A Potion to Die For: A Magic Potion Mystery (23 page)

I
t had been nearly a week since the showdown with Emmylou in my shop. Mr. Dunwoody’s forecast this morning had been cloudy with a chance of many weddings, which wasn’t much of a stretch. It was a beautiful May evening, and the town was busy with tourists here for weekend weddings. Mama’s chapel was booked solid through till Sunday night, and I hoped that meant she wouldn’t have time for any more impromptu concerts.

Mr. Dunwoody’s forecast last week had sadly proven true not just for one couple but for two; Coach and Angelea and Emmylou and Dudley. Coach had been cleared of the embezzlement and murder charges but would go to trial for my assault, breaking out of jail, breaking and entering, and a host of other crimes he’d committed against me. It would be a long time before he was free again, and I hoped he’d get some psychological help while he was locked up. He’d filed divorce papers from jail. I’d heard through the town grapevine that Bernice Morris had put her house up for sale and planned to use the proceeds to hire Coach a new lawyer. She was currently staying with a cousin just north of here in Tennessee.

The blindness from the hex splashed on John Richard, Emmylou, and Dudley had worn off within a couple of hours. Which was just about how long it took for Dudley to initiate plans for the dissolution of his marriage, but I wasn’t sure Emmylou was even aware of that fact. She was currently in a psych ward being evaluated for an insanity plea after being charged with murder.

Dudley had been spending an awful lot of time at the hospital, too. But not to see Emmylou. He’d been visiting with Angelea, who was awake and out of the ICU but not completely out of the woods. Her baby, miraculously, was doing well. The doctors had gone from guarded to cautiously optimistic.

I didn’t want to speculate on Dudley’s motives, but I couldn’t help but wonder if Emmylou hadn’t been all that wrong about Dudley’s feelings for Angelea. . . .

Mysteriously, the missing twenty thousand dollars had been returned to the baseball league sometime during the week, and I suspected Dudley had a hand in helping Angelea anonymously return the money. Last I heard, everyone, including Dylan, was willing to pretend the whole embezzling incident never happened.

John Richard Baldwin had been fired from the fancy Birmingham firm. Much to everyone’s surprise, he’d moved to Hitching Post, and was in the process of setting up his own firm.

He claimed that he liked it here. Why, after what he’d been through, no one could quite decipher.

Birdsong filled the night air as I rode Bessie Blue home. Roly and Poly sat in the basket, with their eyes to the sky, as if hoping one of the birds would fall right on their paws.

I had to laugh at the thought, since they wouldn’t know what to do with the poor creature if one did fall. The critters in my house had been evicted, thanks not to my two feline friends but to a local exterminator, who’d thankfully used humane traps to locate the generations of mice that had taken up residence behind my walls.

Jasper, my electrician, had taken pity on me and charged me a pittance for redoing all the electrical work in the house. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have accepted such a gift, but I’d had a hell of a week, and his generosity had nearly brought me to tears.

Streetlamps threw light across the cobblestones as I turned onto my road. It wasn’t all that late, just a little after eight, but I’d closed up my shop an hour early.

Business was back to normal, better even than before, but being in the shop was harder than I thought. The comfort it used to bring me was gone. Ainsley kept telling me that it would eventually return if I just had faith. I chose to believe her, mostly because she threatened me with a switch if I didn’t. And, well, the thought of closing the shop didn’t sit well with me, either.

Down the road, I saw the shell of my new front porch taking shape. My daddy had pulled some strings with the local insurance company so work could begin right off. Sometimes it paid to live in a small town.

As I drove past Marjie’s, I heard a laugh and slowed to a stop. I blinked a few times to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me, but no . . . Marjie was sitting on her front porch with Johnny Braxton.

And she was laughing. Hand to God, she was.

“Evening, Miss Carly,” Johnny said, raising his glass to me. He smiled wickedly and patted his shirt pocket before lifting a red potion bottle up just enough for me to see.

The lying dog had used the potion I’d given him on my aunt Marjie.

“Evening,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Beautiful night,” he said, “isn’t it?”

