Murder in the Mix Boxed Set 28-30: Cozy Mystery

by Addison Moore

  He takes off, and I seal the door shut behind him. Evie plugs in the Christmas tree lights, and it quickly envelops the room with a peachy glow. I flick on the lights, and just like that, the entire house takes on a cold, sterile appeal without Everett in it. Six red stockings hang from the mantel—one for Evie, Carlotta, Noah, Everett, the baby, and me. And just the sight of it makes me want to bawl. I thought Everett and I were going to have it all. I guess a handsome leopard can’t change his spots after all.

  Carlotta gets straight to lighting a few candles on the sofa table, and Evie scoops up both Pancake and Waffles as she heads my way.

  “Cool, so, like, are you guys going to get a divorce? Because I totally need to know before next semester gets going. Jana Nicholson’s parents are getting a divorce and, like, three different teachers said she didn’t have to do homework.”

  “Great. I’m glad it will work out for you if we do.” I give Waffles a kiss and he mewls right back. “Evie, would you mind feeding them? I think I’m going to head straight to bed.”

  Carlotta fires up a few more candles, and I’m right there blowing them out behind her.

  “What are you doing, Lot?” She bats me away.

  “What are you doing? It’s bedtime. And I’ll never fall asleep knowing there’s a chance the house will burn down while I’m out cold. I’ve got Evie and a baby to look after.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting someone?”

  I press my hand to my chest. “Pancake and Waffles. I’m sorry, boys,” I shout to them in the kitchen. “Mommy loves you!”

  “But you don’t love your mama?” Carlotta snarls as she stalks over and shuts off the lights.

  “What they heck are you doing?” I try to navigate my way in that direction to turn them back on, but she intercepts me.

  “If we want Elm to show up, we gotta kick up the sexy a notch. A man like that needs to be wooed.”

  “What are you talk—”

  “Elm is coming over?” Evie shrieks as she heads this way. “So freaking cool! I gotta get my phone.” She runs down the hall.

  “And turn out the lights,” Carlotta calls after her.

  “Elm?” I whisper as I look up at that creepy painting glowing in the candlelight and catch the initials painted over the bottom right. “E.L.M. Elm.” I shake my head. “Do you really think he’ll show up tonight?”

  “After that smoke show he and I put on last night?” Carlotta shakes her wrist. “Woo-wee. Let’s just say not even the Grim Reaper could hold him down tonight.”

  A spray of miniature red and green stars breaks out over by the Christmas tree, and Kringle appears, causing both Pancake and Waffles to growl and swat.

  Evie sucks in a quick breath in that direction. “Carlotta! Has your emotional support mouse shown up?”

  “His name is Kringle,” Carlotta bleats as she leads Evie and me to the living room by the hand. “You gotta show the spirits a little respect.”

  “Hey, Kringle!” Evie jumps and waves with excitement.

  Kringle traipses across the floor and hops onto the coffee table with his wobbly little body and gives a happy wave himself.

  “Well, if it isn’t Evie Stevie.” Kringle looks genuinely pleased to see her.

  Evie lets out a little scream. “I heard him! I really really heard him!” she howls with a laugh, and I yank my hand from Carlotta’s.

  My dear God, I completely forgot I act like a conduit if someone is holding my hand—or holding my hand by proxy. This is all my fault.

  “Wait a minute,” I snap, giving Carlotta the stink eye. “That is all your fault, Carlotta!”

  One hundred percent gospel. If Carlotta would stop calling the dead her emotional support animals, Evie wouldn’t have been dragged into this supernatural mess to begin with.

  “All right, fine.” Carlotta sticks her tongue out at me before shifting her cranky eyes to Evie. “That was me, kiddo. Kringle is just a big, fat figment of my imagination.”

  Kringle’s aura turns red as a fire engine. “Who you calling fat, lady?”

  Carlotta snaps her neck his way.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers, and I can’t help but roll my eyes.

  “Carlotta,” Evie moans. “You mean this whole thing is nothing but a foray into your lively yet slightly demented imagination?”

  I nod her way. “I knew you were insightful.”

