How the Ghost Stole Christmas (Murder By Design Book 4)

by Erin McCarthy

  “I think the one thing that is apparent about all these ghosts who show themselves to you is that they’re all liars. They’re selfish, with an agenda. Maybe he didn’t want you to know he wasn’t alone for whatever reason.”

  I wrinkled my nose and picked up the wine bottle. “That’s a lousy thought.”

  “It’s true and you know it. You’re an honest person, but most of these guys have jerked you around in one way or another.”

  “I’m going to need to turn up my Christmas music for this conversation. It’s very demoralizing.”

  Jake paused in slicing potatoes and looked over at me. “Hey. Don’t let it get you down. I love how optimistic you are. Just remember that when you’re hanging around in eternity you have motivation to make something happen.” He shook his head and grinned. “I can’t believe I’m just talking about ghosts like it’s no big deal.”

  “Me either. I was on the fence about ghosts until they started moving in to my house on a regular basis making demands.” Like William wanting to break into his former house. I tried not to wince imagining Marner’s reaction to me at the Anthony house hanging on their fence gate in the world’s lamest getaway.

  “Body was a female. Wearing a dress.”

  “So… no one reported a woman missing? How bizarre.”

  “Maybe they did. We’ll have to go back and pick through whatever was going on December three years ago.”

  “I would say it’s the wife except that would be pretty stupid at her own Christmas party. And the motive would have to be pure rage. Without a body she probably hasn’t been able to collect life insurance.”

  “It could be murder for hire. Wife hires someone to bump hubby off. The female might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  I twisted the corkscrew and mulled that over. “It’s possible.” I popped the cork. “Totally unrelated to murder, your mom called me. She wanted to know if we’re coming over for Christmas Eve dinner.”

  “Oh, God. Why would she call you instead of me?” Jake poured olive oil in a pan and turned on the burner. “I’m sorry.”

  “I think she was strategizing. If she calls me she knows you’ll address the issue sooner so she doesn’t call again. Whereas if she asks you, you tell her you’ll get back to her and then two weeks go by.”

  He tilted his head. “That could all be true.”

  “So are we going to Christmas Eve dinner? My family does midnight mass and then Christmas Day brunch so I don’t have a conflict.” Not that I was dying to spend another brunch with my parents but at least Christmas Day would be at their house. Dad would wander away and watch football. My aunt and uncle and cousins would come over and the increased volume of bodies would break up the tension. Given all of that, I was actually looking forward to spending time with Jake’s family. His father still swatted his mother’s butt as she walked by while she pretended to be horrified, but could never prevent herself from grinning. His siblings had kids and it was lively and fun to be at their house.

  “If you don’t mind.”

  I came up behind him and slipped my arms around his middle and leaned my head on his shoulder. “I don’t mind at all.”

  Christmas made me sentimental.

  Six

  “I’m so grateful for your help,” Lauren said on Friday as she gestured to the door to her warehouse. “After you. This has been a challenging week, what with William and all.”

  I pushed the door open and held it for her. “Of course. I’m happy to help.” Fortunately, Lauren had called me before I had come up with an excuse to call her. She wanted me to help with the staging for events the next two weekends. She had said she was just too devastated by the horror of William’s death to wrap her head around it alone.

  It seemed legit to me. I mean, finding out someone you cared about and had intimacies with had spent three years stuffed in a prop you’d been storing in your warehouse was pretty appalling. Or was her upset really guilt that the bodies had been found? Somehow, I couldn’t picture Lauren whacking both William and the mystery woman at a party where his wife was.

  It occurred to me for the first time it was odd that Lauren had supplied the backdrop décor for a party at William’s wife’s real estate agency.

  This whole case swirled around the women. That was obvious enough. I didn’t think that we were going to discover that the unknown woman whacked William in the head, then committed suicide. Or that a jealous mall Santa wanted William’s gig and took revenge to the next level.

