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The Fletchers Grove real estate party is FINALLY HERE!!! A guy dressed as Santa comes in and kills the vibe. It's Glen. He owns the bookstore, and he’s very passive-aggressive about how no one in this town comes to his bookstore. Glen has a past. He’s banned from the diner, and everyone seems to hate him. He gives presents to everyone and tells Emily that he picked this one specially for her—it’s rare he finds a fellow mystery lover.
The night continues, and Emily sees Glen in his Santa suit scurrying quickly outside. She goes to follow him, finds his hat on the floor, and then sees a car speed off. Just as that happens, she hears a scream. She runs inside and sees Sue, who was throwing the party. She’s crying as she looks at Glen, who has been stabbed in the heart.
When Emily gets home, she opens the gift. It’s a special green edition of A Christmas Carol. We get a flashback of Emily visiting the bookstore and meeting Glen. She tells him about this edition of A Christmas Carol that her parents used to read to her. He remembered and tracked the book down. As she opens it, a letter falls out, inviting her to a very special event at the law offices tomorrow at 8 p.m. What is Glen up to?!
So, she goes to tell Sam, and he says, “How would you feel about me being a plus-one so I can take a gander?”
They show up, and the video plays—it’s Glen, predicting his own death and setting up a treasure hunt. Sam tries to get everyone to give him their books so he can search for clues. They’re like, “Nah. There’s treasure to find!”
It doesn’t take Emily long to find the first clue using a UV light on her book. She thinks the other books have clues too and that they all need to work together on it. She gets two others on board—a hot dog stand owner named Harry and Brooke Carmichael. But Glen’s nephew, Fred, says he and his wife don’t want to participate (mainly Fred’s wife—she didn’t like Glen).
To make matters worse, there’s one book still missing. She thinks maybe he gave it to the diner owner, Sue, but Sue says she threw the book out.
Sam finds out that Glen had Huntington’s disease. After Fred finds this out, he decides that they want to participate. Even though they’re missing one book, they decide to put all the clues together and try to figure out what they’re pointing to. It has something to do with a precious memory. Fred says, “The only memory I can think of with Glen is him reading Twas the Night Before Christmas.” Emily says, “Go see if he has that book in the bookstore. Maybe there’s a clue.”
As they’re walking towards the store, Emily sees the car that sped off and notices a letter that clearly came from Glen in the front seat. Just then, Fred realizes the bookstore is unlocked. Sam goes in first and finds a guy there.
It’s Fred’s brother Noah. They haven’t seen each other in a long time. Apparently, when their mom got sick, Noah left. Sam takes Noah in for questioning and presents him with some pretty tough evidence—they found Glen’s Santa suit in the trunk and the USB drive with Glen’s video on it from the lawyer’s office, which was stolen. He gives reasons for all of it, but it’s not looking great.
Fred tells Emily that he did finally go find the book and found a USB drive! They agree to all get together tomorrow to watch what’s on it.
As Emily’s going home, an SUV speeds at her, and she has to tuck-and-roll out of the way.
The next day, they all get together, and it’s another video with a very cryptic clue. We find out that someone is sitting in a car, listening in on their conversation.
Later, the group gets back together, but Fred is nowhere to be found. Turns out he was attacked from behind. He says he doesn’t know who did it. Sam gets a call—they found Fred’s wife’s DNA on the Santa suit. She says she found out that the first editions were missing and went to talk to Glen. She found him dead and knew it wouldn’t look good that she found him, so she put the suit on and ran out.
Emily finds Noah in the diner—he’s been released. She convinces him to join the group in solving the mystery. He comes to her store and sees there’s a hole in the wall—she has a leak. He says he thought maybe it was one of the secret compartments these old buildings have. That gives them the idea to look for one in the bookstore, and they find it! Inside is a suitcase—a go-bag, if you will. They discover a folder with a plane ticket to Switzerland for the day of the party and a brochure for a place in Switzerland for end-of-life care. He was planning to leave and die in Switzerland. Emily recalls that the tape says, “If you’re seeing this, that means I’m gone.” He didn’t know he was going to be murdered. He was just planning on disappearing.
They find the final clue and watch the video. Suddenly, Harry, the hot dog guy, is gone, and so are all the books. Emily puts it together—he killed Glen and was just trying to solve the mystery. She goes to confront him in the cemetery where the final clue leads to. We find out that he showed up to steal the first edition A Christmas Carol and threatened to kill Glen to get it. Glen laughed in his face, knowing he was dying. That offended Harry, so he stabbed him.
Emily then fights him, takes him down, and puts him in plastic cuffs to get the treasure! She figures out it was the lawyer who hired this guy, and he gets arrested.
She gets the group back together and hands out what Glen left for everyone. It’s very sweet.
The movie ends with Emily coming down to her store and seeing Sam fixing her wall. They end up making out HARD!!! She says, “Let’s go for a walk in the snow.” She has to go change, and that’s when he gets a phone call—he’s been investigating Emily and noticed some discrepancies in her story. He got a call from his higher-up to drop any and all research into her. So, clearly, she isn’t who she says she is. The episode ends with him asking her, “Who are you really?” Fade to black.
