Trouble Under the Tree (A Nina Quinn Mystery) (2 page)

Indefinitely.

Just the thought of being alone with
my
mom indefinitely caused me to shudder. Which made me feel
like an awful daughter, so I automatically forgave the crystal
glasses. And the mistletoe. And the plain white lights. It was a
lot of guilt I was feeling, obviously.

My guilt-o-meter was working overtime right
now. It was because of the time of year—the holidays—and the fact
that this would be the first Christmas in a very long time that
Riley, my almost sixteen-year-old stepson, wouldn’t be celebrating
with me.

He’d recently decided to move in with his
dad, my ex Kevin, and as a stepmom I really had no say in the
matter. I dutifully ignored the tug on my heartstrings. There
wasn’t enough rum in the bottle to help me deal with those
feelings.

Riley sulked into the kitchen, went to the
fridge, and pulled out a Mountain Dew.

Speak of the devil.

“How’s my favorite elf?” I asked unable to
stop a smile.

He groaned.

“Elf?” Kit asked.

“Riley got a job at Christmastowne as one of
Santa’s elves,” I explained. “He started today.”

Riley hung his head in mock shame.

Kit threw his head back and laughed, a deep
rumbling that had the crystal glasses humming. He wiped tears from
his eyes and barked out, “How did I miss this?”

Ry popped the top on the can of soda.
“Because I took great pains to avoid everyone who might recognize
me.”

Kit laughed harder. “Why take the job in the
first place?”

“To work on my self-esteem obviously,” Riley
smart-mouthed then frowned. “I need the money to buy my own wheels
once I get my license.”

“Dude,” Kit said, “you could have asked me
for a loan.”

“Really?” Riley asked, blue eyes hopeful.

“No.”

Riley groaned.

Kit said, “Not until after I get to see you
dressed as an elf. Do you have to wear the shoes, too?” Kit made a
curly motion toward his feet.

Riley had the whole outfit from elf ears to
jingle hat and striped tights. Kit was going to be beside himself
when he got a look at it—and I knew without a doubt he was going to
go looking.

When Riley refused to answer, Kit laughed
harder.

“It’s not funny,” Riley said and walked
away.

“No one likes an angry elf,” Kit called after
him.

Riley muttered something under his breath,
and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know what.

A flushed Fairlane caught Riley under the
mistletoe. It just wasn’t the poor kid’s day. He leaned down and
let her kiss his cheek, then headed straight for the stairs and his
old bedroom, presumably for some peace and quiet. I couldn’t blame
him a bit.

“He’s such a good boy, Nina,” Fairlane cooed.
“A good boy.”

He had his moments, but overall he was a
great kid.

She fanned her face as Kit handed her a glass
of eggnog.

Fairlane was a sight. Her exact age was a
mystery thanks to the plastic surgery she’d had, but I pegged her
to be somewhere near sixty. With her Tweety Bird blond hair teased
into an updo, lots of makeup, and skin tight clothes that showed
every curve and dimple of her body, she looked like a middle-aged
strumpet. Curvy in all the right places, she was a good two to
three inches shorter than my five-foot-four—her head only came up
to Kit’s armpit while mine reached his collarbone.

She eyed him like he was a big ol’ candy
cane. “Thank you, honey. Aren’t you a looker? Do you enjoy the
company of older women?”

Kit’s somewhat frightened gaze cut to me.

I nearly choked on my eggnog. “Fairlane,” I
said, “what would Mr. Cabrera say?”

“Donatelli? Darlin’, why would he care?”

“I thought you had a date with him
tomorrow?”

Her eyebrows dipped as far as the artificial
filler in her face would let them. “A date?”

Maybe he had gotten the twins confused. They
were identical in looks, after all, right down to their immovable
foreheads. But even though they looked alike, their personalities
couldn’t be more different. Lele was quiet and shy—even now she
stood in the corner of the living room by herself—while Fairlane
was the life of the party. “To the tree-lighting ceremony at
Christmastowne?”

“Oh, dear! I think there’s been some
confusion. I told the sweet old man I’d be there, but I’ll be
working.”

The sweet old man
. Ouch. I hoped Mr.
Cabrera wasn’t eavesdropping.