  Lauren and I stepped inside the warehouse and she flicked on the fluorescent lights. Yep. Stager’s nirvana. There were rows of racks piled with home décor. One entire section was throw pillows in plastic. Hundreds of pillows.

  “The furniture is past all of this,” Lauren said. “I have everything catalogued by style. Midcentury, transitional, farmhouse, etc. Then way in the back are the large-scale props like palm trees, fountains, and a dunking booth. Oh, and a vintage car.”

  I just stared in awe. Dressed in winter white jeans and a black sweater with the world’s most adorable black boots, I unbuttoned my heavy red coat and unfurled my scarf from around my neck. Wrapping it around my purse strap I followed Lauren down the first row. She had called me to enlist my help with a hospital event. There wasn’t supposed to be a theme or anything kitschy, just classic Christmas with plenty of artificial trees and swags.

  “Would you go down the next aisle and grab about a hundred ornaments?” she asked. “Let’s go straight up gold and red. I need to check on something in the office.”

  “Sure.” Lauren actually had two shopping carts at the front by the door so I grabbed one and took off on what felt like a shopping spree. I was all interior designer giddy.

  Which was probably why I didn’t hear footsteps behind me.

  “What are you doing?” a hoarse gravelly voice asked me.

  My hand was deep in a plastic bin filled to the brim with gold balls and I jumped, the ornaments clanging together. I whipped around and saw a man who was actually younger than his voice would lead me to believe. He had pale watery eyes, a scruffy beard, and uncombed hair. He was wearing ancient workman’s overalls. I backed up until I hit the rack. “I’m helping Lauren,” I said, drawing my neck in and my shoulders up, attempting to get my face as far away from his as possible.

  “Who is Lauren?” he sneered.

  Um. “The owner of this warehouse?” I posed it as a question because suddenly I wasn’t sure what the heck was true and what wasn’t.

  “This is my warehouse.” He jerked his thumb toward his chest and repeated himself, this time spit flying out of his mouth and landing on my cheek.

  I made a sound that resembled a squeak as I realized I had someone else’s saliva on my skin. On my face. Everything inside me shriveled up and died. He could strangle me right now and it wouldn’t be as horrible as spitting on me.

  Okay, maybe that’s a bad example and a slight exaggeration but, people, I do not do germs. No and nope. I felt around for the opening of my purse and started to plunder its depths for my hand sanitizer. “Does Lauren know you’re here?” I demanded, feeling like he was probably an overzealous employee with delusions of grandeur.

  “I don’t know this Lauren you speak of.”

  At this point I was starting to think maybe he was homeless and he’d found respite from the cold in the warehouse. In which case I couldn’t blame him. He could shift around this place for days and no one would notice him. I realized that the door hadn’t been locked when I had pushed it open.

  This was getting a little uncomfortable. Using my scarf, I tried to casually wipe my cheek while shifting to the left to get away from him.

  “Lauren?” I called out. I turned and jumped. “Oh, jeez, you’re standing right there.” I found my hand sanitizer and squirted some in my palm, then patted my cheek. “Do you know this man?”

  “I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

  “Who are you talking to?” the man aske
d me.

  “What do you mean? Lauren.” I gestured to her.

  His eyebrows shot up. “You’re nuttier than me, little girl. And I’m pretty nutty.”

  “What?” I was so confused. Lauren crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the man.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was Jake.

  I’m confused.

  That made two of us.

  The body in the slide is Lauren Jones. I thought that was the woman who was in charge of the event. Did someone steal her identity? She was reported missing by her husband three years ago.

  O-kay. That made exactly zero sense.

  “Is your name actually Lauren Jones?” I asked her.

  “Of course.”

  “Then how are you missing?” I was starting to get a really bad feeling about this.

  “Duh. I’m dead, Bailey.”

  My jaw dropped. “Shut the front door. How is that even possible? Are you telling me you’re a ghost?”

