A Merry Little Murder

by Patti Benning

  A Merry Little Murder

  Patti Benning

  Summer Prescott Books Publishing

  Copyright 2019 Summer Prescott Books

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication nor any of the information herein may be quoted from, nor reproduced, in any form, including but not limited to: printing, scanning, photocopying, or any other printed, digital, or audio formats, without prior express written consent of the copyright holder.

  **This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons, living or dead, places of business, or situations past or present, is completely unintentional.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  Also by Patti Benning

  Author’s Note

  Contact Summer Prescott Books Publishing

  Chapter One

  The snow-covered forest passed by on either side of the small car, lending a winter wonderland feel to the last leg of their trip. Lacey Townsend rested her forehead against the passenger side window, gazing at the trees. It was beautiful. It was a week before Christmas and her stomach felt sour.

  “You tired?”

  She glanced over at the man sitting in the driver’s seat. Her fiancé, Chris Harris, kept his eyes on the road. He had been driving for the past two hours, and showed no sign of getting bored of it. Even though things had been strained between them recently, she was grateful. The five-and-a-half-hour trip to her parents’ house was unpleasant at the best of times, but in the winter, it crossed the line from tedious to mildly terrifying. She was glad that she didn’t have to be behind the wheel herself the whole way.

  “I’m fine,” she said, because she was, mostly. “I’m just eager to get there.”

  “Me too. I want to stretch my legs. I love visiting your parents, and the Christmas party your dad’s company throws every year is great, but this drive is a killer.”

  She felt the same way, but whatever thing had come between them in the past few weeks prevented her from saying it. She let the silence fill the car again. The heat was on full blast and she pressed her arm against the window, too warm but feeling too annoyed to do anything about it. Chris liked it cold, so he would be suffering more than she was.

  The thought just made her feel spiteful and petty, so she reached forward and turned the heat dial down after all. Things might not be right between her and Chris, but she still loved him.

  “Do you think your parents will like the air purifier we got them?”

  Lacey glanced at the back seat, where the large, colorfully wrapped box sat. “I hope so. That thing cost an arm and a leg, and it's heavier than it looks.”

  “It will be worth it, if it helps your dad with his lung issues.”

  She looked over at him and gave him her first real smile of the day. It was moments like this when all of the doubt and suspicion melted away, and she was reminded why she had fallen in love with him in the first place. No one was kinder or more thoughtful than Chris at his best. He lived to help people, and was one of the most unselfish people she knew.

  The dissonance between this person, and the one who had been lying to her for the past six weeks was frightening.

  “It's the next turn,” she said, focusing her gaze out the windshield again, her smile fading as quickly as it had come. “Don't pass it like you did last year. I don't want to get stuck trying to turn around again.”

  “Maybe one day your parents will take a page from everyone else’s notebook and head somewhere warm for the winter. Judging by all of these snow-covered driveways, more than half of the town fled to somewhere sunny this year.”

  “They'll never leave,” Lacey said, making a face. “I begged them every year when I was a kid, but they love this place. I hated spending my Christmas vacations stranded here while all of my friends went on trips.”

  “Yet you still spend every Christmas here,” he said, slowing the car carefully so as to not lose control on the slick road. He flicked on the turn signal and eased the vehicle between the gateposts that bordered her parents’ driveway.

  “It's different now,” Lacey said. “I always wanted to go on vacation during Christmas break, and now this is the vacation.”

  Though I still wouldn't complain if my parents decided to vacation in Florida one year, she thought. Sandy beaches and palm trees instead of snow and evergreens would make for a nice change, just once. Not that it isn’t beautiful up here in its own way.

  She gazed out the window at the familiar landscape of the property that she had grown up on, and felt warmth begin to blossom in her chest. Her problems with Chris aside — and she didn’t actually know if they had problems, maybe it was all in her head — she was looking forward to spending the holiday nestled in her parents’ house, baking cookies and talking with her mother, or helping out at the family diner and catching up with the regulars. Even though it had been years since she had actually lived here, this place was still home to her.

  Chris pulled up the last few feet of drive and eased the car to a stop in front of the garage door. The porch light was on, and outdoor Christmas lights hung from the railing. All around them was darkness; the closest neighbor’s lights couldn’t make it through the forest, not even in winter, and the road wasn’t visible from the house. With all of the lights her parents had put up, the house was a beacon in the night.

  “I think that’s even more lights than last year,” Chris said, staring at the house for a second before shutting off the engine. Lacey couldn’t help but smile.

  “Well, they keep buying more Christmas decorations each year, and you know my mom; she can’t bear to ever throw anything away. By the time they’re eighty, you probably won’t be able to see the house through the decorations.”

