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

by Addison Moore

Next add a generous layer of eggnog custard. Add another layer of gingerbread cake and another layer of eggnog custard.

  At this point, I like to spike a row of gingerbread men all around the inside periphery of the footed bowl so that they face outward.

  Add the final layer of gingerbread cake and eggnog custard, or repeat the process until you’ve reached the top of the bowl.

  Finally to top it off, add a generous layer of whipped cream and either lay a circle of gingerbread men over the top, or add a cherry, or even red and green sprinkles. Feel free to get as creative as you like and have some fun with it!

  Serve and enjoy!

  Merry Christmas to one and all!

  And happy holiday baking!

  Acknowledgments

  Big thanks to YOU the reader! I hope you had a wonderful time. I can’t thank you enough for spending time in Honey Hollow with me. I hope you enjoyed this bumpy ride with Lottie and all of her Honey Hollow peeps as much as I did. The MURDER IN THE MIX mysteries are super special to me, and I hope they are to you as well. If you’d like to be in the know on upcoming releases, please be sure to follow me at Bookbub and Amazon. Simply click the links on the next page. I am SUPER excited to share the next book with you! So much happens and so much changes. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking this wild roller coaster ride with me. I really do love you!

  A very big thank you to Kaila Eileen Turingan-Ramos, and Jodie Tarleton for being awesome.

  A special thank you to my sweet betas, Lisa Markson, Ashley Marie Daniels, and Margaret Lapointe for looking after the book with their amazing beautiful eyes. And a shout out to Lou Harper for designing the world’s most beautiful cover.

  A mighty BIG thank you to Paige Maroney Smith for being so amazing.

  And last, but never least, thank you to Him who sits on the throne. Worthy is the Lamb! Glory and honor and power are yours. I owe you everything.

  Copyright © 2020 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 © 2020 by Addison Moore

  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 who have come back from the other side to warn me of their previous owner’s impending doom.

  It's the dead of winter in Honey Hollow, and I’ve got jury duty. As if that wasn’t terrible enough, Carlotta is stirring up trouble with the mob again, and soon enough, a member of the family ends up biting the big one. And you will never guess which ghost comes back to help me solve the crime this time. Something like this has never happened before, and I’m hoping it will never happen again. It’s cold outside, and so is the heart of the killer.

  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 the dead—which are always harbingers for ominous things to come. Throw in 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

  Three days from now…

  Monday, 12:42 a.m.

  “Stop your bickering,” I shout as I give a panicked look around at the shadowed evergreens. “Just keep digging.” I can’t catch my breath. I can’t hold onto my sanity another moment longer.

  Everett wipes the sweat from his brow, his shirtless body gleaming under a midnight moon. “If anyone finds out what we’ve done, we’re going to lose everything.”

  Noah lets the body fall from his shoulder, right into the pit. “Give me the damn shovel and I’ll finish the job myself.”

  “I’ll finish the job.” Everett takes a moment to glower at Noah before flicking his gaze my way. “The things I do for you, Lemon.”

  And he looks as if he regrets every single one.

  Present day…

  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 who have come back from the other side to warn me of their previous owner’s impending doom. But at the moment I’m not seeing a single entity that’s crossed to the other side. Instead, I’m feasting my eyes on an elegant breakfast-themed buffet brimming with waffles, pancakes, scones, cinnamon rolls, and donuts upon donuts. The head chef of this ritzy hotel had an unfortunate event in his kitchen a few days ago and put a call out to different restaurants in the area to help pull off tonight’s culinary feast. And lucky me, he asked my shop, the Cutie Pie Bakery and Cakery, to cater all the sweets.

  It’s all a part of the midnight buffet at the Chanterelle Hotel in downtown Ashford—just a hop and a skip away from my sweet cozy town, Honey Hollow. But as fate and New Year’s Eve would have it, all of Honey Hollow and all of Vermont seem to have congregated right here in the Crystal Ballroom, awaiting the countdown to a brand new year—a year that is going to bring so many changes to my life, and so many of those changes are as wonderful as they are terrifying.

  My hand rounds over my blooming belly as I look out at the thick crowd in front of me, all wearing their very best formal attire. At least the women are in formal attire. The men are in suits in various stages of disarray with their ties already tugged loose, their jackets nowhere to be seen, and their sleeves rolled up as the rowdy music has just about everybody in the room thrashing about, and that includes my mother and her friends, my sisters, my best friend Keelie, and, of course, all of their plus ones.

  The Crystal Ballroom is about as elegant as they come with enough sparkling chandeliers to light up all of Honey Hollow. Although at the moment they’ve all been dimmed to create just the right mood lighting that New Year’s Eve requires. Bouquets of silver and gold balloons are set out on every table, and matching banners are strewn about, adding a festive touch to the evening. There are rows and rows of silver chaffing dishes set out on the grand buffet that looks as if it goes on for miles. And from where I’m standing, the scent of vanilla mingles with expensive perfume and cologne of the couples nearby.

  “Lottie Lemon, you are gorgeous.” Noah steps into my line of vision and lands a kiss to my cheek. “Is the baby kicking?” He sheds a dimpled grin—as he should, he’s in the running to be the father.

