Read A Burned Out Baker: Classic Diner Mystery #7 (The Classic Diner Mysteries) for Free Online

I’m retired doesn’t mean that I’m a hermit,” he said. “I meet people all of the time.”
    “I’m sure you’re just a regular social butterfly, Moose, but I really want to know.”
    “If you must know, she ran into me with her car in the grocery store parking lot last month,” Moose said. “I was in my old truck at the time, and you could barely see where she hit me, but we got to talking. I remember liking her. She had spunk.”
    “Maybe a little too much for her own good,” I said. “I wish we could record that tape.”
    “Can’t your magic phone do that for you?” Moose asked me with a grin.
    “Not directly, at least not that I know of, but I do know something that might work.” I dialed my home number, waiting for my own machine to kick in.
    “Hello? Victoria, is that you?” my husband asked after two rings.
    “Greg, what are you doing back home so soon?” Despite what he’d told us earlier, I wasn’t sure that he’d go straight home.
    “You and Moose were delivering the food, so I didn’t waste any time heading back here to catch a quick nap before I had to go to work again. The thing is, I can’t fall back asleep, despite my best efforts.” He paused a moment before adding, “Hang on a second. If you thought I wasn’t home yet, why are you calling me here?” he asked.
    “I’m trying to do something else. Do me a favor and hang up,” I told my husband.
    Before I could explain my odd request to him, he promptly did as I’d requested.
    I dialed the number again, and once more, my husband answered the phone. “Is this some kind of new game of tag that I don’t know about?” he asked me.
    “You never gave me a chance to explain my plan. I want to record something I found, but I don’t have any way to do it but to call the house and leave it on our answering machine.”
    “Then it’s not going to do you any good if I keep picking up, will it?” Greg asked good-naturedly.
    “Sorry about that.”
    “I don’t mind,” he said. “Call away,” and then, before he hung up again, he added, “I promise I’ll ignore you completely this time.”
    I dialed my home number yet again, and this time it made it all the way to the answering machine. When I heard my own voice ask to wait until the beep, I hit the Play button again, and I managed to record the message in its entirety before my own machine cut me off.
    After I disconnected the call, my phone rang in my hands.
    No surprise. It was Greg. “Did it work?”
    “Like a charm,” I said. “Thanks.”
    “You’re welcome,” he said. “Do you care to explain to me what that was all about?”
    “How about a rain check?” I asked him.
    “That’s fine. Will I see you this afternoon?”
    “I’m sure you will at some point, but I might not make it back to the diner by the time you get there.”
    “Take your time. I’ll see you when I see you,” he said, and then we got off the phone.
    As I’d been chatting with my husband, Moose had been digging through some of the other papers. “Did you find anything else interesting while I was on the phone?” I asked him.
    “More than you can imagine. This seemed to be Barry’s favorite hiding place, because it looks like he kept all of his secrets here.”
    “Honestly, it’s not that bad a place to stash things you don’t want anyone else to find,” I said. “What are the odds anyone else would have uncovered this stuff if he hadn’t had a talkative contractor?”
    “Not good,” Moose said as he laid a note scrawled on lined paper on the desktop in front of me. “Victoria, check this out.”
    It was from Cliff Pearson, a man that I’d heard was on the dark side of the law, and after reading the terse note, there was not much doubt about who Barry’s mysterious backer might have been for the bakery. Evidently, expanding the bakery hadn’t been the only thing Barry had borrowed money for. The note said,
    I won’t tell you again. The next time you’re late with a