Murder in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery

by Muldoon, Meg

  When others left, she was always there.

  She was a true friend, and I was grateful for her.

  ***

  As the judges started marking down things on their clipboards and eyeing the construction of our Western gingerbread mansion with serious faces, I glanced across the room, and suddenly noticed someone looking at me.

  Staring at me.

  He looked older since the last time I saw him. Grayer in the face, and a few strands of gray muddled his usually chestnut-brown hair color. His hair, too, was longer. Shaggy and almost sloppy-looking. He seemed to be a little thinner than he used to be, too. But he still wore that old stupid beige barn coat and a pair of snow boots that he trudged around in on the weekends.

  I tried to ignore Evan, focusing as best I could on the judge’s questions. But it was hard. My eyes would just drift in that direction without me wanting them to.

  I just wished that he’d go away and stop haunting me during the most important moment of the competition.

  I glanced over at Bailey’s table and realized we were in a triangle stare-down of sorts. She was looking at Evan, he was looking at me, and I was looking at her.

  She suddenly noticed me and whispered something to her sister. Then she left her table and disappeared into the crowd.

  “How long did this take you gals to make?” Shanna Wellington asked us, writing something down on her clipboard.

  “About one night,” Kara said.

  “One night?” Shanna said, lifting up her eyebrows.

  “One very long night,” I added.

  Shanna nodded. She gave nothing away by her expression, but I had a feeling, a gut feeling, that she was impressed by what she saw.

  The judges asked us a few more questions before moving onto another table.

  I let out a long sigh of relief and looked at Kara.

  She had a broad grin on her face.

  “I think it’s looking good, Cinnamon.”

  A feeling of relief swept through me. My muscles suddenly de-tensed. The nerves that had been shooting off like a series of bottle rockets while watching the judges make their rounds relaxed.

  I gave Kara a hug.

  “Thanks for being my wing man,” I said. “I know it wasn’t easy.”

  I pulled away, and her eyes were glassy like she might start crying with joy.

  “I think we did it. I don’t know how, but we did. We’re going to Maui. I just feel it.”

  I smiled. I hoped she was right.

  I suddenly felt those eyes on me again, and I glanced back over.

  Evan was still staring at me. When he saw me look over, he nodded his head, signaling for me to come over.

  Kara followed my stare.

  “What’s he want to talk to you for?” she asked.

  “Probably about Bailey and that rock on her finger,” I said.

  I looked over at the judges. They still had quite a few tables to go through before they decided the winners. I had time to talk to Evan before then.

  It was best to just get it out of the way. I knew that Evan was stubborn. When he wanted something, he wasn’t going to quit easily.

  Now was as good a time as any.

  “I’ll be back,” I said.

  “Don’t do it, Cin,” she said. “He shouldn’t get to talk to you. He’s got no right anymore.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Really. I’m in a good place with it now. Just give us a moment.”

  I left the table, and made my way over to him.

  My heart was beating hard in my chest.

  It was going to be hard facing the man that had destroyed so many of my dreams.

  Chapter 39

  It was too noisy in the auditorium, so we had gone to the front entrance to talk.

  He seemed to be nervous. More nervous than me. He kept running his hands through his hair and making stupid small talk about the weather and the Christmas parade and how he’d been swamped with work up at the lodge.

  It was unlike him.

  But maybe in the same way it was hard for me to face him, maybe it was hard for him to face me, knowing that he’d ruined so many of my dreams.

  Maybe it was the guilt talking.

  “Hey, thanks for taking the time,” he said after he finished telling me about his job.

  I didn’t respond. I just stared up at him, waiting for him to say what he’d pulled me out here to say.

  I wanted him to get to the point. I already knew what he wanted to tell me, anyway.

  “So how did the judging go?” he asked.

  I shrugged.

  “Good, I think,” I said. “But you don’t really care about that, do you? Why don’t you just tell me what you’re here to tell me. Get it over with already.”

  He was about to say something, and then he stopped. He was struggling for words.

  I thought I would move things along.

  “I know that you asked Bailey to marry you, okay?” I said. “And… and I wish you all the best of luck. I really do, Evan.”

  A confused look suddenly took hold of his face.

  “What?” he said.

  “I’m happy for the two of you,” I said. “But don’t expect me to go to your wedding or anything. Let’s just leave it at that, okay? I need to get back out there. Kara’s gonna be wondering where I am.”

  I started to leave, and then he grabbed my arm and stopped me.

  “Look, I don’t know what Bailey told you,” he said. “But I never proposed to her. We’re not engaged. Hell, that’s just crazy.”

  “What?” I said.

  He sighed.

  “I think she was just trying to get in your head,” Evan said.

  “I can’t believe she’d do that,” I said.

  But of course, I could. I could imagine her doing that very clearly.

  I noticed that he hadn’t let go of my arm.

  “That’s so—”

  “Listen, Cin, hon,” he said, pulling me off to one side of the entry hall, an area that was more private. “I’m not getting married to her. I couldn’t imagine getting married again.”

