Hounded in Christmas River Read online

  Hounded in Christmas River

  A Christmas Cozy Mystery Novella

  by

  Meg Muldoon

  Published by Vacant Lot Publishing

  Copyright 2019© by Meg Muldoon

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance whatsoever to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The Meg Muldoon Collection

  The Christmas River Cozy Mystery Series

  Murder in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 1)

  Mayhem in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 2)

  Madness in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 3)

  Malice in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 4)

  Mischief in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 5)

  Manic in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 6)

  Magic in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 7)

  Menace in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 8)

  Missing in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 9)

  Meltdown in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 10)

  Midnight in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 11)

  Mistake in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 12)

  The Christmas River Cozy Mystery Novella Series

  Roasted in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery Novella (Book 1)

  Caught in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery Novella (Book 2)

  Crushed in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery Novella (Book 3)

  Cinnamon Peters & the Rabbit Bandit: A Christmas Cozy Mystery Short

  The Cozy Matchmaker Mystery Series

  Burned in Broken Hearts Junction: A Cozy Matchmaker Mystery (Book 1)

  Busted in Broken Hearts Junction: A Cozy Matchmaker Mystery (Book 2)

  The Dog Town USA Cozy Mystery Series

  Mutts & Murder: A Dog Town USA Cozy Mystery (Book 1)

  Bulldogs & Bullets: A Dog Town USA Cozy Mystery (Book 2)

  The Holly Hopewell Cozy Mystery Series

  The Silence of the Elves: A Holly Hopewell Cozy Mystery (Book 1)

  The Broomfield Bay Mystery Series (with Jools Sinclair)

  Ginger of the West: A Witches of Broomfield Bay Mystery (Book 1)

  Acknowledgement

  A huge thanks to all my readers, and in particular, to those of you who have joined my Cozy Lodge Patreon Club this year. You guys have supported me tremendously – not just with your monthly pledges but also with your belief in my work. And to me that last part has truly been priceless.

  In particular, I’d like to thank Cheryl Shoup, Phyllis May, Helen Edwards, Amanda C., Chip Capelli, Carol Schmidt, Mindy Kelly, and Jacqueline Myers. I’m so grateful for your generosity and enthusiasm for Christmas River!

  With love and gratitude, Meg.

  Hounded in Christmas River

  by Meg Muldoon

  Note to Readers

  This is a standalone novella that doesn’t take place sequentially in the Christmas River series.

  Chapter 1

  It all started one morning in late August with the sound of a bell jingling, a door closing, and a commotion of frantic scrambling out in the dining room.

  That last one – the unmistakable sound of paws on hardwood – wasn’t an altogether unfamiliar noise in my shop. If I had to work late on pie prepping, I’d often bring Huckleberry and Chadwick along to keep me company. And sometimes, if the pooches heard something out in the woods behind the pie shop or the sound of a car backfiring on Main Street, they’d jump up from their dog beds like the world was ending. That was usually followed by a mad-dash scramble across the dining room floor and a series of ferocious barks. Silence only returned to the pie shop again when the pooches deemed the perceived threat to be gone for good.

  But the noise coming from the dining room that morning, while similar to the sound of my own dogs, wasn’t exactly the same.

  The sound the claws made was faint. More delicate somehow. Dainty, even.

  I lowered the volume on the Josh Ritter album playing in the kitchen and paused, listening harder.

  If I didn’t know better, I’d say that a pack of raccoons had just invaded the shop – crafty raccoons that had somehow learned to turn a door handle and were now marching on the pie display case, about to make the biggest meal score of their lives.

  But that absurd image in my head was soon dashed by a series of high-pitched barks and yips echoing back into the kitchen.

  I felt the corners of my mouth lift at that, and I dusted my hands off on my apron. Then I headed through the swinging dividing door, curious as could be about what kind of strange scene was unfolding out there.

  It only took a moment before my eyes zeroed in on the source of all the hubbub.

  I stopped dead in my tracks.

  “Oh… my…”

  My jaw nearly hit the hardwood.

  “Goodness…”

  A second later, I dropped to my knees.

  They sure as marionberries in August weren’t raccoons.

  Chapter 2

  When it came to baking pie and running the business, I was probably what most people would call a workaholic.

  I started before sun-up and usually didn’t quit until after sundown. I worked most major holidays and even on my birthday some years. I didn’t take much vacation time, and during the day, I never took breaks longer than what I deemed absolutely necessary.

  But all that hardcore commitment went right out the window that morning after I caught sight of the pack of basset hound puppies in the dining room.

  There were six of them. Brown and white balls of joy, panting and smiling and rolling around the floor like their whole mission in life was to play and revel in fun. They couldn’t have been more than a couple months old, and they were cuter than bear cubs in spring.

