by Sarah Fox
She hesitated, and I couldn’t blame her since I was a stranger to her.
“It’s about the nutcracker,” I added.
Her blue eyes widened with fear.
“You’re not in trouble,” I rushed to assure her. “I just want to talk about it.”
Emily slid off her chair with reluctance, darting a glance at the other girls. They were so engrossed in their game that they didn’t pay us any attention.
We stayed in the library, but I kept my voice low so no one would overhear me.
“That nutcracker isn’t yours, is it?”
Emily shook her head, tears pooling in her eyes. “Please don’t tell my mom.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” I said with a pang of sympathy for the girl. “But you need to put the ornament back on the tree, okay?”
She took the small nutcracker from her pocket and stared down at it as she nodded.
“Have you taken any other decorations?” I asked.
She wouldn’t meet my gaze. “Just this one.”
“What about from other trees?” I prodded, pretty sure I knew the answer.
A tear escaped from her eye. “A few others,” she whispered.
“Emily?” Johanna Jessen appeared so suddenly that Emily and I were both startled.
“Hi, Mrs. Jessen. I’m Marley Collins,” I said when Johanna focused on me.
I was about to say more when the woman’s gaze latched onto the nutcracker in her daughter’s hand.
“Where did you get that?” she asked.
Emily stared at her shiny black shoes. “I took it from Mr. and Mrs. Baron’s tree,” she confessed before I had a chance to intervene.
The color drained from Johanna’s already pale complexion. “Why? Please tell me you weren’t planning to keep it.”
Emily’s face crumpled and more tears trickled down her face.
Johanna took Emily’s arm and steered her out into the hall. I followed after them.
“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling terrible even though I knew it was wrong for Emily to take what wasn’t hers. “I saw Emily take the ornament and was hoping to get her to put it back.”
“It’s not your fault. She knows better,” Johanna said before speaking to her daughter again. “Did you take anything else?”
“Not from this tree,” Emily whispered.
“You mean you’ve taken things from other trees?” Johanna closed her eyes briefly. “Oh no. I heard about the thefts at the Festival of Trees. Please tell me you weren’t behind them.”
Emily gripped the nutcracker more tightly, crying silently.
Johanna drew in a deep breath.
“Put it back exactly where you found it,” Johanna said.
Emily was still crying, but without making a sound. She did as she was told, heading along the hall to the parlor. We followed and watched from the foyer as Emily hung the nutcracker on the same branch she’d taken it from.
“You know it’s wrong to steal,” Johanna said in a low voice when Emily had rejoined us. “What were you thinking?”
Emily sniffed and wiped at the tears that continued to fall down her cheeks. My heart went out to her. Luckily, no one else seemed to have noticed what was going on. All the other guests were too engrossed in their conversations.
“Daddy didn’t let us take our Christmas decorations when we moved,” Emily said in a small voice. “Not even my favorite nutcrackers.”
Johanna’s face fell and her shoulders slumped. “Oh, honey.”
“We didn’t have anything to put on our tree this year,” Emily continued. “I wanted to decorate it, to surprise you. I thought if I borrowed some ornaments, maybe no one would notice, and I could put them back later.”
“How would you return them without anyone noticing?” Johanna asked.
Emily shrugged and stared at her feet.
Johanna crouched down so she was on Emily’s level. “Honey, I’m so sorry about everything that happened between me and your daddy. It wasn’t you he was trying to keep the decorations and everything else from, it was me.”
Emily didn’t raise her head. “It was still mean.”
Johanna sighed heavily, and I suspected that the fallout from her divorce weighed heavily on her.
“I appreciate that you wanted to surprise me,” she told her daughter, “but stealing is wrong.”
Emily nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“How did you get the ornaments from the festival?” I asked, unable to keep my curiosity in check. “Patricia Murray thought they were taken after hours.”
Johanna’s gaze sharpened as she refocused on her daughter. “Emily?”
“Those times I said I was playing with my friends?” she said. “I really went to get the ornaments. After I saw Mrs. Murray leave each day, I went in through a basement window.”
“Did you break the window?” Johanna’s tone was stern.
Emily’s eyes widened and she shook her head vigorously. “No! I swear! It wasn’t locked.” She drew her hands up inside the sleeves of her dress. “It was really scary, but I had that flashlight that’s hooked onto the zipper of my coat.”
Johanna nodded, somewhat absently. I could tell she had a lot of thoughts swirling about in her head.
Worry practically radiated from Emily’s wide eyes. “Will I go to jail?”
Johanna let out another sigh and straightened up, resting a hand on Emily’s shoulder. “You won’t go to jail,” she assured her daughter. “But you’re going to return every single ornament that you took and you’ll apologize to each person you stole from. Understand?”
Emily nodded, lowering her gaze again.
Johanna turned to me. “Thank you so much for bringing this to light.”
“I’m sorry for spoiling your evening,” I said.
“Please, don’t be.” She took Emily’s hand. “Let’s go home and you can show me where you hid the ornaments.”
