Claus for Celebration

by Laura Durham

  "I think I need some caffeine and sugar before I can handle any more cheesy holiday gift ideas,” I said, feeling my sadness shift into shopping malaise.

  "Cheesy?" Kate pretended to be affronted as she held up a set of elf drink markers with the beefy plastic elves wearing nothing but red-and-green hot pants and suspenders.

  I laughed. "I feel like you own that outfit."

  She cocked an eyebrow at me. "You might be right." She put down the sexy elves and linked her arm through mine. "It's not too early for a cupcake, is it?"

  "I don't think it's ever too early for a cupcake, since they're just muffins with a fancy topping."

  We headed out of the store, and I was grateful to be walking again. Shopping had never been my thing, which was one reason I bought most of my clothes online, to Richard's eternal horror. We turned down Thomas Jefferson Street, the road sloping down toward the canal and further on to the Potomac River and the harbor. I spotted the pink bicycle tied up outside our favorite bakery with flowers brimming from its basket, and I quickened my step. Baked & Wired cupcakes always improved my mood.

  After crossing the bridge over the canal and seeing one of the old-fashioned canal boats tied to the shore, we ducked inside the glass-fronted bakery. I breathed in the heady aroma of coffee and icing, my gaze instantly drawn to the long counter covered in cupcakes, cookies, and cakes topped with glass domes. One tall shelving unit held holiday gift sets along with cellophane bags of peanut brittle and their trademark Hippie Crack granola tied with festive red ribbon.

  "I'll grab coffees," Kate said, pointing to the coffee bar on the other side of the store. "Can you get me a uniporn cupcake?"

  "Uniporn?" I repeated.

  She winked at me. "The full name is 'uniporn and rainho', but they'll know what you mean."

  This would be fun to order, I thought as Kate walked away, and I proceeded to the bakery counter. After inspecting the day's offerings, I ordered Kate's uniporn--which appeared to be funfetti with pink icing--along with a razmanian devil, dirty chai, chocolate doom, red velvet, and coconut.

  "Hungry?" Kate asked as I met her at the door with a box of half a dozen cupcakes.

  I took the paper cup of coffee she held out to me. "These aren't all for us. I thought Buster and Mack might need some cheering up. The holidays are always crazy for them, and Kris is still missing, which I know worries them."

  "Good idea." She squeezed my arm. "Cupcakes always make me feel better."

  We stepped outside, and I rested the box and my coffee on one of the empty French wire tables. Opening the box, I handed Kate her pink cupcake with heart sprinkles on the top and plucked out the razmanian devil with white frosting and single sugar heart perched on top.

  Kate tapped her cupcake's wax paper wrapper against mine. "Cheers."

  I took a bite of my cupcake, savoring the burst of flavor as I bit through the thick lemon buttercream and reached the raspberry jam center. She was right. Even though I'd gotten no shopping done, Kris Kringle Jingle was still missing, and now one of his friends was dead, the rush of sugar made me feel better. At least we had the New Year's Eve wedding well in hand and hadn't sustained any further property damage. If the temperature would dip below seventy degrees, I might consider the day a success.

  Looking over Kate's head, I saw another Santa crossing the street at the intersection with M. Now that Santas were missing and Santa crimes on the rise—and in my mind, they were also suspects in Kris’s disappearance—I seemed to see them everywhere. I felt a small surge of hope as I squinted at the red-suited figure a block away. Even from the distance, I could tell it wasn't Kris, and my heart sank. Santa glanced our way, then jerked back around, quickened his pace to a near run, and disappeared down M Street.

  "Did you see that?" I asked Kate, but she was too involved in her cupcake to have noticed. Was I imagining things or had this Santa been wearing hipster glasses?

  "What?" Kate mumbled through a mouthful.

  "Nothing." I dismissed the feeling that Santa had been spooked by something, glancing around me and seeing nothing but a few tourists. Tucking my partially eaten cupcake back into the box, I closed it again, balancing the cupcake box and my coffee as we crossed the street toward Lush. The bell jingled overhead as we pushed through the front door, but instead of cheery Christmas carols, we were met with the sound of shrieking.

