A Potion to Die For: A Magic Potion Mystery (19 page)

T
he house I stood in front of was tucked into a clearing surrounded by dark woods on all sides. The home itself, though, looked the picture of quaint mountain living. It was small one-story post-and-beam home with a steep-pitched roof dotted with skylights. It had a large stone chimney on one side and a screened porch on the other, and flowering shrubs and plants filled the front garden with color. The late-day sun added an extra golden glow everywhere I looked.

I could hear the rushing water of the Darling River behind the house as I parked Bessie Blue in front of a small black SUV and grabbed the bags out of the basket on the front of the bike. I hitched my overnight bag onto my shoulder, followed a stone path to the front door, and knocked.

Yapping filled the air as an icy blue eye peeked out the front door’s sidelight. I thought I saw that eye roll just before the door swung open.

“What are you doing here?” Delia asked, scowling.

She wore long black lounge pants and a black tank top, and I was beginning to wonder if she owned anything of color. Her locket swung slightly and she took hold of it, wrapping her long, slim fingers around the silver orb.

Boo bounded outside and danced around my feet. At least one of them liked me. “I thought it was time I got to know my cousin a little bit better.” I held up a bag. “I brought fixin’s for supper. Steak and potatoes and corn on the cob. I’ll cook. And Jessa sent cake for dessert.”

She leaned against the doorframe as I bent to pet Boo’s head. “What are you
really
doing here?” she asked.

I straightened. “Coach Butts attacked me earlier and was arrested, but he broke out of jail about an hour ago. I need somewhere safe to stay tonight in case he comes after me again, and I can’t imagine he—or anyone—would think to look for me here. Can I stay the night?”

As she bit a nail, she searched my face.

I was beginning to wonder if she was about to slam the door on me when she said, “What kind of cake?”

“Triple chocolate fudge.”

She held open the door. “Come on in.”

Cautiously I followed her inside, Boo hot on my heels. Delia closed the door and took the food bags from my hands.

I found myself frozen in place, staring. The house was much bigger than it appeared from the outside. Like most post and beams, a popular design in this area, it was an open layout, with the living room blending into the kitchen, a small dining room, and a sun porch. A short hallway disappeared off to my left and probably led to one or two bedrooms and a bath.

The space was cool, light, and bright. The skylights let in plenty of sunshine, and most everything within the house, except the wooden floor and the beams, was crisp white. It was stunning. Absolutely beautiful in its serenity and peacefulness.

“What’s wrong with you? Why are you just standing there?” Delia asked. “You have supper to make.”

“It’s nothing. You just keep surprising me, that’s all. Next thing I know, you’re going to tell me that you don’t even have a broomstick that flies.”

“Flying broomsticks are so last century, Carly. Get with it.”

“I don’t know how I’m going to get over this. I thought for sure you lived in a dark, Dracula-type castle and slept in a coffin.”

There was a hint of a smile on her face as she said, “You haven’t seen my bedroom yet.”

I thought I knew her well, but clearly I didn’t know her at all. “Well, there’s plenty of time for that. Except I do need to go out later.” I was banking on Angelea Butts breaking into Nelson’s house after dark. If she had already gone there, I was going to be sorely put out.

She set the bags onto a pale granite countertop in the kitchen. “Well, that makes two of us who’re surprised. You’re not exactly someone I’d ever thought to find on my doorstep.”

I swallowed what little pride I had and said, “Thanks for taking me in.”

She unpacked the bags. “Don’t make more out of it than it is. I was hungry. No human I know can resist Jessa’s triple chocolate fudge cake.”

I was about to make a crack regarding my doubts about Delia being human, but in light of her opening her home to me, I held my tongue. A small miracle. I helped her unpack groceries. “Your house is gorgeous.”

I bet she didn’t have critters chewing
her
wiring.

“Thanks. Where do you have to go tonight?”

“I could tell you,” I said, “but then you might be charged as an accessory or coconspirator or something if I get caught. It probably wouldn’t make me a very good houseguest if I got you arrested.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re serious?”

I nodded.

“Is this about Coach Butts? Are you going to burn down his house?”

I set my jaw. “No, I am not going to burn down his house.”

“You don’t need to take that tone. It’s not like you haven’t done it before. I heard about that one chapel you burned down.”

“That was an accident!”

“If you say so.” She set the steak in a glass dish and sprinkled the meat with seasonings. “Do you want to cook this inside or out on the barbecue?”

