Trouble Under the Tree (A Nina Quinn Mystery) Read Online Free PDF Page A

face.
    “What fumes?” Had there been another mishap?
    “Like Santa has been swimming in a vat of
whisky. My eyes are watering.”
    “That bad?” I asked, peeking over her
shoulder as Jenny’s face turned redder and redder during her
lecture. Hopefully she wouldn’t attack her uncle the way she’d gone
after Glory.
    “Worse, Nina. Blech . Prepare
yourself.”
    I’d come to know a lot of the employees here
over the past two weeks. Nancy was older, maybe mid-fifties, with
brown hair that looked streaked from natural sun and kind, wise
bright blue eyes. She’d taken this job part-time to supplement
running her dairy goat farm—freelance photography was her
hobby.
    Holding up her camera, she said, “I’m going
to take some snapshots. I’ll see you later.”
    I supposed Santa couldn’t be much worse than
me last night after too many spiked eggnogs, so I ventured inside
after Nancy headed off toward the atrium.
    I took a gleeful moment to absorb the picture
that was Riley. Almost six feet tall, he wore green- and
red-striped tights, a velvet green tunic, a green and red
Santa-style hat with attached pointy elf ears, and green booties
with jingle bells and a curled-up toe. It was almost too much for
me for me to handle—I wanted to roll with laughter. But I managed
to keep a (somewhat) straight face as I walked over to him. He, on
the other hand, grinned from ear to pointy ear. “What’s so funny?”
I asked.
    “Just enjoying the show.”
    “What show?”
    He nodded toward Mrs. Claus. Fairlane had
pressed her impressive chest against the elf. Poor guy. It was
blatant sexual harassment if I ever saw it. “That’s really not
funny,” I said. “I’m embarrassed for her.”
    Riley looked down at me (I really hated that
his growth spurt now had him a good six inches taller). “Well, I’m
amused.”
    I was about to give him a lecture when I took
a good look at the elf. Suddenly, I was amused, too.
    The elf was Kevin.
     
     

Chapter Three
     
    After Kevin extricated himself from
Fairlane’s iron grasp, he tried to sneak out the back door of the
cottage without me noticing.
    I was on to his tactics, though, and went out
the front and circled around. I came face to face with his elfish
self near the faux stone chimney.
    “I don’t know where to begin,” I said.
    The bells on his sleeve jingled when he
folded his arms across his chest. “You can stop grinning like that,
for one.”
    “I can’t help it. There are just some
memories I want imprinted on my brain forever. This is one of them.
I wish I had my camera. I could use this image on my Christmas
cards. I wonder if Nancy would be willing to—”
    “Stop. Stop it right now.”
    My smile stretched so wide it hurt my cheeks.
“Unless you want this—” I gestured to his outfit “—sent to one
hundred of our nearest and dearest, I suggest you tell me what
you’re doing here? Dressed like that?”
    “Stooping to blackmail, Nina?”
    “It’s not the first time.”
    He rolled his eyes, took my elbow, and pulled
me toward the pine trees. “I’m kind of working.”
    “Kind of?” He was a homicide detective, and
unless there was a body hidden in Santa’s toy chest, I was pretty
sure there hadn’t been a murder. News like that was sure to get
around.
    “Remember how Riley wanted to talk to me last
night?”
    How could I forget? I was dying to know why.
“Yeah?”
    Kevin glanced left, then right. “He thinks
someone is stealing the toys from the donation chest and asked for
my help. I talked to Jenny this morning, and she agreed to let me
work here, unofficially, for a few days to see what I can find
out.”
    A few days of Kevin in an elf outfit. This
was a present that was going to keep on giving. Even though I was
done with Christmastowne after this afternoon, I was going to have
to come back.
    With a camera.
    “Why does Ry think someone’s stealing?” I
asked.
    “One of his jobs yesterday was to empty the
toy chest that’s inside