  "That's no screaming goat," Kate said, wiping a dab of icing off her mouth. "And it doesn't sound like baby Merry, either."

  We followed the sounds to the back of the shop where Buster sat with his head in his hands and Mack paced behind him, his hands in the air as he wailed. When he saw us, he stopped.

  "You got my message?"

  Kate looked at me. "What message?"

  "We just called your office," Buster said. "We were about to call your cells."

  "What's going on?" I asked, feeling a nervous flutter in my chest.

  Mack began pacing again. "The flower order for this weekend's wedding? It's gone."

  I stared at him. "Our wedding at the Four Seasons?"

  Buster nodded, mutely.

  "What do you mean, gone?" Kate said.

  "When our guys went to the wholesaler this morning to pick it up, they said one of our other guys had picked it up already," Buster said. "As soon as they opened."

  "We don't have other guys," Mack said, throwing his hands in the air again. "Someone stole our flowers and there's no time to get more, even if the entire city wasn't sold out."

  Kate turned to me. "We're going to need more cupcakes."

  Chapter 22

  “I don't understand," Kate said, pacing next to Mack. "How can someone just waltz in and take an entire flower order?"

  "The person apparently had our vendor number and knew enough to be convincing," Buster told her. He now stood at the cappuccino machine, a red velvet cupcake in one hand and the machine's metal coffee basket in the other. "And had a U-Haul van."

  "So it had to be someone who had insider information into your business." I took a sip of the hot mocha Kate had gotten me, as I perched on one of the metal barstools around the long, high table. "Did the people at the warehouse recognize whomever picked up the flowers?"

  "They were wearing a Santa suit," Mack said.

  "What?" I nearly slipped off the stool.

  Kate threw her hands up. "This is ridiculous. Are we the only people not wearing Santa suits?"

  "Why?" Buster asked. "Who else is wearing them?"

  "Aside from Fern and Leatrice as they try to fill in for Kris, only every criminal who's getting caught recently," I told them, giving them a brief rundown of all the Santa-related busts.

  "That's pretty odd," Mack admitted, "but I doubt a criminal would have any use for our flowers."

  "True." I settled myself back on the stool. "So we're back to someone who knows your business. Do you have any disgruntled employees who've left recently?"

  Mack gave me a scandalized look. "Disgruntled? I would hope not. We take good care of our staff."

  Buster fired up the milk frothing wand, which screeched for a moment before he turned it off again. "But we do have freelance staff that works for other florists. Maybe all this was a big misunderstanding and one of our freelancers got confused."

  Leave it to my Christian biker friends to always look for the best in people. I wished he was right, but my gut told me his hope was misplaced.

  "Then why haven't you gotten a call?" Kate asked, spinning on her heel and walking a brisk path across the width of the room. "By this point, whichever florist got the order should know it isn't theirs, right?"

  Buster nodded reluctantly. "Right. We had an unusually large amount of birch branches and white hydrangea. It wasn't your typical Christmastime order."

  Since we were trying to recreate a winter wonderland inside the Four Seasons hotel, everything about the decor was white. This wasn't a case where we could substitute a bunch of potted poinsettias and call it a day.

  Mack paused
his pacing for a moment as Buster thrust a cappuccino at him. "Where are we going to find that much large head white hydrangea by Saturday?"

  "I would suggest we creep into people's gardens," Kate said, "but December isn't the season for it."

  "And the wholesaler doesn't have any more or can't rush any more to you?" I asked, eyeing the open box of cupcakes in front of me. I'd finished my razmanian devil, but the stress of the situation had the coconut calling my name.

  Buster returned to the table, cradling an oversized round coffee cup. "Not by Saturday. Most of the product we ordered was Dutch, so there isn't time for it to fly over and clear customs. I called around for anything local, but there's nothing."