  The front door opened a crack; Lacey’s parents must have seen their headlights as they pulled up the driveway. She knew her mom would be eagerly waiting — probably with a plate full of cookies — and her dad would be just a step behind her, just as excited to see his daughter, even if he wasn’t carrying an offering of food.

  Grinning, Lacey undid her seatbelt and let herself out of the car, wincing as the frigid air hit her skin. Pausing for just a second to glance back at Chris, she made her way to the door, tracking through the light layer of snow that had fallen on the path since her father had last shoveled it. As she climbed the porch stairs, the door was thrown wide open, and as if the other woman was a force of nature, Lacey found herself pulled into her mother’s arms.

  “It’s so good to see you, sweetie. I’ve missed you so much.”

  “I’ve missed you too, Mom,” Lacey said, giving the other woman a tight squeeze before pulling back. She saw her father grinning at her from over her mother’s shoulder, and stepped up to give him a hug too. From behind her, she heard Chris and her mother greeting each other. Moments later, the door was shut, and her mother was offering them a plate full of snickerdoodle cookies, which she had picked up off the side table where she had put it down in order to have both of her hands free to hug her daughter.

  “Grab a couple, each of you,” she demanded. “Dinner won’t be ready for another half hour, and I’m sure you’re hungry after that long drive.”

  Sharing an amused smile with Chris — her mother was well known to show her love through food, and Lacey always felt as though she gained ten pounds each t
ime she visited — she grabbed a cookie and stuffed it into her mouth. It sure was good to be home.

  Chapter Two

  Lacey opened her eyes to familiar lace curtains surrounding a four-poster bed. Her childhood bedroom hadn’t changed much in the past ten years. Her parents hadn’t touched it after she left for college, and she was the only one who ever slept in it. Looking around, she wondered if her bedroom might have changed more if she had changed more. She wasn't the silly little teenager who loved all things sparkly anymore, but who she was as a person really hadn't changed that much at all, when she really thought about it. Sometimes she wondered if she should be more adventurous, be more of a risk taker. Some of her old friends had traveled to other countries, climbed mountains, or started their own businesses. She still worked for the same company she had interned at in college, though she had been promoted a few times since then. Sometimes it felt as though she was the only person in the world who was happy to live an average life. Her greatest desire was to get married to a man whom she loved, have a couple of children while still keeping a foot in the door for her own career, and then spend a few years road tripping around the US after she retired at a decent age. Sometimes she felt as though she was nothing special, almost as if she was a side character in someone else's story.

  With a sigh, she got up and slipped her feet into the fluffy slippers her mother always kept by the bed. She hated having morose thoughts for her first full day of vacation, and she tried to put them aside for the time being. She was happy, that was the important thing. Sure, maybe some people were more adventurous than she was, but as long as she was satisfied with her own life, nothing else really mattered, did it?

  Of course, she had been much happier before she and Chris started having their issues. They had been so happy, just months ago, and then it was as though things had changed overnight.

  Thinking of Chris made her realize that she had slept later than usual, and her fiancé was probably feeling a bit overwhelmed on his own with both her parents. Her mother could be… overbearing, and her father had always been overly protective of his only daughter.

  Putting on a happy face, she made her way downstairs toward the kitchen where she could hear voices. When she slipped through the door, she was surprised to see that her mother was the only one in there. The conversation she had heard was a one-sided one; her mother was on the phone with one of her friends.

  When she looked over and saw Lacey, she held up one finger to indicate that she would be just a minute, and quickly made her excuses to whoever was on the other line. With a promise to call them back later, she hung up.

  “Good morning, sweetie,” she said, putting the phone back in its cradle and turning to her daughter. “I was going to come wake you up pretty soon. You must have been tired. Or maybe it was just nice for you to sleep in your old bed again. You're usually such an early riser.”

  “I haven't been sleeping that well lately,” Lacey admitted, grabbing a mug out of the cupboard and pouring herself a cup of coffee.

  Her mother must have caught something in her voice, because all of a sudden, her expression became serious. “Is everything all right? You know, if there's something on your mind, you can talk to me. I'm always here for you, dear.”

  “I know, Mom,” Lacey said. She hesitated. In truth, she wasn't sure why she hadn't told her mother about her problems with Chris yet. It had been on the tip of her tongue so many times during their conversations on the phone, but somehow, she had never quite made the leap. Part of her was still hoping that it was all in her head, but the longer things went on the way they were, the more she was beginning to realize that she wasn’t just imagining things. Something really was wrong.

  “It's just… things aren't going great between Chris and I.”

  Her mother's eyes widened fractionally, and Lacey found herself being ushered toward the kitchen table, where her mother pushed her gently into a seat, then turned and grabbed a plate of bacon, eggs, and toast from the oven where it had been stashed to keep warm. She put the plate in front of Lacey, then sat down across from her daughter and urged her to eat.

