A Potion to Die For: A Magic Potion Mystery (2 page)

“Carly,” she said, taking hold of an engraved round silver locket, an orb that swung from an extra-long chain around her neck. “This is serious.”

The engraving on the locket was of two lilies entwined to form a heart, and inside it held a strand of our great-great-grandmother Leila’s golden hair.

I knew, because I had an identical locket around my neck.

Beyond our looks, common middle name, and nail-biting habit, Delia and I also shared one
big
similarity, a trait passed down to all the women on my father’s side of the family.

We had all inherited Leila’s ability to feel other people’s emotions. Their pain, their joy.

The lockets, protective amulets given to us by our grammy Adelaide when we were babies, weren’t meant as defense from others. They offered protection from ourselves. From our own abilities. These lockets allowed us to shut off our empathetic gift at will so we could live as normally as possible.

Well, as normally as possible while practicing magic in this crazy Southern town.

My ability was almost always turned off, way off, except when I needed to tap into a client’s energy in order to create a perfect potion for him or her. However, there were times, despite my charmed locket, when I was overstressed or tired, that I couldn’t control the ability at all and was forced into hibernation until I could handle society again.

My empathetic gift also came with an added bonus that no one else—not even Delia—shared: a sixth sense of sorts that I had no power over whatsoever. Warning signals that all wasn’t quite right in my world. My best friend, Ainsley, called them my “witchy senses.” It was as good a description as any.

“How serious?” I asked.

“Very.”

I was feeling warning twinges now, and had to wonder if they were coming from the crowd outside . . . or Delia’s dramatic pronouncement.

“Well, out with it already.” I was very wary of Delia, and wondered if she was trying to trick me somehow. As a dabbler in the dark arts, one who used her magic with no concern for its consequences or side effects, Delia’s magic was definitely dangerous but not nearly as potent as my magic.

She’d do just about anything to learn my spells and uncover the secret component that made my potions so successful—mostly because she was still in a snit that due to an unfortunate (for her) case of bad timing, I had possession of the secret magical ingredient and she didn’t. And essentially, because of that one ingredient, my magic was more powerful than hers would ever be—and that bugged her to no end.

“Rude,” she muttered.

“I’m kind of busy, if you can’t tell.”

Delia was six minutes younger than I—a source of contention that had created a chasm as deep as Alabama’s Pisgah Gorge through the Hartwell family, splitting brother and sister apart.

All because I had been born two months prematurely, making
me
the oldest grandchild.

Making
me
the heir to the family grimoire and the keeper of the Leilara bottle and all its magical secrets.

Making
my
abilities superior to Delia’s.

The grimoire was basically a recipe book for Leila’s hoodoo remedies, folk magic at its most natural. It had been handed down to the oldest child on my father’s side of the family ever since Leila and Abraham died tragically. And the Leilara, well, that was pure magic born from their deaths. The way the Leilara drops mixed with specific herbs and minerals in a potion was what made that concoction effective. I couldn’t rightly say I understood how it worked, but I firmly believed magic was one of those things to
feel
rather than study.

If my mother hadn’t gone into labor two months early, the grimoire and the Leilara would have gone to Delia and the dark side. Aunt Neige had argued for years that gestational age should have taken precedence over actual birth dates, but her outcry had been overruled by Grammy Adelaide.

Currently, the grimoire and the Leilara were safely hidden, tucked inside a specially crafted hidey-hole in my shop’s potion-making room. Hidden, because if Delia had her way and got her hands on the book of spells and the bottle of magic drops . . . Right now the Leilara drops were used for good, to heal. But with Delia, they’d be used for evil, to make her hexes that much more wicked.

“I had a dream,” Delia said, fussing with her dog’s basket.

“A Martin Luther King Jr. kind? Or an REM, drool-on-the-pillow kind?” I asked, looking up at her.

“REM. But I don’t drool.”

“Noted,” I said, but didn’t believe it for a minute. I shifted on the floor; my rear was going numb. “What was it about? The dream?”

Delia said, “You.”

“Me? Why?”

Delia closed her eyes and shook her head. After a dramatic pause, she looked at me straight on. “Don’t ask me. It’s not like I have any control over what I dream. Trust me. Otherwise, I’d be dreaming of David Beckham, not you.”

