Carnage at the Christmas Party, page 1
Carnage at the Christmas Party:
A Mystery Novella
(Book two in the Windy Pines Mystery Series)
by Holly Tierney-Bedord
Table of Contents
Title Page
Also by Holly Tierney-Bedord
See Holly’s complete list of books here.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2 | Several weeks earlier
Chapter 3 | Later that evening
Chapter 4 | Tuesday, November 15
Chapter 5 | Later that day
Chapter 6 | Wednesday, November 16
Chapter 7 | Later that evening
Chapter 8 | Monday, November 21
Chapter 9 | Thursday, November 24 ~ Thanksgiving
Chapter 10 | Later that day
Chapter 11 | Monday, November 28
Chapter 12 | Later that day
Chapter 13 | Tuesday, November 29
Chapter 14 | Sunday, December 4
Chapter 15 | Later that day
Chapter 16 | Monday, December 5
Chapter 17 | Later in the day
Chapter 18 | Friday night, December 9
Chapter 19 | Saturday, December 10
Chapter 20 | Monday, December 12
Chapter 21 | Tuesday, December 13
Chapter 22 | Wednesday, December 14
Chapter 23 | Thursday, December 15
Chapter 24 | Saturday, December 17
Chapter 25 | Later that evening
Chapter 26 | Later that evening
Chapter 27 | Even later that evening
Chapter 28 | Several weeks later
See Holly’s complete list of books here.
Enjoy the following free sample of Murder at Mistletoe Manor: | Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Also by Holly Tierney-Bedord
Bellamy’s Redemption
Coached
Murder at Mistletoe Manor: A Mystery Novella (Book one in the Windy Pines Mystery Series)
Right Under Your Nose: A Christmas Story
Ring in the New Year
Run Away Baby
The Snowflake Valley Advice Fairy
Sunflowers and Second Chances
Surviving Valencia
Sweet Hollow Women
The Woman America Loves a Latte
Little Miss Eyes of Blue
The Port Elspeth Jewelry Making Club
Weekend Immune System
Wrestling with Romance
The Worst Couple in the World
I Will Follow Him (Oceanic Dreams series)
Love, Pinky Bean
The Miraculous Power of Butter Cookies
Dogged by Love
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be shared, stored, or reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
If you received this book from any unauthorized source, please be aware that you’re accepting stolen property.
Cover design by Holly Tierney-Bedord, featuring artwork licensed from Adobe Stock.
Carnage at the Christmas Party: A Mystery Novella,
by Holly Tierney-Bedord
copyright © 2016 by Holly Tierney-Bedord.
All rights reserved.
Excerpt from Murder at Mistletoe Manor: A Mystery Novella, including floorplan of Mistletoe Manor, copyright © 2016 by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.
Excerpt from I Will Follow Him,
copyright © 2019 by Holly Tierney-Bedord. All rights reserved.
See Holly’s complete list of books here.
Sign up for Holly’s eNewsletter to receive first looks, and exclusive discounts, writing tips, short stories, and news!
Chapter 1
HE WAS DOING HIS BEST to explain what he’d seen, but she didn’t want to listen. Funny, because if anyone should be interested, it was her.
Women. Who could say what made them tick? This one, for instance, with her perfectly applied fake eyelashes and red lipstick. She seemed like the type who’d care about the details, yet here she was, brushing him away. Dismissing him. And with each wave of her hand, the sweet, mocking scent of gardenias wafting past.
For a moment he thought she’d told him to shut up, but he must have misheard. She wouldn’t speak like that, not to him. They barely knew each other. And even if she had a reason to be upset with him, she wouldn’t use such crass words. She was too classy. Abrasive, yes, but still a class-act.
He was going to give up for now. Walk away. But this frustrating miscommunication couldn’t be left hanging.
“Did you catch what I said?” he asked again, straining to be heard over the thundering music. He enunciated the words, irrationally thinking that if she couldn’t hear him, maybe she could read his lips. As dark as it was, that was futile as well.
He turned, deciding that he’d embarrassed himself enough. What was it about trying to communicate and missing the mark that was so humiliating?
He began to cut across the crowded room, when out of the corner of his eye, he saw a body stagger forward with a clumsy jolt. The woman landed on the floor just a few feet to his left. He stopped in his tracks, went to her, and knelt down. He was trying to make sense of what had happened to her. The music was too deafening for him to think.
“Are you okay? Did you trip?” he asked. He put his hand on her shoulder and felt the unexpected slipperiness of liquid on skin. Perplexed, he told himself it was oil. Baby oil. Olive oil. Mineral oil. Some kind of oil women used, like lotion. Lots of it.
“Are you okay?” he asked again, since she hadn’t responded to him. She was another woman he couldn’t reach. It occurred to him that perhaps he’d become invisible. Maybe he was ceasing to even exist. He patted his own face then, needing to be reunited with its solid, familiar contours, and he felt then that the oil had become sticky. Now he couldn’t deny that it was blood.
