I pulled myself together and looked out the front window. There was no one in sight. I inched the door open and scanned the stretch of snow-covered land between myself and the tree farm perimeter. No one. Whoever had left the message hadn’t hung around to see that I received it. I snapped a picture of the threat with my phone, then tugged my hat over my ears and started off at a jog. I picked up the pace as the guesthouse shrank behind me and the main building of Reindeer Games drew closer. Shadows loomed behind every tree and outbuilding, daring me to wonder if the killer was watching now. If he was, would I be safe? Would my screams be heard at this distance from my family and their crew, or would the sound be swallowed by the fresh blanket of snow?
I ran toward the stables hoping to find a friendly face or two inside. The low rumble of my dad’s voice pushed my feet into a sprint. “Dad!”
He came into view with a smile.
Hot tears burned in my eyes. I didn’t have to be strong or calm. Dad was my refuge, and he’d make this better.
His broad strides ate up the space between us. “What’s the matter?”
“I need Sheriff Gray,” I said, heart pounding. “Have you seen him? Is he still here?” I blinked the tears back frantically.
“I’m here.” Sheriff Gray appeared at the stable door.
A strange mix of relief and fear flooded my system. I was certain he could help, but the fact I needed a sheriff at all made the threat intensely scarier.
Dad’s giant gloved hands caught mine. “What’s going on? Are you hurt?” He trailed my limbs with keen parental eyes, lifting my arms at my sides like an airplane.
“No.” I swallowed hard. “I’m okay, just a little shaken.”
“Why? What happened?”
The sheriff stopped at our sides, creating a tiny triangle. “Tell me what happened.” His cheeks were red, and his eyes glossy from the unrelenting wind.
I wiggled my hands free of Dad’s grip. “I found a line of those tree markers on my porch.”
“At the guesthouse?” Dad frowned.
“Yeah.” I brought up the picture I’d taken on my phone. “Someone left me a message.”
“With tree markers?” Dad asked, still perplexed by my story.
I handed my phone to the sheriff. “Yeah. Exactly like the one used to kill Margaret Fenwick.”
“You think someone threatened you?” Dad jerked his gaze to the sheriff. “Give me that.”
Sheriff Gray turned the phone over to Dad and locked cool green eyes on me. “Anything else you want to tell me?”
“I don’t think so.” I shifted my weight, suddenly feeling as if I’d entered the principal’s office.
“We’ll revisit that question in a minute.” He raised the walkie-talkie from his belt and squeezed. “I need someone for evidence collection at the Whites’ guesthouse. Crime scene review and photographs as well.”
“Copy that,” a man’s voice crackled back.
The sheriff holstered his walkie-talkie and motioned for me to lead the way, but Dad turned on his boots and cut me off. We fell into step behind him like a mismatched platoon.
A few minutes later, we stood shoulder to shoulder at the base of my porch. Dad fumed. The sheriff sucked his teeth. I bit into the tender skin alongside my thumbnail.
“Well?” I asked. “It’s a threat, right?”
The sheriff didn’t answer. He lifted his phone and snapped several pictures before circling my house. He disappeared in one direction and returned moments later in the other.
What was he thinking? Was there something here that I couldn’t see?
“Please talk to me,” I begged. “You’re making it worse.”
Lines raced across his forehead. “Sorry. I’m thinking. Did you hear anything before you left the house?”
“No.”
“See anyone? In the distance, maybe?”
I gnawed a little harder on my thumb and winced when I drew blood. “Nope.” I pushed my hand back into its mitten and made a fist to ease the sting on my thumb.
He lined his boot beside one stake and snapped another picture. “Would you say these are your stakes, Mr. White?”
“They are,” Dad agreed. The color in his face had bled from red to eggplant at the first sight of my porch.
I rested a hand on his arm. “Breathe.”
The sheriff climbed my steps carefully, placing his feet in my prints. “The stake used on Mrs. Fenwick weighed about eight pounds. There’re four stakes here. That’s thirty-two pounds.”
I inched closer to the objects in question. “Even if I could lift thirty-two pounds of loose wooden stakes, I couldn’t carry them without looking like one-half of Laurel and Hardy.”