  “I just can’t believe she’d do that. I mean, that’s psycho, right? Isn’t that psycho? Who does that?”

  “I can’t blame her,” he said. “I’ve been… I’ve been sort of not there for her lately. My mind’s been somewhere else. You know what I mean?”

  He stepped closer to me.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “She’s plum mad jealous of you,” he whispered softly. “And with good reason.”

  He ran a finger up and down the bare skin of my lower arm. I broke out in goose bumps.

  “I’m a fool, Cinnamon,” he said. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. A lot of regretting. I didn’t realize how good we had it. Maybe I was going through some sort of mental crisis or something. But I’m ashamed to think of how I acted and what I put you through.”

  “Is this an apology?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “Yeah.An apology. And… Cinnamon, I miss you. My life’s gone to shit since you’ve been gone.”

  I felt my legs go weak. I felt like I’d just been bitten by a swarm of mosquitoes, leaving me completely numb.

  These were the words I’d been wanting to hear for two years. The ones I was certain he was going to say, but never did. The words that I dreamed about.

  For him to come to his senses and realize what a giant mistake he’d made. For him to see just how badly he’d screwed up.

  But now, as I heard those words, they didn’t sound sweet like the way they sounded to me in the dream.

  They sounded nauseating. Revolting. Sickening.

  “Don’t say—”

  But I didn’t get the words out. He suddenly scooped me up in his arms and brought his lips down to mine, and kissed me.

  A kiss full of regret and desperation.

  This kiss, too, I’d dreamed about for two years.

  But now that my dream had c
ome true, I didn’t want it anymore.

  Because as he pressed his lips on mine, those familiar smooth lips, I realized that I no longer wanted them anymore.

  Without me knowing it, my dream had changed.

  And Evan no longer had any part in it.

  I pushed him away. But suddenly I realized, as I looked over his shoulder, that I hadn’t pushed him aside in time.

  My heart jumped and got caught in my throat.

  Daniel was standing there in the auditorium entry way, looking at us.

  It wasn’t so much hurt on his face, as it was disappointment.

  I pushed Evan away from me. His mouth was hanging open a little bit in surprise. He turned around to see what had caused me to react that way.

  “Well,” Evan said. “Am I wrong, or am I seeing a ghost?”

  Daniel looked from me to him for a moment, recognizing Evan.

  “Not a ghost anymore,” Daniel said.

  “Damn,” Evan said. “Daniel Brightman. Where’ve you been all these years, boy?”

  Daniel gave him a cautious look.

  “California,” he said.

  “Sounds nice,” Evan said. “Listen, I’d love to catch up, but I’ve got a few more things to talk to my wife about.”

  “Ex-wife,” I said, glaring at him.

  “Well, nonetheless,” Evan said, trying to take my arm again.

  I shook it free.

  Huckleberry, who I suddenly noticed at Daniel’s feet, started growling.

  “I need to talk to Daniel,” I told Evan in a firm voice.

  He smiled.

  “Sure,” he said. “I’ll let you cut in for a minute, Dan. But after, we’ll finish our talk, okay Cin?”

  I shivered with disgust.

  He backed away, smiling. He winked at me before going back into the crowded auditorium.

  And I felt like I wanted to scrub my mouth out with soap.

  I couldn’t believe I’d wasted so much time crying over that man.

  Chapter 40

  “Cinnamon, there’s something I need to tell you. And I think you should hear it from—”

  “That wasn’t what it looked like,” I said, nervously. “He’s not… we’re not—”

  “We’ll get to that later,” Daniel said, taking his hat off.

  He looked so ridiculously good and wholesome and right. Everything I’d been looking for my entire life, but clearly hadn’t ever found.

  Not in Evan, anyway.

  I’d been bumping into furniture in the dark for years. It took a good man like Daniel to point that out to me, and a creep like Evan to really hit it home.

  I saw it all now, in Technicolor.

  Now I was petrified that I’d ruined any chance with Daniel. That kiss, that stupid kiss. Why hadn’t I stopped Evan before it started? Why hadn’t I come to my senses earlier?

  What Daniel must have thought when he walked in and saw that.

  I wished with all my being I could have turned the clock back five minutes. Only five minutes. And stopped it all from happening.

  “First, I’m sorry I haven’t called you,” Daniel said.

  That was funny. He was apologizing to me. It should have been the other way around.

  “I drove to Portland yesterday,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t come over yesterday.”

  “Portland?” I said. “Why?”

  He rubbed the stubble on his chin.

  “You know that knife they found on your porch?” he asked.

  “Yeah?” I said, a sick feeling settling in my stomach.

  Somehow, I knew what he was going to say.

  It was something I’d been thinking over while frantically constructing our gingerbread house the night before.

  The knife. It hadn’t made sense for the burglar to leave it behind like that. It hadn’t so much been left behind as planted.

  Planted with evil intentions, no doubt.

  Evil intentions that might just get me wrongfully accused of murder.

  Someone was playing dirty. Someone was out to get me.

  And destroying my gingerbread house was only the beginning.