A split-second later, he felt the impact on the back of his neck—one hard, solid blow. Strong enough to propel him forward onto his face and to make him forget anyone else’s problems. I can’t breathe, he realized, as his lungs filled with blood and his gasps synced with the pulsing rhythm of the music.
Chapter 2
Several weeks earlier
CHARLOTTE SMYTH WAS looking out the breakroom window, admiring the quaint mountain village of Windy Pines, Idaho, and momentarily forgetting to hate her job, when she heard that dread-inducing, familiar stomp of her boss Shane Letcher.
“Charlotte! There you are! In my office. Now.”
“Yes, Mr. Letcher. Just as soon as I get this last turkey taped to the window.” She tore a piece of tape from the dispenser; the other eighteen windows of the massive breakroom each had a paper turkey stuck precisely in the center, just as Shane had instructed. She hated to leave the last one undone.
“I said now. As in, right now.”
“Be right there,” sighed Charlotte, setting the Thanksgiving decoration and roll of tape down on the nearest lunch table, and following him.
“Close the door and have a seat,” said Shane when Charlotte stepped into his office.
“What’s up, Sir?” she asked him, after she’d settled into the chair across from his desk.
“What’s up? What’s up is that we need to have a progress report. A moment of reckoning. It’s been a month since you started here, right?”
“Not yet.”
“Oh really? Let me see about that...” Shane Letcher consulted the calendar on his desk while he scratched at his red, goateed face.
Charlotte hadn’t worked at O’Leery Snowboards for long, but she’d already learned that disagreeing with her boss rarely worked in her favor. She was terrible at biting her tongue, though.
“It seems more like two and a half weeks,” she hinted, giving him her friendliest smile.
“According to my calendar here,” said Shane, looking at the wrong date, “you’ve been here a month. You’ve had plenty of time to get settled in. Wouldn’t you say?”
“Time has simply... flown by,” said Charlotte.
“It’s flown by, you say? That’s good to hear. But maybe it’s flying because you’re not putting in enough effort? Maybe you’re going with the flow a little too much? Hmm? You think?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
Shane sighed, picked up his big plastic mug, and took a drink of the homemade protein shake he was always mixing up for himself in the breakroom. Charlotte wiped up the pink strawberry powder at least four times a day.
“With you here as our O’Leery Snowboards Spreader of Cheer,” said Shane, “I’d think we’d be feeling an improvement around here, but the employees look as depressed as ever. People who work at a snowboard factory should be cool. They should be exciting and awesome and fun. Right? Right? Shouldn’t they?”
“Well,” Charlotte began.
“Hmmmph?” Shane asked, his mouth now full of a bite of ham sandwich. He brought a few of the stinky, mayonnaise covered monstrosities from home each day and could be found chomping on them at the strangest times, like when he was walking out of the restroom or heading up a meeting.
“I thought I was doing pretty well,” Charlotte said. “For instance, Sir, I’ve almost got all those turkey decorations up in the breakroom, and there are pilgrim napkins in all the napkin holders, just like you suggested. Viva Thanksgiving!”
“It’s not enough,” said Shane.
“I’ve got Kanye West’s music playing in the restrooms, like you told me to do.”
“What else have you accomplished, Char?”
“I’m pretty sure no one calls me that, Sir.”
“Charrrr letttttt. What else have you accomplished?”
“Employees’ sleep mats are on their way. They should arrive by this Thursday, so working sixty hours a week won’t feel so daunting any longer, since now everyone can sleep beneath their desks and skip going home at night.”
“Good idea, right?” said Shane, smiling to himself.
“Better than falling asleep at the wheel, I suppose.”
“Not a bad list, but all things that I could have knocked out in an afternoon,” said Shane. “What about the team building exercises? Have you gotten those scheduled?”
“Yes. Everyone’s been informed they need to come in at seven o’clock Sunday morning for a potato sack race.”
“Now we’re talking!”
“So, anyway, I’m nearly to the bottom of your list already.”
“But it’s taken you a month!” said Shane. He took another big gulp of his protein shake and wiped away the pink mustache with the back of his hand.
“Not to be contrary, Sir, but I’m pretty sure I started here on October twenty-sixth.”
“I don’t think so. And if there’s one thing I hate, it’s a woman who argues. Can’t you be agreeable?”
“Sure! Of course I can,” said Charlotte.
“Did you stock the breakroom cupboards with cheezy-bits and pretzel rods?”
“Yes. And I put jars of chewy vitamins out like you asked me to. What a great idea,” she gushed, as agreeably as possible. “They’re disappearing like change left in an office desk drawer. The entire company looks healthier thanks to those gummy vitamins.”
“I knew that was a good idea. Again, though, you’re just putting my own great ideas into motion. I could have done this myself for free, if I wasn’t so busy.”
