Yule Log Eulogy
Murder in the Mix 16
Addison Moore
Contents
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Book Description
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Books by Addison Moore
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright © 2019 by Addison Moore
Edited by Paige Maroney Smith
Cover by Lou Harper, Cover Affairs
This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names, places, and characters are figments of the author’s imagination. The author holds all rights to this work. It is illegal to reproduce this novel without written expressed consent from the author herself.
All Rights Reserved.
This eBook is for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this eBook with another person, please purchase any additional copies for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Copyright © 2019 by Addison Moore
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Book Description
My name is Lottie Lemon, and I see dead people. Okay, so I rarely see dead people. Mostly I see furry creatures of the dearly departed variety, aka dead pets, who have come back from the other side to warn me of their previous owner’s impending doom.
The holidays are upon us. Christmas Day is within reach and there are so many parties to cater. The very first one is on the ritzy side of town, and if the snobby socialites weren’t enough to make me squirm, stumbling upon a body takes the joy right out of the season. But I’m determined to find the killer and salvage what I can of this holiday fiasco. However, with Noah still recovering, the ghost of a reindeer who happens to have a hankering for whiskey, and a convict on the loose, it’s going to be tougher than it looks. To top it all off, I’m quickly burying myself in an avalanche of lies.
The snow is falling, the sugar cookies are baking, and mistletoe abounds. The holidays have hit Honey Hollow. And it’s beginning to look a lot like murder.
Lottie Lemon has a brand new bakery to tend to, a budding romance with perhaps one too many suitors, and she has the supernatural ability to see dead pets—which are always harbingers for ominous things to come. Throw in the occasional ghost of the human variety, a string of murders, and her insatiable thirst for justice, and you’ll have more chaos than you know what to do with.
Living in the small town of Honey Hollow can be murder.
Chapter 1
All-points bulletin: A convicted murderer escaped the Burlington Women’s Penitentiary late last night. Constance Canelli is five feet five, brown hair, brown eyes.
Keep your doors and windows locked. The individual is an extreme danger to the public. Beware of the criminal at large.
My name is Lottie Lemon, and I see dead people. Okay, so rarely do I see dead people. Mostly I see furry creatures of the dearly departed variety, aka dead pets, who have come back from the other side to warn me of their previous owner’s impending doom. But right now, I’m not seeing a dead anything. I’m seeing two very much alive, very much virile, gorgeous, far too comely for their own good men who happen to have stolen my heart. Yes, as tawdry as it sounds, I’m in love with the both of them.
I know. I know.
It’s not right.
That is not how this works.
Honestly, one might question what type of twisted fairytales my mother read to me as a child.
One plus one should never equal three. But unfortunately for me, it’s the new math. And, believe you me, it’s an equation that has gone horribly, horribly awry.
I spot Everett unfolding a note between himself and Noah. And just as I make my way over, he folds it back up and slips it into his pocket.
“Everett.” My mouth falls open at the audacity. “We have no secrets, remember?”
Noah shakes his head ever so slightly at his former stepbrother. It’s true. Noah and Everett were just that once upon a time.
I click my tongue in disbelief. “You’re not going to listen to Noah, are you?” I’m only partially teasing. “What is it?” I look to Everett’s pocket. “Never mind. It’s a love note from Cressida, isn’t it?”
Cressida is an obnoxious social climber I just met a few weeks ago. She and Everett go way back, but they couldn’t be different if they tried. Everett is an intelligent, well-respected judge, and Cressida is a socialite who believes she’s fallen on hard times because she’s been relegated to three vacations a year—might I add, extended vacations.
“Lemon.” Everett’s brows pinch in the middle. “I’ll share it with you later. Let’s get these desserts where they need to be.”
Everett has called me by my surname for as long as I’ve known him—just a little over a year to be exact, and I think it’s an adorable moniker.
It’s the night of the big Honey Hollow Jingle Ball thrown by none other than socialite extraordinaire, Larson Rosenberg, and her bestie, Cressida Bentley. An overgrown mansion up on Garland Road is the hotbed of all this mistletoe and mischief and my shop, the Cutie Pie Bakery and Cakery, has been asked to cater the desserts for the extravagant event. Honey Hollow, Vermont isn’t exactly socialite central, but we have a few and those few are quite extravagant.
Both Noah and Everett, the aforementioned men who have stolen my heart, have helped me haul in the mega-load of cookie platters, the brownie buffet, and miles and miles of festive Yule log cakes that are to be the prized centerpieces of tonight’s hoity-toity extravaganza.