Marjie smiled at me (actually smiled!), and said, “Get along with you now, Carly. Can’t you see I’m entertaining?”

Roly and Poly looked back at me as if to ask why I’d stopped. I rather wished I hadn’t, but as I pedaled toward home, I couldn’t help but smile myself.

And wonder what game my aunt was playing.

Because I knew there had been nothing in that potion bottle but a little rose water.

My mama hadn’t raised a fool.

I’d known better than to trust Johnny Braxton. I figured he deserved whatever Aunt Marjie had planned for him, but I wondered if she knew he was using her.

Eunice and Hazel were bickering as I rode past, and as I turned into my driveway, I wasn’t the least bit surprised to see Dylan’s truck parked there. He’d been round all week, fixing stuff in the yard, helping with the cleanup of the old porch and the construction of the new one. But currently he was nowhere to be found.

I plucked Roly and Poly from the basket and brought them into the house. As soon as I walked through the back door, they wriggled free and took off. “Dylan?” I called.

“In here,” he said from the living room.

I found him cleaning a putty knife. He’d just finished spackling all the buckshot holes in the wall. “Did you break in here?”

“I
entered
. I still have my key.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I’m going to need that back.”

“I think I lost it.”

“I’ll change the locks.”

“You might want to hold off on that. I’m coming back tomorrow with supplies to fix the air-conditioning.”

Dang. He had me there. I’d do just about anything for air-conditioning heading into the summer. “Fine. I’ll change the locks next week.”

“It’s a plan, then.” He set down a putty knife, covered the spackle jar, and walked over to me. “I also brought over a generator. Just in case. It’s a spare that was collecting dust at the lake house, so don’t argue. I put it in the garage.”

He stood close. So close. I closed my eyes and was brought back to a different time when I could wrap my arms around him and hold him as long as I wanted. I wished with all my might that we were in that place again, but I knew that wishing wouldn’t make it so. “What do you want?”

“I want a lot of things,” he said, watching me intently. “But for now a thank-you would be nice.”

“What else?” I wanted to hear. I wanted the words. I wanted to know if we could somehow piece
us
back together again.

He moved in even closer. Skin touching skin. Heartbeat against heartbeat.

“I wouldn’t turn down a kiss.”

My pulse thrummed in my throat as I leaned up to brush my lips against his. A tiny kiss. A tease. A memory, really . . .

He’d just wrapped his arms around me, holding me tightly, when a horn blasted from outside. A loud
aaaooooga
.

“What is that?” he asked, his breath hot against my neck.

“Delia’s new bike horn.” I wriggled free of his arms and looked out the window. Delia had parked her new bike (black with hot pink skulls) next to mine. She pulled Boo out of the basket and headed for the back door.

“What’s she doing here?” he asked.

I smiled. “We’re going to pop popcorn and watch chick flicks. Want to stay?”

He looked into my eyes. “With you? More than anything. With both of you? No, thanks.” He gathered up a few supplies and pulled open the front door. “But I’ll be back tomorrow, Carly.”

I watched him go, and heaven help me, I was already looking forward to seeing him again.

Boo came charging in on the hunt for Roly and Poly, and Delia tipped her head when she saw me. “You have the strangest look on your face. What’re you thinking about?”

I laughed. “Cleaning out my underwear drawer.”

“And people think I’m the strange one in the family.”

“That’s because you are.”

She smiled and threw a rag at me. “Are you going to give him another chance?” she asked, nodding to Dylan as he backed out of the driveway.

“We’ll see,” I said.

But even as the words came out of my mouth, I knew this wasn’t about giving Dylan another chance.

It was about giving myself one. I was a healing witch. It might just be time to heal my own heart.

It wasn’t going to be easy.

I latched onto my locket, felt the warmth in my palm.

But I was up for the challenge.

“D
o you think I can get away with murder?”

The back door slammed, punctuating the startling question as Starla Sullivan rushed into the kitchen of As You Wish, my aunt Ve’s personal concierge business, which doubled as our home. Or, more appropriate, the old Victorian house that doubled as a business.

