A Potion to Die For: A Magic Potion Mystery (6 page)

“It’s mine,” Hazel said. “Give it back!”

“No!”

Sad to say this wasn’t the first time they’d faced off over undergarments. Eulalie was a bit of an instigator. She often snitched Hazel’s lacy bits off the clothesline because Eulalie felt confrontations helped hone her acting skills—and the street was as good a stage as any.

Hazel, however, never quite realized she was a pawn in Eulalie’s theatrical games, and was quite possessive about her underwear. She wasn’t backing down without a good ol’ catfight.

I was about to step between them when, at the end of the block, I saw a dark pickup turn onto the street. It swerved left and right, a wild zigzag. We needed to get out of the way. “Let’s move to the sidewalk,” I suggested loudly.

They ignored me.

Reaching into the fray, I grabbed the bra and pulled. I figured where the bra went the aunts would follow. Instead, they turned on me.

“Carlina Hartwell, how dare you?” Hazel chastised. “This isn’t going to fit you, either.”

I swore I heard Dylan chuckle, but I didn’t have time to look over my shoulder and glare at him. I was too busy watching the truck as it zigged and zagged down the street. It bumped over a curb and sideswiped an oak tree. The loud noise succeeded in capturing my aunts’ attention.

They immediately recognized the danger, released the bra, let out loud quacks, and scattered. With the sudden slack on the bra, I pitched backward onto the street. I squeaked out my own little quack as the truck bore down on me, its grille seeming to smile menacingly as it grew closer and closer.

Before I knew what was happening, I was scooped up and whirled around, and landed with a thump on the narrow strip of grass between the sidewalk and street in front of Mr. Dunwoody’s house. In a blur, the truck zipped past, jumped the curb, rolled over my front hedge, and hit my front porch with a deafening crash.

The end pillar wobbled, gave out, and fell onto the yard. There was a moment of silence before a loud cracking noise filled the smoky air. As if in slow motion, the porch roof pulled loose from the rest of the house and came crashing down. The whole rotted structure seemed to collapse into itself—most of it landing on the hood of the dark truck. All that remained standing of the porch was a set of brick steps and a plume of dust and chaos.

Hazel cried hysterically, and Eulalie shouted, “I’ll call for help!”

“You okay?” Dylan asked me, his warm hands cupping my face.

In a bit of a stupor, I nodded.

Slowly, I sat up. Dylan gave my chin a nudge, then took off running toward the hissing truck, a beat-up old black Chevy. A truck I suddenly recognized as Coach Butts’s. My legs wobbled as I stood and stumbled toward the wreck. Dust fell from the sky like brown snow.

Smoke rose from the hood of the truck as I caught sight of Dylan’s grim face. “Is he okay?” I asked, fearing the answer.

Coach Butts was slumped over the steering wheel, his face a grayish white color, except for bright red slashes of fresh cuts. He was definitely not all right.

“He’s unconscious,” Dylan said, pulling him out and placing him on the ground. “But alive.”

I narrowed my gaze on Dylan. “Do you still think Coach had nothing to do with what happened to Nelson?”

“Not now, Carly,” Dylan said darkly.

I was about to argue that now seemed like a fine time for him to tell me I may have been right when a flash of color in Coach Butts’s beefy hand caught my attention. It was a potion bottle.

Dropping to the ground, I took the lavender bottle from his palm, turned it over, and found the hallmark the glassblower used for my wares. It had definitely come from my shop, and looked a lot like the sleeping-potion bottle that I’d given his wife, Angelea, a couple of days ago.

If he had drunk it, it might explain the crash.

It was missing its stopper, and when I took a whiff of the empty bottle, I scrunched my nose at the lingering smell. It definitely wasn’t my sleeping cure that had been in this bottle; I didn’t recognize the smell. At all. It wasn’t a scent from
any
of my cures. It made me very curious what had actually been in this bottle—and if that was why Coach was now passed out.

Dylan leaned over the prone man and shouted, “Coach! Coach! Wake up!” He shook him gently. A gash on Coach’s head oozed a thin line of blood.

Neighbors started gathering round as Coach moaned and slowly blinked his eyes. They were unfocused, searching. He opened his mouth, mumbled something.