I could understand that. “Why are you telling me this?”

We weren’t exactly on friendly terms.

Delia bit her thumbnail. All of her black-painted nails had been nibbled to the quick. “I don’t like you. I’ve never liked you, and I daresay the feeling is mutual.”

I didn’t feel the need to agree aloud. I had
some
manners, after all. “But?” I knew there was one coming.

“I felt I had to warn you. Because even though I don’t like you, I don’t particularly want to see anything bad happen to you, us being family and all.”

Now I was really worried. “Warn me about what?”

Caution filled Delia’s ice-blue eyes. “You’re in danger.”

Danger of losing my sanity, maybe. This whole day had been more than a little surreal, and it wasn’t even nine a.m. I laughed. “You know this from a dream?”

“It’s not funny, Carly. At all. I . . . see things in dreams. Things that come true. You’re in very real danger.”

She said it so calmly, so easily, that I immediately believed her. I’d learned from a very early age not to dismiss things that weren’t easily understood or explainable. Maybe Delia’s dreams were akin to my witchy senses—which should always be taken seriously.

“What kind of danger?” I asked. I’d finally caught my breath and needed a glass of water. I hauled myself off the floor and headed for the small break room in the back of the shop. I wasn’t the least bit surprised when Delia followed.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

I flipped on a light. And froze. Delia bumped into my back.

We stood staring at the sight before us.

Delia said breathlessly, “It might have something to do with him.”

Him being the dead man lying facedown on the floor, blood dried under his head, his stiff hands clutching a potion bottle.

T
here hadn’t been a murder in Hitching Post in nearly five years, not since Mrs. Wallerman “accidentally” ran over Mr. Wallerman after finding out he’d taken up with a young clerk from the local market. When the jury took a look at the multipierced, bodacious young mistress and heard the story of the salacious affair, they found Mrs. Wallerman innocent on all counts. The people of Hitching Post had their own sense of justice and weren’t afraid to exercise it.

Perhaps that’s why there is a dead man in my shop,
I reasoned.

I was clearly grasping at straws.

“Maybe it’s not murder,” I whispered to Delia as we sat on stools behind the counter in the front of the shop as sheriff’s deputies cordoned off the back room. I gripped my locket firmly to help ward off other people’s energy. My stress level had already shot through the roof. “Maybe he had a heart attack or something.”

He being Nelson Winston, a local lawyer. How he’d wound up dead in my shop was beyond me. As far as I knew, he’d never even been a customer.

“Right,” Delia said, rubbing her dog’s ears. She’d been unusually quiet since we’d found the body, and there was a dazed look in her eyes. “Because heart attacks cause people to bleed profusely from their heads.”

I didn’t appreciate my cousin’s sarcasm, though I was actually grateful for her company. I bit my fingernail and focused on the crowd gathered outside, which had tripled in size, thanks to the sirens. Half the crowd was waiting for their potions; the other half consisted of curiosity seekers. Word hadn’t leaked yet that there was a dead body inside the shop. However, it was only a matter of time before the county coroner’s van arrived and the whole town, locals and tourists alike, camped on my doorstep.

“This is a nightmare,” I mumbled, sinking my head into my hands.

Delia dragged her fingertips across the wooden tabletop. “What’s in the potions that make them so deadly, anyway?”

“Good try.” I wasn’t taking that bait.

Currently, the secret ingredient, the Leilara tears, was known only to my father and me. Eventually the knowledge would be passed down to my oldest child. If I had kids. I could practically hear my biological clock ticking—and forced it to be quiet. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about how if I
didn’t
have kids, the Leilara secret would have to be shared with Delia.

She narrowed her eyes. The dazed look was still there. “At least I’ve never killed someone with my magic.”

“
I
didn’t kill him!”

“He had one of your potion bottles in his hand,” she pointed out. “And your aunt Marjie tried to shoot him last week. Obviously, you have motive.”

I winced. Marjie
had
scared Nelson out of her yard the week before. “It was a warning shot,” I said weakly. “And her motive isn’t
my
motive.”

“But family is family.” She shrugged. “Just sayin’.”

“Well, stop sayin’.”