  I tore my gaze from the cupcakes and took a deep breath, inhaling the rich aroma of Buster's freshly brewed cappuccinos. "What are our options? Change the look?"

  Kate shook her head. "The bride will freak."

  "Agreed," I said. "Two days before the wedding is not the time to spring this on a bride. I know none of us want to use silk."

  Mack sucked in a breath so sharply I looked around to see if Richard had walked in. "Lush does not use fake flowers."

  I held up my hands. "It was just a last-resort suggestion. Silks have come a long way, you know."

  "Even if we bought out every craft store in the area, I doubt we'd have enough white hydrangea," Buster said.

  I took a gulp of coffee and sat up straighter. "Then we need to find your flowers. Someone clearly has them. Someone who has a grudge against you."

  "Or against us," Kate said, slapping her hand on the metal table and making me jump. "This has Brianna written all over it."

  Before I could tell her that was a ridiculous thought, I paused to really consider it. Brianna did know we used Lush almost exclusively. She also knew we had a wedding at the Four Seasons on Saturday, plus it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that she could have hired one of Buster and Mack's freelancers. The guy might not have even known he was doing something sneaky if she'd told him it was for her wedding. Brianna's smarmy Southern accent seemed to work like a charm on most men. And I wouldn't put it past our rival to try to sabotage us so dramatically. If she was resorting to vandalism, she was already pretty unhinged.

  "You might be right," I said.

  Mack's mouth gaped. "You think another wedding planner is behind this?"

  Buster adjusted the motorcycle goggles perched on his bald head. "I know she's never used us before, but this seems extreme."

  "It's not about you," Kate said. "It's about us. She's livid because her New Year's Eve bride fired her and hired us last week. She refused to turn the venue contract she'd signed over to the bride, and is holding her own party there instead on New Year's Eve just so we'd have to scramble for a last-minute venue. We're also pretty sure she's the one who slashed all four of my tires outside Annabelle's apartment."

  Buster's mug clattered to the table. "She slashed your tires?"

  "It sounds like we need to add her to our prayer list." Mack shook his head, his expression solemn. "All that hate in her heart must be a burden."

  "You need to pray that I don't kill her," Kate muttered.

  "If Brianna did take the flowers, where would she put them?" I asked.

  Kate drummed her manicured fingers on the table. "Didn't she open that office space down near the intersection of M and Key Bridge?"

  "You're right," I said. "It's upstairs over a bicycle shop or something. I'm sure the rent still costs her father a fortune since it's in Georgetown. It wouldn't look suspicious for a business to get a large flower delivery in Georgetown, but it would raise eyebrows if she had a truck full of flowers delivered to her apartment, wherever that is."

  "Capitol Hill," Kate said. "She has a townhouse in Capitol Hill." When she noticed us all staring at her, she added, "Her assistant comes to our wedding assistant happy hours, remember? She told us in the group text that she used to go to Brianna's place on Capitol Hill before they got an office space."

  I was both impressed and baffled by the wedding planners who rented expensive office space when so much of our job entailed meetings at venues or other vendors' studios. I knew in Brianna's case, it was more about the status of having a swanky Georgetown address for her business than any real need.

  Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I glanced at the time. It was already midafternoon. "Does she go there every day?"

  Kate shrugged. "If she does, I doubt she stays late, especially now that she doesn't have any weddings coming up to plan. She's always posting about having dinner at the newest, trendy restaurant, anyway."

  "You follow her on social media?" I asked.

  She grinned at me. "Only under my Instagram alias, Natasha Moosensquirrel."

  Buster nearly spit out a mouthful of coffee, coughing loudly as he attempted to swallow.

  "I like to follow some people without having them know it’s me," she explained. "And Natasha is my alias when I use my Russian accent at bars to scare off men I'm not interested in."

  "And that works?" Mack asked, taking a seat next to Buster.

  "Da, darling," she said in a thick accent that brought to mind Rocky and Bullwinkle's cartoon nemesis. "It works like a charm."

  I gave my head a shake. "Okay. So we know she probably won't be at her office space after hours. That's when we should go look for the flowers."

