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

  “I don’t think so. Because you know I killed William and Lauren.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t. Did you?”

  Karen was wearing black pants that my grandmother would refer to as “slacks” and a burgundy turtleneck sweater. There was a Christmas wreath brooch pinned to the sweater. No coat. Practical winter weather-resistant boots with slip treads, I was sure. She had a trim figure and a short, sassy haircut that showed off her natural gray. She looked like a librarian, not a murderer.

  “Of course I did. It’s one thing for William to cheat on me after years of being a stingy husband. But then to find out it’s multiple women and he’s flaunting it in front of me at my own agency party? And bought her a diamond bracelet? I saw red.”

  “What were William and Lauren doing?”

  Karen huffed. “It was disgusting. Right there in a closet. They were so busy playing Santa and his reindeer they never even heard me. I was surprised that one blow with a hammer did the trick. Well. It knocked them unconscious then I let Stephen finish the job.”

  I tried not to react too much but I was equal parts ecstatic that she had confessed and terrified that she had confessed. Because, well, murder. “Who is Stephen?” I inched toward the other side of the room hoping to get closer to the front door.

  So much for the neighborhood watch, by the way. A bullet ripped through my picture window and no one noticed? I was going to have to write a strongly worded email.

  “Stephen is my boyfriend. At the time we were just friends and colleagues. Both in the hundred-million-dollar club.”

  Somehow her work success didn’t seem relevant to what we were discussing right now but I wasn’t going to argue with crazy. “I see.” Not really, but keep her talking as opposed to shooting.

  My palms were sweating as I took another baby step, making it beyond the Christmas tree. “I take it that Stephen put the bodies in the slide?”

  Karen nodded. “We left them in the closet until after the party then came back. There are cameras but because I was worried about drinking too much I had a room at the hotel the ballroom was in. It wasn’t odd for me to be in the hallway, using the vending machine.”

  “Wow, you keep really cool under pressure.” Unlike me, who was sweating like a whore in church.

  She shrugged. “You have to in real estate.”

  I don’t really think there is much comparison between a bidding war and bumping off your husband, but I kept my mouth shut. If I knew where my vape was, I would suck half the pod down right now. “Props to you for getting away with it.” Maybe if I complimented her she would leave me alone. Think I was on her side. “What woman hasn’t wanted to kill a cheating partner, am I right?” I sounded like a demented comedienne but I was stalling.

  I wasn’t sure what time it was but Jake would be over soon. We had dinner plans. Just keep her talking. That was my strategy.

  There was a knock on my door.

  “Don’t answer it,” Karen said, snarling.

  “I won’t.” Because I knew it was Jake and that he would probably text me or call me or just turn the knob.

  Which was what he did. The door swung open. Karen turned, gun pivoting with her.

  I grabbed the leg lamp and nailed her as hard as I could with it. I don’t work out and I did dislocate my shoulder back in October but adrenaline gave me extra oomph. My aim was slightly off in that I meant to knock the gun out of her hand but I actually mostly missed her with the lamp while the momentum had me crashing into her. We both stumbled and I screamed, “She has a gun!” in case Jake was a blind cop.

  The lamp smashed on the floor, while I swatted at Karen’s face as we both hit the Christmas tree. It came down on us with a soft thump, followed by the tinkling of two hundred mercury glass ornaments hitting the hardwood floor.

  Fortunately, before I could even get myself out from under an artificial limb, Jake had the gun and Karen secure. Then he lifted the tree off of me while I rolled over onto my back, stunned. Karen was handcuffed to my staircase spindles. She was thrashing around like a toddler having a tantrum over spilled crackers.

  “Honey, I’m home,” Jake said as he put his hand out to haul me to my feet.

  “Hi. I decided to redecorate,” I said breathlessly, shaking my sweater and coat free of ornament shards.

  He swatted my backside to get the rest and shook his head. “You had to break the leg lamp. I feel like you did that on purpose.”

  “I was defending myself from Karen, William’s wife.” William who was MIA, I might add.

  “Of course you were.” Jake shook his head and pulled out his phone, giving me a soft smile. “There are still two other lamps in this room.”

  Because I was relieved he had shown up when he did I smiled back. “I’ll buy you another one. You don’t look shocked to have walked into this situation, by the way.”

  “I’m getting used to you being surrounded by trouble.” Then he spoke into the phone, asking for backup. He pulled the phone slightly away and said to me, “Besides, the 911 dispatcher notified me your neighbor thought she heard a gunshot. The car is already on its way but I was only a couple of minutes from here at the time.”

  I did hear the police sirens in the distance getting closer.

  “Jake, did you know you can see ghosts?” I asked as I realized William and Lauren were both standing in the room behind him.

  “Bailey, what? Not now.” He looked annoyed with me.

  I pointed behind him, knowing what was going to happen. Just as Jake turned, William gave me a wave and disappeared. Lauren followed suit, which gave Jake time to see her Houdini act.

  “What the hell?” Jake rubbed his eyes and swore violently into the phone. Then had to apologize to whoever he was talking to.

  The police came in my front door, which was bad timing.

  But I figured Jake would need time to process what he had just seen.

  I expected the cops to joke about me always causing Jake trouble but they were by the book. I pulled my phone out and played the video, which miraculously I had managed to take, for them.

  They confiscated my phone. Which sucked. A lot.

  Much later, after Jake had put plywood on my window (which really ruined the Christmas vibe) and I had swept up my broken ornaments and the leg lamp remnants, Jake looked at me.