Soap bubbles slid off my fingers as I set down the pot I’d been washing. Early-afternoon sunlight streamed in through the window over the sink as I dried my hands with a dish towel and studied Starla carefully. Typically I’d laugh off such a question. Murder? Impossible. She was the most even-keeled, joy-filled witch I knew. But panic clouded her usually sparkling blue eyes, and a touch of fear slid down my spine.

“Maybe,” I said honestly. Since moving to the Enchanted Village last June, I’d learned a thing or two about homicides—I’d helped solve several local cases. There were ways to get away with murder if you planned carefully enough. I’d picked up a few tips and tricks to evade the police—but couldn’t imagine ever implementing the knowledge. I wasn’t usually the murderous type, either, unless my family and friends were threatened. Then, look out. The mama bear in me wouldn’t back down. As I watched Starla pace nervously, I had the uneasy feeling this was one of those times for her. “Why? Who do we need to kill?”

Holding on to a thread of hope that she was simply venting and hadn’t really turned homicidal, I’d purposefully kept my voice unnaturally light. My dog, Missy, formally known as Miss Demeanor, looked up from her bed near the mud room door and cocked her head as though understanding the seriousness of this conversation.

“
We
, Darcy?” Tears brimmed at the base of her light lashes.

“Obviously I’m not letting you do it alone. If you deem that someone needs to go, then I trust your instincts.
Patooey
. I spit on that person, and that’s saying something, because you know I hate spitting.”

Sunbeams fell across Starla’s face, making her look more angelic than usual, despite her sudden affinity for homicide. A quivering smile spread over her lips and lit her from the inside out. Then a passing cloud blocked the sun, her smile faltered, the tears fell, and she suddenly threw herself into my arms and started sobbing.

A lump lodged itself squarely in my throat as I held her closely like I used to do with my younger sister, Harper. Because I was the only mother figure Harper had ever known—our mom died the day she was born—she’d never minded crying on my shoulder. Until she hit her teen years. And those were years we would both rather forget. She was now twenty-three and was well past her aversion to affection.

As I soothed, I noticed that Starla’s skin felt chilled, probably a remnant of the icy air outside. January in the Enchanted Village, a themed neighborhood of Salem, Massachusetts, was about as cold as anyplace I’d ever experienced. The village had already received more than a foot of snow this month alone, and it was only two weeks into the new year.

“Oh, Starla, what’s wrong?” I whispered, rubbing her back as she trembled beneath my hand. “Did Vince do something?”

Vincent Paxton was Starla’s boyfriend, and someone I didn’t quite trust. Not yet. Maybe not ever. He was a Seeker, a mortal who longed to become a Crafter—a witch, like Starla and me. Specifically, we were Wishcrafters, witches who could grant wishes, though technically she was a CrossCrafter, a hybrid witch. She was part Wishcrafter (her predominate Craft) and part Bakecrafter (she had zero skills in the kitchen), which was the complete opposite of her twin brother, Evan, who owned the only bakery in the village.

There were many things I didn’t like about Vince, including his past history as a murder suspect with questionable morals, and only a few things I did. One was how much he obviously cared about Starla. But if he had hurt her . . .

“It’s not Vince.” Sniffling, she backed away from me. As fast as she could wipe them away, more tears filled her blue eyes.

“Then, what?” I asked, an ache growing in my stomach.

Right now I wished with all my heart that I could take away the obvious pain Starla was feeling. But one of the frustrating rules of being a Wishcrafter was that we wouldn’t grant our own wishes.

Her voice cracked as she said, “He’s back.”

“Who’s back?” I suddenly wished my aunt Ve was around in case Starla needed additional moral support. Plus, I had no doubt she’d help us hide a body if need be. But she was out of town for the day on an As You Wish assignment.

Starla began pacing again, her boots hitting the wood floor with the force of her anxiety. With each pivot, her blond ponytail swung out behind her, slashing the air. “Kyle. Kyle’s back.”

I knew of only one Kyle in her life, and simply hearing the name come from her lips was enough to make my blood run cold. “Your ex-husband, Kyle?” I said in a hushed breath. “Are you sure?”

