Read Flourless to Stop Him for Free Online Page B

the hooks near the door and took off my puffy jacket. December meant I came to work in darkness and went home in darkness. It also meant that bitter windchills danced around the buildings downtown. Puffy down coats were my favorite thing to ward off freezing to death.
    “Are you talking about Officer Emry? Because everyone knows he’s not exactly the brightest bulb in the box.” I hung my coat on the tree and pulled an apron off the hook.
    “It’s Bright.” Tim spoke to the floor. “He wants me to come back for more interrogation. Thank goodness you sent Ridgeway over. Brad kept me from hours of questions, and who knows what would have happened.”
    “Nothing,” I reassured him. “You’re innocent.” I pulled the large white apron over my head and wrapped the ties around my waist, pulling them tight.
    “Innocent guys go to jail all the time.” Tim blew out a long breath and ran his hand over his face. “Don’t you listen to the news? They just released some guy after twelve years in prison. DNA finally proved he didn’t do it.”
    I put my hands on my hips and frowned at my brother. “That’s not going to happen to you.”
    “Then there was the guy whose daughter was murderedand after twelve hours of interrogation and grief he confessed.” Tim’s blue eyes grew wide. “No one believed him when he withdrew his coerced confession. Six months later they found the actual guy who killed his kid.”
    “Seriously, stop it,” I said. He was worrying me. “You won’t confess unless you did it.”
    “That’s what everyone thinks.”
    “I’m making coffee. It’s too early for me to deal with all this negativity.”
    “We have to find the real killer,” Tim said. “Grandma Ruth says you can do it.”
    I put a filter in the hopper and opened the canister with the coffee inside. The sharp scent of roasted beans filled the air. “Grandma likes the idea that I can do it,” I said and measured the grounds. “I’m a baker, not an investigator.”
    “You solved the last two murders,” Tim pointed out.
    “I thought you didn’t pay attention to me.” I hit the BREW button and turned toward my brother.
    Unlike my puffy coat, Tim wore a denim coat with shearling interior. It hung open, exposing a black sweatshirt and the edge of a red tee sticking out underneath. His jeans were clean but well worn. His feet were encased in brown steel-toed work boots. Tim was ruggedly handsome and wore it well.
    “How can I not pay attention to you? You’re my sister,” he groused. “So are you going to help me or not?”
    “Well, of course I’ll help you,” I said. “You are my brother. Besides Oiltop is a small town. What happens to you affects the entire family.”
    “So you’re saying you’ll investigate, but only because it would save your business.” He straightened away from the back of the chair.
    “Okay, sure.” I shrugged then looked at him with the expression a sister gives a brother when she thinks he’s acting stupid.
    “Great.” Tim put his hands on his thighs. “What do we do first?”
    “
We
don’t do anything,” I said. “You go home and go to bed. You have to work.”
    “How am I supposed to sleep? Someone used my name to rent a room and kill a man.”
    “Did they tell you who the victim was?” I pulled big ceramic bowls of yeasty dough out of the refrigerator and put them on the countertop. “When I went to bed last night they were still saying it was an unidentified man.”
    “Yeah, you know people should die with ID on them.” Tim leaned forward onto the back of the chair.
    “So they still don’t know? How can they connect some random guy to you?”
    “That’s it,” Tim said. “They tried to get me to ID the dude.”
    “They showed you pictures?”
    “Yeah, nice, right?”
    I sprinkled sticky rice flour on the cold marble slab on my countertop. “Did you recognize him?” I dumped the large bowls of dough into piles to warm. The scent of yeast and dough wafted