Close Encounters (Nancy Drew (All New) Girl Detective Book 21) Read Online Free PDF

baking. Just yesterday the plug on the cappuccino machine fell off. Joel had to take it to be repaired—I won’t have it back until tomorrow, and we’re so busy.”
    As I listened, I felt as if I were looking at a puzzle where the dots didn’t really connect—and yet mysixth sense, known for helping me solve tough mysteries, told me otherwise. “Do you have any explanation?” I asked.
    “In my saner moments,” she answered, “I chalk it up to being understaffed and overbusy. I’ve been through this kind of stress before. You start making mistakes in the kitchen—everything from not-so-minor accidents, like cutting yourself during prep or burning your hand on a hot pot, to dumb things, like going to drain pasta in the sink and forgetting the colander.” Again, Winnie looked sheepish.
    “And when you’re feeling not so sane?” Bess asked. Her tone was light, but the question was reasonable. I’d been wondering the same thing.
    Winnie colored slightly. “Oh, I think someone is deliberately sabotaging me and the restaurant.”
    Sabotage ? Before I could ask her who or why, Winnie gave a dismissive wave of her hand.
    “Like I said, I’m probably blowing things out of proportion . . .” As I watched, her expression shifted from embarrassed to puzzled to something I couldn’t quite read. “It can’t be.” She seemed to be figuring something out—out loud. “Hacking into a computer—how would she?—I can’t believe . . .” Winnie’s words trailed off as the door to the kitchen swung open.
    Joel emerged. He wore a beat-up shearling jacketover his apron and thick winter gloves on his hands. “Boss, we’ve got a problem.”
    Winnie’s jaw dropped.
    “It’s the freezer again. The back section is fine, but the front is defrosting at a pretty scary rate, and we just got that meat order in this morning.”
    “The freezer.” To my amazement, Winnie sounded relieved. “That’s all?” She turned to George. “This is an ongoing problem I’ve had since the café opened. The new freezer’s on order, but meanwhile, I’ve got to deal with this.” She headed for the kitchen.
    “What about the computer?” George asked.
    Winnie stopped and turned. “Do you need me, or can you just deal with it?”
    “No problemo!” George waved her off. “Go ahead—I’ll have it up and running before we leave.” Immediately she sat down at the computer. Bess and I exchanged a glance, and knew it was time to leave George to wrestle with the computer.
    Winnie told us to help ourselves to more coffee and dessert, then followed Joel into the kitchen.
    As the doors closed behind Winnie, Bess lowered her voice and said, “I wonder who ‘she’ is?”
    “Whoever this mystery woman may be, Winnie doesn’t think she has the tech skills to hack into her system.” A pot of hot water was on the coffee machine heater. I located a tin of tea bags and made myself acup of tea. As it brewed, I mentally reviewed the list of Winnie’s mishaps. At first glance all the incidents seemed like just a run of bad luck. But what if Winnie was right, and someone was sabotaging her?
    Within the hour George had Winnie’s system up and running. “I need to come back tomorrow morning to install a better firewall,” she reported. “I’ll ask Winnie to stay offline until then.”
    After saying good night, we headed back to the inn. When we arrived, Sarah invited us into the lounge. A meeting with the mayor, some town officials, the police, and the Reel TV people had just broken up. “You all look a bit chilled,” she said. “Why not help yourselves to hot chocolate and something sweet?”
    Bess patted her stomach. “We’ve all had more than our share of dessert, but something hot sounds great. It’s getting cold out there.”
    Sarah smiled broadly as we took off our jackets. “Snow’s predicted any day now. Maybe our spell of dry, warm winters is about to break.”
    “Let me get rid of my backpack,” George said, then ran