  “There’s a ghost here?” the guy next to me asked. He swung his arms around in all directions wildly. “Begone, demon.”

  Yep. There it was. His arms flying through Lauren’s body.

  I was gobsmacked. Flabbergasted. I had been bamboozled.

  “But… how?” I murmured, putting my hand on my forehead. “The charity event. How?”

  “Believe it or not, it wasn’t that hard. I already knew the theme because my partner inherited the entire business. I knew what was being pulled in the warehouse so I told you the theme. Knowing the slide was going up made me feel pretty confident that if I could convince anyone to look into our deaths it was you.”

  “So I was never actually hired?” That was just impossible to wrap my head around. Why hadn’t I realized she was a ghost? Because she had confidently pretended to be alive. In hindsight I couldn’t remember a specific moment when she had interacted with anyone other than me.

  Other than Jake.

  Wait a minute. Jake saw her?

  “No, you were never actually hired.”

  Dang it. “Which means I’m not getting paid?” Well, that sucked. I was going to Christmas shop with that money. I had spent three hours planning an event that was already planned. “Why didn’t you just tell me? Appear to me like every other ghost? Those were billable hours.” Thank God I hadn’t sent them to Lauren’s design firm. Her partner would think I was a straight up lunatic.

  “Lady,” the warehouse man said. “You are freaking me the freak out. I’m going to call the cops.”

  I turned to him. “Do you work here or are you squatting?”

  “That’s none of your business,” he said with great dignity.

  “If you’re squatting you can’t call the cops on me, you know.” That was the last thing I needed was for the cops to think I was breaking and entering. I thought about what Jake’s reaction to that would be. Especially after I had been inside the Anthony’s house.

  “Can you see William?” I asked Lauren.

  “What?” For the first time she looked as startled as me. “No. Of course not.” Her ghostly face ironically went pale. “Where is William?”

  “He was at the party, dressed like Santa.”

  “I was right by him and I didn’t know it?”

  The warehouse guy started backing up. “If you think you see Santa, I think you should see about some medication.”

  I waved my hand to the guy. “Shh. I can’t hear Lauren when you’re talking at the same time.”

  “All right. No problem. I’m just going to go to the next aisle. If you’re not gone in five minutes I am calling the cops.”

  “Fine. Whatever.” I turned back to Lauren. “Can I ask what you and William were doing when you died?”

  “We were… embracing. I didn’t see anything. But I know it was his wife. I’m convinced of it. And nothing has happened in three years and when I saw you at my office dropping off your card and talking to my partner about your services, I followed you and you saw me. I was completely astonished. I wanted you to take me seriously so I just rolled with it.” She rocked on her heels. “Kind of cool of me, wasn’t it?”

  “Cool as a cucumber.” I was still astonished. “But I can’t really help you, you know. It’s up to the cops at this point.”

  Lauren pursed her lips. “Here’s what we need to do. We need to tell Karen something about that night that only the three of us would know—me, her, William. It will flush her out and she’ll do something stupid.”

  “Or something murderous,” I protested. “You’re calling her a murderer!”

  “She wouldn’t murder you. She’d get caught!”

  “She didn’t for the first double homicide.” That seemed pretty obvious to me.

  “Just text her. Please?” Lauren gazed at me in agony. “I can’t do this for eternity. I really can’t. It’s exhausting.”

  I got that. Talking about it in a chilly warehouse was exhausting enough. I sighed, channeling Marner. “Fine. What do you want me to say?”

  “Tell her that you know she was the last person to see William and me alive.”

  “Wow, that’s just throwing it right out there. Seems a little aggressive.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “I don’t know.” I was too busy kicking myself for not noticing the minute I got out of the car Lauren was wearing the same cocktail dress she’d had on at the charity event. Presumably what she had been wearing the night of the real estate agency Christmas party, when she had bit it. I’d been so eager to get in the warehouse my skills of observation had failed me entirely.

  “Okay, so say this. William calls Lauren Schmoopy.”