“So whoever did this had a sack like mine,” Dad said.
I mimed the size of the woodpile with outstretched arms. “If I put those in a sack, they’d drag to the ground, but I don’t see any drag marks.”
Sheriff Gray squinted into the sun. “She’s right. Whoever carried the stakes was tall or had help.” He turned in an arc, examining the area from his new perspective atop my porch. “We’ve got footprints, sled tracks, and hoofprints.”
“Footprints could be anyone,” I said, “including me.”
Dad pulled a phone from his coat pocket. “I’ll get someone to follow the tracks and see where they go, maybe even who they belong to.”
“Paula drove a sleigh to the Hearth last night,” I said. “Could she have come here today?”
Dad hovered near the marks, bent at the waist, phone pressed to his ear.
I idly wondered if Mr. Fleece used the reindeer to pull a sleigh. Maybe Santa did it.
The sheriff moseyed back down the steps to my side, phone in hand. He turned the device to face me. A close-up of the words “STOP OR YOU’RE NEXT” was centered on the screen. “Any idea what this means?”
“Me?” I asked, slightly baffled by the question. “I guess someone wants me to stop doing something.”
He widened his stance and crossed his arms, effectively removing the phone from my sight. “Stop doing what, for example?”
My cheeks burned. “I don’t know.”
“If you had to venture a guess.”
Dad turned back to us. “These tracks are too narrow for a sleigh, and there aren’t any hoofprints. Looks more like a person with a large sled. Your mother’s going to see if someone took one of our sleds out, then she’s headed this way.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Sheriff Gray’s steady gaze never left mine. “Any ideas yet?”
I turned my chin left and right, lips pressed tight.
He circled me the way he had with the wood. “Why don’t I believe you?”
Dad moved closer. “What’s going on?”
The sheriff stopped at my back and leaned over my shoulder. “You must at least have a guess.”
My eyes slid shut, ruffled further by his nearness, but my lips sprang apart. “I went into town and asked a few people about Mrs. Fenwick.”
He went rigid. “Care to elaborate?”
I peeked one eye open and turned until I faced him toe to toe. “There’s a possibility that one of the people I spoke to or someone who saw or heard about what I was doing wants me to stop doing it.”
“Holly,” Dad scolded, “what were you thinking?”
I forced an apologetic smile his way. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think asking questions would cause a problem. I was trying to figure out what Mrs. Fenwick was up to before her death.”
“You can’t do stuff like that anymore,” Dad said. “It’s not safe.” The ache in his voice broke my heart. “This isn’t the town we thought it was. You’re putting yourself in danger.” He wrapped me in a mammoth hug.
I angled my head against his chest so he could hear me. “It’s not like I went shop to shop asking for a show of hands if anyone had recently bludgeoned her. I just wanted Sheriff Gray to have someone to look into who didn’t work at Reindeer Games. This is our busy season. We have to get those gates open. You and Mom live off this one month’s income for half the year.”
Dad squeezed me tighter before letting go. “That’s right, we do. Your mom and me. You don’t have to worry about us. We’ve made it through harder times than this, and we’ll get through this too.” He fiddled with the collar on my coat. “Why don’t you let me worry about you instead?”
“Hey!” I smiled as a new idea formed in my head. “Sheriff Gray, my dad was with you earlier today, right?”
“That’s right.”
A jolt of enthusiasm pulsed through me. “If he was with you, then he wasn’t putting this on my porch.”
Dad looked at me like I’d sprouted another head.
“Not that you would ever do anything like this,” I backpedaled. “I think whoever killed Mrs. Fenwick did this. That’s the significance of the stakes. If I’m right, and Dad was with you, Sheriff, then this proves my dad isn’t the killer.”
Sheriff Gray seemed to mull my theory over. He rolled his shoulders. “I’m tempted to say your argument is circumstantial, but this isn’t a courtroom, and I don’t disagree.”
I stifled the urge to clap. “So Dad’s off the hook as a murder suspect?”
