Free Mall Santa Murder: A Cozy Christmas Mystery (Gemma Stone Cozy Mystery Book 1) by Willow Monroe

year, and they worry,” Gemma said. She realized it was getting easier to talk about losing her parents. At least she didn’t burst into tears at the mention of those dark, dark days. “Overprotective, but they mean well,” Gemma said, walking along beside him.
    “I hate to do this to you, but we might have to make this a short lunch,” Ross said. “Some information just came up and I’m going to have to jump on it pretty quickly.”
    “That’s fine,” Gemma said. “Let’s just eat here in the food court.”
    “Not much to choose from, here,” he said.
    “I don’t mind,” Gemma said, giving him an encouraging smile.
    The food court, if that's what you wanted to call it, was about midway down the east wing and at this time day was pretty much empty. There was a Chinese food place, Hot Wok, a hot dog and bagel shop called Burger Bonanza, a pizza place called Buy the Slice and a Mexican food restaurant with no name. Gemma and Ross stood there for a moment looking around, each waiting for the other to decide.
    “Have you eaten here before?” Ross whispered, as if someone might hear him.
    “Nope,” Gemma said, shaking her head.
    The people at the Hot Wok tried to force samples on them as they passed and then just looked crestfallen when they refused. The pizzas at Buy the Slice looked like they had been there under the hot lamps since before Thanksgiving.
    “How about Mexican?” Ross suggested, walking in that direction.
    Almost immediately, the gentleman who had been holding a clipboard filled with papers behind the counter at Buy the Slice dashed across the food court toward them. He ducked under the little gate and grabbed a sombrero, ready to serve them.
    Ross and Gemma exchanged glances and laughed.
    In the end they settled on Chinese and took their food to one of the tables in the center. At least they were clean, Gemma thought as she sat down across from Ross.
    “I promise that as soon as all this is over, I’ll take you some place nicer than this,” he said, stirring his sesame chicken.
    “I’d like that,” Gemma told him.
    They were quiet for a while and then Gemma asked the question that had been on her mind since he’d shown up at the kiosk looking for her. “So you attended the autopsy this morning?”
    Ross nodded, and wiped a piece of stray broccoli off of her lip with a brown paper napkin. She shivered at his touch. “Nothing really earth shattering there. He was strangled from behind with the wire garland found around his neck. No other trauma, no self-defense wounds, nothing like that.”
    “Which means he likely knew his attacker,” Gemma put in.
    Ross looked a little surprised and then nodded. “His blood alcohol level was through the roof, which we kind of expected.”
    “I watch a lot of CSI,” Gemma said and then asked. “Time of death?”
    “Sometime between seven and nine that morning. He hadn’t been dead long when you found him,” he told her.
    “If I’d come in sooner...”
    “If you’d come in sooner you might have been the one on that autopsy table this morning,” he said quickly.
    Gemma shivered. “It wasn’t random.”
    “No, but you might have been in the way. You might have seen someone or something and murders don’t leave witnesses,” Ross reminded her. “I’ve seen it on TV.”
    Gemma shivered again. Her mother would have said a snake crawled over her grave. She had a feeling it was something else.
    “I’ve reviewed everything from the cameras here at the mall,” he told her.
    “And?”
    He shrugged broad shoulders accentuated by his clothing. “It’s not a very good system. The owner told us his insurance company said he had to have one so he got the cheapest version he could.”
    “I’m not surprised. Sort of like his security guards,” Gemma said, thinking back on Grady Jackson’s behavior after she found the body. He definitely wasn’t a take charge kind of guy. “Did you see anything interesting?”
    “As usual, not much to