Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Monday morning, after a solid night’s sleep, I felt clearheaded and energized.
Nothing bad had happened overnight. Maybe I let my mystery-novel-ridden brain overthink things.
I conjured up a serial killer who was knocking off people on Santa’s naughty list. But Carol was probably right.
The simplest explanation, according to all of the statistics, was that Isabella was murdered by someone she knew.
Except she didn’t know anyone in town except me.
So it was most likely an outsider who followed her here.
Given her line of work, it could have been an Internet stalker or one of those incels who feel entitled to beautiful women and go nuts when they get rejected.
He probably wasn’t even in Christmasville anymore.
I needed to stop driving myself mad with outlandish theories and let the police do their job.
And I had to focus on mine. I got into the office early and started working.
Strangely, we’d received thousands of new followers over the weekend.
I would have loved to take credit, but it was clearly curiosity from the news reports.
I began working on a plan for social media posts for the week.
But I quickly realized that I didn’t have enough content.
Thankfully, it was a sunny day and I could get some good photos later.
I gazed at the event calendar, full of activities I didn’t know if we’d promote. The Choir Concert, the Christmas Ball, the Holiday Parade—every weekend had one banner event. We’d have to take things slow and see how the reservations and cancellations were looking.
Thanksgiving was Thursday. This should have been one of our hottest weeks.
I hoped that the townspeople’s efforts last night helped a bit with the rush of cancellations, but we also needed new reservations.
And that was something I could help with.
I’d kick ass on all of our platforms this week, drive engagement, expand our reach, and do my part.
Keeping busy would also help with the idea of spending Thanksgiving alone. My parents wouldn’t be back until closer to Christmas. My brother invited me to New York to see him, but we were so busy at work, I didn’t want to take multiple days off. So I’d just stay here, alone in a hotel room.
“It’s a glorious day, Kelsey Hendricks!” Carol sang dramatically as she swung into my office.
I leaned back in my chair, smiling. “Why is that?”
She slapped her hand on my desk. “Because we’re back, baby.”
“People stopped canceling?” I put a hand to my chest. I couldn’t believe things had turned around so fast. Just from one night of us walking around town?
“Well, not exactly, but the end result is the same,” she said. “The inns and restaurants are getting calls and filling up with reservations.”
I didn’t understand. “How?”
Carol’s smile turned into a bit of a grimace as she took a seat on the other side of my desk. “Well, it was quite unexpected considering how many families were canceling their reservations. But those losses were more than made up for by new and different guests.”
New and … different? I thought of all the news vans. “Is it media?”
“Media, lookie-loos, morbid rubberneckers.”
“Wonderful,” I said with a roll of my eyes. All we needed was to turn from Christmasville into Murderville.
“Hey, it’s money to keep us all afloat,” Carol said. “The season is saved. This terrible business will fade off the front pages and the families will return.”
I supposed that was true. We could handle a few weeks of murder groupies if dozens of family businesses were saved. And I could do my best through marketing to bring back the families.
“You need to promote hard this week,” Carol instructed. “Beautiful pictures, happy videos. Show all that we have to offer. And moderate those comments with a strong hand.”
“Absolutely,” I said, nodding.
“And we have to start working on plans for the holiday concert this weekend,” she said, almost as an afterthought.
Day-to-day activities were one thing, but I didn’t know if another big town event so soon was in poor taste or not. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
She waved at me like I was an annoying fly. “The choir has been practicing year-round for this. We’re not canceling.”
I pointed at the event calendar. “But it says they’re going to sing on the same stage where we found Isabella’s body. I don’t know if people would be comfortable going back to the park for another event so soon.”
“Then we’ll have it somewhere else. We’ll close Main Street to car traffic. It will be beautiful.” Her voice rose with excitement. “All the storefronts and the lights. The choir can sing in the middle of the street and people can line the sidewalks.”
That wasn’t a bad idea. My mind immediately went to planning the photo angles. It could be dazzling, actually.
Carol rose and extended her arms with flair. “You have to always adapt, Kelsey. Adapt or die, isn’t that what they say?”
I nodded encouragingly as she left my office.
I knew she’d meant it in a business book type of way, but anything with “or die” in Christmasville right now seemed like foreshadowing.
Even still, I knew Carol was right. What happened to Isabella was terrible, but scores of family businesses were depending on us to keep the gears turning so they could put food on the table.
I was glad, at least, that the slump had been short-term.
Even if it meant that we didn’t have our usual clientele.
My mind wandered. Who would benefit from the town taking a short-term hit in reputation that eventually went back to normal?
The only one I could think of was Aaron.
He could get the land cheap, and by the time his hotel was built, Christmasville would be back to filling reservations with families rather than morbid curiosity seekers.
I shook the thought out of my head. Aaron was kind and generous. Sure, I’d never seen him in a business meeting. But there was a big difference between being a ruthless businessman and killing people to drive down the price of land. I wouldn’t allow myself to entertain the thought any longer.
Shifting gears, I turned back to work. It was time to check on any new comments and make sure no one had gotten out of line. I hadn’t updated our socials all weekend. Laying low seemed to be the best tactic. But it was time to ramp things back up.