  Carlotta makes a face. “And heavily influenced by this one.” She hitches her thumb my way. “Now get, Evie. It’s late, and you’ve got your first day of Christmas break tomorrow. I want to see you sleeping in until noon and not rolling out of bed one minute earlier.”

  “Fine.” Evie gives us both a hug. “Night, Pancake. Night, Waffles,” she says as she stomps toward the hall. “Night, Kringle—even though you’re just a figment of Carlotta’s crazy imagination.”

  Kringle huffs. “You’re a figment of Carlotta’s crazy imagination,” he shouts right back while pumping a fist in the air. With his chunky cheeks and bowl full of jelly belly, he’s ridiculously adorable, and it completely counteracts his ability to look angry. He’s unstoppably cute in every way. “I’m real!” he riots, zipping through the air after her. “As real as that guy standing in the corner.” He points to the right of the door, and both Carlotta and I swing our heads in that direction.

  No sooner does Evie slam her door than Carlotta pulls me to the floor in front of the fireplace.

  “Quick, Lot, criss-cross applesauce.” She sinks a candle between us, and Kringle hops down and dances on the flame.

  “So romantic,” Kringle coos.

  “You bet your pudgy patootie,” Carlotta chimes. “Now get over here, my sweet, sexy Elm—you gorgeous ghost—you stately specter—you strong, virile, well-dressed spook. It’s time we had a little powwow with my baby girl Lot Lot. She’s a lean, mean supersensual machine. And I’m thinking maybe she might be able to help you with your problem.”

  “Problem?” My eyes widen as I look to Carlotta. “Please tell me this little problem has nothing to do with what happened between the two of you in the bedroom.”

  Carlotta swats me on the wrist. “Don’t you know better than to bring up the size of a man’s ego when he’s in the room? And calling it little? It’s the ultimate low blow.”

  “What? I was not—”

  Before I can finish, a blast of air hits us, and my hair blows back from the velocity of the wind.

  And just like that, the man from the portrait is hovering over us—or more to the point, his ghost is. He’s tall, strapping, his face is glowing, and yet his eyes and nose are lost in strange shadows. He’s handsome in a wicked way, about Carlotta’s age, and if I’m not mistaken, he looks irrefutably angry.

  He growls over at the two of us, and every hair on my head stands up.

  Kringle whimpers, “He’s a monster!” He scampers off until he’s latched onto Pancake’s back and sends my sweet cats both running around the room in a tizzy, screeching at the top of their lungs.

  “Carlotta?” I whisper as loud as I can over the noise of the cats. “What did you do to anger this man? Why do I get the feeling that little problem he has is you?”

  “It’s not me, Lot Lot. And his problem isn’t little. The problem is that he doesn’t have use of his vocal cords. All he does is grunt and moan.”

  “I don’t see the problem. He sounds exactly like your type.”

  The surly specter roars with anger, and my hair blows back again from the sheer velocity of air he’s able to displace.

  “What’s with the hurricane force gales?” I shout up at him without meaning to. I can’t help it. The cats are hissing and yowling at the top of their tiny lungs, and Kringle is screaming like a three-year-old girl.

  The ghostly man’s eyes light up like a pair of white flames as he roars like a lion, and both Pancake and Waffles roar right along with him—in fright, as their fur stands on end. The wind picks up as vases, placemats, and throw pillows alike are getting sucked into the vorte
x and spinning toward the ceiling.

  “Make it stop, Carlotta!” I shout once again.

  “No can do, Lot Lot,” she shouts back. “That man wants something, and he wants it now.”

  “Well, then take him into the bedroom and give it to him!” I shrill.

  As if the rushing wind and the magnified grumbles and rumbles from this freak of ghostly nature himself wasn’t enough, the room explodes with flashes of lightning and peals of thunder as a bona fide storm system seems to be taking over my living room. A thick coat of dark clouds blooms across the ceiling, and my jaw roots to the floor as I witness the supernatural wonder.

  “Okay, mister, you win,” I shout as he zooms in close, hovering over Carlotta and me as if he were floating in a swimming pool. “What do you want?”

  The handsome man with the dark hair shakes his head. He opens his mouth, but the only thing that comes from it is an unearthly moan until he clutches at his throat.

