Murder in the Mix Boxed Set 28-30: Cozy Mystery by Addison Moore (books for 7th graders .txt) 📗

been married for a while. He’s the love of her life, and no one has cheered them on more than me. And Hook Redwood is Meg’s longtime boyfriend. He’s basically Honey Hollow’s version of the Wolf of Wall Street. He and Meg are sort of an odd pairing, but hey, it works.

“Oh, Lottie”—Mom steps in front of me—“something terrible has happened.”

“The murder, yes, I know.” I press a hand to my chest just trying to process it all.

“No, not that.” She waves me off. “My latest book isn’t doing so well. Rumor has it, my publisher is thinking of dropping me.”

“What?” I squawk in disbelief. My mother writes raunchy fiction under the nom de plume Mirandy Lemonade, and she just had the second book in her Reckless series come out a couple of months ago. “Mom, you’re sleeping with your publisher.”

Carlotta chuckles. “Talk about having an in with the boss.”

It’s true. My mother’s publisher is Noah’s dicey father, Wiley Fox. He once faked his death after stealing a bundle from God knows how many poor unsuspecting widows. He did it to Everett’s mother, Eliza. I’m shocked Everett let Wiley live once he magically resurrected himself a year or so ago.

Mom shakes her head. “It doesn’t seem to matter that I’m sleeping with him. He said I’m underperforming.” She gasps as she brings her fingers to her mouth. “What if that was some sort of a reverse double entendre?”

“I’m stepping away now,” I say. “I’m sure your book sales will pick up. It’s the holidays.”

“Before you go”—her fingers wiggle in my direction—“make sure you don’t forget the holiday craft fair I’m hosting at the inn. I’m depending on you to cater the desserts.”

“You bet. I can’t wait.”

“Me either.” Carlotta smacks my mother on the back. “You bring the wallets, I’ll bring the kinky candles. Hey? Maybe I’ll set up shop with my van outside of the inn, too? I can get ’em coming and going.”

I don’t stick around to hear the end of that wayward conversation. My mother owns the only bed and breakfast in town. It used to be that she got the run offs from the Evergreen Manor, but once a happy ghost family settled at the inn, it’s been the other way around. My mother’s inn is now listed as one of the must-see tourist attractions in all of Vermont. And I’m rather proud of that haunted fact, too.

I scan the crowd for my handsome husband, and instead, I spot Candy holding herself while looking up at that rumored to be haunted painting. It’s almost as if her gaze is unbreakable. Soon, Carlotta and my mother join her, and I have to shake my head at the sight. It’s clear the man was a hypnotist. Or at least the artist was.

Just past them I spot that ornery elf who earlier took more than a little heat from the newly deceased. She’s talking to Santa, and now it looks as if the two of them are locked in a heated conversation. I wonder if they know that it was Gloria who bit the big one outside? I feel so very bad for everyone involved.

Everett comes my way with Dr. Barnette. She’s a stunning redhead who has garnered the privilege to call Everett by his proper moniker—Essex, but I’ve never let that bother me. She delivered Lainey’s little girl, Josie, last August, and she took care of Keelie after she gave birth to her son, Bear—named after his papa. Keelie actually had her baby down at Honey Lake a bit unexpectedly. He just arrived that quickly, and it was Noah who helped deliver him. And coming right up this March, Dr. Barnette is going to deliver my little sugar cookie into this world.

She quickly checks my vitals and asks me a few dozen rapid-fire questions.

“I think you’re going to be fine, Lottie.” She sheds a pained smile. “Your blood pressure might be elevated, and so for that alone I’m going to suggest you go straight home and rest. Should you feel even the slightest twinge, don’t hesitate to call me. I’ll have my phone on all night just for you. Otherwise, I’ll see you at your regularly scheduled appointment. I’m sorry you had to come upon such a grisly scene. It’s a horrible thing.”

She takes off, and Everett pulls me in and holds me, whispering how much I mean to him, how much he loves me right into my ear.

“Please, Lemon”—he breathes the words over my temple—“don’t even think about this case. This Christmas is all about new beginnings, getting settled as a family, and getting back to spending some serious alone time together.” He dots a kiss to my lips, and I nod up at him, all the while trying to ignore the fact a sugary perfume seems to be lingering on his suit. I’m sure it’s nothing. My hormones want to run wild in all sorts of crazy directions tonight.

Dr. Barnette is right. I witnessed a horrible thing.

A sharp scream erupts over by that haunted painting, and we look over to find Carlotta dancing a jig and pulling my mother in on the foot-stomping chaos.

“I won!” Carlotta shouts at the top of her lungs to the amusement of those around her. “I won! I won!”

“Frosty the Snowman” blares over the speakers, and people continue to dance to the peppy beat. One wouldn’t think that a body lies just outside of these walls—that a person who was just in this very room reveling in the merriment has turned up dead with a gunshot wound to the back.

One would never suspect that a murder had taken place, let alone that there might be a murderer in our midst.

But someone did pull that trigger, and I very much doubt it was Suze.

Someone killed Gloria Abner in cold blood, and they just might have come back in to have a jolly good time.

It would be the perfect cover.

Not that it would help.

They will be winnowed out.

And come hell or high water, the