I looked around me and suppressed a shudder. Off the beaten path, in the pitch black, the once jovial lawn ornaments now looked menacing and dangerous. I hummed along to the Christmas music, pretending that everything was normal. A few seconds later I squinted down the path to a figure standing by the sleigh under the light pole.
I knew that figure.
“Hey,” I yelled, running as fast as I could in my flats. “What are you doing?”
The figure slowly turned from what she was doing to stare menacingly at me. Immediately her face brightened when she saw me.
“Holly,” Bitsie said joyfully.
I opened my mouth to scream…only nothing but tuffs of air came out.
Margot Martin’s limp body was propped up inside the sleigh, a strand of lighted bulbs wrapped around her neck and up to the top of the light pole.
“Look who I found just hanging around.” Bitsie laughed manically at her own crude joke.
I stumbled backward but still managed to take in the dried, caked-on blood plastered to the side of Margot’s face.
I glanced around, wondering about Helen. Was she hiding behind one of the trees? Maybe in the bushes next to the condo? What kind of weapons did everyone have?
That last question was answered soon enough when I heard Ophelia screaming my name behind me. I automatically turned to Ophelia, my back to Bitsie. I didn’t realize how stupid a move it was until I was suddenly pulled against the front of Bitsie’s body, a sharp knife under my chin.
“Back off, Ophelia.” The once calm voice of Bitsie’s was now filled with hysterics as she yelled in my ear. “I don’t want to hurt Holly. But if I have to, I’ll slice her pretty little throat right here.”
Ophelia came to an abrupt halt about twenty feet from where we were standing next to the sleigh. I still hadn’t seen Helen.
“Where’s Helen?” I asked. Well, I actually mumbled the question since the knife was pressing into the soft underside of my chin with every movement of my mouth.
“Helen?” Bitsie snarled in my ear. “I did all this for her! To finally give her closure on her old life. But did she appreciate it? No!”
My stomach rolled. “Is she dead?”
I kept my eyes locked on Ophelia’s as Bitsie laid out her confession to me as though I were a priest. “I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Even though Helen’s weak and deserves to die, she really is a good friend.” She paused dramatically. “That’s why I took out her enemies. She’d never be able to do it.”
“You killed Andrew?” I asked.
I stiffened as Bitsie brushed back hair from my face, giving her better access to my neck. “Yes. I was so angry the night he and the girls were poking fun at Helen. He claimed to have had nightmares when he thought about Helen. I just thought he should know what a true nightmare is like.”
I swallowed hard, trying not to cry. “So those ice axes were actually yours?”
“Yes. I knew Helen wouldn’t be able to take going into town Saturday. So when she begged to come back, I drove her here and dumped her off. I then sneaked into the chateau where the chimney prop was and attached the blades. But it’s okay. I didn’t use them very often.”
Crazy train is leaving the station!
“Then I drove like mad back into town to purchase something in case I needed an alibi.”
“And Helen never knew any of this?”
Bitsie scoffed. “Helen didn’t even know Margot and Chloe would be at the resort this week—but I did. I follow those two twits on several different social media outlets. They have thousands of friends. I was just another faceless person. But it was Karma coming to play when we ended up bunking with them. It was as if everything was pointing to this exact moment in time.”
“How did you kill Margot?”
“By the time Margot was ready to leave, I’d already given Helen a sleeping pill, along with plenty of booze to wash it down with. So she was in bed fast asleep by the time Margot left to go to the chateau. I could hear the shower coming from their room, so I knew Chloe wouldn’t be a problem. I followed Margot to the front door then gave her a good whack on the side of the head a few times. I dragged her outside and stashed her body behind the American Holly hedges outside.” Bitsie let out a small, hysterical giggle. “I have to say, I was almost afraid you guys would trip over her body on your way over to the chateau, but I guess it was too dark for you to see.”
Poor Margot. Left outside to freeze to death.
“Where’s Helen?” I repeated more forcefully. I felt the tip of the knife poke through my skin and felt the blood trickle out.
Ophelia screamed and hunched over as though hit in the stomach. I knew how she felt. The only thing that kept me upright and not doubled over was the simple fact the knife would kill me instantly.
“Put the knife down!”
The voice came from my right-hand side, near the condo. Bitsie whirled me to face the voice, causing the knife to slip. I cried out as pain flooded my body. That cut was gonna hurt later.
Sheriff Morgan had his gun drawn and pointed at Bitsie.
Too bad my body was shielding her.
“I don’t think so,” Bitsie snorted. “What you are gonna do, Sheriff Morgan, is step back and let me get to my car. I’ll let Holly go when I’m safe inside my car. Helen and I just want to leave.”
“You won’t get far,” Sheriff Morgan said as he slowly lowered his weapon. “We’ve also found Helen, so she won’t be going with you.”
Bitsie let out a frustrated scream, cutting me even more.
Oh, yes…let’s poke the bear, sheriff!
I saw Ophelia fall to her knees in my peripheral.
“Why did you kill Vivian Struthers?” I asked quietly.
Bitsie continued pushing me slowly toward the condo. Was she seriously thinking she could just walk me past Sheriff Morgan with no repercussions? She was obviously out of her mind.