  “I don’t see ghosts.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “We’ll discuss this later.” I was hungry and I did not want to argue.

  “You sound like my mom.”

  I dumped shards in the kitchen trash. “And you sound like my grandmother. Stubborn.”

  Jake tossed the hammer he’d been using down and came into the kitchen. He fished around my liquor cabinet, which didn’t offer much. In the end, he pulled the vodka out of the freezer and poured a healthy shot, which he tossed back. He slammed the glass down with a grimace. Then rubbed his chest.

  “You give me heartburn.”

  “It’s a talent, what can I say?” I went over to him and massaged his temples. “Poor Jake.”

  But he pulled away. “I’m supposed to take care of you, not the other way around.”

  Okay. “And you do, Mr. Man. You take great care of me.”

  “Someone shot a bullet through your picture window.”

  “It was a sixty-five-year-old real estate agent. No one could have predicted that.” But I did open my kitchen junk drawer and pull out my vape and suck on it. “Virginia Slim?” I asked him, holding it out.

  To my total shock he took it and took a drag of nicotine. I snatched it away from him. “You’re not supposed to use it! I can’t corrupt you.”

  He laughed and pulled me into his arms. “Bailey, you do a lot of things to me.”

  Seven

  “You’re making those balls too big,” Grandma Burke said to me.

  My sister giggled, perched on a stool, doing more observing than baking.

  Grandma shot her a glare. “What
’s so funny over there?”

  We were in my kitchen, up to our eyeballs in flour and sugar and eggs. I may have gotten overly ambitious with the cookie baking. It was amateur hour and I was botching it. “Smaller balls. Got it.”

  “They won’t bake right if they’re too big. They’ll be raw in the middle.” Grandma Burke was standing on a stepstool so she could have the right leverage to mix ingredients, given she was barely five feet tall, but watching her stir vigorously on that perch was a little unnerving.

  So as I rolled I kept an eye on her. Jen was claiming she was too pregnant to bake.

  We had Frank Sinatra Christmas music playing and Grandma hummed along as she worked. If it wasn’t for the plywood across my picture window blocking every ounce of light, and my mostly bare Christmas tree, it would be a perfect scene.

  The current cookie situation was raspberry almond done, ginger snaps in the oven, and snow balls in progress. I wanted to do a thumbprint cookie too but that might be overkill. I approached baking the way I did everything—with a plan and a to-do list. Which Grandma had crumpled up and tossed in the trash. She told me cookies were made with heart and a good recipe, not neuroses.

  “Did I ever tell you I see ghosts?” she asked, sprinkling more flour on my quartz countertop.

  I dropped the dough I was rolling. “What? No. Never.”

  “I do. It’s an Irish thing. A lot of the women in our family see ghosts.”

  That might have been nice to know. “I told you before I thought I had a spirit in my house and you never mentioned it.”

  “I didn’t want to brag.”

  Somehow, I doubted that. “So, what, you tell me now? Why?”

  “Because there’s a ghost here.”

  “What?” Jen squeaked. “Grandma, that’s not funny! I’m pregnant!”

  Because ghosts could hurt pregnant women? Not getting the connection.

  “Relax,” Grandma said, while I swiveled in all directions, wondering who this latest spirit was to drop in uninvited.

  Maybe I needed to have a holiday Open House for ghosts so I could get it over with all at once then enjoy Christmas alone with my family and boyfriend.

  But then I felt my heart squeeze when I saw who it was. “Ryan.”

  He was leaning in the doorway, looking at ease, dressed in what he’d been wearing when he had died—a flannel shirt, jeans, and work boots. A familiar grin was on his face. “Hey, Bai. Got any eggnog? Getting booted out of the pearly gates makes a guy thirsty.”

  “You heard him,” Grandma said. “Pour the man a drink.”

  I wasn’t sure if I was sad that he was clearly in trouble on the other side or selfishly grateful to see him again. But I couldn’t even process any of that because Ryan realized what my grandmother had said.

  Ryan started at her words. “You can see me?” he asked her.

  “Of course I can. I’m old, not blind.”

  I pulled out the carton of eggnog. I poured three drinks and slid one to Grandma Burke, and one to Ryan.

  My sister was looking very annoyed. “I can’t drink that, Bailey. It’s alcohol.”

  “I know that, Jen. It’s not for you.”

  My grandmother raised her glass and took a sip.

  I did the same. “Merry Christmas, Ryan.”

  “Merry Christmas, Bai.”

  Now I was really in the holiday spirit. Pun intended.

  The End

  See what’s next for Bailey (and the return of her ghostly sidekick Ryan) in IT’S A GHOST’S LIFE, out in June 2019!

  Also by Erin McCarthy

  Want to read more of Bailey’s ghostly adventures in crime solving?

  MURDER BY DESIGN SERIES

  GONE WITH THE GHOST

  SILENCE OF THE GHOST

  ONCE UPON A GHOST

  HOW THE GHOST STOLE CHRISTMAS

  IT’S A GHOST’S LIFE (June 2019)

  About the Author

  USA Today and New York Times Bestselling author Erin McCarthy sold her first book in 2002 and has since written over seventy novels and novellas in teen fiction, romance, and the mystery genres. Erin has a special weakness for high heels, Frank Sinatra, and martinis. She lives with her husband and their blended family of kids and rescue pets.

  Connect with Erin:

  www.erinmccarthy.net