  “Nope,” I say. “He or she is sleeping soundly.”

  Noah Corbin Fox looks dapper tonight in his gray suit and silver tie. His dark hair is showing off its red highlights even under these dim lights. He’s got a face chiseled by the masters with extra deep-set dimples and a killer smile, the body of a linebacker ready to tackle crime, and seems to be garnering his fair share of attention from the women in the vicinity judging by the way the whites of their eyes keep flashing in his direction.

  Noah is handsome as can be with eyes that can give any evergreen a run for its pine-scented money. And fun fact: we’ve been married before. Sure, it was short-lived and we may have walked into it accidentally, but that’s par for the course for Noah and me.

  We were pretty serious up until I found out about that wife he was hiding. They had been separated for some time and the divorce ball was already rolling, but it rolled rig
ht over Noah and me. Believe it or not, we’re still hobbling along in our own crazy way despite the fact I’m married to his old stepbrother.

  “Lemon.” Judge Essex Everett Baxter, my official and legal plus one, wraps his arms around my waist from behind and lands a heated kiss to my cheek. Everett has almost always called me that, and there’s not an ounce of me that will protest his liberal use of my surname. Everett has a way of making it sound like the vampiest pet name ever and has me purring at the sound of it each and every time. “You look like a goddess in that dress. Never take it off.” He tucks his lips next to my ear. “Let me take it off.”

  Noah grunts as he goes for a cookie, “I heard that.”

  Everett is my husband, and per keeping with my own tradition, we sort of walked into our matrimonial knot backwards, too. He needed a wife in order to qualify for his trust fund and I took one for the fiscal team—while I was dating Noah. Suffice it to say, that didn’t go over well with my poor boyfriend, and shockingly, that wasn’t the end of us. But eventually, Noah and I decided to part ways so that I could see if Everett and I were going anywhere. It’s a long and sordid story, but that’s what brings us here.

  As for Everett and me, we share a sixteen-year-old daughter that happened to pop into Everett’s life unexpectedly a few months back. Everly—Evie—Baxter’s mother is a birdbrain with a heart of coal, and since Evie and Everett want nothing to do with her, I’ve happily stepped into the role as her mother.

  I reach down and hug my belly before giving Everett a covert nod letting him know I fully approve of those dress removal shenanigans he has planned for later. Not to mention the fact I’ll be needing his help to get out of this sheer lace and lavender satin number anyway. Everett bought this gorgeous dress for me, a formal maternity gown that must have set him back a fortune.

  Lily Swanson lands the last platter of my sweet treats onto the dessert table before us. Her dark hair is swept up into a bun, and she’s wearing the requisite little black dress that this night practically demands. Lily is my right-hand gal down at the bakery. She was once one of my high school bullies, but now that I sign her paychecks, we seem to get along great.

  She scoffs my way. “Lottie, your belly just shot out like a bullet overnight. Are you sure you’re not stuffing your dress with a pillow? I’ve never seen anyone pop like that.”

  “It’s not a pillow,” Everett tells her. “I can testify to that.” His lips curve as he takes up my hand and half the women in the room sigh in his direction. “I’ve seen her without a stitch of clothing on to prove it.” His lips flicker and I can hear a low growl coming from behind—most likely from Noah.

  Everett is caustically handsome, but tonight with his black suit, black tie, hair the color of the darkest midnight, and eyes that shine like the sea, he looks dangerously delicious. And I’m suddenly having a mad craving for one hot and more than naughty judge.

  Not only is Everett stone-cold handsome, he’s slow to smile, has a body built for speed that most definitely meets all of my needs, and exudes a dangerous level of sexual appeal that demands the attention of every estrogen-bearing card member in a ten-state radius. There is something undeniably magnetic about him that commands the women in the room crane their necks in his direction at any given time.

  “Lot Lot!” Carlotta Sawyer runs this way doing an odd little bow-legged hop as if she had a watermelon tucked between her knees, wearing a dress that’s far too short and far too glittery. “This is the best cake you’ve ever made.” She holds out a plate with a stack of waffles six high.

  “Carlotta, that’s not a cake,” I’m quick to tell her.

  “It’s a cake, Lot,” she insists while taking another bite. Both Carlotta and I share the same caramel-colored hair, hazel eyes, and the exact same name—Carlotta. We also share the same ability to see the dead. In fact, it was her wonky genetics that gave that quirky gift to me to begin with.

  Carlotta is my biological mother. Almost three decades ago, Carlotta left me on the floor of the Honey Hollow Fire Department and took off for baby-less pastures. But lucky for me, the Lemons quickly took me in, gave me two sisters and a stable home to boot. Then just a couple of years ago, Carlotta pranced right back into my life.

  She moans her way through a bite. “We need to give this cake a name, Lot Lot, and frost it up for the masses.”

  “We’ll call it Carlotta’s Midnight Surprise Cake That’s Not a Cake, ” I tell her.

  “I vote for Better Than Sex Cake.” Lily snorts. “Each bite is a taste of heaven.”

