Free The Chocolate Mouse Trap by JoAnna Carl

the heart of the problem. “You can hardly refuse to talk to a grieving uncle—if that’s what Martin is—about his murdered niece,” she said.
    “I know. Of course, I’m not worried about meeting Martin, since I wouldn’t meet anyone I don’t know very well anyplace except my office. Or maybe a restaurant. I was more interested in Brad’s comment. Is it true? Is Martin a ‘dirty old man’? Or is that Brad’s idea?”
    “I think Brad’s a callow youth,” Carolyn said. “He’s still young enough to be shocked by the thought of anyone over forty having sex. Martin is a chaser—as I found out the hard way—but ‘dirty old man’ is going too far. I don’t think you need to take too many precautions if he wants to talk.”
    Still giggling now and then, Carolyn and I agreed on some flowers for Mercy Woodyard’s birthday, and she called her supplier to make sure our selection—bronze roses—would be available. While she was on the phone there at the sales desk, I could hear a voice muttering swear words in her office, where Jack Ingersoll was still working. Carolyn had just confirmed my order and offered me a bill to deliver to Joe when Jack opened the office door and looked out.
    “Carolyn! Have you checked all your windows?”
    “That’s what I’ve got you here to do, Jack. My Windows could be completely missing and I wouldn’t know it.”
    Jack shook his head vigorously. “No, not Windows! Windows! Lowercase ‘w,’ not capital. The windows to your shop!”
    “What do you mean?”
    “As near as I can tell, there’s nothing wrong with your computer or any of its programs.”
    “Then where did all my records go?”
    “All I can figure is that someone got in, opened your computer, and erased everything in it.”

Chapter 7
    J ack came out of the office, all hair and snow boots, looking more like a mountain man than a computer nerd. “I’ll swear there’s not a thing wrong with your computer, Carolyn. I think somebody erased everything. Who’s been fooling with it?”
    “Nobody! Nobody’s touched it but me.”
    “That’s hard to believe. Could anybody have accessed your files without your knowing?”
    “I don’t see how.”
    “Was anybody suspicious in the shop late yesterday?”
    “In January? In Warner Pier? I didn’t even open up yesterday. And Lee’s my first real, live customer today. Nobody could have gone into the office without my noticing.”
    Jack scratched his head. “Back to my first idea. You could have had a burglar.”
    Carolyn and I both laughed. “Why?” she said. “What would a burglar want here? I don’t keep money here overnight, and I haven’t begun to restock for the summer season. There’s nothing here a burglar would want. Unless it was that computer. And it’s still here.”
    “You better check your windows. Somebody’s been messing with that computer, and if they didn’t get at it while you were here, they must have done it while you weren’t.”
    Carolyn was still scoffing, but she began to go from room to room, checking inside, and Jack took a look outside. In less than a minute, he put his head in through the back door and called out. “Look at the corner window!”
    My curiosity was thoroughly aroused, so I followed Carolyn into a workroom. The window Jack wanted checked was over a large stainless steel sink. Anybody coming in or going out that window would have had to step into the sink.
    “Don’t touch anything,” I said. “If somebody did get in, there might be fingerprints.”
    “I can’t believe anybody burglarized the place,” Carolyn said. “But I will say I don’t usually leave the sink quite that dirty.”
    I peeked over her shoulder and looked into the bottom of the sink. There was dirt there, but—heck, this was a florist’s shop. Flowers have roots, and roots are often buried in dirt.
    “It doesn’t look like footprints,” I said.
    Carolyn picked up a white ballpoint pen from the counter and used it to point to the