“I’m fairly sure. I was wrapping up my afternoon rounds on the village green when I saw him near the ice-skating oval. One minute I’m snapping shots of a toddler wobbling on the ice, and the next I’m feeling my world disintegrate beneath my feet.”

Starla owned Hocus Pocus Photography and was often out and about in the square taking pictures of tourists, mementos the visitors could purchase on their way out of the village.

“Could it have been someone who looks like him?” I asked. “Maybe his twin brother?”

Kyle and Liam Chadwick were fraternal twins, but looked very similar. Kyle’s whole family—his mom, dad, and two brothers—still lived in the village. They owned Wickedly Creative, an art studio just beyond the square. It was excruciatingly awkward when Starla bumped into one of them.

“No, it wasn’t Liam. It was Kyle. I’d know him anywhere. I took pictures of him just to be sure—and to show the police. He’s back.”

“Let me see the pictures.” I’d seen Kyle Chadwick’s face often enough on the Wanted poster in the village police station to know what he looked like.

Her hand fluttered to her chest, where her camera usually hung. But it wasn’t there.

“My camera!” she cried. “I was so freaked-out at seeing him that my legs went weak. I had to sit down for a second, and I must have left it on a bench near the skating rink. I have to go back and get it.”

“Let me call Harper. She can get there faster than you.” That, and I was starting to realize I needed reinforcements. If it was Kyle . . . this was big news. Big, dangerous news. “Hold on a sec.”

Nodding, tears spilled down Starla’s face. I quickly ducked into the As You Wish office, closed the door a bit, and dialed my sister at her bookshop, which was just across the street from the ice rink.

“Spellbound, this is Harper.”

“It’s me,” I whispered into the phone.

“What’s wrong, Darcy?”

She knew me too well, picking up on my anxiety from only two little words. “It’s Starla. She left her camera on a bench near the ice-skating rink—can you go get it?”

“Why’d she leave it? What’s going on?”

There was no point in trying to be deceptive with Harper. She would get the information out of me eventually. “She accidentally left it there when she saw Kyle Chadwick.”

There was a beat of silence before she said, “Kyle Chadwick?”

“Yes. Well, she thinks it’s him.” I explained the situation.

“For the love . . . ,” Harper muttered. “Did she call the police?”

The office was its normal mess—a source of contention between Aunt Ve and me. Today the clutter only added to my stress level. I pulled my long ponytail forward over my shoulder and fussed with the dark strands of my hair. “I don’t think so. Not yet. I’ll see if she did.”

“If she hasn’t, you should.”

Harper was right. The sooner the police were involved with this, the better. “Can you get the camera? It’ll be nice to have confirmation that Kyle is in the village when the police get here.”

“I’m on it.” She hung up.

Setting the phone onto its dock, I let out a long sigh. Chill bumps covered my skin, and I noticed my hands were shaking as I walked back into the kitchen.

Starla had quit pacing and now sat on a kitchen stool with my aunt’s Himalayan, Tilda, curled in her lap. Tilda seemed to have a sixth sense for when people were upset. Despite her persnickety disposition, she almost always set aside her normal crankiness to offer comfort. This time was no different.

I often wondered whether Tilda was a familiar, a Crafter who took on the form of an animal after death, but if she was one, she wasn’t letting on. Other familiars I knew, such as my close mouse friend, Pepe, and Archie, the scarlet macaw who lived next door, had no trouble speaking to me. If Tilda was a familiar, she was giving me the silent treatment.

Pulling up the stool next to her, I said, “Did you call the police, Starla?”

She buried her face in Tilda’s fur. “I didn’t. I snapped the pictures of him, then kind of froze. I started shaking. I don’t remember much after that—only running here.” Tears swam in her eyes. “Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe I’m making a fuss out of nothing. Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me. It is almost the anniversary of when he was arrested, and it’s been on my mind.”

Maybe. But I wanted to be sure—for her sake.

It didn’t escape my notice, either, that she referred to the upcoming anniversary as when he had been
arrested
. But it was a couple of days from being two years since Kyle Chadwick had tried to strangle her, leaving her for dead.

My hands curled into fists as I said, “We should call Nick.”