  I reached out, gently picking one up in my hands. He was the pudgiest of all, with a chubby midsection and big, oversized paws. I lifted him and gazed into his sweet little face. He had droopy ears and sagging eyelids and he looked back with a sleepy expression. There was just a hint of curiosity in his eyes, as if he didn’t know what to make of me.

  I loved him instantly.

  And I knew I could have easily spent the entire morning playing with the puppies and not given a passing thought to the million or so pies I had yet to make for the day ahead.

  “Aubrey,” I said disapprovingly, looking up at the lady who was holding onto the six puppies’ leashes. “Just what are you trying to do bringing these little guys into my shop like this? You know very well that I’ve already got two dogs and don’t have room at home for another.”

  I said the words, even though they weren’t altogether true. Because as any dog lover knows, there’s always room for another pooch.

  But given how much Daniel and I were working lately, and how little time we had to even cook dinner for ourselves these days, it didn’t seem fair to invite a rambunctious, attention-hungry puppy into our home.

  That was what my logical mind was saying, anyway.

  My heart, on the other hand, was beating to a different rhythm completely
as I held that little plump basset hound in my hands.

  I glanced up at Aubrey again, shaking my head and smiling.

  Aubrey Berg – a tall gal in her late-thirties with deep-set eyes, short, wheat-colored hair, and a smattering of freckles, looked back with a knowing smile on her face. It was as if she could see the wheels turn in my mind as I debated whether to listen to my head or my heart.

  No doubt, she’d seen this very thing happen all the time at the Christmas River Humane Society – where she had been the shelter manager for the past five years.

  “Didn’t mean to cause you any trouble, Cin,” she said, tugging on the puppies’ leashes. “But these little guys needed some fresh air. And anyway, I wanted to come by and check in about your booth at the Pooch Parade this weekend. You have everything you need?”

  I set the ball of brown and white fur back down on the floor and stood up, dusting my hands free of hair. I made a mental note that I needed to wash my hands well when I got back into the kitchen.

  “Yep, everything’s on track for the Pooch Parade booth this weekend,” I said, referring to the Humane Society’s upcoming event. “Got the tent rented, and I’ll have enough pies there to feed the whole town if necessary.”

  The chubby pup looked up at me and let out a little high-pitched yip.

  I grinned.

  “So how did the Society end up with so many of these guys?” I asked, nodding to the pack.

  Obviously, I had a one-track mind when it came to this conversation, unable to take my attention away from the cutest things I’d seen all year.

  “Someone left them at our doorstep during the night last week,” Aubrey said. “It’s pretty unusual, considering these puppies could go for $700 since they’re purebred. We don’t often see puppies like this at the shelter. I suspect that maybe they came from that puppy mill farm near the BrightStar area. Though it’s a mystery how they ended up on our doorstep. I doubt Tyler Lecky decided to give away more than $4,000 of his dirty income.”

  “Puppy mill?” I asked, furrowing my brow.

  “Yep,” Aubrey said, the tone of her voice becoming serious. “The Lecky family runs a farm out near the BrightStar area and masquerades as reputable, humane breeders, but everyone in the animal community knows they aren’t. They specialize in breeding English Cream Golden Retrievers and hound dogs, which is why I think this batch might have come from them. I wrote an editorial about puppy mills a few weeks ago in The Redmond Register, and I mentioned the farm as possibly being one. You know, it’s just criminal what goes on at those farms.”

  I nodded. I remembered seeing something about a puppy mill in a headline recently, but I hadn’t had time to read it with things being so busy at the pie shop.

  As the Humane Society manager, Aubrey wrote weekly guest editorials in the paper. Usually her columns were about pet care and subjects like how to keep dogs and cats safe during firework season. But in the past year, her columns had become a kind of activism. She wrote about the evils of high-kill shelters disguised as humane societies, and she also wrote about various organizations in the state that were suspected of treating animals poorly. It seemed that whatever the issue, if it had anything to do with animal treatment, Aubrey was ready to take up her pen and write.

  The local gossips had billed Aubrey as a radical troublemaker who stirred the pot a little too often. But I didn’t view her that way. I saw her as someone trying to bring light to issues that many people turned a blind eye to. And I also admired her bravery – she wasn’t afraid of ruffling a few feathers from time to time.

  “Well, I’m sure all these little guys will get adopted out lickety-split,” I said, nodding to the puppies.

  “Oh, I have no doubt,” Aubrey said. “The young ones are easy. People always want puppies. It’s the adult dogs I worry about.”

  It could have been the harsh light filtering in through the front windows of the pie shop, but Aubrey suddenly looked a little pale to me. Like the way a person recovering from a flu might look. And something about her eyes seemed off, too, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on what that was.

  But I didn’t think much of it. Aubrey was single-handedly planning Christmas River’s first ever Pooch Parade this Labor Day weekend, and I imagined she was weary from the energy it took to put on an event that big.

