Raspberry Tart Terror (Murder in the Mix Book 30) Unknown (christmas read aloud .TXT) 📖

a table up front with Dash, Conner, and Kyle, along with about a dozen of their other friends from school. I plan on keeping an eye on her for the rest of the night. She’s right, I can be as sweet as I can be tough, but that’s only because I care deeply about her emotional and physical safety.

The baby in my belly offers up a swift kick, and my hand quickly rises to greet it. I certainly care about you, too, Sugar Cookie.

The room breaks out into another spontaneous applause, and this time we see the exact person we were expecting tonight. Bambi Bailey stands tall, clad in black, with a pink scarf around her neck. Her red hair is teased into a beehive, and her lips shine a juicy shade of ruby. The outline of her lantern jaw is highlighted at this angle with the lights shining down over her, and there’s a warmth about her—something that screams this is a person you’d want as a friend.

She motions for the crowd to quiet down while laughing.

“Well, I’m glad to see you, too. I’m Bambi Bailey and I had something else planned to read to you, but our community lost one of our own last week so tonight all my words are for her.”

The room quiets down a notch.

“Gossip, blabber, blather,” she breathes the words into the microphone. “It’s been my bread and butter, it runs through my blood. My eyes and ears pick up what you do, and don’t think for a minute that I won’t share it with the world. But I know how to be a friend. I know where to draw the line. I know how to make you smile. I know how to make you mad. Verity Prescott, you were the one that told me I could do whatever my heart was into, and you were right, and I did it. Verity Prescott, you were the girl everyone wanted to be even before you became you. You held a veil up to the world and let them see what you wanted, but you never wore that veil with me, not in the beginning. But as time went on, we were a new creation, you and I. As our stars began to rise, you eclipsed me, shining brighter than the noonday sun. They came out to worship you. You became their queen. You had the masses singing your name, laying their time and their dimes at your feet. You filled a void and told them how to look, act, and dress. You held the key to their tomorrow, and if you smiled, you warmed their lives right through the lens of your camera.”

She pauses as she studies the crowd a moment. “And then, there was a dark side to your love,” she continues. “The other side of the moon. We bared it all. You showed me that, too. You let me see the beauty, but you let me see the beast. There was no hiding the fact that under that crown there were horns, and you pointed them at me. You said jump. I asked how high. You said shoot. I asked where to point the gun. You said strangle them for all to see, and I wrapped my proverbial hands around their neck. I killed careers. I killed relationships. I killed egos, and finances. You said touch this, and I touched it. You said destroy, and I was your destroying angel. I was your most ardent servant. We were closer than sisters. We were closer than my very next breath.”

She nods to the crowd before going on. “Then a season of night arrived, so dark, so black, so very cold without your face to shine down over me anymore. It was over as swift as it began. You cut the ground from underneath me, and I fell without ceasing. I tumbled, and fumbled, and clawed to hold on, but what I didn’t realize was that the snake I thought I was charming had been charming me all along. I was bit, the venom deadly. But life and death, in all of their ironies, took you instead. You used your breath in your final hour to point the finger my way. Forever the martyr you wore that mask upon your exit. You said I’ll take you down one more time before I walk out that door—you fired your final shot at me. And then it was over, your body went limp. They questioned me, and I gave all I had, but those secrets we shared are still safe with me.”

Bambi bows her head a moment before leaning into the mic once again. “Gossip, blabber, blather. It’s been my bread and butter, it runs through my blood. My eyes and ears pick up what you do—and don’t think for a minute that I won’t share it with the world. But I know how to be a friend. I know where to draw the line. I know how to make you smile. I know how to make you mad. Verity Prescott, you were the one that told me I could do whatever my heart desired, and you were right, and I did it. Verity Prescott, until the very end, I will never betray you.”

A moment of stunned silence clots up the air before the room explodes with applause.

I exchange a look with Noah and Everett as Teddy chortles up a storm.

“That was wonderful!” the tiny bear trills. “Hear that? Bambi is still holding onto Verity’s secrets even though she’s gone on to the grave.”

I nod to her as the crowd lights up the place with deafening screams.

Everett leans my way. “She’s getting off the stage.” He slips me a bill. “How about getting yourself another slice of cake? We’ll have one hell of a midnight snack. I’ll keep an eye on you.”

I take the bill and reward him with a kiss. “I knew you were a wise man.”

Noah leans in. “She’s stepping over to the bar. Raise