Nick Sawyer wasn’t only the village’s police chief. He was also . . . mine. My boyfriend, a term that seemed childish but was technically appropriate. We’d been dating since summertime. We’d had our ups and downs, but right now we were in a good place.

“Only Nick for now, okay?” she said, putting her hand on my arm. “I don’t want . . .”

I reached out and held her hand. “What?”

“It’s just that when he was arrested . . . there was so much scrutiny.”

“That makes sense. He was charged with a horrible crime.”

“Not only scrutiny of him, Darcy. Of me. People didn’t want to believe me about what happened. . . . I don’t want to go through that again. At least not until I’m sure that the man at the rink was really him. The pictures will prove it.”

“I’ll call Nick’s cell phone, not the police station,” I said soothingly.

“Okay.”

I dialed, but Nick didn’t answer. I left a message for him to come over as soon as he could, that it was important.

“I can’t stop shaking,” Starla said, absently watching her hand tremble.

I couldn’t blame her. It had to have been such a shock to see her ex-husband. A man she’d once loved with all her heart.

A man who’d tried to kill her.

Tilda’s purrs filled the air as Starla asked, “Why would he come back?”

“I don’t know.” According to Aunt Ve, one of the best gossipers in the whole village, Kyle had jumped bail and disappeared after being charged with Starla’s attempted murder. No one had seen hide nor hair of him in two years. He was still a fugitive.

I’d lived in the village for less than a year, so I had never met the man, but I hated him with every drop of blood in my body, as did everyone who loved Starla. Why would he risk surfacing in a place where people knew him so well? It didn’t make sense. I hoped that she’d been mistaken. That he wasn’t here in the village. But I doubted she would have had such a visceral reaction if she wasn’t certain.

The back door swung open and Harper hurried inside, a camera in hand and her cheeks bright red. Whether the color came from the freezing temperatures or from her agitation, I wasn’t sure. She tugged a stocking cap off her head, leaving her pixie-cut light brown hair sticking up in static-filled tufts.

Setting the camera on the counter, she went over and hugged Starla, who might be my best friend but had quickly become like family to all of us. She was practically another sister to Harper, another niece to Aunt Ve.

Missy came off her bed and barked. She probably felt the tension in the air and didn’t like it much. I scooped her up and held her close. Her heart beat furiously against my hand. Probably a lot like the way my heart beat against the dog’s spine.

Harper and I hadn’t known a thing about Kyle Chadwick until a month ago, when Starla opened up to us, telling us her fateful story of love gone wrong. According to Ve, Starla didn’t talk much about her tumultuous marriage, telling people only that she was divorced and that it most certainly hadn’t been amicable.

That had been the understatement of a lifetime.

It was a miracle she was sitting there.

There was a tap at the back door, and Nick stuck his head inside. “Darcy? You called?”

Missy squirmed, and I set her down. She bounded over to the door as I waved him inside. He bent down to rub Missy’s ears before coming into the kitchen.

All it took was one look at our faces before his dark eyes shifted from those of a curious boyfriend to those of a hardened policeman. “What’s going on?”

Standing close to him, I felt the warmth of his body and moved a little closer. I cared for him more than I had ever dared to admit. I was working up my nerve to confess those three little words, even within the silence of my own head. It had been a long time since I’d said them to a man—my ex-husband had been the last, and we’d been divorced for more than two years now. But even as lousy a husband as Troy had been, he was a saint compared to Kyle Chadwick.

Starla related what she’d seen on the green, and fresh tears filled her eyes. “He was exactly the same as he was two years ago—maybe a little thinner, but the same crew cut, the same square face, the same piercing eyes. I always thought that if he came back he’d wear a disguise. Change his hair color, grow a beard. But no. He was just . . . him. And he was watching me.”

I shivered.

Harper shuddered.

Nick dragged a hand through his dark hair. He knew the history of Kyle Chadwick, the village’s most notorious fugitive. “Starla, are you sure it was him?”

“The longer I sit here, the more I doubt myself. But I took pictures. They’ll prove it one way or the other.” She pushed the camera toward him. “You know what he looks like, right? From his mug shot and the Wanted posters?”