“No, I mean suspect,” I correct.
“Too bad, because there’s your mark.” She nods ahead, and my stomach drops faster than Santa down a chimney.
Through the crowd, I spot Loretta Spaghetti dripping all over the keeper of the crypt, Lorenzo “Enzo” Bianchi. She’s wearing a red coat that probably costs more than my car, while her arm is hooked possessively through his as if she’s afraid someone might steal her elderly meal ticket.
Enzo looks surprisingly spry for a man who’s been on this earth since the invention of the wheel, with his designer suit visible beneath a purple cashmere overcoat that screams, “I have more money than taste.”
“Well, that’s disturbing on multiple levels,” I mutter, watching Loretta plant a kiss on Enzo’s wrinkled cheek.
“It’s like watching a vulture cuddle with its dinner,” Niki observes.
“Maybe she just really likes prunes,” I suggest.
“Or simply needs a bank account to prune,” Niki counters.
“Cooper is going to lose his mind when he finds out I’ve been assigned to...retirehis potential brother-in-law,” I whisper, making sure a passerby can’t hear.
“You could always claim temporary insanity brought on by excessive exposure to peppermint and tinsel,” Niki offers with a shrug.
I’m about to respond when I spot a woman with auburn hair moving purposefully through the festival, clipboard in hand, directing vendors with the efficiency you could only get with some serious practice.
“That’s her,” I whisper to Niki. “That’s Holly Bellini.”
Holly moves from booth to booth like a Christmas-themed drill sergeant. But she pauses at The Waxing Poetic candle-making booth, where visitors are dipping string into colored wax to create layered tapers and it looks as if they’re pouring custom scents into festive molds. Holly makes notes on her clipboard while instructing the vendor about proper display techniques.
“Let’s go introduce ourselves,” I say.
As we start toward the candle booth where Holly is now checking her watch with an impatient frown, I can’t help but notice her perfect posture and composed expression. She’s clearly someone who thrives on control—which makes me wonder just how far she’d go when someone threatens to derail one of her perfectly orchestrated festivals or her perfectly orchestratedlife.
Maybe the Jingle Bell Jubilee’s Santa wasn’t the only thing about to get snuffed out that night.
And I’m about to find out.
CHAPTER 6
The scent of cinnamon apples, pine forest, and something called Santa’s Secret wafts through the air as Niki and I approach The Waxing Poetic candle-making booth.
A canvas tent houses the entire operation, its interior glowing with golden light that spills onto the snowy ground around it. Tiny white twinkle lights intertwine around the entrance poles, creating a fairytale gateway to what appears to be a Christmas candle wonderland.
The booth is brimming with women, all of whom hunt and peck through the wares as if these were the most sought-after gifts on their lists. And seeing that they smell like heaven, they just might be.
Inside, Holly Bellini stands with her back perfectly straight and a clipboard clutched to her chest like a shield. She looks like a perfectionistic to a fault, impeccably dressed in over-the-top Christmas attire that makes her look like the lovechild of Mrs. Claus and a department store window display. Her red and green plaid blazer is adorned with actual jingle bells at the cuffs, and a brooch shaped like a Christmas tree—complete with tiny working lights—winks from her lapel. Her auburn hair is styledin a sleek bob that doesn’t dare move in the winter breeze, and her sharp features remind me of one of those Instagram filters that makes everyone look like they could slice cheese with their cheekbones.
A woman near the front is speaking to a group, and it appears there’s a candle-making class in full swing—which would explain the dozens of women gathered around wooden tables scattered with jars of wax, fragrance oils, and festive molds shaped like Christmas trees, stars, and Santa’s face. Red and green candles in various stages of completion litter the workspace, while finished products gleam from display shelves in the shape of candy cane striped tapers, gold-dusted pillars, and Mason jars filled with layers of holiday-scented wax.
The woman wearing a holly-patterned apron demonstrates how to properly center a wick in a snowman mold and her audience is rapt at attention as if she was revealing the secret location of Santa’s workshop rather than basic candle-making techniques.
“Ooh, that looks fun. I’m making one, too,” Niki says, already drifting toward an empty seat at the table. “Not only can I get a gift knocked off my list, but I can learn a thing or two about hot wax.”
“Why do you care about hot wax?” I ask, genuinely curious—and let’s face it—concerned.
Niki gives me a look that suggests I’ve been living under a rock—specifically, a rock without internet access. “Everyone knows hot wax and hot men go hand-in-hand. Didn’t they teach you anything at that fancy school of yours?”
“Apparently not.” That fancy school would be the hoity-toity university I still owe some serious cash to even though that job in the tech industry left me high and dry. If I had known it was my destiny to sling both bullets and buttercream, I would haveskipped higher education and jumped straight into stripping. The tips would have covered at least a semester.
Niki nods at me. “Try to act surprised when you open one of these beauties come Christmas, would you?” She takes off for the demonstration and I boot-scoot my way to the lady of the hour.
Holly is busy checking something off on her clipboard as her red-lacquered nails tap against the paper with the precision of a metronome. She doesn’t even notice me until I’m practically breathing down her holiday-clad neck.