“Out,” I growled.

She smiled sweetly. “I’ll fire up the coals.”

I watched her walk through the sunroom and out a set of patio doors that led to a deck on the back of the house. Through large kitchen windows that overlooked the river, I could see Delia fussing with a bag of charcoal. I glanced down at Boo. “How do you live with her?”

He wagged his tiny tail.

As I wrapped potatoes and ears of corn in foil, I was wondering how I was going to make it through the night here. I hadn’t quite considered that coming here posed its own dangers. Delia’s and my whole relationship was a Pandora’s box that was better off kept closed. Tightly. The cause of our family’s split lay between the two of us. It was a lot of weight for us to shoulder, and until now we’d done our best to ignore it and go our separate ways. But over the past couple of days I’d seen more of Delia than I had in years.

And I couldn’t help but wonder what our relationship would be like if she had been born first. Would we be the best of friends? Would I have chosen to make hexes?

The hex she’d given me still sat snug in my pocket. Now was the perfect time to give it back to her, but every time I thought about doing so, I could see Coach’s face. And murder in his eyes.

Delia came back inside and said, “It’ll be a few minutes till it’s ready.”

I tipped my head. “Why did you come see me yesterday morning? Why warn me about the danger I was in? We barely know each other. Why do you care?”

“Why are you here?” she countered, her ice-blue eyes softening. She scooped up Boo. “We’re family, Carly. Families should take care of their own, even if they don’t like each other much.”

I traced a vein in the granite with my fingertip. “I don’t
not
like you,” I said begrudgingly. “I just don’t really know you.”

“And what you do know of me you don’t like.”

Well, there was that. “I could say the same of you.”

“True. Yours is a difficult shadow to live in. Plus, you have everything, and I . . . Well. My mama has run off to be with a crazy man, and I own a business based on the misfortune of others.”

I was about to argue, but I suddenly realized what she said about living in my shadow was probably true. “But at least you never burned down a chapel. Accidentally.”

From a cupboard she pulled a bottle of wine. “Or poked Patricia Davis Jackson with a pitchfork.”

“She deserved it.”

“I have no doubt of that.” She poured two glasses and pushed one my way. “She’s come to see me more than once to buy a hex to put on you.”

My jaw dropped. “She has? What did you do?”

Delia smiled and held up her glass in a toast. “Sold her one, of course. Money is money.” Then after a second, she added, “A placebo. Family is family after all.”

Family
was
family. I wasn’t sure we could ever be friends, but it might be time to close ranks between us. I held up my glass. “To getting to know my cousin better?”

After a long second, she nodded. “To getting to know my cousin better.”

• • •

Supper had long been eaten, the dessert plates licked clean, and the dishes washed and put away when I decided it was time to head over to Nelson’s. The sun was about to set and it would be fully dark within an hour. I expected Angelea to show up not long after.

Even though I didn’t want to go alone, I had my witchy senses to guide me, and if I felt like I was in any kind of danger, I wouldn’t take any chances.

My mama hadn’t raised a fool.

Delia said, “Are you sure you’re not planning to burn down Coach Butts’s house? You’re acting awful antsy.”

I dug through my pocketbook, looking for the key Bernice had given me. I could’ve sworn I put it in here. “I’m sure.”

Boo was nestled in the corner of the couch, flat on his back with his tiny paws in the air. He snored softly, and I suddenly wanted to stay home and get a good night’s sleep.

I dumped my bag upside down and shook it.

“You should probably clean that thing out once in a while.”

“It’s my portable office,” I said, sorting through receipts and written reminders I’d never followed up on.

“What are you looking for?”

I stood up and searched my pockets, finding only the hex Delia had given me. “A key. I didn’t drop it around here, did I?”

She helped me look around. “A key to what?”

I brushed my hair off my face and let out a breath. “Nelson’s house. I’m going to break in and wait for Angelea Butts to show up to find the handwriting analysis Nelson ordered for Coach’s trial that will supposedly show Coach is innocent. Bernice Morris gave me a key, but now I can’t find it.”

Delia held up a hand, palm out. “One, why would Angelea want the analysis, and how do you know she’ll be there tonight? Two, why would Miz Morris give you a key? Three, is it breaking in if you have a key? And four, how were you planning to get to Nelson’s?”

