Murder in the Mix Boxed Set 28-30: Cozy Mystery Addison Moore (the reading strategies book .txt) 📖

“Yes, and his name is Harry Nash. Now quit this before you end up having to shell out some serious cash at the end of the night. Then you’ll really be broke for Christmas.”

“This is all about you, isn’t it, Lot? You’re afraid I’m not going to be able to spoil you with gifts this year, aren’t you?”

I can’t help but scoff at the thought. “When have you ever spoiled me with gifts?”

“There’s always this year. What do you think I’m oiling up men in the back of my van for? And those candles I’m in bed with? You think I’m doing that for my health?”

“I don’t know. But I sure as heck know it’s not because you have the sudden itch to buy me a pair of matching Christmas pajamas.”

Ooh, that’s a great idea! I’ll have to make a note to get right on that. Everett, Evie, Carlotta, and, of course, I can’t leave Noah out of the matching mix. This is actually going to be fun to shop for.

“Leave me alone, Lot,” Carlotta snaps as she gets back to outbidding the last poor soul who just tried their hand at a rumored to be haunted painting. “First, I’ve got to get myself a little something something. This is going to look great in our new house.”

It’s going to look like a haunted travesty, but I choose to keep my commentary to myself. The odds of her coming away with that haunted horror are slim to none. I’ve been to enough of these things to know someone almost always comes in at the last minute and scoops up the goods for themselves.

I glance around for Ms. Claus and her latest drama, but she and that man, Chris Holiday, are both nowhere to be seen. I glance back to say hi to tonight’s emcee, Candy, but she’s gone, too. There’s that. I glance back to Santa’s throne, and there’s neither a St. Nick nor an ornery elf in sight.

My gaze drifts toward those decorated trees, and I spot Everett speaking to a redheaded woman in a long emerald dress and they both seem to be nodding to one another as if deep in conversation. I bet he knows her from the courthouse, or perhaps he’s Essexed her?

Oh, I don’t think it matters at this point. I don’t doubt that man’s love for me for one minute.

I think I’ll get myself and my little sugar cookie a little eggnog and a double helping of eggnog trifle, and, of course, I’ll have to work a few fried pickles into the mix. I don’t care what anyone says. There’s nothing like dipping one of those salty spears into some holiday-inspired custard and having at it.

The dessert table looks to be bare once again, so I head to the kitchen. The back door is wide open, and an icy chill is the first to greet me as I try my best to warm myself with my hands. There aren’t all that many of my sweet treats left in the kitchen either, so I decide to head out back to my bakery van parked just outside the kitchen door.

I know for a fact both Noah and Everett would frown on me venturing out all by my lonesome, partly due to the fact they’re paranoid that I’ll slip in the snow and partly because there’s a potential homicide afoot, but my tummy is rumbling, and if my little sugar cookie demands a pickle dipped in custard, then that’s exactly what that little cutie pie is going to get.

A fresh blanket of white covers the ground as the snow falls gently over Honey Hollow, and I take a moment to soak in the wintery scene. The parking lot, along with the woods just past that, is all so quiet and serene. There is something magical about December snow that makes you believe all is right with the wor—

A familiar looking woman stands about thirty feet from my van, and I blindly venture that way.

“Suze?” I call out as I make my way to her in the darkness. She’s standing with her back turned to me, her head positioned down as if looking at something on the ground. Her purse looks to be at her feet, and she’s holding something metallic in her right hand.

I come upon her and gasp when I see what’s hijacked her attention.

Lying facedown in the snow is a woman with a granny cap and a sultry Mrs. Claus costume on that leaves most of her flesh exposed to the harsh elements at play. A plate full of my eggnog trifle is splattered all around her in a messy display, as a gingerbread man with his head broken off lies in two pieces just out of her grasp. But it’s the blood running from her back, darkening the snow around her, that stops me cold in my tracks.

Gloria Abner won’t have to argue with Suze or anyone else ever again about crossing a line.

It seems as if Suze Fox is the one that has crossed a homicidal line tonight.

Gloria Abner is dead.

Chapter 3

“Give me the gun.” The words rumble from my lips.

My usual inclination once I come upon a body is to scream my bloody head off. But since there is far more tension in the air than I’ve ever encountered before, I choose to abstain from that primal howling—at least for now.

Suze on a normal day is skittish and volatile. But at the crime scene of a fresh murder—holding what I assume to be is the murder weapon—she is darn right terrifying. For all I know she could turn the gun on me next.

“No,” she whispers as she shakes her head in a panic. “No,” she says just a touch louder as the gun falls from her grip, and I swipe it up before it has a chance to leave a dent in the snow. And then I do the unthinkable. I point to the sky