“What? I thought it was a prank. I didn’t know that he was actually dying,” Travis complains as the Christmas cops haul him and Hollis away.
“Willow!” someone cries painfully from the back of the stage. “Willow, I’m coming to save you.”
Maris is a few steps behind Hughes.
“He insisted.” She rolls her eyes.
“Oh, Hughes, you’re too late.”
“No,” he groans.
“Just lie down,” I beg.
“Ugh.” He slumps onto the ground.
“You’ve been poisoned. Where are the EMTs?” I look around wildly.
“EMT? Pshaw.” Gran appears with a bottle in a paper bag. “Bought the last bottle of moonshine from Lilith. She puts extra special herbs and spices in it.” She shakes the bottle.
“It looks like pond water. I don’t think we should—”
Gran tips it down Hughes’s throat.
He gurgles then shoots straight up. “Oh my god!”
“That’ll put the spirit of Christmas in you.” She pats his back.
There are complaints from the tourists watching the Bake-Off. “Give us the cookies! We want cookies!”
Hughes pukes on the stage.
The crowd groans.
“Don’t worry,” Ida says into the microphone. “Cookies are happening as soon as we clean out the riffraff. The Jingle Bites Café is, of course, disqualified on account of the cupcakes probably being poisoned.”
“Maybe a little more. Second time’s the charm.” Gran holds the moonshine to Hughes’s mouth.
“Gran, stop giving that to him!” I bat the bottle away.
“See?” Gran drags Hughes upright and pats his cheeks. “He’s all right.”
“I don’t think that’s how this works.”
“He’s not all right,” Hughes groans then collapses.
32
HUGHES
The snow is coming down thick, muting the sirens and the city’s sins alike. She is gone now—the dame who dragged me into this tinsel-tangled mess—and I’m left with her ghost and a bullet graze that stings like regret. I should’ve seen it coming, but love and bourbon make a lousy pair of glasses. And love is all I see. My girl Friday, my partner in crime-solving, stands by the window. She patched me up and poured me coffee strong enough to burn the truth out of my throat. Outside, Christmas lights blink like confessions, and for once, I believe in love and Christmas miracles…
“Men are so dramatic.”
Nana fusses as she rearranges the pillows behind my head, sending Lord Mycroft grunting from where he’s made a nest next to my hip.
“Ow! I’ve been in the hospital for days,” I tell her incredulously. “I almost died. I got shot.”
“No, you didn’t,” she snorts. “That was a scrape from a tree branch, and anyway, I told Jenine’s daughter—she’s the head nurse there, you know—I told her I had Airbnb-ers untilTuesday and she needed to keep you there because I didn’t have anywhere to put you.”