I lifted my index finger. “Because I suspect that she might be the real embezzler, and I laid a trap when I saw her earlier.” I added my middle finger next to my index. “Because she wants me to prove that Coach is innocent.” I lifted my ring finger as I made my third point. “According to Caleb Montgomery, it is.” And finally lifted my pinky as I said, “I’ll ride my bike over. But now all that planning has gone to waste since I lost the key. Maybe I dropped it at Jessa’s. Can I use your phone to call over there?”

“No need for that.” Delia walked over to a kitchen drawer, yanked it open, and pulled out a set of keys. “I still have a key to Nelson’s house; he gives them to all his girlfriends. And I’ll drive us over there. Your girly bike is not made for the hill he lives on.”

I let the “girly” comment slide. “Us?”

“Yes. You shouldn’t go alone. I’m not sure I trust Bernice Morris’s intentions.”

I couldn’t argue with her reasoning. I’d been worried about the same thing.

“Plus,” Delia added, “I know where Nelson keeps his important papers and the combination to the safe.”

My jaw dropped. “You do?”

She shrugged. “Unless he changed the combo. But even then, I have a way with locks.”

I really didn’t want to know how she’d stumbled upon that talent.

She grabbed her cape and two flashlights, and jangled the keys as she headed for the door. “Are you coming?”

She left me with little choice. “Okay, but breaking and entering and possibly getting ourselves arrested wasn’t quite the way I thought we’d get to know each other.”

“Carly, we’ve never been a normal family.”

Truer words had never been spoken.

N
elson didn’t live all that far from Delia’s, maybe two miles as the crow flies, but the road was steep and laced with switchbacks. Thanks to the sheer drop into the ravine on my right, I nervously held my locket as we climbed upward. I couldn’t help but wonder why there weren’t guardrails lining this whole road and was suddenly grateful for my money-pit, critter-infested house in town.

Delia had been right—my bike never would have made it up here. Even if it had, my lungs wouldn’t have. I never realized how far up this hill Nelson lived.

“There’s a logging road just past Nelson’s house. We’ll park there, out of sight,” Delia said.

Darkness had fallen. Clouds covered the moon and stars, making the night black as tar. Delia’s high beams cut through the worst of it, but the light against the trees cast eerie shadows across the road.

My witchy senses were twitching, and I was beginning to rethink this plan. “We should go back.”

“But we’re almost there. It’s just around this bend.”

“I have a bad feeling.”

She glanced over at me. “How bad?”

I was surprised she understood my feelings meant real trouble, until I remembered her dreams.

No, our family was far from normal.

“On a scale of one to ten, a four and a half.”

“That’s not
too
bad.”

“It’s bad enough that we should turn around.”

She slowed as we drove past a house, a gorgeous multilevel post and beam perched high above the river. Security lights lit the wraparound porch and driveway, but all the immense windows were as black as the night sky. “That’s Nelson’s dream house. He handpicked every beam that went into that place.”

It was a showstopper, and clearly he’d invested a lot of money in it. Which made me wonder again why he wanted that job in Birmingham so badly. The big city was too far to commute to every day—he wouldn’t have been able to live here.

His motivation had to be something big.

I ruled out money—he clearly had enough and had never seemed the greedy type.

Was someone blackmailing him to leave town? Who? And why? Something to do with the trial?

Love, maybe? Did his mysterious girlfriend live in Birmingham?

There were frustratingly few answers.

Delia drove onward, and about a quarter mile down the road she turned left onto a gravel road and parked the car. “Do we stay or do we go?”

I could see Nelson’s lights through the trees. Just knowing that there could be answers to some of my questions inside his house lured me toward it. Those lights . . . they beckoned.

Yet my witchy senses were still tingling. Danger was in the air. But not enough to keep me from Nelson’s safe. “We go.”

We kept to the tree line and headed toward his porch, two moths drawn to the light. I just hoped we weren’t being lured to our deaths.

I shook that thought from my mind. This was no time to be thinking like that.

Humidity sat heavily in the still air, punctuated by the cries of owls in the distance, the snapping of twigs, and the incessant chirping of nighttime bugs. But every once in a while, all would go silent. Deathly quiet. Exhaling could be heard several feet away.

Chills swept up my arms and down my back. Keeping a hand on my locket, I moved a little closer to Delia, who led us along the dark street. She clearly knew her way around the property well and moved surely and quickly.

