Christmas Crackers: A Paranormal Cozy Mystery Collection Read online

  Happy Holidays!

  It’s time to get your jingle bells on and celebrate the holiday season with a whole lot of fun and a little bit of murder with the Christmas Crackers Cozy Mystery Collection.

  This limited-time festive collection of holiday whodunits includes 10 new paranormal cozy mystery novellas from ten of your favorite authors, including:

  Jane Hinchey, Nancy Warren, Patti Larsen, Beth Prentice, Dionne Lister, Kelly Ethan, Maggie Mundy, Christine Bernard, Polly Holmes, and Susanne Becker.

  Happy holiday reading!

  Contents

  Ghost the Halls - Jane Hinchey

  Gingerdead House - Nancy Warren

  Merry Little Mystic Murder - Patti Larsen

  The Hollyday Spirit - Beth Prenctice

  Christmissing in Westerham - Dionne Lister

  Cookies, Curses and Christmas Corpses - Kelly Ethan

  Magic & Mayhem at Mistletoe Manor - Maggie Mundy

  Coffee, Carols & Curses - Christine Bernard

  A Killer Christmas List - Polly Holmes

  Jingle Bells Cracker Spells - Susanne Becker

  © Jane Hinchey 2020

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act of 1968, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Editing & Proofreading: Marcia Batton, Lilly Rayman, Dana Busenbark, Misty Spencer, Fleur Wilkinson, Lisa Harris

  Cover & Graphics Designer: Baywolf Book Covers

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  For Dad…

  Who always believed in me.

  I wish you were here to see this.

  Where it fits

  GHOST THE HALLS can be read as a stand-alone, but chronologically it fits between THE GHOST IS CLEAR and A GHOST OF A CHANCE… Enjoy!

  GHOST THE HALLS

  Christmas at the lake house is stringing lights and searching for the perfect tree. It’s the one time of the year when the entire Fitzgerald clan squeeze together under one roof, trying to outdo each other in the goofy gift department. After a hectic year, I’m looking forward to kicking back, eating too much, and doing nothing more strenuous than wrapping gifts with festive bows.

  Should have known that was too much to ask for when neighbor and old friend, Henry Peterson, turns up dead, face down in the snow decked out in a Santa suit.

  Henry was a perfectly pleasant middle-aged man. That is until the holiday season hits, and he embraces all things Saint Nick with unbridled enthusiasm. I’d never given Henry much thought, other than to admire his Griswold inspired decorating efforts and predilection for ugly holiday sweaters. Was that reason enough to want him dead? I highly doubted it. Donning my PI hat, I’m soon knee-deep in snow and suspects, determined to find out whodunnit.

  Before I can say deck the halls, my family, whose help some may consider a hindrance, insist on being in on the investigation, my boyfriend, aka Captain Cowboy Hot Pants is in cahoots with my mom, my ghostly best friend receives an unexpected gift, and I need to find who killed Kris Kringle before another body drops.

  Enjoy this Christmas edition novella of the Ghost Detective Mysteries featuring private investigator Audrey Fitzgerald, a ghost, a talking cat, and a smoking hot detective.

  Chapter One

  There’s something about a crisp December morning, fresh snow painting the landscape a sea of white, the scent of pine from the garishly decorated tree in the corner, dead Santa on the sofa. I blew the steam from my coffee and cradled it between my palms as I padded over and sank into an armchair, staring into the flames that danced in the fireplace, the odd crackle and pop the only sound breaking the silence.

  Dawn was the only time I got a moment’s peace from my crazy family, who were currently asleep upstairs. Every Christmas, we all piled into our respective cars to spend the holidays at the lake house. Squeezed in under one roof. Every year I vowed that year would be my last, and I’d be the ungrateful child who broke the tradition. And every year, I failed, dutifully turning up, gag gifts in tow.

  “How you doing, Henry?” I finally acknowledged dead Santa, who was staring into the flames dancing in the fireplace. He glanced my way.

  “Oh, hey, Audrey. Good to see you.”

  “You too, Henry. So… what’s up?” I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, but at this angle, in this light, it looked like Santa, aka Henry, had been shot.

  Henry Peterson was our lake house neighbor, and if I thought my mom loved the holiday season, she had nothing on Henry. He was obsessed. He put Clark Griswold to shame with his light display—his cabin was covered, and I mean covered, in fairy lights. There were inflatable Santa’s, plastic Santa’s, wire Santa’s. There were snowmen and reindeer and candy canes. Henry had it all, and then some.

  Henry was also dead. This was a new development, for when we’d arrived at the lake house yesterday, Henry had been very much alive. He’d been out front, righting a Christmas Elf that had toppled over near his mailbox. He’d given us a wave and called out a hearty greeting, asking if he’d see us at the Christmas Eve concert. He and his best friend, Ken Porter, were tag-teaming playing Santa, just like they did every year.

  I sighed. His death would have a huge impact on the lake community. Henry was much loved and would be sadly missed, but my number one priority was finding out exactly what had happened to him – and to get him off the sofa before one of my family members came downstairs and caught me talking to a ghost. So far, I’d managed to keep my spirit speaking abilities hidden from them, but piled together in one house was going to be challenging in more ways than one.

