A Festive Kill – J K Ellem

Instead, it gleamed like a warning. Todd poured carefully, his movements slow and deliberate. “Philip will join us when he’s ready,” he said with that same soft smile. “No sense letting this go to waste.” Janice sat stiffly, twisting her napkin, eyes darting toward the cellar door. “I don’t understand why he’d stay down there.

He hates the cold.” Todd handed her a glass, the gesture almost tender. “He just needed a moment, and he wanted to find another bottle of red. Something special he had said to mark the occasion.” “What occasion?” Carolyn asked. Morelli took his own glass without drinking from it. Carolyn also left hers untouched. The fire crackled. The silence stretched. Todd lifted his glass. “A reunion.” “A what?” Carolyn shot back. “What the hell are⁠—?”

“Todd, please. I want to see my husband,” Janice cut in, mild panic in her voice. He looked at her with genuine warmth, almost pity. “Of course, you do.” When he didn’t move, Carolyn said quietly, “Then let her.” His gaze slid to her. “You think I’d stop her?” “You already have.”

The faintest pause. Then the smile again, perfectly composed. “You’ve got me all wrong.” “Enough of this.” Morelli pushed out his chair. “I’m going down to check on him. He might need medical attention.” Todd studied him, his expression unreadable. “How noble. A man of action.” His hand reached for a knife on the side plate. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Morelli said. Carolyn could see Morelli’s jaw tighten, his hands balled into fists. “Hmm.” Todd tilted his head. “You don’t seem like a man of action, Chief. From what I’ve heard, you’re oblivious to the goings on in your own little town.” He looked at Carolyn. “Seems like she’s the one who wears the pants in the relationship.” He tilted the knife. Reflected light dancing across the ceiling. The room’s temperature seemed to drop.

Carolyn’s pulse thudded in her throat. She recognized the change—the shift from performance to revelation. The mask was slipping. Todd exhaled slowly, as if deciding how much truth to offer. “Philip’s fine. We had a good talk.” “What kind of talk?” Morelli demanded, all too aware that the dinner party was now over.

The Erin’s Bay Universe Diagram The Erin’s Bay Universe Also available by JK Ellem Join the Ravenwood Readers Club A Personal Favor For Me! About the Author 1kitap1.com/en Copyright © 2025 28th Street Multimedia Group & JK Ellem A Festive Kill work of fiction. Generative AI has not been used at any stage and this work is entirely the author’s. All incidents, dialogue and all characters are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the written permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. No parts of these books may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, or used for AI learning without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

© Copyrighted Material 2025 www.jkellem.com All rights reserved 1kitap1.com/en WELCOME Welcome to Erin’s Bay, a small coastal town with dark secrets where the sea is calm, the streets are quiet, and buried truths linger just beneath the surface. Each novel in the Erin’s Bay Universe is a complete, stand-alone thriller, but many characters, mysteries, and clues echo across multiple stories. If you enjoy discovering how characters and events intertwine, explore the suggested reading order at the end of this book where you’ll discover a hidden tapestry of connected lives, dark histories, and unsolved mysteries woven through the other Erin’s Bay novels and novellas.

Follow the path to the stories that came before…and the ones still waiting in the dark for you. 1kitap1.com/en A FESTIVE KILL 1kitap1.com/en 1kitap1.com/en 1 AN INVITATION In the distance, Erin’s Bay shimmered like a postcard—too much light, too much cheer. Garland in every window, wreaths fat with fake berries, snow gathering in soft folds along the eaves. Beneath it all ran the hush of the Atlantic, the briny breath of winter sliding through the white-smattered streets. Six months since the Dalton case, and Carolyn still couldn’t breathe cold air without feeling it catch deep in her chest where the scar curved—a pale seam hidden beneath silk.

The doctors said she was healing. The scar said otherwise. Every stretch of skin or shift in temperature brought a dull reminder of what a scalpel and time could do.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: d4717c7fcff1d659
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 2,134,732 bytes (2.036 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 117
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 104.93 minutes
• Total Words: 20,986
• Total Characters: 123,420
• Average Words per Page: 179.37
• Average Characters per Page: 1054.87

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