  "Look for the flowers?" Mack looked from me to Kate as he nervously stroked his goatee. "Do you mean break into her office?"

  I grabbed the coconut cupcake and took a bite, closing my eyes to savor it before opening them again and nodding. "If we have to. It isn't stealing if they don't belong to her in the first place."

  Buster tilted his head at me. "I guess you're right."

  "You don't have to be involved," I said, realizing that not only would it create a crisis of conscience for them, but that we wouldn't exactly be stealthy if we brought the two enormous bikers. Kate and I might be able to pass unnoticed in the back alleys of Georgetown. Buster and Mack were never unnoticed.

  "Are you sure?" Mack asked, although I could see he was relieved by the idea of not being involved in a potential crime.

  Buster frowned. "Won't you need a way to transport the flowers if you find them?"

  "If we find them, we'll call you, and you can bring your van," Kate said. "That way you're only involved in the recovery part of the mission."

  Mack put his hands to his cheeks. "What is your fiancé going to say about all this?"

  I hadn't thought about Reese. He wasn't going to like this one bit. If he found out. "Let's hope he's so pleased I'm not meddling in a criminal investigation that he doesn't notice the rest. He is working late tonight, so hopefully we'll be back before he even notices I'm gone."

  "Another foolproof plan," Kate said in her Russian accent. "You'd better be getting him a really good Christmas present, comrade."

  Chapter 23

  “I know I wanted to get back at Brianna," Kate said as she stood in my living room wearing head-to-toe black that looked like it had been painted on. "But I'm not sure if I want to go to jail for it."

  "We aren't going to jail." I glanced outside my windows as I pawed through my wedding emergency kit. It was already dark, although I knew Georgetown would be bustling until late into the night. My stomach roiled from nerves, and I regretted that two cupcakes were the bulk of what I'd eaten during the day. Richard was right. I really needed to eat better.

  "I can't believe my mini flashlight got swiped."

  Kate didn't look surprised. "You know bridesmaids."

  It was true that bridesmaids were known for pillaging our wedding supplies, but I couldn't imagine why one had needed a flashlight. Safety pins, hairspray, breath mints, sure. But, a flashlight?

  "I guess we'll have to rely on our phones," I said, snapping my boxy metal case shut after retrieving a few bobby pins.

  Kate tugged a black knit cap over her hair. "Should I ask what the bobby pins are for?"

  "Pic
king locks," I said as I jammed them into the pocket of my black jeans.

  "You can do that?"

  I couldn't. "Technically, no, but I figure we should have them just in case."

  "In case one of us needs to put our hair up into an emergency French twist?"

  I made a face at her. "It can't be that hard. We've learned a lot of things on the fly before. Tying bow ties, folding pocket squares, making a bird of paradise out of a napkin."

  "Call me crazy, but I don't want to be covertly watching a how-to YouTube video as we're crouched in front of a door trying to pick the lock."

  The first time we'd had to tie actual bow ties for a bridal party, Kate and I had taken turns watching a tutorial on her phone behind one of the enormous pillars in the National Cathedral as we dashed back and forth to the getting-ready room, attempting to make the ties look even. I knew it was a feeling neither one of us ever wanted to repeat, although we'd become experts in tying bow ties since that harrowing day years ago.

  "I doubt we'll need to pick a lock," I said. "Doors in Georgetown are notoriously old and rickety."

  "So we're going to kick it in? That does not make me feel any better."

  I pulled my own hair up into a high ponytail. "I don't know what we're going to do. All I know is that we need those flowers, and if Brianna has them, we're getting them back."

  Kate made a fist and punched it into her other hand. "Yeah, we are. But let's go before your fiancé comes home and busts us."

  "Good idea." I grabbed my car keys out of my purse, deciding to leave it and any other identification at home. I was looking at the keys, wondering if we should just walk instead of drive, when there was a knock on the door.

  "Who do you think it is?" Kate whispered.

  "It can't be Reese. He has a key."