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

“Do you have any other questions before I go and let you get back to sleep?”

I glanced around, surprised to see that most of the officers who’d been swarming my house had disappeared.

“Actually, Mike, there is. While she was at home today—”

I snapped my head toward Matt as I realized what he was about to say. Mercifully, he stopped talking. Unfortunately, Mike had caught our little exchange.

“What?”

“It’s nothing. It’s not important,” I said.

Mike obviously didn’t believe me. He looked at Matt.

I sighed. I knew he’d never let it go. “Go ahead.”

“Franny made a list of everyone who was at the party and was also at the café yesterday.”

“Okay. We’ve done the same thing, but if you want to share your list—”

Matt cut Mike off. “And then she called them all.”

Mike closed his eyes. “You. Called. All the people who had the opportunity to commit both attacks?” he said slowly.

“Yes?” I braced for his reaction.

Luckily for me, it was mild. He just leaned back in the armchair, covered his eyes, and groaned.

Chapter 24

The next day, I found myself yet again alone in my house. Matt had argued and debated, but he finally conceded that he did need to go in to work. And so there I was, just Latte and me. And a police officer at the front and back doors. And one down the street in an unmarked car. And possibly another one somewhere that I didn’t know about. It seemed like overkill to me, but Mike was afraid the attacks would continue to escalate, and he didn’t want to take any chances.

My anger from the previous night had dissipated, but it had been replaced by a nervous energy that made it impossible for me to sit still. All the coffee I’d had probably didn’t help. I’d started with a cup for myself and one for each of the officers outside. By the time I’d delivered their cups and engaged in some polite chitchat, I was ready for my next cup, which I drank while wandering around the house, trying to figure out what I should spend my time doing. I ended up deciding to make myself another cup of coffee.

Then I deep cleaned the espresso machine.

Then I took everything off the counters, gave the counters a good cleaning, wiped down everything that had been on them, and put everything back neatly.

Then I cleaned the cabinet doors.

Then I wiped down the kitchen table and chairs.

It was barely lunchtime.

I usually ate at the café, so I didn’t have much in the way of ingredients. Still, I managed to throw together a quick spaghetti carbonara with some good Italian pasta, pancetta, Pecorino Romano cheese, eggs, and black pepper—simple things I pretty much always had in the house. I delivered some to the officers at the doors then sat down and ate the rest.

I washed the dishes and checked the time. It had barely taken an hour.

I made myself another latte.

Standing in the middle of the kitchen, fueled by nerves and caffeine, I looked around for what to tackle next. I decided on the cabinets. There were a few pots and pans I used on a regular basis, but I hadn’t really emptied everything out to assess what was inside since I inherited the house after my mother’s death.

And so that was how Matt ended up finding me sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, surrounded by sixty or so years of kitchen utensils, when he came home with takeout tacos for dinner.

“So, how was your day?” he asked casually, looking around at the disaster that was my kitchen.

“I’ve been working on reorganizing the kitchen,” I replied.

“I see that,” he said slowly. He held up the bag in his hand. “I have tacos.”

I looked around, briefly considering asking him to just hand me the tacos so I could eat them where I was. My grandparents and my mom had accumulated quite a lot of cooking vessels in their time in the house, not to mention the things I’d brought back with me from New York. Finally, I just started pushing things aside—carefully, so as not to disturb the organization system I’d started. Matt worked from the other side and then reached out his hand to help pull me up.

I glanced in the direction of the espresso machine, thinking another latte would be tasty with dinner, but the path to it was covered by colanders of various shapes and sizes. I’d have to make do with—well, water from the upstairs bathroom in my dirty coffee cup, since I couldn’t make it to the sink either.

We ate our tacos picnic-style on the living room floor, watching my baking show that Matt had somehow become invested in. His baking knowledge and interest was usually limited to “what did you make?” and “what’s in it?” and “can I have some?” but he suddenly had opinions on the proper way to fold a mousse and whether Viennese whirls needed to be refrigerated between piping and baking. I’d created a monster. I loved it.

But when I was in bed that night, the sinking fear that someone was trying to kill me settled back in. Who could want me dead? Mike—and Matt for that matter—seemed to think I’d triggered someone to break in when I made my calls the day before. Someone thought I was more suspicious of them than I was. I thought about who I’d talked to—Todd, Dean, Melissa for barely a second, Karli for hardly longer than that.

The thought dawned on me that they’d all been closely involved in a murder since I’d come back to town the year before. Melissa’s ex-boyfriend, who was also the father of her oldest child, had been murdered in the parking lot of Todd’s Gym. That hadn’t really involved Karli, but she did work at the front desk. It had been a stressful time for everyone at the gym. And then one of Dean’s employees had died during