Claus for Celebration

by Laura Durham

  Kris chuckled. “I’m actually a confidential informant. Have been for years.” He glanced at my fiancé. “Sorry I couldn’t let you in on it, Detective.”

  Reese shook his head. “No worries. I get it. You probably didn’t know who to trust. Detectives keep their CIs pretty close to the vest, anyway.”

  “I’ve been working with Vice for a while. One of my old service buddies is on the squad and roped me in.” Kris rocked back on his heels. “You’d be surprised how a homeless guy dressed as Santa can move around unnoticed.”

  “How exciting to have one of our employees also work undercover for the police,” Mack said, nudging Buster who still looked gobsmacked.

  “So you knew Rogers was dirty?” Reese asked.

  “I’d seen him running with those same dodgy guys before he went to the academy," Kris said. "I don't think he knew I recognized him from his old life. I doubt he paid attention to a homeless guy when he was making trouble as a teenager. But I spotted him talking with his old crew while he was walking his beat one day. Then there was an uptick in shady things going at night, and the cops never seemed to be around. It didn’t take long to realize it was all connected to the larger crime ring in Georgetown we’d been tracking for a while. Rogers was on the take and letting the criminals move drugs and stolen merchandise freely. Problem was, I was pretty sure he saw me when he was talking to his old pals.”

  "And that's when you tried to stage your own death?" I asked.

  He nodded. "I didn’t want to blow my cover or end up floating in the Potomac. I asked Stanley to plant the suit, but he was so nervous when Rogers showed up right as he was putting it in the dumpster that he panicked."

  Stanley laughed nervously. “He knew I was lying.”

  "Liars are always good at spotting other liars," Reese said, handing Stanley a glass of champagne.

  Kris nodded, rubbing a hand over his gray stubble. "We decided Stanley should disappear too."

  "And Jeannie?"

  Another nod.

  “That explains the cops outside the shelter when we talked to Jeannie,” I said. “Were your vice buddies watching her?”

  Kris eyed me. “They were supposed to be inconspicuous.”

  “They were,” I assured him, “but Kate’s just really good at determining men’s professions by their clothes.”

  Kate winked at him. “The boxy blazers gave them away.”

  "Where did you all hide?" I asked, looking between the three. "One of the shelters? Fern's storage room?"

  Kris gave Fern an apologetic look. “Only a couple of times. We moved around. During the day, we didn't need to hide. We dressed as Santas and rang the bells for Salvation Army."

  "Hiding in plain sight," Leatrice said. “Genius.”

  “And all those criminals who got nabbed?” I asked.

  “Part of the larger Vice operation,” Kris said, “but the Santa stuff made it seem like an amateur vigilante, so the bad guys didn’t know the cops were watching them and closing in.”

  Reese grinned and nodded. “Not bad.”

  Carl walked in holding a bottle of bubbly wrapped in a gold ribbon, a black knit cap covering his close-cropped hair. As soon as I saw him, something clicked, and I pushed my way to the door. “Did you happen to dress up as Santa this week?”

  The makeup artist’s cheeks flushed. “So you did recognize me.”

  I remembered seeing the Santa in hipster glasses when Kate and I were outside Baked and Wired. “Not at the time, but now that I see you, I realize that’s why Santa looked so familiar.”

  Carl handed me the bottle. “Fern roped me into being one of the Santa stand-ins.”

  “Of course he did,” I said, wondering how many Santas had been roaming the streets of Georgetown under Fern’s direction. “Well, I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Don’t worry.” He gave me a conspiratorial wink and patted his jacket pocket. “I always have emergency stash of bronzer and falsh lashes on me, so we can do something to perk you up before anyone takes photos.”

  I tried not to take offense at that since I had been up late the night before. “Thanks, Carl.”

  Kate finished pouring champagne and handed both Carl and Kris a glass. "Let's raise our glasses to Kris Kringle Jingle and his amazing crime-fighting friends."

  Loud throat clearing made us all look around at Richard poking his head over the counter from the kitchen and Hermès's tiny furry head right beside his. "Were you going to forget the chef?"

  Kate handed him a glass, and we all clinked and drank as the dog yipped merrily.

  "You know, dear,” Leatrice sidled up to me as everyone began drifting around the room, “maybe we should consider adding Kris to our crime-fighting crew. We could use an experienced CI.”

