Candy Cane Killer: A Christmas Cozy Mystery Series by Mona Marple & Katie Forrest

Author:Mona Marple & Katie Forrest [Marple, Mona & Forrest, Katie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-11-01T16:00:00+00:00

7

It was decided that Wiggles and Cornelius would search the garden for the phone, and I would keep check that everyone else remained in the great room.

The last thing we needed was another person disappearing.

The minutes dragged on in awkward silence until there was a ping of a notification, and Cassidy pulled her mobile phone from her pocket. She looked at the screen and groaned.

“What is it?” Dolly asked.

“The story’s out,” Cassidy said.

“The wedding?” Billie asked hopefully.

Cassidy rolled her eyes. “No, not the wedding, you moron. There’s only one story here and it’s that our mother has been kidnapped!”

“My life has never mattered to you, has it?” Billie flew up out of her seat in a rage and glared at her sister. Cheep pulled on her arm and she fought her way out of his reach, slapping him across the face with the back of her hand as she did so. He blinked up at her in a dazed confusion, but said nothing.

It was a revelation to me that the r’n’b bad boy was so mild-mannered.

“What does it say?” Dolly asked, her voice barely a whisper. “Is it a ransom demand?”

Cassidy scanned the article on her phone and shook her head. “THE DEVIL SNARES ANGEL is the headline. A source close to pop legend Angel Albright has confirmed that the singer, 42, has been kidnapped. Kidnap threats have plagued the star, who shot to fame when she was just 15, and she is renowned for refusing to take such threats seriously. The celebrity mum of three has recently retired from her Las Vegas residency, which was the longest-running and most popular in residency history. She planned to focus on quality time with her family. Let’s hope she’s returned safely so her Christmas wish can be granted.”

“A source close to her. I wonder who that was?” I said, not even realising I had asked the question out loud.

“Well, you know for sure it wasn’t me. I was in no urgency for this news to break!” Billie said with a scowl. Cheep reached across and took her hand in his. Every finger had two tattoos on; tiny images of crowns, music notes, letters. The man was like a human colouring book.

“Maybe it’s good that word is out fast,” Dolly said hopefully.

Cassidy frowned. “Every attention seeker and deranged fan is going to be making calls now, pretending they’ve got her. We’ll never figure out whether any of them are genuine.”

“Well, that won’t be your job. The police will take care of everything,” I said.

Gabriel came out of his shocked stupor enough to give a crazed cackle. “What have the police ever done for Angel?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He batted a hand at me. “Never mind. Forget it. You’re obviously a police sympathiser.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” I said.

“Exactly,” he spat.

The whole conversation felt like I was trying to win a tickling match against a caterpillar, so I said nothing else.

Thankfully, I was rescued from any further attempts to speak to the group.

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