“What was that?” Dylan asked.

Coach focused his eyes, saw me, and shakily pointed in my direction. Even though his words were slurred, they were perfectly understandable as he uttered, “She poisoned me.”

P
oisoned.

Coach Butts had accused me of poisoning him, the low-down, no-good louse.

Hours after the ambulance had driven away with Coach Butts, I sat alone on my brick front steps—which stood free-form in the midst of all the debris—and surveyed the damage the crash had caused, not only to my yard and house but to my reputation. Word had gotten out about Coach’s accusation. I had already fielded a few calls from people wanting refunds on recent potion purchases.

Dylan hadn’t said much about Coach’s claim, but had put the potion bottle into a plastic evidence bag and taken it away. I had the uneasy feeling I’d be seeing him again soon.

Half the town, including my mama and aunties and the insurance man had already been here and gone. A Dumpster was on order, and a clean-up crew scheduled to show up first thing Monday morning.

My yard was quite the sight. My front porch was DOA. Thankfully, insurance would cover most of its repair, which was great because my budget might have been able to cover some nails and screws but little else.

With the way my potions sold, one might think I was rolling in the dough, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Beyond the overhead of keeping the shop open, supplies, paying Ainsley, and repaying my parents for the first Wedding That Never Happened . . . there wasn’t all that much left. What remained was sunk into the money pit behind me.

Hearing harried footsteps coming down the sidewalk, I glanced up. My best friend, Ainsley Debbs, was barreling toward me with a take-no-prisoners stride and a sweet smile. She was a mass of contradictions, that Ainsley.

“What kind of hot mess did you get yourself into?” she cried as she stepped onto the walkway leading up to the house, an enormous pocketbook hooked over one shoulder.

I let go of my locket and wiggled my hand. “It’s more like a lukewarm mess.”

Wiggling her way next to me on the step, she laughed. “That’s right. Your mess-o-meter is higher than mine on account that you burnt down that little chapel in Georgia that one time.”

“Accidentally.”

“So you say.” She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “You know, you never did tell me exactly what happened that day.”

“Mostly because I’m trying my hardest to forget. The fire was an accident,” I said softly, emotion clogging my throat. I tugged on the hem of my shorts and wished that I really could forget. It would make things so much easier.

She studied me for a long second before nudging me with her shoulder. Gesturing to the piles of debris, she said, “Has your mama seen this mess?”

Grateful for the change of subject, I glanced around. “She just left.” My mama, thank the heavens above, had been dressed in her usual garb of shorts, flowy top, and platform wedges. I wasn’t sure I could have dealt with the fringe after all that happened. Frowning at the mess, I said, “She took pictures to put on the Internet.”

Ainsley laughed. “Your mama is two cups of crazy.”

“More like six cups.” I poked her with my elbow. “Thanks for coming over.” I needed her help with the love potions if I was going to get a batch done before tonight.

“Not a problem. I got Francie to keep the Clingons for me.”

The Clingons were the collective nickname of Ainsley’s three kids—four-year-old twin boys and a three-year-old girl who was in a perpetual bad mood.

“I just had to promise to bring her a box of wine and one of your hangover potions, since she’s fixin’ to drink the whole box once I pick up the kids.”

“Understandable.”

“Perfectly.”

Francie Debbs, Ainsley’s mother-in-law, was a saint in my eyes. Never mind the rambunctious boys, but three-year-old Olive’s tantrums were enough to make me want to stay celibate just to make sure I never had a child like her.

And that was saying something.

“They take after their father, you know,” Ainsley said, brushing off some pebbles from the steps.

“I know,” I said, playing along. Truth was, Ainsley had been a hellion from the time she learned how to toddle right up until her wedding to Carter Debbs. It was amazing what marrying a pastor could do for a troublemaker.

Now a part-time RN and a part-time employee of mine, she had mostly tamed her inner wild child.

Mostly.

Even though she was generally generous, loving, caring, and patient, there were still a few times her bossy, devilish, you-only-live-once side came out.

Karma had bitten her on the butt big time with those kids.

“You do have stuff here to make the hangover potion, right?” she asked, a bit of a wild look in her amethyst eyes. But that wildness might have been because in her haste to get out of the house, she’d put makeup on only one eye. It looked very
Victor/Victoria
.