  "We don't have a crime-fighting crew," I said, stealing a glance at Reese and seeing the corner of his mouth twitch. “And we don’t need our own confidential informant.”

  Prue held Merry's hands while the girl attempted to toddle over to the brightly decorated Christmas tree, and I hoped not all the ornaments were as fragile as they looked. One glance at the glass coffee table and baubles at the little girl's level reminded me that my place was by no means baby-proof.

  "Speaking of crime-fighting crews, Hobbes and your cop buddies are coming, right?" I asked my fiancé.

  He polished off his glass and pointed it toward the door. "Here's one of them now, along with…"

  I turned to see his brother, Daniel, walk in next to a tall man with sandy-brown hair. “PJ. Don’t you remember? Richard’s significant other.”

  Richard waved from the kitchen, splotches of red appearing on his cheeks. Hermès scampered out to greet the handsome man, who scooped him up, fluffed the dog’s ascot, and headed for the kitchen.

  “I thought you were Richard’s significant other,” Reese teased.

  “I thought you were,” I shot back.

  He laughed, then cocked his head to one side, his brow furrowing as he looked over my head. Kate had run up to Daniel, thrown her arms around his neck, and pulled him into a long kiss.

  "Did I miss something?" he asked, pulling his eyes away from his brother to look at me.

  I laughed, slipping my hand into his and feeling a rush of warmth that was only partly due to his body heat. "Who knows? It's never dull at Wedding Belles."

  "You can say that again."

  He gave a weary sigh, and I elbowed him playfully. Before I could remind him how instrumental my crew had been in closing the case on the missing Santa, Kris Kringle Jingle and Leatrice started singing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" along with the Charlie Brown album. We all joined in, with Merry clapping her hands off beat and Sidney Allen looking pained by the amateur attempt.

  As the song wound down, I caught a whiff of perfume that was instantly familiar. I spun toward the door and stared. “Son of a nutcracker.”

  "I was told there was an engagement party." She smiled widely, her voice rising above the music as everyone turned.

  "Is that...?" Reese stared, his voice soft in my ear as my heart hammered away.

  I nodded as she dropped her overnight bag on the floor by her feet and touched a hand to her auburn bob, diamonds glittering on her fingers. Swallowing hard, I plastered a smile on my own face.

  “It’s my mother.”

  Also by Laura Durham

  Read the entire Annabelle Archer Series in order:

  Better Off Wed

  For Better Or Hearse

  Dead Ringer

  Review To A Kill

  Death On The Aisle

  Night of the Living Wed

  Eat, Prey, Love

  Groomed For Murder

  Wed or Alive

  To Love and To Perish

  Marry & Bright

  The Truffle with Weddings

  Irish Aisles are Smiling

  Godfather of Bride

  Claus for Celebration

  About the Author

  Laura Durham has been writing for as lo
ng as she can remember and has been plotting murders since she began planning weddings over twenty years ago in Washington, DC. Her first novel, BETTER OFF WED, won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel.

  When she isn’t writing or wrangling brides, Laura loves traveling with her family, standup paddling, perfecting the perfect brownie recipe, and reading obsessively.

  Find her on:

  www.lauradurham.com

  laura@lauradurham.com

  To get notices whenever she releases a new book, follow her on BookBub:

  https://www.bookbub.com/profile/laura-durham

  Acknowledgments

  This book was inspired by “The Compliment Man,” who walked around DC in the 90s giving out compliments to everyone he passed. He didn’t ask for money, although he was homeless, he just said nice things to brighten people’s days as a way to give back to people helping him. I tweaked him and made him into a Santa for this book, but the sentiment is still the same. The world needs more people like “The Compliment Man” and more Santas!

  As always, an enormous thank you to all of my wonderful readers, especially my beta readers and my review team. A special shout-out to the beta readers who caught my goofs this time: Patricia Joyner, Linda Reachill, Sheila Kraemer, Linda Fore, Sandra Anderson, Cathy Jaquette, Kaitlyn Platt, Carol Spayde, and Christy Kalbhin. Thank you!!

  Big kisses to everyone who leaves reviews. They really make a difference, and I am grateful for every one of them!

  Wishing everyone the happiest of holidays!!

  Copyright © 2019 by Broadmoor Books

  Cover Design by Alchemy Book Covers

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.