D ead .
The scent of peppermint, pine, and now the unmistakable stench of death mingles in the air as I stare down at Santa’s lifeless body.
My scream tears through the community center, followed immediately by Suze, Niki, and Lily joining in with their own high-pitched wails.
Within seconds, the entire place erupts into what can only be described as a choir of hellish Christmas carolers—if those carolers had just witnessed Santa Claus drop dead and were auditioning for parts in a holiday horror movie.
“Jingle bells, Santa smells, St. Nick just died!” some kid belts out from the back, proving that nothing creates a comedian faster than trauma.
“Silent night, holy—” the roving carolers attempt to finish the chorus before dissolving into sobs.
“Somebody call an ambulance!” shouts a woman dressed as a reindeer, complete with a blinking red nose.
Cooper and Noah sprint up the stage steps, badges already out as if they’re competing to see who can look more official.
Noah Fox would be the lead homicide detective down in Ashford—and Suze’s older son who has caused more than a little contention between the love of his life, Lottie Lemon, and his mother.
Cooper is newer on the force but just as ineffective at catching a killer. It’s a long story and less of an insult and more of a social commentary on the state of the Ashford Sheriff’s Department. I mean, half their cases get solved by bakers with too much time on their hands.
A sharp woof comes from stage left and the cutest little pooch this side of the North Pole bounds over, with the requisite red bow on his collar.
“Watson!” I shout with joy as the sassy pup jumps right into my arms, and you can bet that I don’t let go.
He’s soft, fluffy, and has fur the color of pee in the snow.
His warm body against my chest feels like the only solid thing in a room that’s not spinning out of control.
He’s too busy licking my face silly to notice the fact that his mommy was just Santa’s last stop before the afterlife.
“Effie, what happened?” Cooper growls like a threat, and I’m pretty sure he’s flirting on some deep, dark level.
I can’t help it. He’s menacingly sexy when he gets all revved up.
Those blue-green eyes of his turn stormy, his jaw clenches, and suddenly I’m wondering if making out next to a corpse is inappropriate. Spoiler alert: it so is.
“The guy dropped dead,” I reply, adjusting Watson in my arms as he squirms to get a better view of the chaos.
“He sure did.” Suze nods. “Right after she told him to.” She tugs at her barely-there dress. “It’s nice to know some men actually follow orders.” She cranes her neck in the crowd. “Noah, where is your father? I’d like to see if he’s capable of following orders himself.”
Suze and Wiley have been divorced for some time now, but that hasn’t stopped her from harassing him every now and again —and from creating that odd-looking doll in his likeness, the one with all the pins in it.
Noah’s face tightens at the mention of his father. “Mom, can we focus on the dead Santa rather than your little voodoo hobby?”
So he knows.
“It’s not voodoo,” Suze sniffs. “It’s therapeutic crafting.”
Noah sighs and asks Lily and his mother to draw the curtains. “The kids shouldn’t have to see this.”
“Too late,” I mutter, nodding toward the sea of smartphone-wielding parents in the audience. “Santa’s death is probably trending on social media already. I can see the hashtags now, #SantaDown or #JingleFails.”
Carlotta and Aunt Cat push their way through the gathering crowd and scramble onto the stage with their festive attire looking particularly garish next to Nicholas’s pale face.
“Another good one bites the dust!” Carlotta announces, as if we’re at a retirement party rather than a Grim Reaper meet and greet.
Aunt Cat nudges the corpse with her sparkly red heel. “I told him that a third helping of Christmas pudding would kill him, but did he listen?”
“That’s not—” I start, but Carlotta cuts me off.
“At least he died happy,” she says with a wink that makes me want to douse my eyes with hand sanitizer. “Face-first in a winter wonderland of peppermints.”
“Can we not?” I plead, shifting Watson who’s now trying to sniff the deceased.
Lottie rushes onto the stage with her caramel locks bouncing, and every inch of her radiating the kind of good looks that don’t diminish with age.
She’s got a body that just won’t quit—and that happens to have more to do with the stud of a judge that’s ever by her side, Judge Essex Everett Baxter.
He just goes by Sexy. It’s not a self-appointed nickname but still accurate, nonetheless.
And zooming to their side is Noah, who Carlotta happens to call Foxy.
She’s not wrong either. They both belong to Lottie, which makes her the envy of every woman in at least three counties and the subject of my occasional murderous thoughts on particularly lonely nights.
“Dear Lord,” Lottie gasps as she takes in the scene. “Effie, what happened? And why was Santa trying to wear your peppermints as eye patches?”