“Vivian got what she deserved,” Bitsie said. “I waited over a decade before exacting my revenge.” She steered me close to the American Holly bushes. “This way no one would ever make the connection. I followed her for months, mapping her pattern. I knew Friday nights were party nights, so I just simply slipped into her house one night when she was out getting drunk at a bar. By the time she got home, she was too loopy to put up a fight. I was able to easily subdue her. When she woke up, I forced her to drink nearly a whole bottle of whatever I’d brought, then when I knew she’d never be able to fight back, I stood her up near the coffee table and gave her a good shove!”
I gasped. I knew she’d done it, but hearing her tell the story so calmly was terrifying. “But why? Just because the two of you got into a fight when you were younger?”
“Because of her, I had to pay exorbitant fees to an attorney and the court. I was so far in debt I had to drop out of college for a year to pay off everyone. A year of my life I’ll never get back. She needed to pay for what she’d done.”
“And your mom?” I asked. We were only a few feet from where Sheriff Morgan was standing. “What did she have to pay for?”
Okay, chatty Cathy…time to shut up before she cuts out your tongue!
“Everything. More like what didn’t she have to pay for! She was a worthless excuse for a mother. Always drunk, could never hold down a job. She was a disgrace! An embarrassment! Kids at school made fun of me. Parents pitied me!”
Sheriff Morgan turned slightly to let us pass. His eyes darted to the blood now running freely down my neck and into my dress.
I was so sending Bitsie my dry cleaning bill after this was said and done.
“Want to know something funny?” Bitsie asked.
No!
“Sure,” I said.
“I decided to become a librarian to honor my first kill. See, I got the idea of carbon monoxide poisoning from a book I read in our town library. Books were always my escape. And then one day, out of the blue, I stumbled upon my salvation.”
Bitsie turned me once again, and this t
ime I was facing the condo, walking backward toward Bitsie’s car. She opened the passenger’s side door and motioned me to get in.
Any time now! Someone make a move!
In the blink of an eye, the back door flew open and Deputy Swanson popped up from the back, scrambled out, gun drawn.
“Drop the weapon and get down!”
I didn’t have to be told twice. I leaped head-first into the front of the car.
From my vantage point, I could only make out the crumbs on the bottom of the car’s floorboard. However, I could hear shouts and screams behind me. A few seconds later, the driver’s side door flew open and I lifted my head to see Ophelia squatting down beside me, crying.
“I’m thinking we won’t tell our students everything about our vacation!” I quipped before resting my forehead on the floorboard.
CHAPTER 15
* * *
“I’m proud of you for keeping a calm head,” Sheriff Morgan said. “Most people would have been screaming for someone to do something.”
“I did all that in my head,” I joked half-heartedly.
Sheriff Morgan patted me on my back. “Well, you looked calm and collected, which really helped the situation out.”
I averted my eyes as the EMTs rolled Margot’s dead body past me. Helen was able to be revived long enough for her to admit she believed she’d been drugged by Bitsie and that something may be wrong with Bitsie.
I had a hard time not laughing hysterically at that understated comment.
Fortunately, Helen took the easy way out and passed out again as she was being lifted onto a gurney and transported to a local hospital.
I turned and looked at the back of Sheriff Morgan’s police vehicle. Once Bitsie was finally detained, Deputy Swanson handcuffed her, read her her rights, then shoved her in the back of the vehicle where she remained. I could feel the heated gaze of Bitsie’s hate-filled eyes as she sat glaring at me. Why in the world she was so angry at me, I didn’t know. I wasn’t the one who’d gone insane and went on a killing spree.
“I feel horrible for Chloe,” Ophelia said as she wrapped her arms around my still-shivering body. “She still hasn’t stopped screaming.”
When Clive and Chloe came running out of the chateau, followed by nearly a hundred guests, and they found Margot’s body in the sleigh…well, let me just say, I’ll probably never get the horror-filled screams that came from Chloe out of my head. Even though I didn’t fully understand Margot and Chloe’s lifestyle of putdowns and shallowness, there was no denying that Chloe loved her friend a lot.
That kind of anguish and emotion couldn’t be faked.
“Are you girls still leaving in the morning?” Sheriff Morgan asked me.
I looked at Ophelia and nodded my head. I didn’t even want to stay the night tonight, but I knew it wouldn’t make sense to leave out for Missouri now in the dead of night.
Someone cleared their throat and we all turned to see Clive Wellington standing behind us. He looked like he’d aged ten years in the last few hours. Not only had his sister lost her best friend, but he’d lost his on-again and off-again girlfriend. “I have a room available for you two ladies if you’d like to pack and move to the chateau. In fact, I can actually give you the room at no charge for another two days if you’d like to stay. Chloe will be joining me in my suite for the evening. There’s no way I’d leave her alone.”
I looked over expectantly at Ophelia. There was nothing I wanted more than to get my stuff and get out of that condo. The fact we could stay two more days free and clear at the chateau was almost more than I could take.
Ophelia smiled at me before turning to Clive. “Thank you, Clive. We’ll get our stuff when we can and take you up on your offer.”
