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

back into the living room and shoved them at Mike. “Here. Take these and go.”

He looked at me in stunned surprise.

“Go!”

“Franny—” Matt stood up and put his hand on my arm, but I didn’t take my eyes off Mike.

“If you don’t have any other news about the case, you can go ahead and go. There’s no reason to keep you when you obviously have work you could be doing.”

Latte looked wounded as Mike stopped petting him and stood up. He took the storage container from me.

“Franny—” Matt started again.

“No, Matt, it’s fine. She has every right to be upset.” He moved toward the door. “Thanks for the, uh—” He peered into the container.

“Chocolate rolls,” I said. “Puff pastry chocolate rolls.”

“The chocolate rolls. Thank you.” He nodded to Matt and went out the door.

That night, Matt and I had the biggest fight we’d ever had and, frankly, that I hoped we’d ever have. I yelled that he wasn’t in charge of me, and he yelled that he was just worried about my safety. I countered that I was going stir-crazy. He said that it was just for a little while. I pointed out that he had gotten to leave the house every day and interact with other human beings while I’d been stuck inside with a (truly excellent) dog and only occasionally got to talk to the police officers stationed outside. He said the police were taking care of it. I shouted that they clearly were not. He yelled that they were working on it. I said that it wasn’t fast enough. He bellowed that I needed to leave it alone. I screamed that he couldn’t tell me what to do, and if that was what he was going to do, he could get out of my house. He left and went home. I cried myself to sleep.

Chapter 25

I woke up to my phone ringing. I picked it up and looked at the screen, hoping it was Matt calling to apologize, but the display had Mike’s name on it. I silenced the ringer, put the phone down, and rolled over to go back to sleep.

A minute later, I heard the ding of the voicemail notification. And then the chime of a text message. I rolled over to put the phone on silent before he could annoy me any further, but the text message caught my eye. Call me. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

Reluctantly, I called Mike back.

“Hey, Fran, how you doin’ this morning?” he said, greeting me with more enthusiasm than I could handle.

I felt awful. I felt sad and emotionally exhausted. I felt unmoored, unbalanced. I felt like I had a hangover without having drunk a single glass the night before. But I didn’t think Mike wanted all that dumped on him first thing in the morning. “I’m okay. How are you?”

“I think you’re going to be a lot better than okay in a minute.”

“Did you find out who’s trying to kill me?”

There was a pause, and I realized I had probably overshot my optimism.

“Okay, not that much better. But I think you are going to be happy.”

Couldn’t he just get to the point already?

“I’m letting you reopen the café.”

I sat up in bed, jolting Latte out of his slumber. He immediately looked toward the door with a growl.

“Please say you’re not just messing with me. I can’t handle it if you’re just messing with me.”

“I’m not messing with you,” he said with a chuckle. “Now, I’m not completely letting you loose, but you can reopen.”

“That’s great! Today? It’s already a little late, but—”

“Not today. I still need to get some security worked out, and we need to discuss some things.”

“So, tomorrow?” I asked hopefully.

“Tomorrow should be fine.”

“Great!” My mind started racing with all the things I needed to do to get ready to reopen. “I’ll need to go to the store for some supplies and—”

“Not so fast,” Mike interrupted. “We still need to prioritize your safety and security. You’ll need to get someone else to pick up whatever supplies you need.”

Slightly defeated, I asked what the other rules were. He gave me a rundown. No going anywhere alone. No going anywhere without notifying him or another officer. No eating or drinking anything I didn’t personally prepare using freshly opened ingredients. Above all, no investigating. If I so much as got a flicker of an inclination to stick my nose anywhere that it didn’t belong, I was to shove that inclination out of my head faster than I could down a shot of espresso. Mike’s words, not mine, of course. I didn’t shoot espresso—I sipped it so I could appreciate the nuances of its flavor. It wasn’t quite the way I would have liked things to go, but it was better than staying locked in the house all the time. I agreed to all his conditions.

“There’s one more thing,” he said, just as I thought we were about to hang up. “Whoever’s behind these attacks has been lying low for the past few days. That could mean that they’ve given up, and you won’t have any more problems with them. Or it could mean that the police presence has been enough to deter them. If we scale back, they could come after you again. And we already know how dangerous they can be. Are you sure you want to do this?”

I took a deep breath. His warning was enough to give me pause but not enough to scare me off. I was ready to have my life back. “I’m sure.”

“I had a feeling that would be your answer.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “You work on getting things ready to reopen tomorrow. Only things you can do from home. Anything else, you’ll have to get Sammy or Rhonda to handle. I’ll come by later tonight to make sure we’re clear on how everything’s going to work, okay?”

“Sounds good. Oh, and Mike?” I stopped him before he could hang up. “I’m sorry for kicking you