Free Til Death Do Us Part (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery Book 16) by K.J. Emrick

you call it.  You have a knack, Darcy.  You know things, you find things.  I don’t know how you do it, but you do.  You would have made a great reporter.  So tell me.  What’s the story?”
    “Brianna, I can’t…look, if you want to know anything about this you have to talk to Jon.  Sorry.  It’s a police matter, you know.”
    The look of utter frustration on Brianna’s face was almost gratifying.  “Izzy,” she called across the store.  “Can you watch the counter for me?  I need to check on something.”
    She was out the door before Izzy even got her answer out, leaving Brianna Watson in her wake.
    It was another unseasonably warm day.  Darcy hoped that didn’t mean the day of her wedding would be too hot.  The breeze today was warm, like spring, but in two weeks would it feel like summer?  Her dress was perfect, and she looked extremely cute in it, but nobody looked cute when they were bathed in sweat. 
    March twentieth had seemed like the perfect date for a wedding when Jon had suggested it.  Not too early in the year and not too late either.  If they were going to be in the middle of some freakish heat wave, maybe they should postpone a few weeks…
    No.  There was no way she was waiting another day, let alone another few weeks, to get married to Jon.  March twentieth it was, even if she was going to be sweating through her skivvies.
    Darcy was almost to the park bench where the woman in her hat and long red dress sat reading her book, when she looked up again.  When she saw Darcy, her eyes darted left and right and her body shifted, just enough to be noticeable.  For a moment Darcy thought she was going to bolt.  Then she settled back again and closed her book and smiled.
    “Hello,” she said, setting the book beside her on the bench.  “It was such a lovely day I thought I might sit and read a bit.  You have a lovely town here.”
    Darcy had already thought of an excuse to explain why she was coming over to talk.  The woman had just brought it up all on her own.  “I was actually coming over to ask you how you liked the book.  You looked so engrossed in your reading.  I hope I’m not disturbing you?”
    “Oh, no.  Not at all.”  Her eyes did that thing again, trying to look everywhere at once without being obvious about it.  “I’m enjoying Paper Towns .  Thank you for recommending it.”
    “Have you gotten to the part where they break into SeaWorld yet?” Darcy asked, sitting down casually on the other end of the park bench.
    The woman’s eyes snapped back.  “Um.  No.  Not yet, I guess.  No spoilers, please,” she added with a little laugh.
    Darcy’s suspicions were starting to be confirmed.  “I’m Darcy Sweet, by the way.”  She held out her hand, waiting for the woman to take it.  “It’s always nice to meet new people.”
    The woman held Darcy’s hand instead of really shaking it, a polite gesture and nothing more.  “Hello, Darcy.  I’m Phoebe Stewart.”
    Now she had a name.  “I’m glad you’re enjoying the book, Phoebe.  I thought it was so clever how they had it being narrated by Beavis like that.  Don’t you agree?”
    “Oh, certainly,” Phoebe replied.  “If it wasn’t for his narration I don’t think the book would be half as good as it is.”
    “Especially when they spray painted scarlet letter A’s on their parent’s front lawns.”
    Phoebe’s eyes widened, like she didn’t know about that little plot detail, which would be understandable since Darcy had just made it up.  But then she covered her surprise with a little giggle and said, “I loved that part.  So funny.”
    Darcy nodded along, sharing a few more made up book scenes just to be sure.  If Phoebe thought Butt-head’s friend Beavis was narrating the book and the two main characters were using the scarlet letter from a Nathaniel Hawthorne book, she obviously wasn’t reading Paper Towns .  In fact, she might never have read a book in her