Punch, Pastries, and Poison by Harper Lin (ebook reader for pc and android .txt) 📕

my mind at that moment was a nap, some ibuprofen, and the current tenuous state of my stomach.

He finally sighed and shook his head slightly. “I wish I did.” He pressed his lips together. “I’m just hoping something clicks into place during this investigation. Something that seemed insignificant suddenly becomes the key to the whole case.”

Like Ephy and her water. But that was ridiculous. People were allowed to drink water at a party. And her objection—that she didn’t like sweet stuff—made sense. There were a lot of sweets at the party. But she gave you that sugar cookie recipe. Knowing a great sugar cookie recipe didn’t mean anything. Everybody liked a cookie now and again, didn’t they? Plus, maybe she just didn’t like to drink sweet things. Between the sorbet, the pineapple juice, and the soda, the punch really was on the sugary side. That was probably all she meant. It had to be.

“So what comes next?” I asked.

“Well, unless these guys find a receipt for a major eye drop purchase around here, I’ll move on to the next most obvious suspects.” He glanced at me and saw the question on my face. He took a deep breath. “I’m going to need to talk to your employees.”

If it was possible, I sank farther into the couch. I hated my girls being dragged this, even if I understood why they were his next targets. “Then what?” I asked, wondering whether it would get better or somehow worse.

“Then—” He hesitated. “Then we go through the guest list.”

“And what? Search everyone’s houses until you find someone who has a problem with their eyes getting red?”

He gave me a look that I could only describe as disdain. I knew why. I was being sarcastic when he was just trying to do his job.

“We’ll try to identify who might have had a motive.”

“What kind of motive would someone have to poison a hundred or so people? Can there even be a motive for that?”

He sighed. “There’s always a motive. Even if it’s just because they think it would be fun to cause havoc.”

I was incredulous. “Seriously? You think someone could have done this just for fun? What kind of sick person would poison one hundred people just for fun?”

He shrugged. “We don’t know if that was what it was, Fran. It could be anything. It could have been just a way to cause trouble, or they could have been targeting one person and everyone else was collateral damage. We just don’t know. But that’s why we’re investigating—to find out who would have done this and why.”

It made sense, but it was torture. I wanted the solution to be simple and easy. I wanted there to be an obvious suspect—someone who wasn’t one of my nearest and dearest—and I wanted them to have a good reason for having done it, although I couldn’t imagine what kind of good reason anyone could have for pouring eye drops into the food at my party. Or maybe it was an accident. It would have to be a pretty crazy accident, though.

I took a deep breath. It hadn’t even been a day, but I was ready for this to be over and for everything to get back to normal. I wanted to forget that it had ever happened.

“When can I reopen the café?” I asked. There would be a ton of cleanup to do before we could get back to business as usual, and I was anxious to get it started as soon as possible.

Mike made a face. “Not until we get all the test results back and figure out what food the poison was added to. We may have to come back for more samples of the ones we took for the tetra—uh, the eye drops.”

“So I can’t even go clean up?”

“Sorry, Fran. You’re just going to have to be patient until we get all our loose ends tied up.”

I made a face. I was good at many things, but being patient wasn’t one of them.

Mike caught my eye and chuckled. “I know that’s not your strong suit, but I believe in you.”

Before I could think up a saucy comeback, one of the techs stuck her head around the doorframe. “Detective? We’re ready for you.”

Mike moved to get up, stopped, and then started back up more slowly. He followed her around the corner.

One advantage of having a small house—one I definitely hadn’t appreciated growing up there as a teenager—was that you could hear almost everything from anywhere.

“Find anything?” Mike asked, quietly but definitely still within earshot.

I held my breath, worried even though I knew I’d had nothing to do with the poisoning.

“Nothing at all out of the ordinary, sir,” the tech replied.

I let out my breath and rested my head on the back of the couch. I was in the clear. Now I just had to hope Mike found out who the real culprit was—and fast too. I still felt terrible, but I wanted to return to work the second I was back on my feet. The very moment he told me I could go back in the café, if possible. Yes, that was what I wanted. But until then, a nap sounded like just the thing.

Chapter 11

I was feeling better by the time I woke up from my nap. Not good, mind you, but better than I was. My head only ached a little, and my stomach had calmed to the point where I could almost stand the thought of eating something. Almost. As appealing as a cup of coffee sounded in theory—especially given my headache—my stomach still turned at the very thought of swallowing anything. But at least I could sit up straight and think clearly.

Of course, that meant my brain could now form coherent thoughts about the party and the poisoning. And the first one was that I needed to know what food had been poisoned. Maybe if I figured that out, I could figure out who had done it. Not that I had any