Chapter 4
The Christmas trees around us seem to lean in closer, their pine-scented branches heavy with twinkle lights that cast shadows across what’s become the most macabre holiday display in Maine’s history.
The soft hum of electrical circuits mingles with the distant sound of “Jingle Bell Rock” still playing with aggressive cheer right here in the Crown Jewel Lounge, while the scent of pine and expensive perfume battles with what smells like an electrical fire waiting to happen and the combination makes my stomach perform acrobatics I didn’t sign up for.
Peyton’s scream cuts through the festive atmosphere like a chainsaw through wrapping paper.
Her voice hits a pitch that could shatter crystal ornaments, and honestly? I can’t blame her. Finding yourself holding the business end of a murder weapon tends to have that effect on people.
My own scream follows immediately after, because apparently my vocal cords decided this was the perfect time for a duet.
The Christmas lights around Seraphina’s neck continue their cheerful red and green blinking, as if they’re completely unaware they’ve just been promoted from holiday decoration to homicide evidence.
What’s all the screaming about? Cricket’s voice cuts through my panic as she bounds into the evergreen alcove, her tan fur bristling like a bottle brush. Did someone finally tell Peggy her hair color isn’t fooling anyone?
Death! Rookie barks, skidding to a halt next to me with Mr. Jolly Beary bouncing on his back like a fuzzy brown witness to murder. Death smells all wrong! Not like the good kind of dead fish at the beach, but the bad kind of dead that makes hoomans act crazy!
Oh my whiskers. Cricket’s tail puffs to twice its normal size as she takes in the scene. Someone turned that annoying social media menace into a Christmas decoration. And that’s... actually kind of creative.
This is very, very bad, Rookie whimpers, pressing against my legs for comfort. When hoomans scream like that, other humans come running with loud noises and bright lights. Killion usually brings his badge and his gun.
And right on cue, it looks like Rookie’s psychic abilities extend beyond predicting dinner time because the cavalry arrives.
“Sweet mother of maple syrup!” Peggy’s voice carries across the pine forest before I even see her leopard-print ensemble pushing through the Douglas firs. “What in Sam Hill is going on back here? Sounds like someone’s being murdered!”
“Well, technically...” I start, but Peggy’s already spotted poor Seraphina.
“Oh my stars and garters!” She clutches her chest dramatically, as any proper Southern belle would do, her copper curls catching the Christmas lights. “Is that woman wearing a necklace made of... are those Christmas lights?”
Clarabelle emerges behind her, her blinking reindeer sweater somehow managing to compete with the crime scene for most inappropriate holiday display. “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. That’s one way to get into the Christmas spirit.”
“Clarabelle!” I gasp.
“What? I’m just saying the color coordination is surprisingly effective.”
“That’s horrible, Clarabelle.” Bunny gasps, appearing with her blonde bob slightly mussed and her emerald dress wrinkled from pushing through pine branches. But her blue eyes are wide with fascination rather than horror. “Although I’ve seen worse centerpieces at the Hamptons.”
“This is not the time for decor commentary!” I snap, though honestly, in Brambleberry Bay, there’s never really an inappropriate time for fashion commentary, even after a homicide.
The sound of pounding feet on marble grows louder, followed by voices shouting instructions and what sounds suspiciously like someone calling for backup.
“FREEZE! brAMBLEBERRY BAY SECURITY!”
Three men in ill-fitting uniforms burst through the Christmas trees like action heroes in a very low-budget holiday movie, weapons drawn and faces set in expressions of grim determination.
Right behind them, moving with the fluid grace of a man who actually knows what he’s doing, comes Killion Maddox.
My heart does its usual gymnastics routine at the sight of him with his dark hair slightly tousled, his green eyes sharp and alert, and he’s wearing a charcoal sweater that hugs his shoulders in ways that should probably be illegal.
He’s got his service weapon drawn, but the moment he takes in the scene, his expression shifts from professional alertness to weary resignation.
Truthfully, he’s seen it all before.
“Stand down,” he tells the security team, holstering his gun. “It’s a crime scene, not an active threat.”
One of the security guards, a burly man with a mustache that looks like a holdover from the 1980s, kneels beside Seraphina and checks for a pulse. After a moment that stretches like a Christmas morning without coffee, he shakes his head at Killion.
“She’s gone, Detective.”
Killion runs a hand through his hair and fixes me with a look that’s part exasperation, part resignation, and part something that makes my knees forget their primary function. Have I mentioned how hot he is?
“Geez, Hattie,” he sighs, his voice carrying the weight of a frustrated detective who’s had this conversation before. “We need one public gathering in this town that doesn’t end with a murder.”
“Tell me about it,” Peyton mutters, still clutching the Christmas lights like they’re a lifeline instead of evidence.
My brain, apparently deciding this is the perfect moment to engage my mouth without consulting common sense first, blurts out the obvious.
“You’re one to talk,” I balk at my caustic boss. “You were holding the lights when I found you hovering over the body!”
The collective gasp from our growing audience could probably heat the country club for a week.
Pandemonium erupts faster than popcorn in a microwave.
“SHE’S THE KILLER!”
“CALL THE POLICE!”
“THE POLICE ARE ALREADY HERE!”
“CALL MORE POLICE!”
It’s technically the sheriff’s department, but something tells me this isn’t the time for semantics.
