Free Balmy Darlings and Deaths: A Chinese Cozy Mystery (A Raina Sun Mystery Book 4) by Anne R. Tan

should ask around the Venus Café to see if someone else had noticed who was outside the building on Wednesday. And if she wanted to be fair, Eden didn’t have an alibi either.
    Her hands curled around the receipt in her pocket. That chat with Denise on Monday couldn’t come fast enough. What did she mean when she said she could help?

    * * *
    A couple hours later , Raina grabbed her purse from her assigned locker. As she passed Myra Jo’s office, she stuck her head in and said, “I’m heading out. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
    The spa owner glanced up from her computer. Spread across the desk was a file of paperwork an inch thick. “Please get here by six to get the beauty salon ready for the bridal party.”
    “I didn’t know LaShawna was a business rival. I hope her death doesn’t make more trouble for you. Like I said before, I would like to keep this job.”
    Myra Jo sniffed. “She operated out of her shed, doing weaves for women and selling makeup at bargain prices. She’s not even in the same league.”
    “But she was your nephew’s mother.”
    “What’s your point?”
    Raina ticked the points off her fingers, deliberately choosing fighting words. “She died in your day spa. She’s a business rival whose business you trashed. And she has full custody of your nephew. These are plenty of motives for murder. If you’re not on the police’s radar yet, I’m sure you will be soon.”
    “Only a fool would believe I have anything to do with that woman’s death, especially in my own establishment.”
    “But Detective Sokol is on the case. Just having him poke around would be bad for business. And I know how he is—once he gets an idea in his head, it’s hard to shake it out of his head. My ex-boyfriend works with him, and I used to see him all the time at their annual picnic.” She made up the last part, but it lent credibility to her assessment of the new detective’s character. She had no idea if it were true or not, but her boss didn’t know this either.
    “What do you think I should do?”
    “Do you have an alibi? I was right behind you and Eden at the time of the car accident, but I lost sight of you between the hallway and the front door.”
    Myra Jo tapped on the side of her leg with her index finger. “I went to clear out the restroom.”
    Raina studied her new boss. What a horrible liar. First, she should have worked out the details of her cover story beforehand with her alibi. Second, since she’d already admitted to not being in the restroom, backpedaling now wouldn’t help the situation. Did she think people would forget what was said before? And finally, she’d dismissed LaShawna’s homebrew business, but the huge discounts there must have business from the day spa, or why would Myra Jo check out the competition last weekend?
    Time to put pressure in the cooker. Raina frowned, pretending to puzzle over something. “I thought you were outside looking at the car accident, same as everyone else.  Wasn’t that what you said earlier?”
    Myra Jo licked her lower lip. “Yes, after I checked the restroom. You can ask Walt. He saw me.”
    “Then you have nothing to worry about. The police would have no reason to suspect you since you have an alibi for your whereabouts. See you tomorrow.”
    As Raina biked home to clean herself up before Matthew came to pick her up, she decided it was time to put the squeeze on Walt. Maybe he would be as good a liar as Myra Jo.
    Matthew showed up two thirty on the dot. The man could have been born with a clock strapped to his back. He held out an iced coffee from the Venus Cafe. “Ready to go?”
    Raina locked her front door and followed him to the Jeep parked next to the curb. The condensation on the plastic cup in her hand did little to cool the beating of her heart. She couldn’t believe, after all this time, he could still have this kind of effect on her. Would the feeling ever go away?
    Matthew gripped the steering wheel as if it might float