Toxic Attack: Spirit of the Soul Wine Shop Mystery (A Rysen Morris Mystery Book 2) Read Online Free

were wide.  He was wearing an orange and white striped jail outfit that was too big for him and hung off his broad shoulders.  When he saw her, he stood up, putting his hand against the glass between them.
    She put hers up over his, wishing she could at least touch him.
    They both picked up the phones at the same time.  "Rysen, I didn't do this," he said to her immediately.
    "I know."  She did know that.  It was a fact that no one had to convince her of.  "Josh, do you remember anything about what happened that could tell us who did this?  Do the police know anything?"
    He was shaking his head even as she was speaking.  "I think they know who the woman is, but they ain't telling me.  They keep expecting me to know.  They're sure I killed her.  This is so crazy!"
    "Josh, don't worry.  I'm going to help you.  Just think.  Is there anything you can remember that will help us?  When you got to the flower shop and opened it up was there anyone around?  Anyone hanging out behind the store or on the street or anything?"
    "I didn't open the store up."
    She didn't understand.
    "That's the thing," he said.  "I didn’t have to unlock the store.  It was already unlocked.  The alarm was off, too."
    Just like Bea had said.  "Was the door forced?"
    "No.  I thought maybe Beatrice was already there or something.  Until I saw the body, anyway."
    He shivered at the memory of it, and if Rysen hadn't known before that he was innocent, that would have proven it for her.  Josh wasn't the type who could kill someone.  He didn't have it in him.
    "How did she die?" Rysen asked.  It seemed like a good next question.
    "She was stabbed.  Several times.  I've seen wounds like that at the hospital.  They were deep, and they were narrow.  Whatever made them wasn't a normal knife.  Maybe one of those survival knives or something."
    Rysen made a mental note of everything he said.  Stabbed in the front.  Several times.  Did that mean the woman knew her attacker?
    "So what we need to do," she spoke her thoughts out loud, "is to find out who could possibly have had access to Beatrice's store."
    "Besides me," he pointed out.
    "Right.  Besides you.  Or Beatrice.  Then we need to find out who this woman was and who would want to kill her."
    He slumped back in his chair as his expression fell.  "Gee.  Is that all?"
    "Hey, I'm an aspiring detective, remember?  You have to trust me.  Okay?"
    It took him a moment, but he finally came close to the glass again, resting his forehead against it.  "All right, Ry.  I'll trust you.  I don't know how you think you're going to do all of this, but I trust you.  Listen, my mother has an attorney on retainer.  Can you call her and get him over here?  I haven't been able to even get ahold of her to let her know what's happening.  She's probably off playing cards with her friends or something."
    Rysen knew Josh's mother.  She was very active fifty-six year old, always out and about somewhere.  Finding out her son was suspected of a horrific crime would only spur her into action to help him.
    "I'll find her as soon as I leave here," she promised.  "Josh…"
    "I know," he said.  "I'm scared too."
    That wasn't what she had been about to say.  She had been trying to tell him she loved him.  Apparently his thoughts hadn't been moving in that direction.  Not that she could blame him, being locked up in here.
    There would be time for all the mushy love stuff later.  Once he was free again.
    Rysen managed to keep the tears in until she left the police station.  She cried alone in her car where no one else would see her.  Then she headed home.  She had work to do.

Chapter 3
     
    When Rysen woke up the next morning, she had a pounding headache, and the memory of Josh in that jail still haunted her.  She wanted nothing more than to curl up under the sheets and stay there all day, or at least until the world stopped being so upside down and could make sense again.
    It was only just