Wooden stairs creaked as we stepped onto Nelson’s front porch. Delia slipped the key into the front doorknob, and the tumblers turned easily, clicking loudly as they released.

The door opened soundlessly.

We rushed inside and closed it, both of us pressing our bodies against the wood as if expecting the door to fly open behind us.

The glow of the outdoor lights spilled in through the windows. We stood in the great room, which had definitely been furnished with a man’s tastes in mind. Large, sleek leather sofas, armchairs done in solid fabrics, heavy wooden tables. No knickknacks or clutter.

Dylan had said the place had been ransacked, but there was no evidence here of that. Everything was neat and tidy in its place.

There was an utter stillness in the house, and it brought immediately to mind a line from “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.”

Not a creature was stirring.

Not even us.

I hardly dared breathe. My back was pressed flat against the oak door, and Delia gripped the doorknob so tightly her knuckles had turned white.

The good news was that my witchy senses hadn’t jumped off the scale. There was still a sense of danger in the air, but I felt relatively sure that threat wasn’t in this house.

“Where’s the safe?” I whispered. “We might as well crack that open while we’re waiting for Angelea.”

“Do you really think she’s going to show up?” Delia finally released the doorknob. “You couldn’t have been more obvious at the pharmacy.”

I’d told her all about my trap over supper. “Honestly, I’m not sure. I don’t think Angelea would suspect I’d bait her, because we’re friendly, and she isn’t known for her smarts, either.”

“But if she is the embezzler, then she’s smarter than anyone has given her credit for, isn’t she? She’s had half the town thinking her husband was guilty. Why would she let him take the fall? Do you think he knows she’s the guilty one?”

“I have a feeling Coach doesn’t know half of what his wife is up to.” I hadn’t told Delia about Angelea’s baby. She’d certainly been catting around, and I couldn’t help but imagine Dudley as the baby’s father. He had been acting guilty earlier.

It was a shocking revelation. Dudley had always seemed so devoted to Emmylou. But maybe I was wrong.

I hoped I was wrong.

For Emmylou’s sake.

“Where’s the safe?” I asked.

“His bedroom. Upstairs.”

I started for the steps and noticed Delia hung back. There was a strange look on her face that had me worried. “Are you okay?”

“I’m . . . it’s just . . .”

Ah. It must be very difficult for her to be in this house. I kept forgetting that she’d had an attachment to Nelson, and suddenly I was angry with him for dumping her. Obviously she had been quite smitten with him. “I can get the safe and bring it down here to you. Just tell me where it is.”

She shook her head and wisps of white-blond hair flew all about. “You can’t. It’s built into the floorboards. I’ll be fine.” She took a tentative step forward.

“Do you want me to hold your hand?” I offered.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

I smiled. It was nice to hear a little fire in her voice. We crept up the steps. At the top, a long open hallway, like a catwalk, led to the master bedroom to the left, and a short hallway to the right led to guest rooms.

We tiptoed along the catwalk, and I hoped we couldn’t be seen through the windows. There were dozens of them, floor to cathedral ceiling, and all resembled big black (square) holes. Of course, to be seen, someone other than raccoons would have to be outside. Which was unlikely, considering we hadn’t seen another person since we’d turned onto the street leading up to Nelson’s. His house was as private as private could get without being gated. The only other people who came up this way were loggers and hunters—and neither would be out this time of night.

Of course, Angelea could be out there . . . waiting to break in. If she saw us, she might turn tail and run, which would defeat the whole purpose of this night.

Figuring out what was in Nelson’s safe was only a bonus.

“It stinks to high heaven up here,” Delia said, flicking on the flashlight as we entered the master bedroom.

It did.

Delia drew up her cape to cover her nose. “What is that? Oh!” she cried as she swept the beam of light over the room.

It was the scent of sickness. Nelson had clearly been violently ill.

From the poison in the potion bottle.

I covered my nose and mouth with my hand and forced myself not to breathe through my nose.

Tears filled Delia’s eyes. “What happened to him? Why does his room look like this? He’s a neat freak.”

Beyond the evidence of sickness, the room was a mess. Drawers upended, clothes and papers everywhere.

“Nelson was poisoned,” I said softly. “And Dylan said someone broke in and trashed the place.”

“I don’t understand,” she mumbled. “His head . . .”

“I don’t understand, either. Apparently someone bopped him to make it look like he died that way.”

