Missing Under the Mistletoe Read online

  Rosa halted with her back to Marcille and rolled her shoulders to ease her tension. “I know where the main entrance is.”

  Ignoring Rosa, Marcille said, “Mr. Churchill also specifically requested a poinsettia be placed on the left and right side of Santa’s throne.”

  “His throne?” I had to hide my chuckle.

  Marcille’s big bug eyes flashed angrily. “Excuse me? What did you just say?”

  “His throne,” I said. “Like he’s a king. It’s just a funny way to —”

  “What would you call it then, Ms. Knight?”

  “I’d call it Santa’s chair, and it’s Mrs. Salvare, not Ms. Knight.”

  “Is it now?” Marcille removed her glasses and clapped the clipboard against her side. “When I came to your little shop to place this order, the sign above the door read, Abby Knight, proprietor, so I suggest if you don’t like being called Ms. Knight, you have the sign changed.”

  She wasn’t wrong – it was something I’d been meaning to change since my wedding several months earlier – but my Irish temper began to manifest itself through a blush on my cheeks, making my freckles stand out all the more. I drew in a deep breath, reminding myself what day it was, and decided my best move was to ignore her.

  Marco, Rosa and I carried the wrought iron stands and flowers through the delivery door and placed them just inside. After inspecting each one, Marcille said, “I’ll let Mr. Churchill know you’re setting up,” and walked off, leaving Rosa muttering a few Spanish obscenities at her retreating back.

  “Who is Marcille and what’s her problem?” I asked, as I set my jacket on the ground and rolled up my sleeves. The store was just as warm and toasty as I’d remembered.

  “Marcille Shelby. She thinks she is God because she is the store manager,” Rosa said, wrinkling her nose. “She was my boss when I worked at the perfume counter, and it didn’t take long before I came to despise her.”

  “Okay,” Marco said, wiping the dirt from his hands. “My work here is done.”

  “Por favor, no! You cannot go yet,” Rosa begged. “You do not know this man like I do. If everything is not perfect, Abby will never get Churchill’s business again.”

  “Please, Marco?” I asked. “I could really use his business. Just give us fifteen more minutes, and we’ll take it from there, I promise.”

  Marco breathed in deeply, as he always did when he didn’t want to do something. “Fine, fifteen minutes, but that’s it.”

  As Marco went back to the delivery door to pick up some stands, I had a quick chat with Rosa as we followed behind. “Tell me,” I teased, “what’s so bad about Marcille? Other than her personality and manners, she seemed perfectly nice to me.”

  “You joke about this woman, but I tell you she has the devil in her. She is even more strict with the employees than Levi Churchill is. I despise her. When I worked for her she would make me go home and change clothing. She was always jealous of me.”

  As Rosa leaned down to place a poinsettia, I studied her outfit. Even her thick winter jacket somehow managed to expose her curves. After months of pondering Rosa’s clothing choices, I couldn’t help but understand Marcille’s concerns.

  We continued to work quickly, Marco arranging the stands and Rosa and I filling them with poinsettias, doing our best to ignore the long line of impatient children and grumbling parents who were waiting for Santa’s arrival. In no time at all, the three of us had created a beautiful path to Santa’s Village, and there was still no sign of Levi Churchill.

  “Let’s go,” said Marco. “We’re done here.”

  “We’ll meet you at the van. Rosa and I still need to decorate around Santa’s chair.”

  As Marco headed for the delivery door, I glanced around at the surroundings. We were directly in the middle of the store, with shops all around us. Somewhat smaller than I remembered, yet still cute, Santa’s Village was situated near the rear of the main floor. There were child-sized gingerbread men and giant nutcrackers standing alongside Santa’s red and gold chair. Leading up to the chair was a red carpet sprinkled generously with fake snow.

  Directly behind Santa’s big chair was his bright green workshop, where elves would soon come out to distribute peppermint candy canes. The back entrance to the workshop was just steps away from the elevator so that Levi Churchill could come down and secretly enter the tiny shack, change into his suit, and emerge as Santa Claus from a red door in front. To the right of the workshop was a two-story Christmas tree decorated with tinsel, glass ornaments, and candy canes.