Noah leans in and presses a kiss to my lips. “Wife.” There’s a gleam in his eyes that makes my insides bisect with heat. We’ve been floating on cloud nine ever since he’s come out of the hospital. He was in a horrific accident and spent nearly a month in a coma. I, for one, am thrilled he pulled through.
Noah is a tall, handsome homicide detective who initially stole my heart with that dark hair that turns fiery red in the sun, bold green eyes, and dimples for days. We were hot and heavy right up until I found out that his ex-wife was actually his current wife, a tiny detail he might have forgotten to mention.
So, of course, I said see ya later, pal and started dating his former stepbrother, Judge Essex Everett Baxter.
Everett is tall with jet-black hair, cobalt blue eyes, and rarely ever smiles. He’s a one hundred percent grade-A legal eagle who has women of all ages and stages of life craning and twisting their necks to get a better look at him as soon as he
steps into the room. He’s drop-dead gorgeous—okay, heck, he’s drop your unmentionables gorgeous, and if I might be honest, he’s had his fair share of women do just that. He was quite the playboy before he gave his heart to me.
And then last September, Noah and I accidentally got married during an undercover operation—we both meant those vows with our whole heart. But we weren’t into our wedding one month before Noah was in a car wreck and nearly died. As it stands now, he’s just been out of the hospital for one week, and already he’s up and around, insisting on coming out and helping me tonight.
What poor Noah doesn’t know is that I’m harboring a rather dark secret from him. Both Everett and I are, actually. You see, last month I thought I was having his baby and, as it turns out, it wasn’t me who that positive pregnancy test was for. It was my sister, Lainey. But I told Noah last month that I was with child and that the child was his. And to make things worse, the marriage we found ourselves tangled up in? Everett sort of untangled that knot a couple of weeks ago.
And as much as I’d love to give Noah the rundown on all those unfortunate events, I can’t. The doctor made me all but swear on a stack of cookbooks that I wouldn’t do anything to jar his emotional wellbeing. She said one good kick to the proverbial heart could send him right back into the hospital. And, well, it could prove to be a fatal visit this time around.
So—until he’s stronger, Everett and I have decided to perpetuate a couple of little white lies.
As far as Noah is concerned, I’m still his wife and we are very much in the throes of expanding our family.
“Lottie?” Lainey strides into the expansive kitchen of this palace we’re standing in. I swear I’ve never seen so much marble or stainless steel in one location before. There are three large islands, each one more expansive than the next, and currently they’re all housing a vast army of my dessert platters.
Lainey makes a face as she heads my way. “Lottie, we’ve got to get a move on and get these desserts to the refreshment tables.”
My eyes stray to the costume she’s been relegated to wear for the event, and I try not to laugh at my poor sister.
Lainey and I look startlingly alike, with the same caramel-colored hair and hazel eyes—so much so that when we were little, I had hoped my parents had the info on my adoption wrong and that I was really Joseph and Miranda Lemon’s biological child. But even though I’m not, that has never changed the fact they are my parents—were as far as my father is concerned. He died over a decade ago, and my mother made sure to put all three of her daughters through college all by her lonesome.
“Lainey, we look ridiculous. I can’t get over these elf costumes,” I say, glancing down at my ultra short green dress. It’s tight in all the wrong places, but the biggest sin of all is the fact it’s fringed with a white feathered boa. “If I truly did work for the man in red, I’d stage a protest at his most vulnerable time of year until he outfitted us with something I could actually bend over in.”
Lainey giggles. “If Santa issued us these outfits, that would be a bona fide reason to land himself on the naughty list.”
“Or Mrs. Claus’ naughty list in the least.”
Larson, the queen bee of tonight’s socialite debacle, made sure to outfit my “staff” and me each with one of these tightfitting getups, along with a pair of thigh high red and white striped boots that curl at the toes a good foot in the air.
I use the term “staff” loosely because I’ve recruited Lainey—who not only happens to be my sister but the head librarian at the Honey Hollow library—my best friend Keelie, and Lily Swanson—who actually does work for me at the bakery. The four of us are willing to brave the snow and any humiliation tonight might bring in the name of serving up my delicious treats to any and every snobby soul in this building. This place is far too massive to merely refer to it as a house.
Lainey smirks. “I don’t know. I think it’s kind of cute. I keep sending Forest snapshots of myself in this green getup. And judging by his responses, my night is looking pretty promising.” She gives a cheeky wink while rubbing her almost flat tummy. Lainey is in her first trimester of pregnancy with her first child, and both she and her husband are thrilled.