  “It’s the darndest thing,” Henry said.

  “What’s that?”

  “I can’t feel the heat from the fire.”

  Ahh. Henry didn’t know he was dead. This was my least favorite part. Where was Ben when I needed him? He was much better at dealing with the recently departed than I am.

  Ben is the ghost of my best friend, and, due to some dodgy attempt at spell casting from his killer, his spirit had somehow become attached to me, giving me not only the ability to see and speak to ghosts, but also talk to his cat, Thor. Both of which were noticeably absent this freezing December morning. Thor was no doubt curled up in bed with my boyfriend, Detective Kade Galloway. Let’s not get into my family’s reaction to me bringing along a guest to our annual Christmas camp out. Let’s just say it’s a first and leave it at that.

  And Ben? He could be anywhere. He flits around, usually crashing in on neighbors to see who is watching what on television. Sometimes he spends time with his dad in the aged care facility. William Delaney is suffering from Alzheimer’s, and after Ben’s death, not only did I inherit everything Ben owned, I also became responsible for his father.

  Turning my attention back to Henry, I asked, “what’s the last thing you remember?”

  He looked at me
oddly. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what’s the last thing you remember doing?”

  “Well, I…” he trailed off. “I don’t remember coming here, for one thing.”

  “No?” I took a sip of coffee, scalding my tongue. “What were you doing then? You’re in your Santa costume.”

  He looked at the bright red pants and ran his palms down the worn fabric. “Yes. I am.” A smile curled his lips. “Ken and I are playing Santa again this year.”

  Ken was not only Henry’s best friend but his other neighbor. The elderly gentlemen were two peas in a pod. Same, same, but different. Similar builds, but where Henry had a head of thick white hair, Ken was bald. But put them in a Santa suit with a red hat and fake beard, and you couldn’t tell them apart. Ken was going to be devastated at Henry’s death.

  “Right. At the concert tonight.” I nodded and then glanced at my watch. “It’s not even six a.m. A little early to get into costume, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, I wear this around the house all the time.” Henry grinned, his eyes sparkling. His hand settled on to his round belly. That’s when his smile slipped. “What’s this?” Frowning, he poked a finger through the bullet hole in his suit. “Darn it,” he muttered, “now I’m going to have to get this fixed. I don’t even know how I managed to rip a hole in it, right at the front like this? And it’s stained! Is that sauce?”

  I leaned forward and placed my coffee cup on the table. “Henry, there’s something you need to know.”

  He didn’t glance up from examining his damaged Santa suit. “Hmmm? What’s that?”

  “You’re dead.”

  He froze. Then his head snapped up, and his blue eyes narrowed as he stared at me. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times, but no words came out.

  “Nice one, Fitz,” Ben drawled from behind me, startling me so bad I yelped and nearly threw myself out of the armchair.

  “Ben,” I hissed, “how many times do I have to ask you not to sneak up on me?”

  “Dozens. But I’m pretty sure you have bigger problems right now. Like the dead Santa on your sofa?”

  “That’s Henry. Our lake house neighbor.”

  “Yeah, well, Henry isn’t looking so good.”

  “Ben,” I scolded, “he’s dead. Of course, he doesn’t look good!”

  Henry suddenly shot to his feet and headed for the door.

  “Uh oh, we’ve got a runner,” Ben took off after him, the pair of them passing right through the back door.

  “Guys! Wait up!” Damn it. Hurrying after them, I stopped to pull on boots, coat, hat, and scarf over my PJs before opening the door and stepping outside. Who would have thought on Christmas Eve I’d be running around at dawn chasing two ghosts?

  Chapter Two

  Outside, the air was cold enough to freeze my lungs. Puffs of white clouded in front of me with each breath, and despite my warm coat, I could feel the cold of winter nipping at me. Stomping across the back porch, I had one foot on the top stair, my eyes scanning the horizon for any sign of the two ghosts when my foot slipped out from under me, and I shot down the stairs, thump, thump, thump, before landing on my butt in a pile of snow at the bottom.

  “Ow.” Clambering to my feet, I dusted off the snow, thankful for the relatively soft landing and the padding my coat provided on the journey down. My butt was bruised, but I’d had worse.

  Glancing up at the house, I checked the windows for movement, hoping I hadn’t woken anyone. Although, to be honest, they were used to my spills and accidents. Audrey Accident Prone Fitzgerald is my name, and tripping, falling, and dropping things, is my game. I shivered, but not with the cold. If my sister-in-law, Amanda, had seen that spill, I’d never hear the end of it. Amanda is a very intelligent, beautiful, perfect wife to my brother and mother to his children. And she is on a never-ending quest to fix me. Only I’m not broken. Just clumsy.