  “We think it was used in the murder,” Daniel said. “Blood residue was found on the knife. A lot of blood, it looks like. ”

  “Oh my God,” I said.

  The room had started spinning.

  The knife. Someone had put it on my porch.

  Someone was trying to frame me for Mason’s murder.

  Oh my God.

  “But I didn’t trust these yahoos with doing it right,” Daniel said. “So I went to Portland, to have them process it there.”

  I swallowed hard.

  “And?”

  “They’re still working on it,” he said. “But there’s definitely blood on that knife. We don’t know who’s yet but… it’s not looking good.”

  He looked at me and for the first time, I noticed he was worried.

  “Someone’s trying to frame me,” I said, my heart thumping away

  “That’s not what the Sheriff thinks,” Daniel said.

  “Yeah,” I said, letting out a nervous sigh. “I kind of got that impression.”

  “I thought if I went to Portland, they could find a fingerprint or something useful that would show you didn’t do it. But they didn’t find anything that easy, and it’s going to take a few days for more comprehensive results. And in the meantime…”

  “You went all that way for me?” I asked. “The mountain pass must have been a nightmare.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “It wasn’t pretty, but like I said, I don’t trust these yahoos. Not enough experience with murder cases.”

  “But you still didn’t have to do that,” I said.

  “Well, at the time it seemed like I did need to do that,” he said.

  I looked sheepishly down at the ground.

  At the time.

  “So what does this all mean, Daniel?” I finally said, after a few moments of silence.

  He didn’t say anything.

  “And when they do process that knife—what good is that going to do anyway?” I said.

  “There could be something the killer left behind.”

  I shook my head.

  “I thought that was the point of planting something,” I said. “To frame someone. Not to implicate yourself.”

  “But this wasn’t some cold-blooded murder,” Daniel said. “I think Mason knew whoever killed him, and I think he knew them well. There are emotions involved. That makes whoever did this open to sloppiness.”

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” I said. “I can’t believe that anyone would believe that I did this. That I could be capable of killing over some cookies and frosting.”

  “That’s just Sheriff Trumbow who thinks that,” Daniel said, looking away from me. “I know you didn’t do it. For whatever that’s worth.”

  That same disappointed look was on his face, and I felt rotten, not so much because I was about to be accused of murder, but because I knew that on some level, I had hurt him.

  “It’s worth a lot,” I said, reaching for his hand. “It means the world.”

  He didn’t look at me, and I knew I hadn’t gotten through to him.

  If he could just hear me out. If I could just explain it, if he just understood what I had gone through for the past two years and what I had learned in the past of 48 hours.

  But I wouldn’t get my chance to tell him.

  “You should get back in there,” he said. “I’ve got a few things to do, too.”

  “Daniel, I—”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “We’ll talk later.”

  He walked away from me, into the packed auditorium. I wanted to chase after him, tell him to stop, to listen to me, that nothing was more important than he hear me out on this. That what I felt for him was more important than the bloody knife or someone trying to frame me or broken gingerbread houses or winning stupid competitions.

  But I couldn’t seem to make my feet mo
ve after him. I stood, stunned, trapped in some sort of web I couldn’t get out of. Just gazing at the empty hallway where he had been.

  Chapter 41

  The crowd was starting to get antsy.

  The judges had been conversing now for half an hour and it appeared that they still hadn’t chosen a winner yet.

  I felt the knot in my stomach tighten. I watched Bailey from across the room. Evan was standing beside her. They looked like a happy couple. Like he hadn’t just kissed me in the hallway.

  It made me want to vomit, realizing that where Bailey was now, I was two years ago. Evan and I had looked like the perfect couple. He was good at that. Good at being one half of the perfect couple. Even when he was cheating on the other half.

  I looked at him with disgust. How foolish I had been.

  I searched the crowd, looking for Daniel, for his trademark cowboy hat, for that tall, graceful figure, but I didn’t see him anywhere.

  I sighed.

  I wondered if I should find Sheriff Trumbow and tell him about Bailey and the evidence of her sabotage.

  But then I remembered how he treated me the last time I brought Bailey up.

  With suspicion.Like I was the jealous ex-wife who wanted to frame her.

  Frame her. That was funny.

  “What are they talking about already?” Kara said, shaking out her arms out nervously. “There’s nothing to discuss. Ours is the best.”

  I tried to smile, but had a tough time doing it.

  I just wanted the judges to come out and announce the winner. I didn’t even care if it was us anymore.

  I just needed to get this over so I could talk to Daniel.

  I couldn’t focus on anything else.

  “Hey, you still alive there, Cin?” Kara asked, waving a hand in front of my face.

  I shook my head.

  “I’m just tired,” I lied. “I just want this to be over.”

  “I know what you mean,” Kara said. “When this is all over I’m going to take a giant na—”

  “Cinnamon Peters,” a deep voice said from behind me.

  The voice was familiar.

  I turned around, my heart dropping floor after floor, down, down, down as I realized what was going on.

  Sheriff Trumbow was standing in front of me, an authoritative look on his face. To my right, a camera with an eager-looking reporter was leering at me.