Page 5 of A Poisonous Plot

“Maybe it was a stomach bug,” Lily suggested. “It might not have been down to the food.”

“It’s the food,” Dante said with certainty.

“I’m sorry, I’m a bit lost.”

“This man…” He jabbed at the phone. “This man poisoned my customers. You find him for me and I’ll deal with him the way we deal with things in Italy. Okay?”

“That’s definitely not okay,” Flynn said.

Dante’s eyes jerked to Flynn as though only just remembering he was there. “This not a police matter. Not concern you.”

“It will concern me if you go all vigilante and decide you’re the Italian mafia of the island. You can’t take the law into your own hands.”

“Vigilante! What are you talking about? I said I deal with problem like in Italy. In Italy we deal with problems man to man. We sit down and talk and drink and eat… and we keep talking until we understand each other.” He clicked his tongue. “Italian mafia!You watch too many films.” With a shake of his head, he dismissed Flynn and retrieved his phone from Lily. “I’ll give you a few days. In this time I must close the restaurant and do big cleaning and try and fix this mess.”

“Wait,” Lily said as he strode across the room. “How on earth would he have poisoned them? Surely you’d have noticed someone slipping into the restaurant every evening to poison the food.”

“I don’t know how he did it,” Dante said dramatically. “Maybe he did something to the water or put something in the air or tampered with something else. When you find him, you bring him to me and I’ll ask him what he did. Then we’ll know and we can fix everything. I rely on you, Lily.”

“Hang on,” she said desperately, but he was already gone.

Flynn flashed her a smug grin. “You get all the fun cases.”

“This is not a case,” Lily said. “Clearly, the man is a bad cook. Or he bought some dodgy ingredients or something.”

“That’s for you to figure out,” Flynn said.

Lily gave his arm a friendly shove and glared at him.

“You could also go to the restaurant and tell him you don’t accept the case, but you may end up ill.”

“I also don’t think he’ll take no for an answer.”

“Are you actually going to look into it?”

Lily pulled her bag onto her shoulder and shook her head. “I’ll just tell him I couldn’t find anything when he comes back. Now, are we going for dinner or what?”

Chapter Three

While he waitedfor the barman to pour their drinks at the Old Town Inn, Flynn glanced across at Lily, sitting at the small round table at the side of the room. Her shoulder-length, chestnut hair cast her face in shadow as she peered at her phone.

Spending time with her made island life much more bearable. He only wished he could be more helpful in figuring out who owned the ice cream shop. It was clear how much the subject bothered her, and that, in turn, bothered him.

“Food shouldn’t be too long,” the wiry barman told him as he set the drinks on the bar.

“Thanks,” Flynn said, before crossing the room to return to their table. “You look very intense,” he told Lily when she didn’t look up from her phone.

“It’s weird,” she said, her thumb trailing over the screen. “He reallydidhave a successful restaurant. He had awards and everything.”

Flynn took a long sip of his pint. “Who?”

“Dante. The Italian guy. I looked him up.”

“I thought you weren’t going to look into that.”

“I wasn’t.” Her eyes sparkled when she lifted her gaze. “You know me, though.”

“I do. What did you find?”

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