Free Mayhem in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Christmas River Cozy, Book 2) by Meg Muldoon Page B

flower shop down the street from Cinnamon’s Pies .
    Valley looked at me and rolled her eyes.
    I nodded at her appreciatively.
    Sarah cleared her throat.
    “Anyway, she ’s going to be taking over the role of Mrs. Claus. And if we all make sure to do our part these next few days, then I’m sure Christmas River in July is going to be the same kind of smashing success it has been in past years.”
    The actors half-heartedly clapped. I suddenly realized they’d been putting up with Sarah’s nonsense for the past month, and judging from their faces, they were all sick of her.
    I took that opportunity to quickly scan the group, looking for anyone who might look suspicious or guilty of something. But nothing stood out about any of them. They were mostly middle-aged women. A few of them I recognized as teachers at the high school. The others worked at various offices or owned their own businesses.
    They were just about as harmless as a quilting club.  
    The group broke up, taking their places on the stage. I stayed in the auditorium seat, where I planned on finding out what warranted an entire forest being annihilated in the name of the Christmas River in July script.
    I pored over the pages while some of the actors rehearsed their lines up on stage.
    The play had been written by Sarah, and even if her name hadn’t been splashed across the front page in the same large font as the name of the play itself, it was easy to tell it was her work. Mrs. Claus was a slave-driving old hag who liked to squash all the fun that Santa and the elves were having in the Christmas off-season. Santa just wanted to lie out in the sun and get a tan, but Mrs. Claus kept putting him to work. It was supposed to be funny, but the jokes fell flat. At least on the page. 
    “Don’t let her get under your skin,” a voice suddenly said from behind me.
    I must have jumped six feet up in the air. I lost my grip on the script, and it hit the cold auditorium floor with a thud.
    I turned around. Behind me was a man with a thick white beard, bushy eyebrows, and smiling eyes.
    It was Old St. Nick himself.
    And when Ronald Reinhart wasn’t busy being Santa, or being a high school principal, he was Sarah Reinhart’s husband.
    “She doesn’t mean anything by it. She just… she likes when things are done her way.”
    “I guess my name isn’t part of her way ,” I said.
    “The best thing to do is just laugh it off,” he said, winking. “That woman’s all bark and no bite anyway.”
    Just at that moment, Sarah, who was sitting at the end of the row, gave us a dirty look before putting her finger to her mouth and shushing us loudly.
    “Well, I can’t say I like her bark much,” I whispered. “But I’m glad at least that Mr. Claus isn’t that way.”
    He smiled at me, and then I went back to skimming the pages of the script.
    I didn’t know if I had it in me to be the Mrs. Claus that Sarah Reinhart wanted me to be, but I was going to have to do my best.
    Because as I sat there in that overheated auditorium, reading through the script and watching the actors up on stage, I was suddenly struck with a feeling.
    I couldn’t rightly say where the feeling came from, but it was one of those gut intuition feelings that my mother had always told me never to ignore.
    And it was telling me that there was something here that would help us figure out who was responsible for the fire at Kara’s store.
    I just knew it.
    And that was why I was just going to have to put up with Sarah Reinhart’s obnoxious bark.
     

Chapter 22
     
    After a grueling rehearsal, I was glad to get out of that stuffy auditorium. The fresh night air felt good in my lungs.
    I drove over to Kara’s house and tried to drop off a cherry pie. But when I got there, the house was dark and nobody answered. I texted her, but got no response.
    I figured John had somehow managed to pry her from the recliner, and they were probably at his house.
    I took the pie back with me. Warren would