As she and Emily headed down the hall to fetch their coats, I hung back, my heart aching.
“There you are,” Brett said as he emerged from the parlor. “You okay?” He put an arm around me and rubbed my back.
I leaned into him. “I’m all right.”
Several people passed us on their way to the dining room, so I didn’t say anything more. I didn’t want to tell him what had happened with Emily until we were alone. It was almost impossible to keep secrets in Wildwood Cove, but I didn’t want to be the one responsible for broadcasting Emily’s mistakes.
We went in search of Hope and Lonny so we could say thank you and let them know we were leaving. Then we said goodbye to everyone else we knew before pulling on our coats and heading home.
* * * *
“I feel bad for both of them,” I said to Brett later that evening.
I’d told him about Emily and Johanna on the drive home, and now we were in the front living room of our house, getting ready to decorate the Christmas tree we’d just brought inside. It stood majestically in the corner, its fresh scent filling the room.
“Sounds like they’ve been through a lot in the past year.” Brett opened one of the boxes we’d hauled down from the attic.
“They have.” I pulled a string of lights out of the box he’d opened and plugged it into an electrical socket. All but one bulb lit up.
Brett dug around and came up with a box of replacement bulbs. He handed me a green one.
I switched the bulbs and Brett passed me a second string to test. Fortunately, all the lights on that one worked.
I carried the lights over to the tree. “I hope they’re able to have a good Christmas.”
Brett came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “Johanna sounds like a good woman,” he said. “I’m sure the two of them will be okay.”
“You’re right.” I gaz
ed up at the tree, deciding to focus on the moment. “We really picked out a beautiful Christmas tree.”
Brett gave me an affectionate squeeze. “Three beautiful trees.”
He turned me toward him and I set the strings of lights on a nearby chair so I could put my arms around him.
He kissed me. “Beautiful trees, beautiful house, beautiful life, beautiful wife.”
“And a very charming, very handsome husband,” I added.
We kissed again, only breaking apart when Bentley trotted in from the other room and nosed his way between us.
We laughed and patted him while his tail wagged happily.
Once Bentley was satisfied that we’d given him enough attention, he sniffed at the tree and pushed his way through the lower branches to get into the corner behind it.
“Easy there,” Brett said, putting out a hand to steady the tree as it rocked in its stand.
Bentley lay down beneath the tree and rested his head on his front paws.
I grabbed my phone and snapped a picture of him. When Flapjack joined him under the tree a moment later, I took a few more photos and uploaded the best of them to my social media accounts. They were too cute not to share.
With the animals snoozing peacefully, Brett and I got back to work, trimming the tree while Christmas music played in the background.
“I talked to Ray this morning,” Brett said as he hung a snowflake ornament on a high branch. “I meant to tell you earlier, but I forgot.”
“Does he know something about Kevin’s murder?” I asked, hopeful.
As the sheriff of Clallam County, maybe Brett’s uncle Ray knew more than Kyle did.
“He knows Dwight Zalecki was a suspect. Sheriff Walczyk has been in touch with Ray, since Dwight lives in his jurisdiction.”
“Was a suspect?” I asked, not failing to notice his use of the past tense.
Brett grinned and hung a shiny blue bauble on a branch. “I knew you’d catch that.”
I poked him in the side before adding a cute owl ornament to the tree. “Dish the details, please.”
“Was a suspect,” he confirmed. “Apparently he’s got an alibi.”
“Really?”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“It’s not so much that…” I said.
Brett grinned again. “It’s painful for you not to know all the details, isn’t it?”
I glared at him. “Are you holding back?”
“Would I do that?” he asked with mock innocence.
“Drive me crazy, you mean?” I poked him in the ribs again. “Yes!”
He took my hand and pulled me closer to him. “I drive you crazy?”
I put a hand on his chest and tried not to smile in response to the humor in his blue eyes. “Usually in the best possible way. But in this case…”
“Okay. I won’t keep you in suspense any longer.” He gave me a quick kiss. “Remember how Lonny mentioned that Dwight’s truck had more problems than the cracked windshield?”
“Yes.” I got back to hanging ornaments on the tree.
“Apparently he was staying at Rustling Pines, another lodge up in the mountains, doing some ice fishing. His truck broke down and he was stuck there for a couple of days, until someone was able to come and help him get it running again.”
“And he was stuck there at the time Kevin was killed?” I guessed.
“Exactly. And,” he added just as I was about to ask another question, “Rustling Pines is at least ten miles away from Holly Lodge, and its owner attested to the fact that Dwight never left while his truck was out of commission.”
He’d answered my question before I’d even asked it. “You read my mind,” I told him.
“What can I say? I know you well.”
I sent him a sidelong glance. “Are you implying that I’m predictable?”
“Only where your curiosity is concerned.”
I had to smile at that. “Fair enough.”
Thanks to Brett’s information, I could cross one name off my suspect list. Dwight’s supposed motive had never been all that strong, anyway. If he’d wanted to kill Kevin because of their neighborly disputes in the past, he likely would have done so a long time ago.