Dazed, she shook her head.

I said, “Where’s the safe?” I had to keep her focused on why we were in this room. The sooner we could get out of here, the better.

She walked over to a corner of the room, crouched down, and pressed on a knot in the pine floorboard. A section of planks popped up. She pulled those out of the way and aimed the flashlight downward.

Well, I’ll be
. A large safe was nestled under the floor, the combination spinner facing upward. She leaned downward and spun the dial this way and that. After a second, the door released.

I dropped down next to her as she opened the safe’s door wide. She reached in and slowly started pulling out items. Cash rolled in bundles, many files, and a small black ring box. She stared at that last item for a long second before cracking the box open. A large diamond ring was snug inside a velvet layer.

Delia swallowed hard and stared at the ring.

I clicked on my flashlight and held it between my chin and collarbone as I flipped through the files, looking for anything that resembled a handwriting analysis. I didn’t have to look far.

“It’s here,” I said.

“What?”

“The report.”

“Oh.”

I leaned over and pried the jewelry box out of her hand and slammed the lid closed.

“Who do you think he was going to give it to?”

I could see the heartbreak in her eyes, hear it in her voice. “We may never know. But I do know he wasn’t the right man for you.”

“And just how do you know that?” she snapped.

I shrugged. “He let you go.”

Her jaw jutted. “He’d clearly lost his mind.”

“Undoubtedly.”

After a second, she said, “What’s the report say?”

“It’s from some fancy forensic handwriting expert.” I skimmed the page. “‘Blah, blah, blah, based on the samples sent, blah, blah, it has been determined that the samples do not match.’”

“What’s that mean?”

I flipped through the rest of the report. “I think it means that Coach didn’t sign those checks.”

“Does that mean Angelea did?” Delia asked.

Just as the words left her mouth, light swept across the room. We inched our way to the window and looked out. A car had pulled into the driveway. The driver stepped out of the car and looked around.

Angelea Butts.

“I’m guessing yes,” I said.

I quickly folded the report and tucked it into my shirt. We stuffed everything else back into the safe and replaced the floorboards.

Delia glanced at me. “We need to hide.”

“Not in here.” It was undoubtedly where Angelea was going to look. Plus, it reeked.

“Across the hall. Come on.” She grabbed my hand and yanked.

“I thought you didn’t want to hold my hand.”

“Hush!”

We were on our way out the bedroom door when the clouds shifted and moonlight spilled into the room, and glinted off an object on the nightstand. I wiggled my hand free.

“What are you doing?” Delia asked.

“Just a sec.” I tiptoed over to the bed and aimed the flashlight downward. I didn’t dare pick up the object, but I knew immediately what it was.

A lavender-colored stopper to one of my potion bottles.

It was the stopper to the sleeping potion bottle I’d given Angelea. . . .

With fresh eyes and a new understanding, I looked around the room. It suddenly dawned on me that the place hadn’t been ransacked at all—instead it looked like someone had come in and cleared their stuff out in a hurry.

Someone like Angelea. Bits and pieces were finally starting to make sense in my head.

“Carly, come on. She’s coming.” Delia walked over and grabbed my arm again, dragging me out.

We were on the catwalk when Angelea’s shadow fell across the front windows. We’d just made it to the other side when we heard the key in the lock.

Delia froze and I bumped into her. “What?” I asked.

“She has a key.”

I barely had time to register that before the front door swung open and Angelea slipped inside. Delia and I scurried into the hallway bathroom.

My chest was pounding.

Angelea had a key.

What Delia had said earlier at her house came back to me: “I still have a key to Nelson’s house; he gives them to all his girlfriends.”

Angelea and Nelson. This reinforced the conclusion I’d just come to. They had been a couple.

I glanced at Delia.

Her mind must have been spinning in the same direction, because she lurched forward. “Oh, hell, no.”

I grabbed her arm and pulled her back down, but she wriggled free and charged toward the stairs. I reached for her foot, and she went sprawling on the landing.

“Let me go!” she cried.

From downstairs, Angelea yelled, “Who’s up there?”

Delia had just squirmed her way loose when the front door flew open, and Dylan Jackson strode in and cut on the lights.

His eyes went from Angelea at the foot of the stairs to Delia frozen midway down the steps, and me flat on my belly at the top. His gaze narrowed on me.

My witchy feeling went from bad to worse.

Much worse.