Free Murder With All the Trimmings by Elaine Viets Page B

your permission. He’s my father.” Tears leaked out of Amelia’s eyes. Amelia’s fists were clenched and her jaw had that stubborn bulldog look she got from her grandmother. “You’re just jealous because Daddy has money and you don’t.”
    Her words were a knife in Josie’s heart. Was she jealous? Maybe. A little. Okay, a lot. “Amelia, I know you’re happy that your father came to see you, but he doesn’t get his money from a regular job. He sells drugs. The same drugs that killed your friend Zoe’s sister.”
    “Liar,” Amelia said. “He’d never do that. He’s not dead and you said he was. Now you say he’s a drug dealer. Daddy would never sell drugs.”
    “He has. He does. Until he gets an honest job, you can’t have his money.”
    “Liar! Liar! You’re just saying that because you’re jealous.” Amelia marched into her room and slammed her door so hard the house shook. Josie followed her down the hall. Somehow, she’d lost all moral advantage over her daughter. Josie was a liar and Amelia knew it. Worse, Amelia rubbed Josie’s nose in her lies.
    “Open this door, young lady.”
    “Go to hell,” Amelia cried. “That’s where liars go.”
    Josie rattled the handle. The door wasn’t locked. She threw open the door so hard, the handle buried itself in the plaster wall behind the door.
    Amelia sat cross-legged on her bed, biting her lips to keep from smiling.
    “Say something,” Josie said.
    “You broke the wall, Mom,” Amelia said.
    Josie walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. She was too afraid to answer.

Chapter 10

    Each year, Alyce waited for Christmas with a child’s delight. She decked the halls, the walls, and the lawn. She unpacked her mother’s antique ornaments and brought out her own Christmas china. Mistletoe hung in the doorway. Artfully arranged holly, pinecones, and poinsettias brightened tables. Swags of evergreen draped the stair railings.
    Alyce had every kind of ornament—except Doreen’s pornaments.
    Alyce’s house smelled like cinnamon for the entire month of December. She made cookies, fruitcakes, and pomander balls out of cloves, oranges, and green velvet ribbons. Christmas morning was a feast, with cranberry bread, spicy gingerbread logs, fruit stollen, shirred eggs with red and green peppers, and a spiral-sliced ham. Dinner included a crown roast and a flaming plum pudding. Just hearing about Alyce’s holiday plans made Josie feel like she’d walked into a Gourmet magazine spread.
    “I love Christmas stores,” Alyce said. “Maybe I can pick up some new ornaments.”
    “Where are you going to hang them?” Josie asked. “Every inch of your tree is covered already.”
    “There’s always room for new ornaments,” Alyce said. “Justin is at the grab-and-chew stage. I can’t put any of my mother’s handblown glass ornaments on the lower branches where he can reach them. Oh, this place is so cute.”
    Elsie’s Elf House looked like a fairy-tale cottage, right down to the thatched roof.
    “Are those real kittens peeking out of that thatch?” Alyce asked.
    Josie stood on tiptoe for a closer look. “They’re plastic, just like the thatch,” she said.
    Josie opened the holly-wreathed door. Bells jingled merrily, and they could hear the tinkling wind-chime sound of hundreds of ornaments twirling on their gold ribbons. “White Christmas” oozed out of the speakers, sweet and smooth as eggnog.
    “This is lovely,” Alyce said, her eyes as wide as a child’s on Christmas Day. Even in the cramped store, Alyce managed her odd floaty walk. Her silky white-blond hair shone in the soft light.
    She browsed the ornaments and bought simple stuffed cotton ones for the lower branches of her tree. They were pretty, practical, and not destined for heirloom status. Justin could grab and chew them all he wanted.
    Josie asked the clerk to take down six different ornaments from the displays, as her mystery-shopping instructions required, before she