“He was not—” I adjust Watson again who’s now pawing at my elf hat. “He just collapsed. One minute he was ho, ho, ho-ing , the next he was no, no, no-ing right out of existence.”
Cooper steps closer with his notebook already out. “Walk me through it.”
I recount the whole thing—the swaying, the slurring, the face-dive into my festive chest decor—while Cooper takes notes with an intensity that suggests he’s either documenting a crime scene or planning to write a strongly worded letter to the North Pole about workplace safety.
When I finish, Cooper pulls me into his arms—with his wavy dark hair slightly mussed and those marbled blue-green eyes boring into mine with an intensity that should be illegal in at least forty-seven states.
Cooper also has that whole you’re-never-going-to-get-a-smile-out-of-me thing going for him. Have I mentioned he’s Italian? He checks all the boxes. All of them. Even the ones I didn’t know existed until I met the guy.
“What is it with you and dead bodies?” Cooper asks with his voice a mix of exasperation and concern.
“I don’t know,” I say, jostling Watson who gives a little yip of protest. “They just keep dropping around me. Maybe I’m cursed. Or blessed, depending on how you look at it.”
“Blessed?” One of his eyebrows shoots up.
“Well, I’m never bored at parties.”
“But did you have to off Santa?” he says. “And so late in the holiday season?”
“I didn’t—wait, are you accusing me of murdering Santa Claus?” I pull back, genuinely offended. “My work may land me on the naughty list, but I draw the line at taking out the big man himself.”
Cooper’s lips twitch in what might almost become a smile before he remembers he’s a detective at a potential crime scene. “Force of habit.”
Before I can respond, Holly and Stella rush onto the stage, wailing like professional mourners at a funeral where the inheritance is substantial.
“Oh, Nicholas!” Holly sobs, though I notice her mascara remains perfectly intact. “His sponsorship was the heart and soul of this festival!”
Stella clutches her chest dramatically. “Such a tragedy! Who could have done such a thing?”
I narrow my eyes. Done such a thing? That’s an interesting assumption that Santa didn’t just have a holiday heart attack.
From the corner of my eye, I notice the older man who was arguing with Nicholas earlier.
He stands at the edge of the crowd, frowning as if he’s trying to solve a particularly difficult crossword puzzle, not watching a holiday disaster unfold.
Cooper squeezes my shoulder before being pulled away by Noah to secure the scene. Watson whines and snuggles closer to my neck as if he senses the tension crackling through the air like static electricity.
No sooner has Cooper stepped away than Carlotta and Aunt Cat pounce and scoot me to the darkened area of the stage while flanking me like tinsel-covered bodyguards.
“Uncle Jimmy left one of his special notes for you,” Aunt Cat whispers, her breath a potent mixture of eggnog and what I suspect is pure grain alcohol.
My eyes bulge. Those notes are delivered via carrier pigeon—Aunt Cat—and are to be burned after reading. Uncle Jimmy doesn’t believe in sending his hit list via text message or even a phone call. Nope. He likes to do things the old-fashioned way—via the town gossip.
“Not here, not now,” I practically scream at the two of them. They’ve clearly lost their minds. “Half the Ashford Sheriff’s Department just entered the building. I can practically hear the handcuffs jingling from here.”
Aunt Cat nods as if she heard. “I took a peek at the note, sweetie. There’s just one name on it.”
“It’s not mine, is it?” I’m only half teasing and they shake their heads. “It’s not one of yours, is it?” I ask and they both glare at me on cue.
Didn’t think so. I’m not that lucky.
“You ready to hear it?” Aunt Cat asks and it’s my turn to nod, albeit a heck of a lot slower. Watson’s ears perk up as if he’s waiting for the answer, too.
“It’s Lorenzo ‘Enzo’ Bianchi.”
“What?” I gasp once again. “You mean the dead old coot’s, old coot of a brother?”
They both nod in unison again and I look up to see the old coot in question not more than twenty feet away, holding his granddaughter—oops, I mean Loretta Saliva, his shiny new girlfriend. Her arm is wrapped around his slumped shoulders like a boa constrictor guarding its next meal.
Just wait until Coop hears the news. She’ll be dead meat. And once I introduce Lorenzo “Enzo” Bianchi to the working end of my sweet gun, Buttercup, so will he.
Watson squirms in my arms, perhaps sensing that his mama’s mind has just shifted from holiday cheer to holiday fear .
One thing’s for certain—this Christmas season, someone is getting more than coal in their stocking. They’re getting a one-way ticket to the afterlife, courtesy of yours truly.
The Jingle Bell Jubilee has just become a deadly silent night, and I’ve got a sneaking suspicion the body count has only just begun.
Oh, brother.