  Boots crunching on the snow, I made my way around the side of the house, raising my hand to shield my eyes from the glare of the sun. No sign of Ben or Henry. Assuming Henry had hightailed it home, I headed towards his place, cutting across the rear of both properties. While we were neighbors, Henry’s cabin was nothing like our six-bedroom house. Two stories, plus attic, everything was large. A ten-seater table, a massive modular sofa, a kitchen you could fit a football team in. Henry’s entire cabin would fit in our lower floor. But then it was just Henry. He was a widower with no children. He had no need for the massive amount of space the Fitzgerald clan necessitated.

  Climbing up his back steps, I stopped when I noticed the back door was ajar, the huge Christmas wreath catching the early morning sun and glinting, belying the tragedy that had befallen Henry.

  “Ben?” I hissed, creeping across the porch and pushing the door with one gloved finger. It swung in without a sound, and I cautiously stepped over the threshold. It was cold inside, the fire had long since gone out, which told me Henry had been dead for a while, and with the back door ajar, the frigid outside air had quickly taken hold of the cabin.

  “Ben!” I hissed again a little louder then stopped to listen. Nothing. Nothing but silence. A silence so eerie a shiver ran down my spine, and the fine hairs on my arms stood on end. Then I noticed the state of Henry’s cabin. Now Henry may be a single man living alone, but he was no slob. He was a retired school teacher, and I’d sat at his table enjoying a hot chocolate many times, so there was no way he’d let his cabin get into such a state. Cushions were tossed on the floor, books had been turfed off the bookshelf, kitchen drawers and cupboard doors stood ajar. The cabin had been ransacked.

  “Oh, Henry, what did you stumble into?” Someone had been here, that much was obvious, and they were clearly searching for something. The question is, what? I stuck my head in the downstairs half bath that doubled as a laundry room. Empty. Then hurried upstairs, checked the bedroom and bath. No sign of ghost Henry nor his mortal body. So he hadn’t been killed here.

  Back outside, I searched the snow for tracks, but there had been fresh snowfall overnight and the only footprints showing were mine. I stood on Henry’s porch and peered out toward the lake. No sign of Ben or Henry. Which left the woods to the right. Heaving a sigh, I trudged through the snow, working up a sweat as I made my way into the woods, the enormous trees draped in white casting eerie shadows.

  I followed the path from memory. A track that wove through the woods to a secluded cove that overlooked the lake, no houses or docks, just nature at its finest. Henry and Ken often fished there, as kids, Laura, Dustin and I had often camped out here. Close enough to home to be able to return if we got scared, but far enough away that we thought we were entirely without parental supervision.

  Another three minutes of slogging through the snow, I burst into the clearing, wheezing for breath. I caught sight of Ben, who stood with his hand on Henry’s shoulder. Both of them were looking at something on the ground… it didn’t take a genius to figure out what that was.

  “Hey,” I puffed, joining them.

  “Hey,” Ben said solemnly. “He was shot.” He indicated Henry’s body. I took a peek. Although not squeamish, I didn’t relish at looking at dead bodies either. Especially when they were someone I knew.

  Sure enough, Henry was splayed on his back, eyes open and unseeing, staring up at the sky. Only it had snowed, so now he was half-covered in white powder. But the blood that had stained the snow red was unmistakable.

  “So, he was facing the lake when he was shot.” I pointed out across the frozen water. From where I stood, I could just see the woods on the other side. “Had to have been someone on the ice, it’s way too far for the shooter to have been on land.” And the way Henry’s body was positioned, he’d toppled backward when he was hit. The shot was straight to the heart, he’d have died instantly, which was little consolation, but I guess it was better than being wounded and then freezing to death.

  “Not necessarily,” Ben said, squinting as the morning sun hit the ice at just the right angle to send millions of
refractions of light cutting through the air. “A rifle with a decent scope could probably do it.”

  “You think a hunter mistook him for a deer?” I was skeptical. Henry’s Santa suit was pretty hard to miss. It was unlikely he’d been mistaken for a wild animal.

  Ben snorted. “Unlikely, Fitz.”

  “Murder then.” Poor Henry. Who would want to kill him? He was one of the nicest people I’d ever met. Warm, generous, kind. He loved the lake community he lived in. I found it hard to imagine someone had such a beef with him that they wanted him dead.

  “Henry, any recollection of what you were doing out here?” I asked. Ghost Henry shook himself out of the stupor he’d slipped into and came to stand by my side, keeping his back to the body on the ground.

  “I walk here most afternoons,” he said. “Sometimes, I stop and toss a few pebbles across the ice.”

  “To see how solid it is?” I asked.

  “Nah, just for fun,” he grinned. “See how far they’ll slide.”

  “And you did that yesterday afternoon?”

  “Yeah, I think so. I remember standing there, watching as a pebble slid all the way out. I had my hand up over my eyes, the sun sure can be blinding with all this snow and ice to reflect off.”

  “Did you see anyone on your walk? Notice anything?”

  “Not a soul. Not many folks are big on walking during winter.” He’d mimicked holding his hand up to shield his eyes, but a look flashed across his face as he dropped his arm. “I remember seeing a flash. Like the sun was glinting off a mirror or something. From the woods on the other side.”