“Touchy.”

If only there were a potion that would make Delia keep her opinions to herself, like sudden muteness. But I knew there wasn’t. I didn’t even have to check the grimoire to see if there was anything close. I supposed I could conjure a hex to use on her—I did have the ability. But I’d always chosen to reject my voodoo heritage and never use harmful spells.

It might be time to rethink that particular principle.

A uniformed deputy came down the back hallway and eyed me warily. I cringed as he headed for my wall of potion bottles. Floor to ceiling, narrow black shelving held a variety of faceted glass bottles of every jewel tone—it was a stunning, eye-popping, colorful sight that made customers’ jaws drop in awe.

My bottles were custom ordered from a glass blower who had a studio on the outskirts of town. Each was a piece of art. There was no doubt that the violet-hued bottle Nelson held was one of my own.

But how had he gotten hold of it? I couldn’t remember ever selling a potion to him—and a quick look at the wall of bottles revealed none were missing. I needed to check with my two part-time employees—my father and my best friend, Ainsley—to see whether they’d ever sold him a potion.

Plus, it was strange the bottle was violet. I divided potion bottle colors by gender. Men received blues, greens, and yellows, and women purples, pinks, and oranges. Red was used solely for love potions and it was the only color reserved for both genders.

Because the bottle was violet, the potion within couldn’t have possibly been made for him. But as I’d made hundreds of potions with that color bottle, there was no way I could pinpoint who it had once belonged to.

Biting my nail, I turned my back on the deputy removing the bottles from the shelves. I understood why it had to be done, but I hated strangers touching my things.

I jumped when Delia’s dog licked my elbow. Cautiously, I patted his head.

“What’s his name?” I asked, desperate for any topic that would help me forget about the deputies traipsing through my shop.

I expected an answer like Lucifer or El Diablo, and was quite surprised when Delia said, “Boo.”

“As in Boo Radley?”

We were in Alabama, after all, home of
To Kill a Mockingbird
.

“No, Carly, not Boo
Radley
,” she said as if I’d insulted her. “Boo
Berry
.”

“Like the cereal?”

“Yes. Boo for short,” she said, patting his head. He swiped her hand with his little pink tongue.

I couldn’t help from asking. “Why?”

“Were you expecting something like Satan?” she asked, her right eyebrow arched severely.

“Not at all,” I lied, trying to look innocent. “Just curious.”

“The first day I brought him home he climbed on the kitchen table and crawled into my Boo Berry box. He managed to eat most of the little marshmallows before I found him.”

“You eat Boo Berry?”

I had pictured Delia having pints of blood for breakfast, raw steaks, small children—that sort of thing. The whole Boo Berry image was going to take a while to get used to.

Her other eyebrow rose sharply. “You don’t?”

“I’m more of a Count Chocula girl.”

Suddenly, I felt a subtle shift in the air, an intangible awareness. Senses heightened, my skin tingled—my witchy senses at work. Danger was near—a danger I knew all too well. I didn’t need to turn around to know who was standing behind me.

“I knew these potions of yours would get you in trouble one day,” he said.

I could hear the smile in his voice and knew one would be on his face when I turned around. It was.

Oh, Sergeant Dylan Jackson, investigator for the Darling County sheriff’s office, didn’t look dangerous. Not on the surface, leastways. Not with his big moss green bedroom eyes, long dark lashes. Not with that boyish grin of his. Not with the way his hair curled out from under a well-loved ball cap.

But I knew better.

After all, I’d almost married the man.

Twice.

No one was more dangerous—to my heart.

“Dylan,” I said, my throat bone-dry. “I heard you moved back to town.”

I’d heard it from about a hundred people who felt the need to tell me in grocery aisles, the post office, walking around the Ring. . . .

He’d been gone for almost a year, having taken a job with a police force farther south after our second failed attempt at getting married. It had been two months since he returned, and it had taken a lot of hard work and a small miracle to not face him before now.

“You might have been able to keep avoiding me if there wasn’t a dead man in your shop.”

Because there was no denying that I
had
been avoiding him, I said, “I didn’t kill Nelson.”

“Thou dost protest too much?” Delia said, her slivers of eyebrows still nearly touching her hairline.