To Kit, she said, “Lele and I were hired to
take turns manning the magic reindeer food kiosk and playing Mrs.
Claus. Haven’t you seen us there?”

“No,” he said, obviously lying.

It was hard to miss Fairlane anywhere.

“Well, tomorrow’s
my
day to be Santa’s
favorite lady.” She put her hands on her curvy hips and swung them
left and right. “Maybe you should come by and jingle my bells.”

I nearly choked on my eggnog again and
realized I’d suddenly gone from worrying about Fairlane to worrying
about Mr. Cabrera. He didn’t take rejection well. I saved Kit
(whose eyes bulged dangerously) from answering by saying, “I’m not
sure Mr. Cabrera realizes you’ll be working.”

“I suppose I should set him straight,” she
murmured, casting longing looks at Kit.

He nodded vigorously. “Right now.”

“You’re right, honey.” She patted his muscled
arm, her eyes going round with appreciation. “I’ll be right
back.”

“Take your time,” I called after her. To Kit,
I said, “Ana would rip her hair out.”

Kit grinned. “I’m used to women fighting over
me. Happens all the time.”

“Sure it does.”

I went for more rum. I was going to regret it
in the morning, but right now I didn’t care.

“What’s a guy got to do to get a kiss around
here?” a voice said from the kitchen doorway.

My head snapped up. “I thought you said you
couldn’t make it tonight?”

“I never could resist a little mistletoe.”
Kevin Quinn, Riley’s dad (and my ex-husband), made smooching noises
in my direction.

I hoped and prayed Fairlane would happen by
and grab him. He deserved it.

“Keep dreaming,” I said.

He laughed. “I brought you this,” he said,
thrusting a holly plant at me.

This was just like Kevin. I hated holly. Ever
since I was six and my brother Peter convinced me that its berries
were delicious. I was sick for days. He was lucky I ever forgave
him.

“You know I don’t like holly bushes,” I
accused. Kevin and I had been married for seven years before
splitting last May. Every year of which I told him that holly
story.

“Oh.” He blinked not-so-innocent green eyes.
“You don’t? Oops.”

And this was one of the many reasons we were
divorced. I set the plant on the counter. “Really,” I said. “What
are you doing here?”

“Riley called.”

“He did?”

Even though Riley lived with his dad now, he
still spent every other weekend with me. And this was one of those
weekends. I tried not to feel hurt. “Does he want to go home
already?”

“No, not at all,” Kevin said, reading me
perfectly. “He said he wanted to talk to me about Christmastowne.”
The lines on his forehead dipped. “About something weird going on
there?”

“Weird how?” Strange things had been
happening there. The fire alarm sounding every couple of hours,
keys missing, power outages, refrigerators unplugged at the food
court so all the food spoiled, sand sprinkled on the ice skating
rink... Which did he refer to?

Shrugging, Kevin said, “Haven’t got the scoop
yet.” He looked around. “Where is Ry?”

“Upstairs,” I murmured and he turned and
threaded through the crowd.

Weird
. I wondered what Riley had
noticed that he’d want to talk to his dad, a homicide detective,
about.

It had me worried.

Kit unscrewed his flask and poured a little
of the liquid into my cup. “Stop worrying so much.”

“You think you know me so well.”

“I do.” He poured in a little more of the
liquor. “Drink. That whole place is freaking weird. Christmas all
year? Those people should be committed.”

I smiled and sipped my drink. At this point
it was more rum than eggnog. Old high school friends Jenny and
Benny Christmas (honest-to-goodness, those are their real names)
had sunk their life savings into opening Christmastowne, an indoor,
year-round Christmas village. It was supposed to have opened in
early November, but it had been plagued by delays. It finally
opened its doors two weeks ago, a soft open, to work out any kinks,
but the kinks kept on coming.

With the grand opening tomorrow, the place
was bound to be packed. Benny, a former pro football player, had
called in favors from local sports celebrities who promised to make
appearances. There was going to be plenty of media coverage, prize
giveaways, and the lighting of the thirty-foot-tall live Christmas
tree.

