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

I put Karli out of my head. It had to be someone. Someone unexpected. Maybe the last person I expected.

I turned my head and looked at Matt in the darkness. Could he be trying to kill me? No, that was ridiculous. Why would Matt want to kill me? Unless he wanted to break up with me and couldn’t figure out how. So he thought he’d just kill me instead? Get a grip, Fran.

I slipped out of bed. Latte raised his head and looked at me closely in case I was going downstairs to feed him.

“I’m just going to the bathroom, buddy.”

He laid his head back down on the bed, but he followed me with his eyes. I padded across the bedroom and into the bathroom. While I was there, I got a drink of water and looked at myself in the mirror, trying to clear my head. There was no way Matt was trying to kill me, especially not in such convoluted ways. Matt was a professional engineer. He was smart enough to actually kill me if he wanted to. At that bizarre thought, I turned off the bathroom light and headed back to bed.

I crawled in and forced myself to close my eyes. It didn’t work. They popped right back open. I stared at the ceiling for a while. It still had the remnants of the glow-in-the-dark stars my mom and I had stuck to it when I was a kid. My mom had wanted to put them in the shapes of constellations and started off that way, but I didn’t have the patience to wait for her to carefully align them and ended up sticking them wherever I could reach, which ended up being mostly in a six-inch blob. My mom, my wonderful mom, had looked momentarily dismayed, but then she smiled and gave me a hug, telling me my work was beautiful. I missed her so much.

I rolled over and shut my eyes again. This time, instead of thinking about who might be trying to kill me, I thought about my mom. We’d had our ups and downs like all mothers and daughters, but what I wouldn’t give for one more day with her. We’d had so many good times in this house and at the café while I was growing up. Her bedroom had been right across the hall, my grandparents’ at the bottom of the stairs. It was a good way to grow up. The best way, as far as I was concerned.

My eyes popped open. Was that a squeak? It sounded like the creak of the stairs. I rolled over and put my hand on Latte. Had he made a sound? He did that sometimes, when he was dreaming. Quiet little woofs or squeaks. His legs would twitch just a little as he dreamt of running on the beach or chasing squirrels. He wasn’t moving now, but maybe my turning over had jostled him out of his dream.

I closed my eyes again. It was just Latte. He made little noises all the time. My body had just relaxed when I startled awake again.

This time there was no mistaking it.

Someone was coming up the stairs.

Chapter 23

“Matt,” I hissed. “Matt, wake up.” I swatted at him to try to awaken him. He grunted and rolled over.

I poked Latte, hoping he would wake up and notice the intruder. He wiggled closer to Matt and ignored me.

The stairs creaked again. I took a deep, shaky breath and tried to think of what to do. I could get up and confront them, but they could be armed. Or I could stay put and wait for them to come in the bedroom. Neither option seemed good.

I listened for another creak. This house was an older one, so most of the stairs had some sort of squeak or groan, but I knew from youthful experience that the second from the top was the worst. On the few occasions that teenage me had snuck into the house late at night, I’d always skipped that one. In fact, I’d had a whole system for creeping up the stairs as noiselessly as possible. It was usually wasted on me watching TV later than I was supposed to or, worse, staying up late studying, but I’d had a system. A system that whoever was walking up the stairs now had no idea about, thank goodness.

I nudged Latte again, but this time I whispered the magic word. “Treat!” Latte immediately lifted his head and looked at me. “Treat!” I whispered again, this time pointing at the door.

Latte jumped up and leapt off the bed, heading for the door at a full gallop. As soon as he got through the door, he started barking frantically at whoever was on the steps. I suddenly worried that I’d sent him into danger.

Fortunately, almost immediately, I heard feet pounding down the creaky stairs, accompanied by Latte’s paws clattering down behind them. The front door banged against the wall behind it, and Latte’s barks grew more distant.

I crept out of bed and poked my head out the door to look down the stairs. The stairs were empty, and the door was wide open. Latte was framed in it, silhouetted by the dim moonlight. He was still barking into the night.

I went back across the room and grabbed my phone from where it was charging on the nightstand. With shaking hands, I dialed 911.

Matt sat up just as the 911 operator answered. “What’s going on?”

My response was to the operator. “Hi, I’d like to report a break-in.”

Thirty minutes later, the street was filled with flashing red and blue lights. My house was filled with police officers.

Matt was on the couch, wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants he’d hastily thrown on when he finally woke up enough to process what was going on. Latte was curled up beside him, back asleep after his stint as a guard dog. He’d used up a