Yes. A mute potion would be handy. I was determined to create one straight off.

Dylan wasn’t wearing his uniform, thank goodness—it always made me a little hot under the collar. And he knew it. He still had that half smirk as he said, “Any idea why Nelson is dead in your shop?”

I was grateful Dylan didn’t dwell on my avoidance of him and mention the time last month when I had seen him jogging on the river walk and dove behind a bush so I didn’t have to talk to him. He’d simply shouted, “Watch out for the fire ants!” and kept on running. And damned if I hadn’t been stung by those little buggers. And by how he’d been able to pass by so easily. “No, and I can’t figure out how he got in, either.”

There was no sign of forced entry. I didn’t have an alarm system—no one in the county did—but now I regretted that decision.

“Who has keys?” Dylan asked.

“Me, my parents, Ainsley. That’s it.” I didn’t feel the need to explain that none of them could possibly be involved with this mess. Dylan knew them well enough to make that leap himself.

He folded muscled arms. “Did I hear that your aunt Marjie tried to shoot Nelson last week?”

Indignant, I jumped off my stool. “It was a warning shot! You know how she feels about big-city lawyers sniffing around her inn, ignoring all her No Trespassing signs.”

Every year Marjie received numerous offers to buy her inn, the Old Buzzard, but she wasn’t selling. Lawyers for big hotel chains, however, didn’t like taking her no for an answer.

“But Nelson Winston isn’t a big-city lawyer,” Dylan said, his intelligent eyes watching me carefully. “He’s a local.”

“Even worse,” I mumbled. “He should have known better than to be snooping around Marjie’s yard.”

Someone banged on the door, yelling, “Carly! I need me a potion, chile! Hurry up already.”

Dylan looked to the door, then back at me. “Mr. Dunwoody give a forecast this morning?”

“Sunny with a chance of divorce,” Delia supplied.

With a low whistle, Dylan said, “That explains the crowd.”

“How soon will I be able to open?” I asked, hanging on to my locket for dear life.

“A day or two,” he said.

I let out a cry. “You’re kidding.”

He gave me a shrug. “Sorry, Care Bear.”

Delia snickered.

Seeing red, I warned softly, “Do not call me that.”

He lost that right a long time ago. When he left me at the altar. Twice. Though if I was being completely honest, I was the one to run away the second time. But it had been entirely his fault.

“Sure thing.” He winked.

Winked
. The nerve!

Someone else pounded on the door, and he added, “I’ll send some deputies out to break up the crowd and cordon off the front of the shop.”

Dylan had shifted so he stood just a bit in front of me, and I tried to keep my gaze from admiring his backside. Wearing a paper-thin Atlanta Braves T-shirt and a pair of old jeans, he was long, lean, and muscled. It was hard to look away.

“Good luck,” Delia scoffed. “You’ll have a riot on your hands. Mr. Dunwoody forecast a divorce, remember?”

I gazed at the crowd. “Can I take any supplies from the shop?”

“No. Everything has to be processed first.”

Dang.
I bit my lip. There were supplies enough at home, but in their raw state. The real problem was that the Leilara was hidden away in the room behind me. Without it, my potions were simply good homeopathic remedies. But those remedies would have to do. There was no way I would risk sneaking the Leilara bottle from its secret spot—especially not with Delia sitting out here. “Tell your deputies to announce that potions can be picked up at my house at four this afternoon and to line up by number.” I stood up. “I should get going. I have a lot to do.”

“I could help you with those potions,” Delia said.

“Good try again,” I said to her.

Delia pretended to examine her jagged nails.

Dylan said to me, “I’ll come by your place later and take your statement.”

“To my house?” I asked.

“You have a problem with that?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He smiled. “I promise not to snoop through your underwear drawer while I’m there. Well, maybe a little snooping.”

I frowned at him.

“I’m kidding, Care Bear. I’ll be there on official business. I’ll
officially
search your drawers. You might have evidence hidden away.”

“You’re not funny,” I said.

“I think he is.” Delia smirked.

I couldn’t imagine this day getting much worse.

Until someone pounded on the front door. “Carly! Carlina Bell Hartwell, open this door right now!”

I knew that voice well.

My mother had arrived.