  “Told you so, Lot.” Carlotta bumps her knee to mine. “The man’s got no voice. How are we supposed to know what he wants to say?”

  Kringle hops into Carlotta’s lap. “Who cares what this menace has to say? He certainly doesn’t care about keeping the peace. Get rid of him. Unless he’s here to help solve my poor Gloria’s case, he has no business being in this living room.”

  A harrowing howl comes from the poltergeist up above as his entire being glows an electric shade of green. Jags of lightning go off as a wind so powerful starts up, the entire room seems to be floating all around us in its wake. And caught up in the whirlwind are my sweet cats, yowling and screeching as they begin to float off the ground.

  I spike to my feet in a rage at the glowing beast above me.

  “ENOUGH!” I riot out the word so loud the walls shake, and that sweet little sugar cookie buried in my belly gives a violent kick in response.

  And then, just like that, the wind stops cold, the glowing poltergeist is gone, and oddly enough, a gentle rain starts to fall from the ceiling.

  “What in the heck?” Evie squawks from the hallway, and both Carlotta and I gasp her way.

  “Evie, get back to bed.” I traipse in her direction while doing my best to shoo her from the living room.

  “Mom?” Evie’s voice pitches. “Why is it raining in the house?”

  “The sprinkler system must have gone off,” I say in a weak attempt to explain the unexplainable.

  Evie scoffs in disbelief. “I didn’t know we had a sprinkler system.”

  “I didn’t either. But you can be sure it’ll be gone by morning,” I say, giving her a kiss to the cheek and watching as she stalks off to her room as both Pancake and Waffles dart in ahead of her.

  I turn back around to scold Carlotta for even thinking about dragging that haunted painting into our lives, only to find her levitating on her back, her hair flying freely all around her as if she were under water—and floating right above her is that surly ghost.

  He points a finger my way as a bolt of lightning blasts from it, and I’m forced to squeeze my eyes shut tight. And when I open them, he’s carrying Carlotta off to her bedroom while the room continues to pulsate with lightning.

  “Don’t wait up, kiddo,” Carlotta calls out. “I’ll do what I can to get Mr. Testy to communicate what he’s trying to tell us.”

  They enter her room, and the door slams behind them as loud as a shotgun blast.

  “What a mess,” I say as I turn back to the living room, but miraculously not one drop of water remains. What does remain is the disorganization of it all, throw pillows on the dining room table, those jar candles knocked over—and thankfully put out, but the melted wax has leeched onto the floor. The sofas are off-kilter, and the Christmas tree has lost half its ornaments.

  I’ll deal with this disaster tomorrow.

  Instead, I head off to bed, without my gorgeous husband by my side to kiss me goodnight.

  Silent tears run down my cheeks at the thought of losing Everett.

  The baby kicks, and I warm my belly with my hand.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I whisper.

  And deep down, I wonder.

  Chapter 14

  With all that’s been happening in this whirlwind month, I had almost forgotten about the craft fair my mother is hosting at the B&B. And I would have had she not called this morning and put in an extra order for about a couple dozen gingerbread houses—assembled yet unfinished so that the women could decorate them on site.

  Everett texted as soon as I got to work this morning. He said I love you, to which I responded right back with the same sentiment. Then he asked me to dinner. Normally, I wouldn’t have hesitated to reply. Normally, I would have jumped at the chance to have dinner with my husband, but on this day I hesitated. Then I got very busy, and before I knew it, hours had passed since he sent the message, and now I’m afraid my silence is only widening the divide between us.

  Keelie and Meg helped me deliver all of the goodies to my mother’s B&B, to the conservatory specifically, and we’ve laid out all of the platters of my sweet holiday treats on the refreshment table along with carafes of my peppermint Jolly Holly coffee. And on another table we’ve set out the gingerbread houses for people to decorate, and it’s been a hit with the throngs of women already circulating around the far too crowded room. My mother thought that the gingerbread houses could be used as centerpieces for the Jingle Hop Ball tomorrow night, and I thought that was a great idea. And as an added way to make a little money for the Christmas Angels, the gingerbread houses we decorate today will be auctioned off to the highest bidder at the table.