  “Schmoopy?” My eyebrows shot up. “How do you spell that?”

  “Sound it out!” she snapped. “Look, I know that Karen saw us and I know she heard William use that particular term of endearment.”

  “Fine. Give me the number.”

  Lauren had clearly been waiting for this moment because she rattled the number off with zero hesitation.

  I shot a text off and prayed I didn’t now become the subject of harassment from Karen in addition to Lauren and William.

  There was no immediate response so I studied Lauren. “I’m going home since I no longer have this job. Or rather, I never did. I will let you know if I hear back from Karen. You’re clearly able to call me so why don’t you give me a ring tomorrow and we’ll touch base?”

  I was feeling pretty peeved. If she had just been upfront with me I could have conferred with William and her together and we could have… done something. I wasn’t sure what. But I wouldn’t have wasted my time putting together a party. I guess that was just the bottom line.

  Lauren looked like she was going to protest but then she just faded out with a frown.

  So now she could vaporize? Where was that days ago?

  Shaking my head, I headed home.

  When I unlocked my front door and stepped inside I was contemplating how I was going to break it to my boyfriend that he saw ghosts. Jake was really not going to be down with that.

  I was so preoccupied with the fear that my boyfriend was going to think I had put some kind of evil eye on him inadvertently, that I didn’t sense anything strange.

  Until I opened my coat closet and saw a gun pointed right at my face.

  “Oh my God!” I jumped backwards and tried to slam the door back shut. Which would do nothing to stop a bullet, but it was instinct.

  A leg stopped the door from closing anyway and as I ducked and scrambled past my console table, searching for a weapon to defend myself with. I had the vague sensation that the human behind the gun was a woman but I didn’t know who it was.

  “Freeze!”

  Definitely a woman. She sounded shaky, like she wasn’t entirely sure how to control the situation. That alone terrified me enough to stop and turn around, my hands up in the air. “Who are you and what do you want?”

  “I’m Karen Anthony.”

  Well, crud. This was not good. Damn La
uren for talking me in to texting Karen. Though how she had found my address and hotfooted it to my house in thirty minutes was beyond me. Unless she was dead too. Huh. Now that would be crazy, but way less scary.

  If she was, the gun wasn’t real, but a ghost gun.

  Without thinking it through, I reached out and smacked the gun. My hand did not go through the weapon it but knocked it to the left. Karen pulled the trigger and I screamed. Yep. Gun was real. The bullet went straight into my Christmas tree shattering ornaments and then my front window.

  “Are you crazy?” I shrieked. “You’re going to kill someone!” I was feeling my pockets for my phone.

  “That’s the point!” she snapped. “I know you were in my house. I have a surveillance camera by my front and back doors.”

  Why was everyone so dang paranoid these days? Karen probably saw me on her iPad or her phone three seconds after I opened the door. It would have been nice if William had warned me. Then again, Karen had clearly opened up her wallet after William died so maybe it was a new addition. In any case, she’d seen me.

  Now she was waving a loaded gun in my house.

  “Just put the gun down and let’s talk about this.”

  Karen did lower the gun slightly but not enough to suit me. At this angle, she would blow out my kneecap instead of my heart but I could still bleed out instead of dying instantly.

  “What’s there to talk about? You found the bodies and then you were in my house. That’s not good for me.”

  I found my phone in my pocket and used my finger to unlock it. I was optimistic I could do one of three things without having a visual on the screen. Call up Siri to ask her a question. Dial 911. Or record a video. Since the first two required interaction and would make sound that would probably frighten trigger-happy Karen, I opted for three.

  I had no clue if I was recording or not but I thought I had tapped the right buttons.

  “Sure, let’s talk. First of all, are you the one who came into my house and left me a candy cane?”

  She nodded. “I was trying to scare you.”

  It had worked. “I guess we’re even then. We both broke into each other’s house. Maybe we can call it all good.”