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

was important, especially since people didn’t start getting sick until later.”

I wanted to hug her. In fact, I did. I couldn’t believe such an obvious solution had been sitting there all along, and I’d just been so busy thinking about the possibility that she’d poisoned everyone that it didn’t even occur to me that she might not have done anything but seen someone do something instead. It felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. And just in time, too, because our first customer of the day walked through the door.

“Good morning, Mr. Paul!” Sammy called, flashing that smile again. “How are you on this beautiful day? The usual?”

She had such a way with customers that my mind held no doubt that she was a large part of the café’s success, especially in the early morning hours when most people were grumpy and surly. Sammy, by contrast, was like a ray of sunshine then, bouncing around the café and making everything and everyone a little brighter.

As Sammy moved to start making his coffee—an order she knew by heart, just like she did with all the regulars—I stepped over to her. “I’m going to go make some muffins. Thanks again.”

She nodded, and I hurried into the back. Virtually nothing in the pastry case could be saved after being closed for a whole day. I had to make everything fresh. I preferred to make everything fresh anyway, but I didn’t mind leaving a few things that kept well an extra day. Today, though, I’d have to remake almost everything, especially since I knew that hungry customers would be coming in and looking for their breakfast at any moment.

Muffins seemed like just the thing. A quick, basic batter that multiplied easily and cooked quickly enough that people wouldn’t be waiting forever for their breakfast. Especially not if I started out with a batch of mini-muffins.

I set the oven to preheat and set to work greasing my muffin pans. That done, I started mixing my ingredients, and by the time the oven had heated up, I had my trays of mini-muffins ready to go in the oven. A good thing, too, since Mr. Paul had been the start of a steady stream of customers who kept us busy straight through until the lunchtime rush. By then, I’d at least gotten a few salads and mozzarella-tomato-basil sandwiches ready, although the orders kept coming, and I only ever escaped the kitchen long enough to deliver a freshly made salad or sandwich straight to a customer’s table.

I exchanged a few brief words with people I knew and a few more with those who had been at the party. Mary Ellen was cozied up at a small table with her silver fox from the party. He looked slightly less polished than he had when I’d seen him before, but she looked as immaculate as ever.

“Looks like somebody managed to avoid getting sick with the rest of us!” I put Mary Ellen’s salad down in front of her and her friend’s sandwich in front of him.

Mary Ellen held her hand to her chest and rolled her eyes dramatically. “Don’t I wish! I only managed to pull myself out of bed this morning because this handsome man called and just begged me to go to lunch with him!”

“Well, you don’t look like it. You look like the picture of health.” I grinned at her.

“Makeup, dear,” she said, leaning in and putting her hand on my arm. “Very good, very expensive makeup. You can wake up looking like you’re ready for death to appear and scoop you up, but with a little dab of this and a little dab of that, you look like nothing worse than tequila has passed between your lips.” She gave me a sly wink and smiled.

Mary Ellen always exuded polish and poise, but I could tell she’d turned it up for her friend. She wasn’t even trying to hide it either. She had the mysterious ability to pull the curtain back and show men everything behind it, only to have them fall even more in love with her.

I grinned. “I’ll have to get you to take me for a makeover sometime.”

“Of course, dear. Just say the word.”

I thanked her and excused myself back to the kitchen. On the way, I saw Todd and Karli at one of the two-tops along the exposed brick wall and stopped to say hello. Todd had dark circles under his eyes and blond stubble covering his cheeks. Karli, on the other hand, either used the same high-end makeup as Mary Ellen or hadn’t drunk any of the poison punch at the party. Of course, I wasn’t sure that she’d even had her twentieth birthday yet, so she shouldn’t have been anywhere near the alcohol-spiked punch anyway.

I smiled sympathetically at Todd. “How’re you doing?”

He raked his hand through his perfectly mussed blond hair. It flopped back down looking even messier but somehow even more perfect. “Been a rough thirty-six hours.” He smiled, setting his blue eyes sparkling. He really was excessively good-looking, even in a T-shirt and shorts that had both seen better days.

I turned to Karli, who was dressed in what I took to be her standard uniform of a couple of layered tank tops paired with skintight, not-quite-opaque leggings. Today, the tank tops were neon green and fluorescent yellow, and her eyes were coated in eye shadow to match. “What about you?”

She flicked her thick-lashed eyes at me without turning her head from where it rested on her hand. “I’m fine.”

“Karli,” Todd said quietly.

She looked at him and took a heavy breath before turning to face me. “I’m fine,” she repeated, her hot-pink-lacquered lips curling into an expression that was as much a sneer as a smile. “I didn’t have any of whatever poisoned everyone.”

“Karli!” Todd said again, sharper this time. He looked at me apologetically. “I’m sorry about that. She’s just—she had a lot on her shoulders yesterday keeping the gym running while I was out of