An hour later, Ophelia and I were finishing up the last of our packing. Deputy Swanson had taken Bitsie to the station, the EMTs were all gone, and the forensics team was almost finished processing the scene. Sheriff Morgan said he’d stick around and accompany Ophelia and me to the chateau before heading back to the station.
“Is it weird to say that even though this was a crazy vacation,” I said as I zipped up my suitcase, “that I really enjoyed it. I mean, I’m sorry Andrew and Margot died, and that Helen lost someone she thought was her best friend…but if you get past that, I honestly loved waking up Christmas morning here, overlooking the mountain.”
Ophelia plunked her suitcase down on the rollers and grinned. “I totally get it. It was relaxing and peaceful—something teachers rarely get in their lives!”
I laughed as we trudged up the stairs together, ready to finish our vacation in the exquisite chateau. No doubt about it, Ophelia and I would have plenty of pictures and stories to tell our students when we got back to school after the Christmas vacation. Minus the dead bodies, of course.
Windswept
Snows
An “Authors of Summer Prescott Books”
Christmas Cozy
By
Donna Walo-Clancy
CHAPTER 1
* * *
In the gated community of Windswept Snow, Christmas was coming to life. The large estates, which many outside the gates considered out of place for the middle-class area that they were built in, were being decorated by professional designers. Each resident was hoping to outdo their surrounding neighbors; and the Bellington estate was no exception.
Robert Bellington made his fortune in computers. A computer whiz since the young age of twelve, by age nineteen he was a multi-millionaire in his own right. Bellington Computers was incorporated before his twenty-first birthday. He hired only the best in his field to work at his company. By age thirty, he was a billionaire.
He married his high school sweetheart, Patricia Campbell, after a separation of seven years and had three children; Robert Jr., Vanessa, and Kimberly Ann. Robert hated the thought of continuing to bring his three children up in Silicon Valley. He instructed his attorneys to find land that he could build Patricia a house of her dreams and where his children could go to a public school and learn the value of hard work. He did not want to hand everything to them like the other valley residents did to their offspring.
After several attempts, his attorneys found an extremely large amount of buildable acreage available in Colorado. Robert liked the area as it was nothing like the technology driven Silicon Valley. He had enough stress at work and wanted a home as far away from the boardroom where he could leave computers behind and enjoy a calm, laid back life.
There were enough good people working for him that he could fly on his private jet once a week to attend meetings and sign necessary paperwork. If he didn’t feel like leaving his home, he would conference call and take care of business that way. He could run his mega company and still have the semi-retired life he loved.
It took almost a year to build the mansion that Patricia designed. It had every luxury possible. Twelve bedrooms, sixteen bathrooms, and an enormous, ultra-modern kitchen that had every appliance and doodad that any five-star chef would kill to cook in.
The main living area was spectacular. A fieldstone fireplace, two stories high, was the showcase piece of the room. Situated in the very center of the space, a polished marble bench with thick cushions encircled the fireplace, with smoked glass panels behind the seats so it gave the illusion that the whole thing was floating in the air.
A movie theatre, bowling alley, a fully equipped gym, and an enclosed pool with a walk in the water bar were just some of the extras that Patricia demanded to be included in the plans to keep her husband happy while he was at home. A skeet shooting range was put in place on the back end of the property for both father and son.
Three separate garages were built at the rear of the house. The one that housed Robert’s antique cars was octagonal in shape and had floor to ceiling windows so he could look at his cars no matter where he was on the property. The other two were for their fleet of every-day cars.
An apartment had been built above one of the garages for James Griffin
, the chauffeur, so he would be available whenever he was needed. He had been with Robert since before he was married and agreed to move to Colorado with the family.
Miss Lottie had been hired the same time as the chauffeur. She started out as a housekeeper, but quickly became a loved member of the family. Lottie had her own suite in the new mansion, relocating with the family as James did. She oversaw the daily staff that came to work and the everyday functions necessary to make the household run smoothly.
Patricia had taken full charge of the interior design of the house. The rooms were tastefully decorated and with the best of everything. For many months she visited ski lodges around Colorado to get ideas for her own house. Her chosen color palette for the mansion were tans, browns, corals, and turquoises.
Even though her husband had more money than they could ever spend in ten lifetimes, Patricia’s mind always reverted back to the time when she had nothing and as a result she was never wasteful. Most of her rich friends changed their décor and furniture when they got bored with it. Patricia, on the other hand, found the things she liked and enjoyed and hardly ever changed anything in their home. She may add to things occasionally, but she would never totally redo a whole room out of boredom or just because they had the money to do so.
Their children, on the other hand, spent daddy’s money like it was water. Her son had a job that paid extremely well, but it never seemed to be enough. He and Vanessa, who was still unemployed after graduation and back on an allowance, were always running to their father for more money before the month ended. Kimberly Ann was still on an allowance as she was attending school, but never seemed to run out of money.
As much as she loved creating her family’s own paradise, she was lonely. Patricia missed her two best friends that she left behind in the valley. Even though she married into money, she didn’t become a high society snob. She stayed close to her childhood friends and went into business with many of them by being a silent partner in their ventures. One of those people was Angie Simmons.
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