  “Tell me all about it, but don't distract yourself from breakfast. Chris and your father went into town a few minutes ago, so we have some time to ourselves. They were waiting for you to wake up, but your father wanted to get his shopping done before the game comes on later today and decided they couldn’t wait any longer.”

  Lacey took a couple of bites of the food in front of her, using the time to gather her thoughts. Her mother, who ran the family-owned diner in town, was an amazing chef, and Lacey had missed her cooking. Somehow, she even made scrambled eggs seem like a work of art.

  “It all started about six weeks ago,” Lacey said, pausing to take a sip of her coffee. “I have no idea what happened. It's like one day we were perfectly happy and everything was normal, then he came home from work and things had changed. Ever since then, he's been more distant than usual. He doesn't seem to be as happy with me. He smiles a lot less, he isn't joking around as much as he used to, and I’m worried that he’s been lying to me about where he’s going when he says he has a work-related thing to do. Nothing’s the same as it used to be, but whenever I ask him if something's wrong or if he wants to talk to me about anything, he brushes me off.”

  Her mother was frowning. “Maybe he’s just stressed about the wedding and you two moving in together. You know how silly men can be about change. With the two of you getting married next spring and buying a house together, he is bound to be feeling a little bit overwhelmed.”

  “The thing is, we always used to talk about those sorts of things. When he was worried that buying a house might prevent us from relocating if one of us got an amazing job offer, we talked about it and made a game plan in case something like that happens. And when I started getting worried about all of our wedding plans and everything that could go wrong, he sat me down and talked some sense into me. This is just so different from anything we’ve gone through in the past.” Lacey knew what all of her friends had suggested, and spoke up again before her mother could say anything else. “And no, I don't think he's having an affair. Chris isn't like that. He's a good guy, Mom. I just wish he would talk to me about whatever’s wrong.”

  Her mother sighed. “I don't know what to tell you, Lacey. I trust what you’re saying about Chris being a good man, but I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “It's a bit late for that,” Lacey grumbled. “The man that I'm supposed to be marrying in a few months has been replaced by a doppelgänger.”

  “Maybe he'll bring whatever is on his mind up with your father,” her mother said. “You know how much he looks up to the man. If he needs advice about something, I’m sure he would go to him.”

  “Maybe,” Lacey said. “If he does and Dad says something to you, will you tell me?”

  “Of course,” her mother said, giving her a small smile. “There is no secrets in the Townsend family, you know that.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Lacey said, getting up and kissing her mother on the cheek before placing her coffee cup and plate in the sink. “I feel better just from talking to you. I'm sure it's probably nothing. I must just be making a big deal out of a lot of little things. He has been pretty busy lately at work, and I know it’s been stressful for him. I can’t wait until we live together and I can see him every single day, regardless of our work schedules. I just feel so much better when he’s around.”

  “I'm so happy that you found someone, sweetie. I don't know what I would have done without your father. We have our disagreements, but we have always agreed on the important things, and I know that no matter what, he will have my back and will be there for me. I want you to have the same sort of relationship with your future husband.”

  “I have that with Chris,” Lacey said. “Even with the way he's been acting lately, I know that he would be there if I really needed him.” As she said this, she felt more certain than ever. What was happening between her and Chris now
was just a rough spot. By the time their wedding came around, things would be back to normal. She was sure of it.

  Chapter Three

  By the time Lacey’s father and Chris got home, Lacey had gotten dressed and was helping her mother make lunch. It was a beautiful day. The sun was out and the snow was sparkling. Combined with the seemingly endless supply of Christmas decorations that her mother had put up, it made Lacey feel like she was living in a winter wonderland. The only thing that was missing was the Christmas tree. It was a family tradition for Lacey and her father to go out into the forest on her parents property and find one together. Lacey knew how much her mother enjoyed decorating for Christmas, and was touched that she always waited for her daughter to get there before putting up the tree.

  “Hey,” Chris said, finding his way to the kitchen after coming in from outside. He bent down to give Lacey a quick peck on the cheek. “I wanted to check in with you before I left, but I was worried about what your dad might do if he caught me sneaking into your room.”

  Lacey chuckled. Her parents, especially her dad, were old-fashioned. Her father might not have actually done anything, but he would have been uncomfortable with the thought of Chris alone in her bedroom with her while she was sleeping, even if all he wanted to do was wake her up to say goodbye. Sometimes she felt like she was transported back in time to her teenaged years when she visited her parents.

  “That's fine,” she said. “I woke up a little bit after the two of you left, and spent some time talking to my mom before we started cooking. Did you and my dad have a good time?”