All I Want For Christmas is Fudge (A Candy-Coated Mystery with Recipes Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

says to contact Sara’s Vineyard.”
    “Oh, boy,” Allie said.
    I gave the dog a few more pats. “Are you here with your owner, Marley?” I asked. “Want to show us where you’re staying?”
    The dog barked and ran off a few feet, then turned to see if we were coming. Allie and I exchanged looks and slogged after the dog, who seemed to be happy to have us follow him through the woods and the snow. About one hundred feet past the cliff, we saw a cabin. The door was wide open. There were several old footprints going in and out. These were mostly indents in the snow. It had snowed two inches overnight, but whoever made the tracks was heavy enough to make deep tracks so that the two inches didn’t blot them out.
    “Wow,” I said. Marley went into the house and came back out, sat on the threshold, and barked at us.
    “Do you think he’ll let us inside?” Allie asked.
    “I think so,” I said. “Golden retrievers are usually not overly protective.” Allie didn’t know much about dogs. Mal was her first pet and she was still learning about the good, the bad, and the ugly ways of canines. I smiled at Marley. “Good boy,” I said. As we got close, he jumped up and went inside, coming back out with a giant red-and-beige candy cane replica made out of rawhide. “Well, someone is looking after him.”
    “Yeah, that candy cane looks pretty fresh,” Allie admitted. “Hello?” she called as we approached the open door. Silence answered her.
    I stepped up to the threshold and took the rawhide out of Marley’s mouth and tossed it for him to fetch. The friendly pup was game for the chase and tore off after the treat. “You go in. I’ll stay here and distract the dog.”
    “Okay,” Allie said. She pushed past me and stepped over the threshold. “Hello, the house? Is anyone home?”
    The cabin was a three-story rambling home that looked like it had been built in stages of additions over the years. The siding was rough cedar shingles, with green trim and shutters. The stoop was made of stone. Marley came running back to me with the candy cane in his mouth. He dropped it at my feet as if to say, Throw it again!
    So I did. I chucked it as far as I could in the opposite direction of the footprints in the snow. The last thing I wanted was to make a mess of a crime scene—if this was indeed a crime scene and not just a case of some drunken Santa who had forgotten to close his cabin door.
    “The place is empty,” Allie said as she came back outside. “But there’s a couple of wineglasses with Sara’s Vineyard engraved on them on the counter and some bottles of pinot, also from Sara’s Vineyard. This may be where our victim was staying.”
    “What should we do?”
    “I’m calling Rex,” Allie said. She hit a button on her cell phone.
    “You have him on speed dial ?” I asked.
    “Yes, I have since I first got to the island,” Allie said. “It’s come in very handy.” She raised her hand to signal to me that she was distracted from our conversation. “Hi, Rex, it’s Allie. We’re at 855 Pine Lane. We found a dog named Marley home alone and a cabin with its door wide open. We think . . . Oh, Jenn’s here with me. We think this might be where the victim was staying.” She paused as if listening. “Okay, we’ll wait here and I promise not to go back inside.” She hit END on her phone. “Rex is sending Officer Charles Brown up to check it out. He says he might have found someone the victim traveled with.”
    “Oh, good,” I said, and hugged the dog as he returned and dropped the rawhide at my feet. “This guy shouldn’t be out here alone.”
    “Looks like he’d rather play than chew on that rawhide,” Allie said.
    “He really likes to play fetch,” I said. “Don’t you, boy? You are a beautiful puppy.” I petted him and ruffled his fur, then threw the rawhide in the opposite direction of the footprints. Marley went after it. “Plus, I figured we should try to keep the dog from messing with