Our last photo on Instagram was a tease of the tree-lighting ceremony with the tree behind the huge screen.
That probably had to go. But before I deleted it, I let my eyes scan the comments.
A few people mentioned what happened, which was only to be expected.
But one comment made the blood freeze in my veins.
Did you like the present I left you under the tree?
The comment itself was sick, but so was the username: TheChristmasKiller.
Someone had clearly made an account just to troll us.
My stomach churned with disgust. It reminded me of that comment from another fake account that had asked if I liked their artwork—right after the mural had been vandalized.
Didn’t people have better things to do than create fake accounts to be cruel?
With a sigh, I deleted the photo, which automatically deleted all the comments underneath it. I felt like I should wash my hands. Maybe bleach my eyeballs. What kind of a person made a comment like that?
I needed to post something new, and quickly. I grabbed my bag. Time for a walk about town. It would probably do me good to step away from the computer for a while after that anyhow.
Carol was by the front door, looking outside.
“Hey, I’m going to step out to get some new pics for our socials,” I said.
“That’s good.” She didn’t tear her eyes away from whatever she was looking at. “It’s true what they say. There’s no such thing as bad publicity.”
I took a peek out the window. The sidewalks were busy. Our visitors were a bit younger, demographically, and without children. But crowds were here. A couple of news vans were still parked on the road. “Media hasn’t left yet?”
“My guess is today,” Carol said. “There’s nothing new on the case. If there’s nothing to report, they’ll move on.”
Things were going to work out, I thought. Sure, a bunch of families had canceled. But because of all of the media attention, people who had never heard of Christmasville were now in a rush to visit.
“See you later,” I said, pushing open the front door.
I immediately took several shots of the crowds on Main Street. Posting one of these could be good, to show we were still business as usual in town. As I moved down the street, I stopped at a news crew interviewing a tourist.
“Aren’t you scared to be here after what happened to Isabella Redstone?” the reporter asked. She was probably hoping for a breathless comment.
But the bearded man only shrugged. “I’m from New York City. One murder isn’t going to scare me off from my holiday vacation.”
His wife chimed in. “Plus, rumor has it an ex-boyfriend did it. It’s not like the public is in danger.”
Gee, I wonder how that rumor spread? I’d bet everything I owned that Carol was behind that piece of news.
A small crowd had formed to watch the interview. Two pretty college girls wearing sweatshirts with their sorority letters stood beside me.
“Can you believe this place is real?” one said to the other. “It’s like one of those towns in a Christmas TV movie come to life!”
“I’m going to take, like, a million pics,” the second girl said.
That warmed my digital marketing heart. Yes, please, give us free publicity.
I butted in, “Excuse me. I couldn’t help but overhear. Please tag us when you post the pics.” I quickly gave her our handle. “I run the town’s accounts. Maybe I’ll repost you in our story.”
“Oh, cool!” she said, turning to her friend.
But her friend had a curious look in her eyes. “You work for the town? So, what do you think? Is there a serial killer here?”
My throat tightened. “All I know is that the police are doing their job. And in the meantime, everyone should use common sense. Stick together, safety in numbers, don’t be out alone late at night, the usual.”
“Okay, Mom,” she chuckled good-heartedly.
“And tag us in those photos!” I said, trying to keep it light.
I skirted around a camera crew and continued down the sidewalk. I headed toward the park, passing by many wide-eyed first-timers who felt like they were on a movie set. Their phones raised high, taking pictures and videos.
This could, strangely, be Christmasville’s most successful season ever. Thanks to a murderer. It couldn’t have gone any better if Carol had planned it herself.
The park was moderately busy, with an uncomfortable number of people milling about the gazebo.
I avoided that area. Instead, I headed toward the snowman-building station.
That was where I’d get the perfect family-friendly snapshot.
Off in the distance, in the park on the other side of the street was the hedge maze Rudy had told me about.
I’d head there next. Maybe a short video inside the maze would be cool to add to our story.
The wide expanse of snow glittered where the sun hit it, like thousands of tiny diamonds.
A few people ambled about, selecting accessories from the lost and found box.
One couple laughed at their awkwardly leaning snowman, who they’d appropriately named Pisa.
I asked for permission, then took a photo.
A family of four—yay, a family!—was about halfway through their snowman-building when an all-out snowball fight erupted.
I snapped several action shots and got posting permissions.
The other snowmen stood completed, their creators gone.
I considered photos, but neither of them was in consideration for the new Frosty, so not social-worthy.
Then I saw something shiny out of the corner of my eye. Sunlight glinted off something in the distance between two tall snow-covered pines. I squinted. It was definitely a snowman. Why would someone build it so far away from the others? It was in the middle of nowhere.
Figuring it might be worth the trek, I hauled my way over there, thankful for my snow boots. Perhaps this was a snowman Mona Lisa, begging to be photographed. But when I got there, my whole body went numb.
It was a snowwoman. She had pine needles for eyelashes, and two small snowballs crudely placed for her breasts. A thick scarf trailed along her neck. Several red slashes adorned her torso. And a giant knife stuck out of her stomach.
Isabella. The snowman was Isabella.