn't matter how mad she wanted to be with him, she just kept coming back around to feeling bad for him.  At least he hadn't had to see the image of his sister's hands coated in blood like that.  She shivered at the thought of it.
    Could she have done it wrong?  She wondered about that.  It was only the second time in her life that she'd attempted it.  No, she knew what she was doing.  It was a more advanced use of her abilities than what she was used to doing, but a lot more straightforward than calling up the dead to talk to them.  A lot less draining, too.
    Still, could she have missed something?
    Debating back and forth with herself like that, Darcy jumped off the couch and went over to the living