Charlotte couldn’t help but scan his office when he said that. A game of Rapid Fire Bloinko was open on his computer screen, with the words LEVEL EIGHTY-SEVEN flashing. A stack of hunting and fishing magazines were open on his desk, with things he planned to purchase for his next big game trip circled in red magic marker. Behind him gurgled a saltwater fish tank whose residents he spent about forty-five minutes a day talking baby-talk to. The guitar he was trying to learn to play rested beside a mini potted palm tree weighted down with Mardi Gras beads.
“You’re busy,” Charlotte agreed.
“I ask myself every day, why’d we hire you?” Shane continued. “I expected so much more by now. You told me you had experience with party planning.”
“I do, Sir! As we discussed in my interview, I worked in Boise as the Pembrooke Country Club wedding and event planner for over three years! I turned that place around! We never had so many successful weddings and events!”
“I don’t know,” said Shane. “I’m getting concerned that you’re not edgy enough. Not smart enough. Incapable of abstract thought. Not able to think outside the box.”
“I’m smart,” said Charlotte, trying not to let his rudeness get to her. “And I’m happy to think outside the box. All I want to do is think outside the box, but you told me to put your plans into place before I got creative.”
“I don’t think I said that,” Shane Letcher decided.
“Well then, starting right now, I’ll get creative.”
“Fine. It’s the least you can do. But...” Shane sighed and shook his head. “I’m afraid we made a mistake with you. Gambled on the wrong bet.”
“Sir! No! I’m the right bet! What about the horseshoes pit I set up in the parking lot?”
“Once again, that was my idea,” said Shane. “Let’s change the subject: You’re very religious, right?”
“Excuse me, Sir?”
“A little uptight? Conservative? Were you homeschooled?”
“Seriously? You’re asking me these things?” asked Charlotte.
“Oh, now I’m offending you. But just tell me this: Are you some kind of churchy bible thumper? Did I overhear you telling Shelly that you’re studying to be a nun?”
“No. You definitely did not hear that. I’ve barely ever spoken to Shelly.”
“Aha! You’re one of those women who can’t get along with other women! I’ve got to admit, I like that,” said Shane.
Charlotte rubbed her temples, too dumbstruck by her boss to bother trying to respond.
“So, give me one of your ideas about spreading cheer,” said Shane.
“What do you think about us having a toy drive for needy children?”
“This is why people think you’re a nun. Google the word ‘cool’ and get back to me with some real suggestions.”
“Okay,” Charlotte whispered, pulling her phone from her pocket.
“I don’t mean literally, at this moment! You’re a real flake, aren’t you?”
Charlotte put her phone back in her pocket.
“Cheer up!” laughed Shane. “Well, good talk. Get serious about your job. Got it?”
Charlotte nodded.
“Good,” said Shane. “Now go make me a hundred and fifty copies of this. Pass them out to everyone, and post the leftovers everywhere.” He handed Charlotte a flyer for the upcoming company holiday party.
“Hmmm. Would you like me to design a poster?” Charlotte suggested politely, after quickly scanning the sheet of paper in front of her:
“WE’VE BEEN USING THAT same poster for years. I just pull up the file and update it. What’s wrong with it?” asked Shane.
“Nothing. Nothing at all,” said Charlotte. “Except maybe the Santa. He looks a little angry.”
“I think he looks good.”
“Oh. From this angle, yes.” She tilted the paper a little. “Yep. My mistake. He looks good.”
“Good enough. I’d rather have you spend your time on planning the party instead of the party’s flyer. Make sense?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“It’s just over a month away. Consider it your final test.”
“My final test? I’ve barely settled in,” said Charlotte. Instantly her mind went to her new luxury efficiency apartment that she’d just signed a one-year lease on.
“I’m all about results. And so far, I’m not getting any. O’Leery Snowboards ought to be a cool, rad, awesome place to work. I’ve provided dozens of great ideas about how to make this place better. I’ve given you free rein to the company credit card. How much have you spent so far?”
“Errr... Twelve thousand dollars or so. But only on things from your list of suggestions.”
“Didn’t I just tell you to think outside the box?”
“Yes,” said Charlotte.
“The next month is all yours.”
“Are you serious? That’s wonderful, Sir! I have so many ideas! First of all...”
“Any ideas need to be approved by me, of course, but it’s time for you to show me what you’ve got to offer. Aside from...” Shane Letcher wiggled his eyebrows, looking Charlotte up and down, “the obvious.”
Charlotte felt her small boost of hope escaping from her, like air from a balloon. “Right,” she mumbled.
“What’s the problem? I’m complimenting you! Lighten up!”
“Sure,” Charlotte said.
“Smile! Pull that stick out of your butt! Can you handle this job? It’s not just keeping the coffee pots full, you know.”
“I know,” said Charlotte, making a mental note to keep a better eye on the coffee pots.
“It’s about being able to define trends and make them happen before anyone else would recognize them! It’s about making the employees around here feel good and motivated! It’s about being the heartbeat of O’Leery Snowboards! You need to be fun! Fresh! Fast! Alert! Cool! Or are you too old to know what’s cool?”
“I’m fresh and fun, still. I’m only twenty-six,” she said. Which is probably half your age, Mr. Trendsetter.
