CHAPTER 1
One hour from now…
The Victim
This is absolutely perfect.
I’m standing in this gaudy lounge surrounded by pearl-clutching socialites and their ridiculous lingerie display, and all I can think about is how spectacularly this story is going to destroy everyone here.
The photos I’m taking right now will ruin careers. The commentary I’m already composing in my head will turn their carefully constructed lives into viral cautionary tales. Each shot is another nail in their social coffins, and I’m the one holding the hammer.
The uptight manager thinks she can intimidate me with her threats and her corporate speak. She has no idea I’ve already dug up dirt on her financial indiscretions. A few well-timed posts about mismanaged funds and creative accounting, and her career will implode faster than a cheap Christmas ornament.
That designer with her fake accent keeps shooting menervous glances, probably worried I’ll expose her working-class origins and fabricated European training. One reverse image search and some digging into her past, and her entire brand becomes a punchline.
The flour-dusted baker looks like she wants to stuff me into one of her desserts. She’s still pouting from my review that called her confections aggressively mediocre. Tonight’s photos of her desperate attempt to cater this disaster will finish what I started.
I’m drunk on the power of it all. The ability to destroy reputations with a single post, to turn successful businesses into bankruptcy cases, to prove that no one—no matter how wealthy or well-connected—is safe from my particular brand of digital justice.
By tomorrow morning, half these people will be unemployed. By next week, the country club’s reputation will be in shambles. By next month, I’ll be fielding offers from major media outlets who want to hire the society columnist who single-handedly brought down Maine’s most exclusive establishment.
This is going to be the story that launches me into the big leagues.
After all, Christmas is the season of giving—and I’m about to give everyone here exactly what they deserve.
CHAPTER 2
Hattie
“Sweet heavens to Betsy!”A familiar Georgia drawl cuts through the air. “Would you look at this spicy little number! It’s got more bells than a sleigh and less fabric than a postage stamp!”
“Oh honey, that’s nothing compared to this elf costume I found.” Another voice cackles in response. “Look here—it’s got mistletoe attached to the... well, let’s just say it’s not meant for wearing in mixed company.”
“Ladies,” I call out, recognizing the voices immediately. “Please tell me you’re not starting a collection already.”
Peggy Ebersol turns toward me, her bright copper curls—suspiciously vibrant for someone who’s eighty-seven—catching the chandelier light as she waves what appears to be a Mrs. Claus outfit in leopard print. “Sugar pie, we’re justconducting quality control! Someone has to make sure these items meet proper Southern standards.”
“And by ‘proper Southern standards,’ she means scandalous enough to make a preacher blush.” Clarabelle Harper adjusts her rhinestone glasses and holds up a Christmas stocking designed for limbs that definitely aren’t meant for the mantelpiece. The eighty-something New Yorker’s wild gray hair barely stays contained beneath a Santa hat that blinks in Morse code. “I haven’t seen craftsmanship like this since my granddaughter’s bachelorette party—although that involved considerably less mistletoe.”
The Brambleberry Bay Country Club’s Crown Jewel Lounge pulses with Christmas music that’s decidedly more upbeat jazz than traditional carols, and has been transformed into something that can only be described as Christmas at its most unapologetic.
There are enough evergreen trees in the room to deplete a respectable stretch of Canadian wilderness, standing at attention in every corner, and each one decorated to within an inch of its life with gold ribbon, crystal ornaments, and lights that bounce off the marble floors and ricochet straight up into the chandeliers above. The effect is blinding in the best possible way.
The fireplace is wide enough to park my truck, Ginger, in sideways, and roars with a fire that crackles and snaps and gives this holiday party all the cozy feels it demands. Although I’d hardly call this a holiday party, at least not in the traditional sense. It’s more of a naughty nightie trunk show. And how this is happening at the most conservative country club in Maine, I will never know—and I’m the event planner.
Garland drapes every surface that will hold still longenough, and the whole room smells like pine needles, warm vanilla, and the kind of ambition that comes with a decorating budget most small nations would envy.
It’s a lot.
It’s also, I’ll admit, completely magnificent.
At three o’clock on this snowy December afternoon, the most exclusive room in Maine’s most prestigious club has been transformed into what amounts to a bordello—if that bordello happened to be in the North Pole.
Red velvet drapes frame displays of lace and silk, champagne flows from a fountain shaped like a candy cane, and the air smells like expensive perfume mixed with pine and something vaguely cinnamon.
Bunny Prescott, in all her blonde glory, is leading the charge with her Christmas Couture & Cocktails event, which I’m starting to suspect should have come with a warning label—many,manywarning labels.
“This is turning into quite the educational experience,” I say to no one in particular.