  “You know, Aubrey, I’ve been working on some dog treats to sell at the parade,” I said when the conversation hit a lull. “I’ve actually just got a batch of the Canine Crumble in the ice-box that I’d love to run by you, if you have a moment. I know you’re an expert on dog diets and—”

  I abruptly stopped talking as the coloring of Aubrey’s face suddenly faded to a shade of freezer burn.

  “Oh, hey… are you okay—”

  I didn’t get a chance to finish the question.

  Her eyes suddenly lifted up to the ceiling. The leashes slipped out of her hand and she reached for the counter’s edge just in time before losing her balance.

  The puppies scattered across the room like loose marbles.

  I rushed over as she started wheezing.

  “Aubrey?! Are you okay?” I said, holding onto her other arm and supporting her.

  “Yes…” she choked out, clutching her chest with one hand and hanging onto the counter for dear life with the other. “I’m… I’m alright.”

  But there was no way she was.

  Because alright people didn’t have the complexion of a glacier.

  “I’m gonna call an ambulance.”

  “No.”

  She shook her head.

  “This is serious, Aubrey.”

  But she gripped my sleeve and shook her head vehemently again.

  “I just… I need some water. And I need to… to sit down.”

  I helped her through the swinging dividing door and into the kitchen, where she took a seat on one of the barstools. I got her some water.

  Then I pulled out my phone and began dialing 9-1-1.

  Chapter 3

  But I didn’t place the call.

  Aubrey pleaded with me not to. And though sense told me she needed medical attention, I ultimately listened to her and set my phone down.

  She seemed to know more about what was happening than I did.

  After a few minutes of slow, deep breaths, the episode seemed to pass. Color came back into her face and she began breathing normally again. The fear in her eyes subsided, and when I brought over a glass of fresh marionberry lemonade, she gave me a weak, but grateful, smile.

  “Are the… are the pups okay?” she mumbled, her voice coming out like wind through a broken flute.

  “I put them on the deck out back,” I said, nodding. “I’ve got a dog gate for when Hucks and Chadwick are here. They’re safe and secure.”

  Aubrey nodded.

  “I hate making a big fuss,” she said slowly. “I’m very sorry about this.”

  “Don’t be. But are you sure I shouldn’t call somebody, Aubrey? That was quite a—”

  She shook her head yet again.

  “I know it wasn’t pretty, but it was just a panic attack,” she said quietly. “I’ve dealt with them since college. Sometimes I can go years without getting one. But then out of the blue, I’ll suddenly get a string of them. They’re scary as hell, but when it’s all over, there’s not a thing wrong with me.”

  She took another sip of the lemonade, beads of water from the glass dripping down and splashing on the butcher block.

  “Are the panic attacks related to stress?” I asked, grabbing the lemonade pitcher and standing at the ready to pour her some more.

  “Sometimes,” she said.

  She stared past my shoulder out the kitchen window, a tired, haggard expression coming across her face.

  I’d never had a panic attack before, but I’d seen someone go through one once. It had been the summer between my sophomore and junior year of college, and I was temping in a vacation rental office on the south side of town. The office administrator was in the m
iddle of showing me how to Xerox some records when she crumpled over the copy machine and started wheezing, clutching at her chest like she was having a heart attack. An ambulance was called and they took her to the hospital. But a couple of days later, the same woman was back at work, looking healthy and completely normal. Apparently, the doctors couldn’t find anything physically wrong with her, and they diagnosed the episode as an anxiety episode most likely caused by stress.

  I didn’t know much about the condition, but I could imagine it must have been challenging to deal with. Not knowing whether your frightening symptoms were really real or just an overreaction related to anxiety had to be absolutely terrifying.

  “You know, Aubrey, if you need any help with the Pooch Parade, I’d be happy to lend a hand,” I said. “And I’m not the only one either. I know my grandfather and his wife Aileen would be happy to help and—”

  “Thanks, Cin, but I’ve been planning this thing for the last eight months – I’ve got it under control,” she said.

  She swallowed the rest of her lemonade, setting the glass down and letting out a big sigh.

  “Anyway, the parade’s the least of my worries right now…”

  She trailed off. The color began draining from her face again, and for a moment, I worried she was going to relapse.

  I furrowed my brow.

  “What is it, Aubrey?” I said in a gentle voice.

  She shook her head, looking down at the butcher block.

  Then she closed her eyes, letting out an uneasy breath.

  “Someone’s after me, Cinnamon,” she whispered.

  Chapter 4

  “Aubrey really should have come into the Sheriff’s Office today and made an official report,” Daniel said, shaking his head in between bites. “In cases where there’s a potential stalker, the best thing to do is be proactive. Not to wait for something worse to happen.”