Her light brown hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, and her deep cleavage was spectacular in a form-fitting sundress. I’d always been envious of her hourglass figure, which only became more enviable after she had the babies.

“Actually . . . I had to leave the magic drops at the shop.”

It was no secret that I used magic in my potions. The only secret was what that magic was. I thought about the lab analysis the potion bottles Dylan had collected today would be undergoing and wasn’t too worried if any traces of the original potion that was in that bottle showed up. The Leilara drops would appear only as a
Liliaceae
(the fancy name for lily family) derivative. Its true origin would remain safe. Not that anyone (except for my cousin Delia) really cared what the magic was, only that it worked.

What I wondered about most was what had been in that bottle
after
my potion. That smell . . . I shuddered. Pushing it out of my thoughts for now, I said, “I have some wild carrot, ginger, and thyme for a homeopathic hangover cure. . . . It’ll probably work well enough.”

Ainsley clutched my arm. “Well enough isn’t good enough. Unless I pay a small fortune, Francie is the only one who will keep my kids for me. You know my mama won’t do it.”

Oh, I knew. Ainsley’s mother claimed she drew the line at caring for one mischief maker. She also claimed that I had been a bad influence on Ainsley during our growing-up years.

As if.

Plus, Ainsley’s mother was best friends with Dylan’s evil mother, Patricia.

Enough said.

“Francie doesn’t ask much,” Ainsley said. “Only a box of wine and a hangover potion. We have to get those magic drops.”

“How?” I asked. “The sheriff’s office has the shop closed off.”

She wiggled her eyebrows. “Where there’s a will, Carly Hartwell, there’s a way.”

“Break in, you mean?”

“Well, of course we have to break in to the shop. Didn’t you hear how Francie’s the only one who will look after the Clingons? I
need
that hangover potion before I go home. Besides I don’t think it’s breaking in if you own the place.”

She had a point. “Well, I suppose one quick run into the shop won’t hurt anything.” Nelson’s dead body had already been hauled away—I wouldn’t be disturbing him none. “Plus, I still have all those love potions to make . . . Having the drops would set my mind at ease about that.”

“Well, you don’t need to worry about those love potions now,” Ainsley said.

“What do you mean? Why not?”

“Haven’t you noticed that no one’s here?”

I glanced up and down the street. There were still a few neighbors rubbernecking from the accident, but Ainsley was right. No one was lining up to get my love potions.

“Where are they?” I asked, my nose wrinkling in confusion.

“Not coming.”

“Why not?” I asked for the second time in a few seconds.

“It might be because they think your potions done poisoned Nelson and Coach Butts and don’t want to be the next one carried away by the coroner.”

I gaped at her.

She shrugged. “I told you it was a hot mess.”

“Coach Butts is perfectly alive, thank you very much.”

“Barely, so I hear told.”

“More than barely.” I might have been pushing it with that one. He’d looked downright awful on that stretcher. “People really think I’m guilty?”

“I don’t know about guilty, necessarily. But they think your potions are tainted.”

My potions were magical, not poisonous.

Something darker was at work here. Something stronger than my magic.

Something evil.

• • •

“Don’t tell me you’re going to let a little crime-scene tape stop you from getting into your own shop,” Ainsley prodded.

Some leopards just couldn’t change their spots.

And her mama thought I was the bad influence? Ha!

We stood at the mouth of the alleyway that ran behind the shop. The emergency vehicles had gone and all that remained was limp yellow tape strung across the back door of the Little Shop of Potions. The roads around the Ring were busy as the tourists came in for the weekend.

“You know I’m not above bending the law from time to time,” I said. “B—”

She jabbed a finger at me. “You better stuff that ‘but’ I hear coming right back down your throat, Carlina Hartwell.”

She stood a good four inches shorter than me, but I was pretty sure she could take me in a street fight, no problem.

In all honestly, I had no qualms about breaking into the shop.

My jitters came from the memory of Nelson’s body on the break room floor. I wasn’t sure I was prepared to see what was left behind.

I shuddered at the memory of all that blood, but then pulled myself together. If I could poke prissy Patricia Jackson in her dimpled derriere with a pitchfork, I could reclaim my shop. Whether I could regain my shattered peace of mind was a question I didn’t want to face right now.