Striking Dwight off my list still left me with several potential culprits. Hopefully I’d get a chance to talk with Harvey in a couple of days. In the meantime, maybe I could find out more about the threatening note Lily had received.
That would have to wait until tomorrow, at the earliest. Right now, I wanted to enjoy my time with Brett.
When we finished decorating the tree, Brett put an arm across my shoulders and we admired our work.
“It looks fantastic,” I said.
“It does, but there’s one more thing we need.” He dropped his arm from my shoulders and disappeared out of the room.
“I’m not sure there’s room for more decorations on the tree,” I called after him.
“It’s not for the tree.” Brett was grinning when he reappeared, and I soon realized why.
“You think of everything,” I said with approval as he pinned a sprig of mistletoe to the top of the doorway that led to the foyer.
He took my hand and drew me in close so we were both standing beneath the mistletoe. “The most important things, anyway.”
I put my arms around his neck. “This will be our first Christmas as a married couple.”
“The first of many,” he said, looking into my eyes. “I love you, Marley.”
“I love you too.”
When he kissed me, I forgot about everything except the two of us.
Chapter Twenty
The next morning Brett drove to Port Townsend to help a buddy install some shelving units in his garage. That same friend, a plumber, had promised to help Brett with the plumbing for our new bathroom. Since I had nothing planned for the day, I texted Patricia, asking if she wanted to go for a walk. I wanted some company, and I also wanted to talk to her about the note Lily had received.
It didn’t take long for Patricia to reply with an affirmative response. I told her I’d be by her place soon, and got bundled up. The sun shone brightly down from the blue sky, but I could see frost out on the porch and the trees were swaying in the wind. A quick glance at the weather app on my phone confirmed that it was another chilly day outside.
Bentley didn’t seem to mind. He charged out the door as soon as I opened it. I tucked his leash into my coat pocket and gave Flapjack a quick pat on the head. He was quite content to stay at home, curled up on an armchair.
A few brave birds explored the shoreline, and I spotted two people out walking their dogs closer to town. Otherwise, we had the beach to ourselves. I wasn’t surprised that more people weren’t out and about. As fresh as the air was, it had an icy nip to it that was already biting at my cheeks.
I zipped my jacket up higher as Bentley and I headed along the beach to Patricia’s yellow and white Victorian. Sienna was at school and Patricia had told me via text that she’d already served her B&B guests breakfast. I assumed that Lily would be off doing something around town, perhaps spending time with Ambrose, but when I climbed the steps to Patricia’s back porch, I spotted the author at the dining table.
Patricia greeted me at the french doors. “Come on in, Marley. I just need to grab my coat.”
I told Bentley to lie down and wait, and he did so with only a tiny whimper.
“I won’t be long,” I promised him before stepping into the warm kitchen.
Lily had a laptop open on the table in front of her.
“Getting some writing done?” I guessed as Patricia headed off toward the front of the house.
“I’m hoping to,” Lily said. “Patricia was kind enough to allow me to work here.”
Patricia reappeared, pulling on a coat. “It’s really no problem. And
help yourself to tea or coffee, if you like.”
Lily thanked her.
I rested my hand on the doorknob, but made no move to turn it. “I heard about the note you received. That must have been frightening.”
“Oh.” Lily seemed taken aback. She probably didn’t realize how fast news traveled in Wildwood Cove. Rob’s article wouldn’t be published for another couple of days. “Yes. It certainly was upsetting.”
“Any idea who’s behind it?” I asked.
“None at all.” Lily kept her gaze on the screen of her laptop.
Patricia zipped up her jacket, but she didn’t seem impatient to get going. She probably knew I wanted to ask Lily more questions.
“Do you still have it?” I asked. “Would it be okay if I took a look at it?”
Lily frowned, and I wondered if I was being too pushy.
“I guess so,” she said after a moment.
She reached down to a tote bag on the floor by her chair. She rummaged through it for a few seconds before pulling out a piece of white paper that was folded in half.
When she handed it over, I took it without thinking. It was a good thing I was wearing gloves, I realized as I unfolded the paper. I didn’t want to add more fingerprints than Lily already had.
As Rob from the Wildwood Cove Weekly had told me, the note contained only two words—“you’re next.” The letters had been typed on a computer, and they looked tiny on the page. Their message, however, had a big impact. Even though the words weren’t directed at me, reading them left me feeling uneasy.
“Why would anyone have something against both you and Kevin Manning?” I asked as I handed the paper back to Lily.
She stuffed it into her bag, making me wince. I hoped she wasn’t damaging evidence.
“I can’t even imagine,” she said.
There was an edge of impatience to her voice, probably because I was keeping her from her writing. Or maybe she just didn’t like my nosiness. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to stop questioning her.
“Wasn’t Ambrose the only one who knew both you and Kevin before you stayed at Holly Lodge?”
“Yes.” She raised her gaze to meet mine. “But I can assure you that Ambrose had nothing to do with this or Kevin’s murder. Ambrose would never hurt me. Or anyone.”