  Visiting Santa’s Village had always been a magical time for me as a child, waiting in that long line, anticipating what toy the jovial Santa would pull from his giant red bag while Christmas carols played in the background. A chill of excitement ran up my spine.

  “Excuse me, Miss,” came an impatient male voice from the crowd. “Do you know what’s taking Santa so long?”

  A young-looking mother standing several families behind him, rocking a large sleeping child in her arms, said, “We’ve been waiting over an hour already.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t work here.” I turned to whisper to Rosa, “Where are the elves? Shouldn’t they be handing out candy canes to pacify the children?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered back, “but it’s not our problem. Let’s just finish and get out of here.”

  Dodging the annoying looks and increasingly rude remarks of the waiting families, we placed the last two perfect poinsettias beside Santa’s chair and stepped back to admire our work. Next to the chair sat a giant red bag filled to the brim with perfectly-wrapped presents. Everything was set up and ready to go, but still there was no sign of Santa. I checked the time. It was now thirty minutes past ten.

  A well-dressed woman standing first in line was holding the hand of a boy I guessed to be about five years old who waited patiently at her side. “Do you have any idea what time it is?” she asked us rhetorically.

  “I don’t work here,” I told her. “I’m just the florist.”

  She huffed impatiently as the boy gazed at me with big, sweet, blue eyes. The woman huffed. “Santa was supposed to be here promptly at ten and my son is becoming very impatient.”

  “I’m sorry. I wish I could help.”

  “You can help. Check the workshop. Do something!”

  I looked around at all the various departments where I could see employees helping the customers who weren’t standing in line. I glanced up to the second floor, the balcony level, its brass railing strung with braids of red tinsel. That level, filled with shops for men, was also bustling with customers. The store seemed to be humming along beautifully, but why hadn’t Santa or his elves shown up?

  My inner radar began beeping. “Something doesn’t feel right, Rosa. I’m going to have a look around.”

  “Let’s just get out of here,” Rosa said glancing around nervously. “I’m sure Marco has the van ready to go.”

  “I don’t think so.” I pointed across the room to the toy department where, to my utter surprise, Marco was standing near a display of toy footballs. Perhaps he’d been drawn in by the music and had finally let in some of the Christmas spirit. Or, more likely, he’d simply grown tired of waiting and had come inside to shag us out. I was betting on the latter.

  Before we were married, Marco had confessed his dislike of Christmas to me, just in case it was a deal breaker. It hadn’t been, but I’d had no idea how deep that dislike went. He still celebrated with our families but in a quiet, almost withdrawn way, yet he was never around when I put up the tree, couldn’t stand to hear my old holiday records, and wouldn’t explain why. That was what really bothered me. Marco and I told each other everything, so why not that?

  Our most recent argument on that subject had begun on our drive to town in that morning, when I’d casually mentioned that he should join me at the Bloomers booth for the Christmas Eve celebration. His curt reply left me hurt and stunned. I couldn’t fathom why anyone could be so anti-Christmas, s
o I had to keep telling myself to be patient and let Marco open up to me when the time was right. Unfortunately for me, patience was not a virtue.

  And neither was it for the woman standing first in line. “Hello? Ms. Florist? You said you were going to help.”

  “That’s it,” I said to Rosa. “I’m going in.”

  “No, Abby,” Rosa held my arm. “Do not get involved. Something is very wrong. We will find Marcille.”

  “I’ll just knock and see what happens. Maybe it’s nothing at all.” But my gut was telling me a different story.

  “Then I am coming with you.”

  I walked across the pad of fake snow that had been laid out all around Santa’s Village and knocked on the green door. Looking back, I could see all the way down the line to the front entrance where children peered around their siblings and parents craned their necks, impatiently waiting to find out what was happening.

