Page 111 of Don't Shoot Me Santa

The beach was brutal. Wind like razors, sea foam churning grey and wild, the sky bruised with the threat of snow again. Aaron ran until his lungs ached, until the bite of the air numbed everything but the pounding in his chest.

Back home, he towel-dried Chaos, who shook off and curled in his basket with a grunt. Aaron lingered a moment by the door, heart still hammering. Then he returned to the sofa. Sat. Picked up the envelope with trembling fingers.

He tore it open.

Inside was a Christmas card. One of those overly pious ones, pale blue and embossed with a nativity scene. Gilded lettering.Silent Nightplayed in his head like static. He flipped it open. And there was that same scrawling, familiar hand:

Have you been a good boy for mother?

Aaron flung it onto the coffee table as if it stung. He shot to his feet. Shuddered violently, then bounced on his toes to shake it off. His skin crawled. The words burrowed. So in a move born of fear and instinct, he stomped around the table. Grabbed logs. Threw them into the fireplace. Lit the fire. Watched it catch. Flickers to flames to heat on his cheeks.

Then, without thinking, he snatched the card back up and tossed it in.

It landed face down. And for a moment, before the flames claimed it, he saw the back. Stamped lettering. A charity logo.

“Shit.”

He lunged forward, bare fingers catching the edge before the fire licked higher. Pain flared. He hissed and recoiled. Stupid. Then grabbed the poker, trying to lever it out, desperate.

Too late.

The card curled, blackened, crumbled into ash.

Fuck. Kenny was going to kill him. He’d destroyed evidence.

But…he’d managed to see enough of that logo.

He spun. Whistled.

Chaos padded in, sluggish and groggy.

“Another walk, boy?” Aaron reached for the lead.

* * * *

Kenny knew danger didn’t always raise its voice.

Sometimes, itsmiled.

And Margaret Harrow smiled right then.

But his hackles didn’t rise. Not fully. She wasn’t triggering alarm bells. He trusted his instincts. His read. Earlier, he hadn’t tagged her as a direct threat. She didn’t quite fit the profile. But the margin for error always existed. And profiles weren’t prophecies. They were patterns.

And sometimes… people slipped through.

“If you have questions, Ms Harrow,” he let his training pilot the words, “perhaps you’d prefer to take them to the police?”

She tilted her head, inspecting him the way a disappointedparent might study a child who’d strayed enough to embarrass them in public. Calm. Assessing. Familiar.

“They can’t give me the answers I’m looking for, I’m afraid.”

Kenny tightened his grip on the underside of the desk. “And which questions are those?”

She toyed with the silver cross at her throat. “Whose fault this all is.”

“Whose fault do you believe it is?”

Margaret didn’t answer that question. She simply asked another of her own. “You understand people likeher? Killers. Like Roisin?”