  My ghostly friends, Greer Giles and Winslow Decker, stand with me as we watch the frenetic pace in which the women around us hunt and peck for the greatest Christmas deals.

  Meg has loaded up on quilted custom-made tote bags, and I’m secretly hoping one of them is for me. Keelie is buying up some homemade lip gloss that’s said to be made from Honey Hollow honey. I’d love some of that, too. Lainey is buying up baby blankets made of fuzzy chenille by the dozens, and I really want one of those. In fact, I not only want one for the baby, but I want one for the cats as well, and maybe one for Noah’s dog, Toby.

  My mother is pushing her steamy romances, but it doesn’t look as if she has too many takers. And Carlotta is hocking her kinky candles sans a discount and seems to be raking in money as quick as the patrons can shoot it at her. I’ll admit, some of those candles smell amazing. There’s one scented exactly like peanut brittle, and I confess, I’ve been more than tempted to eat it—as in the candle itself. Suffice it to say, I’ll be whipping up some peanut brittle along with my traditional Christmas fudge as soon as I get back to the bakery.

  Greer and Winslow shake their heads at one another.

  “I’m sorry, Lottie,” Winslow says. “I don’t know what to make of it.”

  I just finished telling them about the horror Carlotta and I experienced last night.

  Little Lea comes up with that machete swinging in one hand and holding Kringle by the tail in the other.

  “Let me at this ghost who dares to try to frighten you, Lottie,” she snips. “I’ll have his head!” She takes a swing at Kringle’s primal apex, but it’s too late, he’s already hopped over to my shoulder.

  Kringle squeals. “Oh dear, Lottie. Send her away. And that testy cat as well.”

  Thirteen scampers up and leaps through the air as he does his supernatural best to catch a mouse by the tail, but Kringle has long since darted in the direction of Carlotta and her candle chaos.

  “Don’t worry, Lottie.” Lea steps forward, her dark hair combed over her head so efficiently, the only way I know she’s facing me is the fact her shoes are pointed in my direction. “I’ll find a way to make that man talk.” She holds up her sharpened blade and my hands fly to my stomach reflectively.

  Greer gurgles a sultry laugh. “Step aside, child.” She pulls Lea back a notch. “If anyone is a pro at getting men to do their bidding, it’s me.”
>
  “’Tis true.” Winslow doesn’t deny it.

  “Fine,” I say. “Have a stab at it.”

  Winslow nods to the melee increasing around Carlotta’s booth. “I’d best take care of this. Thirteen?” he howls as he stalks off, and little Lea tags along with him, laughing hysterically at the sight.

  “Come over anytime, Greer,” I tell her. “It’s a relief to know you’ll be handling it. I’ve got bigger fish to fry.” I quickly tell her all about the drama with Everett, and it feels good to get it out, sort of like I’m talking to a close friend with the only exception being this one is dead. And I do consider Greer a close friend regardless of her disembodied state.

  “Wow, Essex?” She blinks in disbelief.

  I shoot her a look.

  “Fine.” She takes a moment to glower at me. “Everett. But I bet good money had I lived another few weeks I could have called him Essex.”

  “Maybe.” I sigh. “And I’m half-afraid some other woman is garnering the right to do just that—right now.”

  “Oh, Lottie, we don’t know that. I bet it’s not true. He’s probably working on some grand surprise for you. Why don’t you let all of this go until after Christmas? Go to dinner with that hot husband of yours then let him back into the bedroom and wow him with all you’ve got.”

  “Are you kidding? Moving my body around on that mattress has become like repositioning a battleship in a very small canal. I’m not wowing him in the bedroom anymore. That’s probably why he left to begin with.”

  She shakes her head and a smattering of silver stars floats from her dark tresses.

  “If that’s the case”—she slings a ghostly arm across my shoulders—“then maybe this thing between the two of you was never meant to be.” She tips her head to the side. “But I have a feeling in my creaky soul that’s not the case at all. Trust me. I’ve got good instincts. I know a cheater when I see one. I was paid to be the other woman for so long I could spot them in the next town. Everett isn’t that guy. I don’t think he ever will be. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to nosh on one of your eggnog trifles. Thanks for leaving a bunch in the kitchen!” she shouts as she floats right through the east wall.