“Is Forest off tonight?” I ask, sliding another tray of Yule logs her way. Forest is a firefighter, much like our own father was, and I never know when he’s home or not.
“He’s taking an extended break in about three hours. So I’ll have to cut out early.” She shakes her shoulders suggestively in anticipation of the main event.
“That will be more than fine.”
Everett and Noah raise their voices from behind, and we turn to look their way.
Lainey leans in. “Hey, that looks pretty heated. I bet they’re fighting over you, Lottie. Maybe you should go over there and break things up before they start breaking crystal. Everything in this place looks as if it costs a million dollars. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for replacing any of it.” She wrinkles her nose. “And if you ask me, it’s all gaudy. I don’t care how filthy rich I ever become, I would never decorate my home as if it were a museum. Did you see that enormous painting of that woman in the grand ballroom? Her eyes follow you around. It’s creepy!”
I make a face. “I haven’t been out there yet. I just cleared out the van.”
Noah and Everett’s conversation grows in hostility.
“Put that fire out, Lot.” Lainey nods their way before taking off with an arm full of Yule logs, and I make my way to the back to the men who can never seem to get along.
“Please,” I say as I come up on them. “I’m only going to ask one more time. What’s going on?”
Noah tips his head back, his eyes narrowed to slits as he glowers at Everett. “Never mind, Lottie. I’ll help you move things to the dining room.”
“Not without your cane,” I say. Noah’s left leg is still pretty weak. And even though he’s been instructed to use the assistive walking stick—that I think makes him look perfectly sexy—he’s being pretty stubborn about it.
Everett produces the black, svelte steel rod from behind him. “I took it out of the van for you. She’s right. Use it, old man.” Everett’s lips twitch with the hint of a smile. Noah and Everett didn’t exactly get along during their short tenure as stepbrothers. Noah’s father married and swindled Everett’s mother. And in the interim, Noah saw fit to steal Everett’s girlfriend—an airhead by the name of Cormack Featherby who to this day haunts our social circle.
Noah snatches the cane from him. “If it makes you happy, Lottie, I will use it. But only for you. I don’t really need it.”
I twist my lips as I examine the two of them. “I doubt you were arguing about a cane of all things. Did it have anything to do with that all-points bulletin we heard on the way over?” A chill runs up my spine just thinking about it.
Connie Canelli is on the loose once again. Last September she was taken into custody for the murder of a woman we knew. “I mean, I’m not really surprised she’s out. The Canelli brothers are an infamous crime family. I’m surprised she was convicted to begin with. I feel sorry for the poor judge who sentenced her. I’d watch my back if I were him.”
Noah shoots a look to Everett, and Everett takes a deep breath as if I just struck a nerve.
“What?” I tug on the sleeve of Everett’s suit, but his lips aren’t moving. “I know for a fact you weren’t on Connie’s case. You helped turn her in. It would go against the cannon of judicial ethics.”
Everett’s cheek flinches with the idea of a smile when I say that last part as if I had managed to impress him with my words.
“Essex?” a shrill female voice calls from behind, and we turn to find a pair of blondes sashaying this way, Cormack Featherby and her socialite friend, Cressida Bentley.
Cormack bustles in with a tight red dress, no longer than mine, and pair of white feathered angel wings strapped to her back, which makes me wonder about the nature of this Christmas party in general.
Cormack is a waif of a girl with fine long hair and celadon green eyes. She’s constantly smiling, laughing her way through life on Daddy’s American Express Black Card. She thinks Noah is still interested in her, and believe me when I say she is well steeped in her own delusions.
Cormack was the one driving her brand new Corvette on Halloween night when she wrapped it around a tree and almost killed Noah. I hope he’s learned his lesson about driving around with blondes who happen to be obsessed with him.
“Big Boss!” Cormack snatches Noah by the hand. “I just knew you’d come.” She looks to the blonde next to her. “Cressie, this is the love of my life I was telling you about. Oh, Noah, you must meet the girls. They just got back from summering in the South of France a few weeks back.” She whisks him through the kitchen, and I wave for him to go on ahead.
“I’ll be out in a second,” I shout after him. “Summering?” I blink up at Everett in disbelief. “Summer was nearly two seasons ago.” But then something tells me the rich don’t quite see the seasons the way the rest of us do.
Everett chuckles, but before he can say anything Cressida steps up and wraps her arms around him. She’s wearing a tight red dress and impossibly high heels. There’s not one elfish thing about her, and I find that extremely annoying at the moment. I’m not so crazy about the elf fashion nonsense I’m being subjected to tonight or any other night. I look hideous in both green and feathers. This dress is a double whammy.
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