Wine Astray: Spirit of the Soul Wine Shop Mystery (A Rysen Morris Mystery Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

samples to the customers in little paper cups shaped like ice cream cones.
    The four days went by very, very fast.  She couldn't believe she was having this much fun here.  She liked the shop.  It was almost like she’d found a place to hide from the world.  A place where she mattered.  It didn't escape her attention that she had completely given up looking for another job.  This was where she was going to stay.  For now, anyway.
    The trouble her sister was having with her shipments still bothered her.  Christina was being pretty tight-lipped about it, staying up well past midnight at the kitchen table every night, going over the account books, and not telling Rysen much of anything.  The one thing her sister had shared with her was that she was saving up to pay for a security consultant.  Rysen had arched an eyebrow at the idea but Christina had just shrugged her shoulders and said she had to do something.
    Rysen had suggested buying a good security camera system, currently lacking in the store, but Christina had pointed out the wine shipments weren't ever getting to her store.  Video recording the wine bottles she still had wouldn't do her any good.
    "Have you asked dad for help?" Rysen asked Christina last night.
    "Have you gone to see him yet?" her sister had countered, and that had effectively ended the conversation.
    Rysen was just finishing a sale to an elderly woman who bought four bottles of red wine.  She smiled and kept herself from asking if they were all for the lady, but only just barely.  It was a good sales day so far, but Rysen was worrying about the way the shelves were emptying out.  There was in fact a cellar underneath the store, but there weren't that many boxes left, and the extra storage shelves down there were beginning to look just like the shelves up here.
    There wasn't another shipment due for another four days.  Rysen was still pushing her sister to do something, to let her know more about the problem, to let her help, but Christina still had all of her hopes set on—
    "The security consultant's coming tomorrow," Christina practically sang as she entered the room from the small office in the back.  "I worked out the finances with the bank this morning, and finally—finally!—you and I are going to get to the bottom of these thefts."
    "Yes!" Rysen whooped as she bagged up the order for her customer.  The old woman looked at the two of them oddly, then shook her head and shuffled her way out of the store, promising to be back in a few days.  "Sis, are you really sure this is the best way to do this?  What about the police?"
    "I told you, Rysen.  I reported all this to them.  They said it was a problem for me to work out with the company.  The company says the shipments are getting here even though they aren't, and here I am stuck in the middle.  Oh, I suppose I could go down to the station and insist that the police do an investigation, but who knows how long that would take?"
    Rysen knew her sister was right.  She also knew several of the police officers who covered this area.  She'd gone to school with a couple of them.  She wasn't sure she'd trust them to guard a donut shop, let alone Christina's shop.
    "Okay, okay.  So we're getting a security consultant.  I hope he’s rugged and handsome.  We need a little eye candy to stroke with our eyes, don’t you think?”  Rysen winked at her sister conspiratorially.  That got her sister to laugh.  Rysen was only half-joking.  A guy to flirt with would be nice, actually.
    Who knew?  Maybe working at her sister's shop would have some fringe benefits.
    ***
    The clock up on the wall in the wine store ticked the minutes away.  It was just ten minutes before noon.  Today was the day Christina's security expert was supposed to arrive to do the initial walk through of the store and make his suggestions for making sure her wine shipments made it here from now on.  Rysen hoped he could do what he promised.  She hoped he