Killion raises his hands, trying to restore order. “Everyone, calm down! Let’s not jump to conclusions based on—”
But his voice is drowned out by the growing crowd of country club members who’ve apparently decided that a murder scene is the perfect place for an impromptu social gathering—despite the fact that we were already having one.
He pulls out his phone and steps away, speaking in the clipped tones of someone calling in a homicide. “This is Detective Maddox. I need the full team at the Brambleberry Bay Country Club. We’ve got another body.”
The word another rings in my mind like a gong.
While Killion handles the official business, the unofficial business of solving the crime kicks into high gear, because apparently my social circle has developed a taste for amateur detective work.
“Well, butter my biscuit,” Peggy declares, rubbing her hands together with enthusiasm as if she had just discovered a new hobby. “Looks like the murder club is back in business!”
Knew it.
“It’s a book club, Peggy,” I say automatically, though we both know that ship sailed approximately six corpses ago.
“A book club that seems to have a remarkable talent for stumbling into homicides,” Clarabelle adds, pushing her way closer to examine Seraphina and snaps a few pictures of the poor woman to boot. “Although I have to say, this is our most festive murder yet.”
She’s not wrong. Although, technically, not the first holiday murder.
Tipper Luxemburg appears as if summoned by the mention of mystery-solving, her brassy blonde hair catching the Christmas lights as she surveys the scene. She, too, is one of our esteemed so-called book club members. And fun fact: she happens to be dating my brother. It’s new. Sort of.
“Someone actually strangled her with holiday decorations?” Tipper gasps with what sounds like delight. I never said she wasn’t deranged. “That’s either brilliant or completely unhinged.”
“Why not both?” Hillary Pepperwood strides over, her red hair gleaming like fire in the twinkle lights.
Hilly used to have the hots for Killion, so that makes us mortal enemies.
Okay, we’re not, but still. She did have the hots for him once.
And really? Who could blame her? “Although I have to admire the seasonal commitment,” she adds with a nod.
Kick Lawson pushes through the crowd, her athletic build allowing her to navigate the pine forest with ease. She wears her dark hair in a pixie cut and has far too many children for me to count.
“Are we seriously doing this again?” she scoffs. “Because I haven’t finished processing the emotional trauma from the last three murders we solved.”
Same, sister. Same.
“Four,” Chevy Von Champs corrects, appearing with a notebook already in hand because, of course, she’s taking notes for her next book. “And trauma builds character. Besides, think of the material!”
Chevy is our resident author—I sort of am, too.
She’s a best-selling mystery author, blonde, pretty, divorced twice, but with a new husband on hand and has children in a Swiss boarding school.
She’s old money on both sides of her family—a cattle ranch and a vodka empire.
That alone tells you how much fun she can be.
I should probably explain to anyone wondering how an innocent book club transformed into Brambleberry Bay’s unofficial murder investigation squad.
It started innocently enough—a group of women getting together to discuss our favorite mysteries over wine and cheese.
But somewhere between our third corpse and fourth bottle of champagne, we realized we were actually pretty good at this whole detective thing.
What began as casual speculation about whodunit evolved into full-scale amateur investigations, complete with evidence boards, suspect lists, and enough conspiracy theories to make a government whistleblower jealous.
We’re like a cross between a neighborhood watch and a true crime podcast, except with better snacks and considerably more chaos—like an alarming amount more.
“I vote we start with the obvious suspect,” Bunny announces, pointing at Peyton with the same enthusiasm she usually reserves for eligible bachelors. She’s a self-proclaimed maneater. “She was literally caught red-handed. Or should I say, light-handed?” She winks over at Peyton with the dig.
“That’s circumstantial evidence at best,” Chevy argues, her mystery writer brain already working through possibilities. “Anyone could have wrapped those lights around the victim’s neck and then handed them to Peyton to make her look guilty.”
I’m with Chevy. Peyton values her freedom to not wear orange on the regular to ever go through with killing someone. Especially when she’s aware of my track record of hunting down the killer.
While my unofficial detective squad debates the finer points of murder methodology, I notice the real suspects clustering around Seraphina’s body like vultures in designer clothing.
Vivienne Velour stands near the victim’s feet, her red dress a stark contrast to the evergreen backdrop. She stares down at Seraphina with an expression I can’t quite read—part shock, part something else entirely. Her thoughts are either not there or unavailable to me.
Diva Divine Temptation hovers near the Christmas trees, her theatrical presence somehow making even a murder scene look like a stage production. She keeps glancing between the body and the exit as if calculating distances.
Interesting.
Millie Ashford wrings her flour-dusted hands, her practical apron a sore thumb among the formal wear. Her eyes are fixed on the body with something that might be satisfaction or might just be shock—it’s impossible to tell which.
And Peyton, still clutching those damning Christmas lights, stares at the evidence in her hands like it might bite her. For the first time since I’ve known her, she looks genuinely rattled, her usual composure finally cracking under the weight of what’s happened.
But it’s the thoughts swirling around the crime scene that make my blood run colder than a Maine winter morning.
She finally got what was coming to her.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Someone should have done this years ago.
The world is a better place without that poisonous witch.
The mental voices are so full of venom they practically hiss, but with four suspects gathered around the body and my back turned to most of them, I can’t identify who’s thinking what.
All I know is that someone at this Christmas party is very, very glad that Seraphina Sparks just celebrated her last holiday season.