“Tell me this,” the sheriff said, swiftly changing the subject, “who have you talked to today that’s capable of this?” He tipped his head to the threat on my porch. “The police report didn’t include a description of the murder weapon and neither did the morning paper. The person who did this also had access to the farm’s other painted markers. Had to know where you keep them and how to get to them. Someone with a reason to think you’re on to them.”
I wet my frozen lips. No one had asked about the murder weapon, and I hadn’t offered that detail. “I don’t know.”
Mom hustled toward us through the snow, a lidded basket with holiday-print liner clutched in her grip. “I can’t believe this,” she lamented. Puffs of white steam lifted into the air with each word. “I’m so sorry this happened to you. You must be terrified.” She caught one of my hands in hers and pulled me up the steps toward my front door, careful to stay on the already trodden path. “Come inside and have a bite to eat. I’ll put the kettle on.”
I stopped on the porch. “You go ahead. I have to finish talking to Sheriff Gray.”
“Then you should both come inside where it’s safe.”
“Mom,” I huffed. “He’s the sheriff. I’m safe with him.”
“You’re my daughter,” she chided.
The sheriff cleared his throat, drawing Mom’s attention. “Why don’t you both go inside, and I’ll be in as soon as my deputy arrives to cover the crime scene.”
“Go on, Mom,” I urged. “I’ll be in soon.”
She batted emotion-filled eyes. “If you two won’t come with me, then I’ll bring the tea to you.” She swept over the threshold and shut the door.
Sheriff Gray’s lips curled into a half smile. “She’s not happy with me, but she’s still willing to bring me tea in the cold. People aren’t that nice in Boston. It’s different here. Like living in a Rockwell painting.”
“Not everyone’s that nice,” I muttered.
“Yeah? Who?”
The deputy arrived right then with a multitude of black shoulder bags crisscrossing his round belly. “Ready to get started, Sheriff.” He greeted Dad with a handshake and me with a nod, then went to work photographing the area. His serious black camera made the scene feel more criminal than I liked.
I squirmed under Sheriff Gray’s scrutiny.
“Who isn’t that nice?” he repeated.
“Can we talk inside now?” I asked, afraid of offending Mom if we remained outside longer than necessary.
Dad moved to block the steps like a newly hired bouncer. “Go on. I’ll keep watch.”
I went inside and beckoned the sheriff to follow.
The fire was going strong, heating the little space with ease. Cindy lounged on the couch where I’d left her.
“Come to the kitchen,” Mom called.
Hot tea and baked goods sweetened the air.
Sheriff Gray stopped at Mom’s side. “Any chance you know who had a sled out this way?”
“No.” She shook her head. “No one marked the log book because we’re closed. It’s a way to keep track when the sleds are in demand, but today . . .” She sighed. “I don’t know.”
She’d set the kitchen table with an array of muffins, pastries, and tea trimmings from her basket. Each type of treat had its own woven container and matching linen liner.
“What happened to the cute little baskets made from recycled paper that you love so much?” I asked. The paper baskets came in an assortment of holiday prints and made cleanup simple. Real baskets seemed impractical. Come to think of it, she’d switched to ceramic mugs in the Hearth too.
Mom waved a dismissive hand. “Throwaways seem so impersonal. These give folks the feeling of permanency, like they’ve just sat down to a snack at a friend’s home.”
I mulled that over, and it didn’t mesh. Throughout my childhood, she’d touted the practicality of disposable cups and the freedom they gave guests to leave the booths and enjoy our farm at their leisure.
“Help yourself.” She kissed my head. “I’m going to check on your father.”
I leaned against the counter until I heard the front door close. A lot had changed while I was away.
I turned my attention to Sheriff Gray. “Paula from the maple tree farm next door was borderline hostile when I asked her about Margaret. The two women were apparently enemies for decades, but I think it’s odd that Paula’s just as mad at Margaret today as she was before.”
“Anyone else?”
I frowned. “This isn’t easy for me, you know? I’m talking about people behind their backs. I don’t know who’s a killer and who’s just cranky. The cranky ones don’t deserve to be gossiped about.”
He circled a wrist between us, the universal sign to move it along.