Someone had broken into my shop and killed a man. I had to figure out who had done it and why, if only because I didn’t want to be fearful every time I walked into my shop. The shop my grandmother had built.

“Let’s go,” I said, linking arms with her like we were Dorothy and the Scarecrow off to see the Wizard. Her being Dorothy, of course, and me being without a brain for even thinking about crossing the police line.

“Woo!” Ainsley cried victoriously, smiling wide. “That’s my little coconspirator!”

As we crept suspiciously down the alley, delicious smells floated out from the back door of Emmylou Pritcherd’s café, making my stomach rumble. The rear doors of her food truck that doubled as a catering van were open, and I stopped short when I saw her on all fours.

“Emmylou?”

“Don’t mind me none,” she said, sweeping a hand over the metal floor. All around her, trays of food were piled high, ready to be hauled to wedding receptions. “I lost one of my contact lenses. Brand-new one, too. It’s a monthly one, and I knew I should have switched to the daily kind after my last exam.” She glanced up, one eye closed. “Or maybe have that laser surgery. Do y’all know anyone who had it?”

“One person,” Ainsley said. “He went blind from complications.”

Emmylou’s jaw dropped.

I frowned at Ainsley. She’d been joking, but Emmylou hadn’t caught the humorous tone in Ainsley’s voice.

“Maybe I’ll keep with the contacts,” Emmylou said softly, continuing to run her hand along the floor.

At least the truck was clean. Spotless—Emmylou was a bit of a neat freak. “Do you want some help?” I asked.

“No, no,” she said. “Not enough room for all of us in here. Aha!” she cried, lifting a finger. “Got the little sucker. I’ll just go clean it off, and it’ll be good as new.” She came down the truck’s ramp. “Y’all hungry? Do you want to come inside for a bite?”

Ainsley gave me a tug.

“We can’t,” I said. “We have to break into my shop.”

Emmylou smiled. “I’m sure there’s a story there. You’ll tell me later? I’ve got to get moving.”

I agreed, and as soon as she walked through the back door of her restaurant, I looked at Ainsley and said, “Blind?”

She laughed. “What? It was funny.”

I smiled. “You’re touched in the head.”

“I know. Come on.” As we headed toward my shop, she said, “We can’t really get arrested for going in, can we?”

“I’m not sure. It is a crime scene.”

“Carter will surely bail me out of jail if we get arrested. He can’t handle the Clingons on his own for more than a minute.”

Not many could.

“You’re probably on your own, though. Sorry,” she said matter-of-factly.

Pastor Carter Debbs wasn’t all that fond of me and my magic and tended to keep his distance. I liked him only because of how much he loved Ainsley—and the fact that he loved her enough to let her choose her own friends.

“Your mama would probably bail you out,” she said.

An image of my mama snapping my picture as I clung to jail bars flashed in my head. “I’d probably call Caleb.”

“Caleb does have prior experience springing you out of jail.”

“I was cleared of all charges,” I said emphatically.

She smiled so devilishly I thought she might have a pitchfork of her own hanging in the broom closet at her house. “I was just sayin’.”

A crow cawed in the distance as I rolled my eyes and wiped my brow. The afternoon had turned steamy, and I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if storms rolled through later on.

As we approached the back door of the shop, a strange tingling stopped me in my tracks.

“What?” Ainsley said, looking up at me.

“Something’s not right.”

“Are your witchy senses acting up?”

She’d started calling them witchy senses almost a decade ago after we saw the Spider-Man movie and she compared my ability to Spidey’s senses. It had stuck. As had her fascination with Tobey Maguire; she had even gone so far as to name one of her twins Toby (with the spelling changed so Carter wouldn’t catch on).

I nodded. My witchy senses were indeed acting up, and I couldn’t help but remember Delia’s strange warning this morning. After finding Nelson’s body, I thought it had been about him. But maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe her warning was about something else entirely. . . .

Ainsley and I tiptoed closer to the shop, and I soon saw what had triggered the feeling. The back door was ajar.

Ainsley stuck out her flip-flopped foot and pushed the door open wider. “Yoo-hoo!” she called out.