  There was no answer so I knocked again, then tried the door handle and found it unlocked. I pulled the wooden door open and a young girl’s pale arm flopped out onto the fake snow in front of me.

  “Call 911,” I told Rosa. “Tell them we need an ambulance fast.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  I squeezed through the door of the little wooden shack and knelt by the young girl’s side, putting my fingers to her throat to feel for a pulse. She seemed no older than sixteen and was dressed in a bright red and green elf costume. I took off my coat and covered her, then pulled the hat from her head, causing her eyelids to flutter briefly. At least she was alive, her pulse strong. “Rosa,” I called. “Get Marco and then keep a watch out for the paramedics. Oh, and tell them use the back door.”

  “Si, I will go get your husband right now.”

  Marco opened the back door almost immediately. As soon as he saw me kneeling beside the young girl he asked, “What happened?”

  “I don’t know yet. Help me get her inside. She’s hurt.”

  He stopped suddenly and stepped over a small puddle of blood, brushing his head against the lone light bulb dangling from the ceiling, casting odd shadows around the terrifying scene.

  The room was tall but not wide, just big enough for two folding chairs and a small wooden end table. It wouldn’t have been a comfortable changing room, but I noticed some clothes hanging in the corner. There were no decorations, just two by fours with nails sticking out acting as hooks. Candy canes were spread across the floor around us and one of the chairs had been upturned. Marco knelt next to me and we helped the stunned girl sit upright. She held the back of her head and mumbled a few words before she finally snapped to.

  “What happened?” the girl asked groggily, rubbing the back of her skull.

  “We don’t know yet,” I said, kneeling beside her. “Can you tell me your name?”

  “Hailey,” she said, struggling to sit upright.

  “Just lie still, Hailey. You’ve suffered a blow to your head and we’re getting you some help.”

  “Abby.” Marco pointed to a big dent in the doorframe which led me to believe that she had hit her head pretty hard before falling against the door.

  “Hailey,” I asked, “can you turn your head to the side for me?”

  Still groggy, she eased it to one side, where I saw a small trickle of blood coming from the back of her scalp. From the location of the wound, it looked as if she’d either tripped and fallen backward or been pushed against the door.

  I could hear Rosa outside telling people to move out of the way, and a moment later she poked her head in through the back door. “The ambulance is on its way. Is the girl all right?”

  “She’s doing okay,” I said.

  At that, Hailey lifted her head and looked around, her gaze unfocused. “Where’s my dad?” She looked around the tiny room and saw the blood on the floor. She began to panic. That’s when I noticed an envelope under a pile of broken candy canes on the floor. Before I could pick it up the girl frantically asked again. “Where is my dad?”

  We helped Hailey out of the back door and sat her on a soft pad of fake snow. Rosa met us behind the house and her eyes grew large. She grabbed my arm to pull me away, whispering in my ear, “That is Levi Churchill’s daughter.”

  From the other side of Santa’s workshop, we could hear people crying, “Where is Santa. We want Santa!”

  “Have you seen him?” Hailey asked, her voice rising in panic. “He was here when I left to get the candy canes.” She looked around, saw the blood on the floor, and cried, “Where did he go?”

  “We don’t know yet, Hailey,” I replied. “Rosa, will you see what you can do about quieting the crowd? Or find Marcille and have her do it.”

  “Tell us what you remember, Hailey,” Marco said as he crouched beside the frightened teenager.

  She gazed at him warily. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Marco Salvare. I’m a private detective and this is my wife, Abby. She owns Bloomers Flower Shop. She’s the one who your father hired to provide all the flowers for today. Can you tell me what you remember about this morning?”

  She sniffled back tears, her lower lip trembling. “Dad was getting ready to change into his Santa suit so I went upstairs to get the candy canes from his office. When I came back down, he was gone. That’s all I can remember.” She wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

  “Did anything seem out of the ordinary?” Marco asked. “Was your dad acting differently?”

  “No. He was excited,”- she began to sniffle again - “and I was so mean to him.” At that she wept openly, “I’m so sorry for everything I said to him.”