“Don’t you have any follow-up questions on Paula?” I asked.
“Nope.”
I rubbed my forehead. “Fine. You might also want to talk to Mr. Fleece, the reindeer keeper.”
Sheriff Gray pulled his chin back and tented his eyebrows. “Fleece works here. I thought the whole point of your little espionage mission was to steer me away.”
“My mission was to make you cast a wider net. You’re too focused on my family and the farm workers. You aren’t even looking at the other people who hated her.” I bit my lip, wishing I hadn’t said “hate.” “Maybe the killer didn’t hate her. Maybe they were just two people having a run-of-the-mill disagreement and things escalated unexpectedly.”
“Do you always do that?”
“Do what?”
He helped himself to a mug of hot tea and stirred slowly, forcing me to wait for his answer. “Always give everyone the benefit of the doubt.”
“I try.”
“You think it’s a nice thing to do, but you’re giving the killer an excuse.” He blew across the steamy surface of his tea and took up a spot on the wall across from me in the narrow room.
I wrapped my arms around my middle. “You don’t know what it’s like to grow up in a small town. I’ve known most of these people all my life. I hate thinking one of them is capable of murder.”
Something flitted over his expression, there and gone before it could be named. “Everyone’s capable of something they never thought they could be.”
I searched his eyes for the story behind those words, but whatever it was, he kept it to himself.
“Who, on this property, knew you were going into town?”
“Everyone. I was probably hard to miss in the rental truck.”
“Did they all know you had an ulterior motive?”
“No. I didn’t tell anyone.”
He ambled back to the spread on my table. “Could someone have seen or heard you in town, become frustrated, and followed you home?” He bit into one of Mom’s chocolate chip cookies and moaned. It wasn’t an uncommon response.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
He stopped chewing. “I didn’t see the truck outside.”
“I returned it.”
“How’d you get home?”
“Ray Griggs.”
He stuffed the remaining cookie between his lips with a chuckle. “You know him?”
“Kind of. We went to school together,” I said, hoping it was true.
“Did he tell you he’s a reporter now?”
“Yes.” After I’d discovered his press badge.
The front door opened and closed with a thump. “Sheriff?” His deputy marched inside, dusting snow from his gloves. “All set out there. I’ve collected the stakes and photographed the scene.” He tipped his hat when he noticed me staring, and a mass of salt-and-pepper hair burst free.
“Help yourself to cookies and tea,” I said. “Take your time warming up. There’s a fire in the living room if you’d be more comfortable there.”
He grabbed a napkin and loaded the sweets into a precarious pile. “Thank you kindly. Don’t mind if I do.”
I refocused on the sheriff. “What’s next?”
“For starters, stop asking people about Margaret Fenwick.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Don’t give out any information either. If someone doesn’t know something, it’s because they don’t need to. Got it?”
“Sure.”
He turned to his deputy. “We need a list of all the people on these grounds today. I want to talk to anyone who was here and unaccounted for at the time when those stakes could’ve been delivered.”
The deputy wrote something in a little flip notebook. “Yes, sir.”
I headed for the door. “We might as well start at the Hearth. There was quite a crowd at breakfast.”
Mom met us on the porch. “How’s everything going? Can I get you anything else?”
“He wants a list of everyone who was here today,” I said.
“Oh, dear,” Mom answered. Her eyes rolled skyward as she disappeared in thought. “There have been quite a few. I can take a stab at it, if you’d like.”
Sheriff Gray braced wide palms over narrow hips. Frustration colored his face. “I don’t understand why this is so difficult. Who are all these people?”
“Townies,” I said.
“What are they doing here? I ordered Reindeer Games to be closed today.”
Mom smiled sweetly and patted his sleeve. “We are closed, dear. No one’s buying anything. They’re just visiting.”
Sheriff Gray turned a droll expression on me.
I locked my arm in his and towed him toward the Hearth. “Welcome to Mistletoe.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose as we moved. “When we get to the Hearth, I’ll do the talking. You’re done asking people about Margaret Fenwick.”
I smiled sweetly. That’s what he thought.