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

to figure out my next move. Almost immediately, I was jolted out of my thoughts by someone knocking on the window next to my head. Instantly, I knew it was Mike. I was caught, and now I’d have to endure, at best, a dirty look and, at worst, a lecture on how I needed to stay out of police business and mind my own. Of course, in a quite literal sense, I was minding my business, but I didn’t think Mike would appreciate that argument.

I took a deep breath before turning to face his judgement.

But instead of Mike’s eyes glaring down at me from beneath his crew cut, I saw Melissa with a big smile on her face as she waved at me. I hopped up from my chair and unlocked the door to let her in. She threw her arms around me as best she could with her pregnant belly between us.

“I heard what happened! It’s terrible! I’m so sorry! Are you okay? How are you feeling?” She had each of my hands grasped in one of hers and looked at me with genuine concern in her eyes.

“I’m okay. A lot better than I was this morning, that’s for sure.” It suddenly dawned on me that that as miserable as I’d been, Melissa would have felt so much more miserable than I did—not to mention how bad the drug in the eye drops would have been for her baby. “But what about you? How are you feeling?”

“Oh, I’m fine!” she said, her blue eyes sparkling. She really looked the part of the glowing expectant mother. “I don’t know how, since I’m pretty sure I had at least two of every single thing on the table, so I must have eaten some of whatever was bad. This little girl’s a hungry one!” She patted her belly and laughed. “But maybe she gives me some kind of protection from food poisoning.”

I realized then that she didn’t know about the poison—only that people had gotten sick. But still, she hadn’t gotten sick. “You ate some of everything?”

Melissa nodded, setting her dark curls bouncing while she eyed the food still on the tables. She looked like she was barely holding herself back from heading over and loading up another plate. “It wasn’t like this at all with Emmy. I barely ate anything with her. Pretty much everything grossed me out. I’m like a bottomless pit with this one. First time in my life my eyes haven’t been bigger than my stomach!” She giggled, rubbing her belly affectionately.

“And you didn’t get sick at all?”

She shook her head. “Nope, not at all! Like I said, I guess the baby must have given me some kind of food poisoning protection or something.”

“Melissa—” I stepped closer and lowered my voice, even though I knew we were completely alone. “I don’t want to freak you out or anything, but it wasn’t food poisoning.”

Her unlined forehead wrinkled. “What do you mean? What made everyone sick if it wasn’t the food?”

I took a deep breath, still not sure if I should really tell her what had actually happened. Mike hadn’t said I couldn’t, but he hadn’t said I could either. Of course, I hadn’t let that ambiguity keep me out of the café, so why should I let it keep me from telling Melissa about the poison? “It was the food,” I said quietly. “But it was something someone put in the food on purpose. It was poison.”

She looked at me for a moment, blinking, her forehead still wrinkled. “It was—it was poison?” Both arms wrapped protectively around her middle. “What—who—why—what?” Her lower lip began to tremble.

I put my arm around her and pulled her toward me to comfort her. “I know. It’s crazy. They don’t know who did it yet or why, but the police are investigating.”

Her eyes welled up. “But poison! We’re lucky no one died! Oh my God, someone could have died. I could have died! My baby—!” She covered her face with her hands as she dissolved into tears. I put my other arm around her, too, and held her until her tears had calmed and she wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. I stepped over to the table and grabbed a couple napkins for her to use.

She dabbed at her eyes, wiped her nose, and struggled through a couple of deep breaths punctuated by her fading sobs. “I—I just can’t believe it. It’s so scary.”

I nodded. “That was why I asked if you were sure you ate some of everything. If you didn’t get sick, the poison must have been in something you didn’t eat.”

She nodded and turned her red, swollen eyes towards the table. Wordlessly, she crossed to the far end of the table with the non-alcoholic punch and started walking down it, pointing at each tray and nodding as she went. She got to the end and turned toward me, looking like she was ready to burst into tears again. “I had some of everything.”

I sighed and rubbed my hands up and down my face. “So much for that theory,” I muttered. If Melissa had some of everything and didn’t get sick at all, that meant the poison might have been added to individual servings. And if the poison had been added to individual servings, it was possible that none of the samples the crime scene techs had taken would turn out positive for the poison. And who knew what that would do to the investigation? Probably blow the whole thing up. Or make them turn on me again.

“I’m so sorry.” Melissa wiped her eyes again. “Everything just looked so good! I couldn’t help myself!”

I went over to comfort her again. It wasn’t her fault, of course, and I felt bad for making a pregnant woman cry. As I put my arms around her, my eyes fell on the punch bowl on this end of the table. Spiked on this end, non-alcoholic on the other. “Wait! Melissa! You didn’t have