  I held her close, rocking her back and forth to comfort her. Although I didn’t have any children yet, my motherly instincts were strong, but my detective instincts were even stronger – probably because I didn’t have any children yet. I needed to get back into that room and find out what was in that envelope before the police showed up. I ran my hand down the back of her head, smoothing out her hair. “Do you remember how you hit your head?” I asked.

  She sniffled again and said no.

  “Did anyone else come into the workshop while you were here?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Where are the other elves?” I asked, thinking one of them might have noticed something strange going on.

  “I’m the only one this year. Dad had to cut back on his employees.” She licked her lips. “Can you get me some water, please?”

  There were a few bottles of water scattered on the table inside the workshop. I entered and immediately went for the envelope on the floor. It was an opened legal envelope with the title Churchill’s Last Christmas typed across the center. There was no stamp, no return address, and no name on it. There was, however, half of a bloody fingerprint on the back side of the envelope. I squeezed it open but the letter had been removed.

  I snapped a few photos with my phone, placed the envelope back on the floor, and quickly searched the pants hanging from one of the nails. Inside the back pocket was Churchill’s thick leather wallet with his cash, driver’s license, and credit cards still folded and secured neatly inside. That wasn’t a good sign.

  I was careful to avoid the small puddle of blood, but noticed a footprint smearing the blood across the floor in one smooth streak. There were several drops also leading out the back entrance and onto the pad of snow before trailing off toward the elevator. I made a mental note to check that out.

  “The paramedics and the police are here, Abby,” Marco called. “We need to clear out of their way.”

  I grabbed the water from the table, opened the cap, and returned to Hailey. “Is there anything else you remember before the accident?” I asked. “Anything at all?”

  She shook her head and then winced in pain.

  “If you think of anything else,” I told her, “make sure you let the police know.”

  Marco joined me as we watched the paramedics place a thick brace around Hailey’s neck and lift her onto the gurney. He put his arm around me and I put my h
and on hers.

  “Promise me you’ll find my dad,” she said, then squeezed my hand as if she didn’t want to leave.

  “We’ll find your dad,” I said. “I promise.”

  Before they could roll her away she raised herself up on her elbows and called, “Wait, I did see something strange, a woman standing by the back door just after I left to get the candy. I didn’t get a good look at her, but she was holding something. It was definitely strange.”

  “What did she look like?” I asked.

  “Sir, Ma’am, you’ll have to step back and let us do our job,” one of the paramedics said, and then gently positioned her back onto the gurney.

  Marco let go of my hand and pointed at the gurney. “Look at her foot.”

  On the bottom of her green elfin shoe cover was a dark stain. “Is that blood?”

  He nodded. “Looks like it.”

  Before I could tell Marco what I had found inside the house, Sergeant Reilly began calling out instructions for his officers to cordon off the entire Santa’s Village to keep the customers away. He walked up to us, his arms folded across his chest, shaking his head at me. “I don’t know why I’m surprised to see you here, Abby, yet you still manage to surprise me every time.”

  “Good to see you, too, Sarge.” A tall, pleasant looking, brown-haired man, Reilly had helped us out on many of our cases, usually with great reluctance.

  “Marco,” Reilly said with a smile, as the two men shook hands.

  Sergeant Sean Reilly had been Marco’s buddy since Marco’s brief stint on the New Chapel police force, a career he’d learned was not for him. My husband was a man who played by his own rules, which hadn’t made him a good fit as a cop but made him a perfect fit for this feisty, red-headed florist.

  “Who found the girl?” Reilly asked.

  “I did,” I said.

  “Of course you did.” Reilly flipped open a notepad and a retrieved a small pen from his shirt pocket. “Tell me what happened.”

  As I began to list off the events, I noticed Reilly’s men start to tape off Santa’s chair, quickly closing in on the workshop. A few more minutes and my investigation would be squelched. I needed to get back there and follow that trail. “And that’s about it. I’m sure I’ll remember more, but for now that should be good.”