Read Online Murder By The Pint (Microbrewery Mysteries Book 1) by Belle Knudson - Free Book Online Page A

there.
                  As for me, I was shaking too. All over, and I began laughing uncontrollably, or crying, or a mixture of both. All I know is that I actually felt elated to have gotten out of there alive. Then the thought occurred to me that I had no proof of what he would have done to me, only what he could have done. He also could have done a river dance while juggling three egg salad sandwiches. So, in the end, I may have made tremendous fools out of both of us.
                  In fact, I'm almost sure that is what happened.
                  I drove and drove, slapping my steering wheel out of frustration when I considered what I'd done back at Donald's house.
                  "Stupid," I said to myself. "Stupid, stupid, stupid. My God, how stupid can you be?"
                  There was no use going back to the brewery tonight. We were close to closing time when I got back to Carl's Cove, so I just went home. Tanya was there. Thankfully. She'd gotten a job waitressing down at Junior's and today was her day off.
                  "You look terrible," she said.
                  "Thank you."
                  "What happened?"
                  "Pour me some wine and I'll tell you."
                  She got up and made her way to the kitchen. Tanya had an annoying habit of keeping reds in the fridge. Normally I say something snarky. I let it go for tonight. She filled up a glass and I downed it almost in one shot and motioned for another.
                  I told her the whole sordid story. Somewhere around the time when I cried spider, she started to laugh. Maybe it was the wine, the relief of tension, or both, but I started too and found I couldn’t stop.
                  The phone rang. We looked at each other. The two of us were too busy losing our lungs to pick it up, and so it went to voicemail. When it beeped, I went over and picked up the phone and dialed in to hear the message. I was still hysterical when the message began:
                  " Madison, this is Donald, your delivery guy... "
                  I was no longer hysterical.
                  Funny how that works.
                  I let the message play out.
                  " ... I hope you don’t mind, I called the brewery and they gave me your home number. I'm not sure what just happened today, but I need your help. There's not much to say about it other than... " His voice seemed to waver slightly.              " ... other than you were right. And I'm in something that I can’t get out of. And I can’t go back to the police and you're, I think, the only one I can turn to. Can we meet somewhere? It can be a public place. In fact, I prefer that it be a public place. Call me. Ok? "
                  If vampires were real, my face was what most of their victims would look like after a midnight supper. Tanya noticed the blood drain from my face as my laughter died and I listened to the message a second time.
                  "What is it?" she whispered, as if the caller was live on the other end.
                  I held up my hand until the message finished playing the second time. Then I hung up the phone.
                  I told her it was Donald and relayed the message.
                  Tanya was frantic. "You're crazy," she said. "You're not going to meet him, are you?"
                  "You want to hear his voice? He sounded legit."
                  "I don’t care if he sounded legit. You're calling the cops right now."
                  "Stop. No I'm not. We're meeting at Junior's tonight. I'm calling him right now."
                  "You're crazy."
                  "And you're working tonight. Call Junior and see if he'll give you any hours.