Jenny and Benny had hired me to deck the
halls. And even though it wasn’t a job I would normally take on,
the money was too good to pass up. Plus, they were old friends. How
could I say no? Taken by Surprise only had a few last minute
touches before the village opened its doors tomorrow morning.

“I just hope there’s no more trouble
brewing,” I said.

But unfortunately, I was suddenly feeling
that something was bound to go wrong.

Horribly wrong.

Chapter Two

If I never planted another poinsettia again
in my life, it would be too soon.

Slowly, I rose from my kneeling position and
took off my gloves. I looked around in wonder. Christmastowne was a
sight to behold. Jenny and Benny had done the impossible. They’d
created an enormous retail space—three floors of shops and
restaurants—without sacrificing the cozy warmth and spirit of
Christmas. The halls were decked with boughs of holly (including
sprigs from the plant Kevin had given me) and twinkling lights,
soft carols played, and the scent of fir, peppermint, and
gingerbread mingled in the air.

It should have been too much. Christmas
overload. But somehow it wasn’t. It felt magical.

In the grand atrium, I backed up to get a
better look at the tree in all its glory and almost knocked over a
toy donation bin. I set it right and looked upward. The spruce was
a live tree and stood thirty feet tall. The floor around the tree
had been specially crafted to be removed in a few years when the
tree grew too large for the building. An intricate watering system
was in place as well. It had been an incredible design feat by
landscaping engineers and architects to get it done.

Above the tree was a glass snow globe-type
dome that gave the tree plenty of headroom and light to thrive. The
dome’s construction was one of the main reasons the opening of
Christmastowne had been delayed—it had been a snowy year,
especially for this part of Ohio.

“It looks lovely, Nina. What a wonderful job
you did.”

I turned and found Jenny Christmas at my
side. “The whole place is gorgeous.”

Jenny and I had been friends all through high
school at St. Valentine’s, mostly because our names put her
alphabetically behind me in homeroom, hers being Chester and mine
being Ceceri. Somewhere during junior year, she’d started paying
more attention to who was behind
her
, football star Benjamin
(Benny) Christmas, than me. Later that year, he’d asked her to prom
and they’ve been together ever since. She’d followed him to Ohio
State where he’d been chosen for the All-America team twice,
through the draft process, and finally into the NFL, where he
played for the hometown Bengals. When a car accident that broke
nearly every bone in Benny’s body ended his career two years ago,
they decided it was time to follow Jenny’s dream—ever since she met
Benny she’d wanted to open a retail Christmas village one day. They
used his accident settlement as startup money and Christmastowne
was born.

Her bright blue eyes glistened. “It’s been a
dream come true.”

I looked around, soaked in the atmosphere. “I
have a feeling this place is going to be very successful.”

She linked arms with me. “From your
ears...”

Her dark hair cascaded down her back in
waves, and I was happy to note that she didn’t have Mr. Cabrera’s
taste in Christmas fashion. She wore a deep green v-necked wrap
dress that cinched her tiny waist for today’s big celebration.

“Are you nervous?” I asked.

“I’m just glad all the little bugs have been
worked out. I swear if one more thing went wrong, I would think
this place was cursed.”

Personally, I thought it might be, even
if
one more thing didn’t go wrong. I wanted to ask if she’d
ever looked into the history of the land the building sat on. If it
had been a sacred burial ground at some point—or something along
those cursed lines—but I didn’t think now was the best time to
approach that subject.

Beneath heavily layered makeup, I could see
her anxiety in the unsuccessfully hidden dark circles under her
eyes and the lines creasing her eyes. In the past few weeks, she
looked to have aged ten years.

“Everything will work out just—”

My voice was cut off by the shrieking fire
alarm. Sniffing, I picked up another scent in the air. Something
burning.

“Oh no,” Jenny mumbled. “Not again. Glory
Vonderberg might be the best gingerbread artist in the Midwest, but
she has the worst memory. She keeps putting gingerbread in the oven
and forgetting to take them out. This is the third time she set off
the fire alarms this week.”

Ah. So that explained the fire alarms going
off—but not all the other strange stuff happening.

Jenny grabbed my arm. “Come with me, Nina. I
might need someone to hold me back when I talk to her.” Gazing
deeply into my eyes, she said, “Seriously. Can you do that?”