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

for a moment, inclining her head and pursing her lips. She shook her head and shrugged. “No, I don’t think so.”

“What about someone hanging around the food or the punch bowl? Did you see anything like that?”

She thought again, started to shake her head, then stopped with her forehead wrinkled. “Well, actually…” She trailed off, still looking thoughtful. “Never mind, it was probably nothing.”

“Anything you saw could help. The way Mike was talking, anybody could be a suspect.”

“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”

Fearing I’d spooked her, I rushed to smooth it over. “No, no. You wouldn’t be getting anyone in trouble. The police are going to talk to everyone who was here last night anyway. Anything you saw would just be helping them know who to start with.”

She still looked uneasy. “I was up there a lot, you know. That’s what other people might have been doing too.”

I nodded. “Of course. Like I said, it’s just to help the police figure out who else might know something.”

She hesitated then took a deep breath. “There was a girl. I don’t think I’ve seen her before. She had dark hair. Kind of purplish? She was standing right over there against the wall by the punch bowl pretty much the whole time.”

Ephy.

“And Todd from Todd’s Gym was up there with Karli. You know her, don’t you? She works the front desk at the gym? They were having some kind of really intense-looking conversation for a while. They were right there, on the other side of the table.” She pointed at the far side of the table, close to the counter. “And then that guy from the jewelry store—you know, the one who always wears his hair slicked back?”

I nodded. “Dean Howard. He’s the owner.”

“Yeah, him. He was lurking around there some. I don’t really know what he was doing. I just had to scoot by him a few times.”

I glanced over at the big wrought-iron clock on the exposed-brick wall and realized I would have to hustle if I was going to make it home before Mike arrived on my doorstep. “I don’t want to rush you—”

“Oh, no, I get it,” she chirped, waving me off. She started back towards the door.

I thanked her for coming by and gave her a quick hug before she headed out. I let her have a few seconds to get a little ways down the sidewalk to make sure she didn’t think I was desperate to get rid of her. Then I shut the door and locked it. I hesitated for a second, wondering if I should grab the guest list, but decided against it, since doing that would be a dead giveaway that I’d been there. I hustled out the back and across the parking lot behind the buildings on Main Street.

I needed to get home as soon as possible, but I also needed not to kill myself in the process. If I pushed too hard, I’d probably collapse in somebody’s yard and have to take another nap before I could finish making my way home. I could just see myself waking up to Mike’s less-than-happy face staring down at me sprawled out on a neighbor’s grass. He’d want an explanation for sure, and my eye-drop-addled brain wouldn’t come up with anything other than the truth—that I’d been at the café, literally sniffing around. And that was the last thing I wanted to tell him.

Even though I did have Melissa’s comments about seeing Ephy hanging around the punch bowl ringing in my ears.

Chapter 13

I took my old childhood shortcut across the backyards on my street, hoping it would give me enough of an edge to beat Mike. It felt a little odd to be a fully grown, very almost-thirty-five-year-old woman tramping through people’s yards—especially since I’d found a body the last time I did it—but I was willing to risk feeling silly to avoid having to explain my trip to the café.

I was just crossing over into my backyard when I saw Mike’s car pull up in front of my house. I broke into a jog and immediately regretted it. Before I’d gone five feet, I was panting and lightheaded. Somehow, I still managed to make it to and through my back door just as Mike knocked at the front. As much as I wanted to collapse on the couch, I forced myself to the door and pulled it open with a big, fake smile on my face.

I regretted it as soon as I did. That kind of smile would make Mike immediately suspicious. He would know something was up, figure out what it was, and find a way to prove it if I tried to deny it. It would have been better if I’d just been late.

“Hey, Fran. Mind if I come in and sit down?” Coming from a police officer who was investigating a poisoning case I may or may not have been a suspect in, those words should have been intimidating. But between Mike’s glassy eyes and the way he swayed slightly on my doorstep, intimidation was the last thing I was feeling.

“Yeah, of course, come in.” I stepped back and held the door for him to get by.

He sank into the closest chair, put his head back, and closed his eyes.

“Are you okay?” I was relieved he hadn’t noticed my fake smile or that I was still out of breath from my brief jog, but I was also concerned. For one thing, he hadn’t noticed either of those obvious things. He also looked somehow worse than he had that morning. Probably because he’d been running around all day, trying to solve the case, instead of taking a three-hour nap like I had.

Mike grunted and waved his hand. “I just need a minute,” he muttered. “I’ll be fine.”

I went to the kitchen to make some ginger tea.

Tea wasn’t exactly my thing. It hadn’t been my mom or my grandparents’ thing, either, which was why I’d had to spend days researching