  Carlotta honks out a laugh. “The day Lot Lot starts selling Better Than Sex Cake, it’s curtains for you, Mr. Sexy.”

  Mr. Sexy is the nickname baristas the world over have gifted to Everett, and they’re not wrong. Carlotta has picked up on it, and I don’t think she plans on letting go of it either.

  Everett’s cheeks flicker. “I trust she’d add an addendum to the name of that cake just for me.” His lids hood a notch as he looks my way and my insides do that swirly thing he’s so good at sponsoring in every woman with a set of functioning ovaries.

  Lily laughs. “That would make a Better Than Sex Cake with the exception of Essex. Of course, that’s a given for me, too.” She winks his way.

  I frown over at her. Essex is Everett’s formal moniker, and the only people he allows to use it freely—with the exception of his mother or sister—are the women he’s danced in the sheets with. And yes, Lily qualifies, as do countless of other women who are probably in this very room tonight. Everett has done the deed with a good portion of the females in Vermont—heck, most likely the Eastern Seaboard. He was quite the playboy before he met me, but I choose to overlook it. I still call him with the name I’ve used from the beginning and he doesn’t seem to mind.

  “I’ll pass on calling the coital nickname for the waffles,” I say, breaking off a piece of Carlotta’s questionable cake and popping it into my mouth. Mmm, she’s so right. It’s delicious if I do say so myself, even if it’s not a cake.

  “Never mind the cake, Lot.” Carlotta gives my arm a tug. “I’ve got to introduce you to my friends. They’re all here tonight, every last one of ’em.”

  “What friends?” I can’t help but ask. Carlotta’s not exactly Ms. Congeniality, and the only friends she does have are…

  I suck in a quick breath. “You don’t mean…”

  She nods. “That’s right. All the big shots are accounted for and present. The Canellis, the Lazzaris—they’re all here tonight. And there are even some bigwigs here from the top New Jersey family, the Morettis.”

  And all three of them just so happen to be crime families, as in the mob.

  Noah and Everett exchange a dark glance. The Canellis and the Lazzaris have been feuding for years. Just last spring, Noah, Carlotta, and I got caught up in a shootout between the two of them. A bullet grazed Noah, but it wasn’t lost on me he could have been killed. These people are dangerous with a capital everything.

  “And great news!” Carlotta swallows down another bite in haste. “Cat Canelli isn’t on the lam anymore.”

  “Wonderful.”

  Was Cat Canelli on the lam? Or was that her aunt Connie? On second thought, it was most likely both.

  Carlotta swats me on the arm. “Cat got her brothers to do a big shakedown of the po-po and she’s free and clear. The doctor’s her uncle.” She gives a cheesy wink. “Come on, I’ve gotta introduce you.”

  She grabs me by the hand before I can protest, and we’re off into the thick of the dance floor until we hit a pocket of mostly dark-haired women of Italian descent dressed in a variety of black and silver sequin gowns, with a pink one thrown in for good measure.

  The women all have on the same matching red lipstick, same heavy rouge, and long false eyelashes as if they belonged to some cosmetics cult, but then again, everyone in here would qualify for that cult tonight, myself included.

  I couldn’t help it. You can’t wear a dress like this and show up with your fac
e as plain as a pancake, or at least I couldn’t. I’m not exactly sleeping all that well at night and my face is taking on a pasty appeal to go along with my zombie-like vegetative state. Between my bladder and my newfound belly bulge, it’s touch-and-go for the entire eight-hour stretch. I’ve got dry lips and I have dark circles and bags under my eyes big enough to fit a sofa.

  I offer an amicable smile to the women before me—who oddly enough, all seem to be chewing on gum frenetically as if they were in a bubble-blowing contest. I’m not sure if they’re all Canellis. But I get the feeling they are, and that’s exactly why this whole meet and greet makes me more than a little nervous. I’d much rather be munching on one of my waffles with a little hot sauce on the side to make it sing, of course. It’s one of my new cravings. I need to have a drizzle of hot sauce on just about everything lately, and I do mean everything. It’s gotten to the point where I have a bottle with me in my purse at all times. You never know when you’re going to have to jazz up a waffle, or in this case, splash a mobster in the eye to make a quick getaway. Not that I feel as if I’m in imminent danger. Yet.

  “Everyone.” Carlotta’s voice hikes up over the music as the women slow their shuffle. Carlotta holds me close. “This is the loot from my patoot!”

  Good Lord.

  I force a smile at the women before me. I’ve never been referenced as the loot from anyone’s patoot before, at least not to my face. I have a feeling that’s a tried-and-true description of me as far as Carlotta’s concerned. Come to think of it, she may have used the graphic intro before, but with the lack of sleep and the baby munching on my brain cells I wouldn’t know it.

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Lottie Lemon,” I say to the women who all seem to be encroaching in on me, and it’s then I recognize both Caterina and Connie Canelli. They both share the same shoulder-length black hair and dark chocolate eyes. Connie has a few years on me, and Caterina—Cat—is Carlotta’s age. Actually, Cat and Carlotta were best friends in high school. I believe Cat’s nickname for Carlotta was Spider, which makes perfect sense.