One Potion in the Grave: A Magic Potion Mystery (3 page)

I studied my friend. “Carter knows about the vigilante side of you, right?”

“Of course.”

Shaking my head, I grabbed up the phone and punched in the numbers I now had memorized. Delia answered on the second ring, and as soon as she realized it was me, she said, “I was just about to call you.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked. The tone of her voice immediately set me to worrying.

A dog barked in the background—Boo, Delia’s little black puppy. “You’re not going to believe the—”

I glanced up as the bell jingled on the door, and a woman came inside. Ainsley shot me an incredulous look, her eyebrows practically in her hairline.

“I have to call you back, Delia,” I said in a whisper.

“But Carly—”

“I’ll call you right back.” I hung up in a hurry.

The customer was Gabi Greenleigh, Landry Calhoun’s intended. Oh, she tried to hide behind a big straw hat and sunglasses, but there was no concealing a beauty like hers. Tall and lithe with sleek auburn hair spilling
down her back, I could see why she’d been crowned Miss Alabama two years ago.

“Hi there,” I said. “Come on in, take a look around, let me know if you need any help.”

“Thank you,” she said softly as she approached the counter. Nervously, she bit her lip. “I do actually need some help. I hear you make potions.” Her brow wrinkled; then she smiled, and it lit the whole room. “Your mama sent me over. She’s ah . . . something.”

It was a statement I heard often. “That she is.”

“She said your potions are magical. Is that true?”

“Guaranteed to fix just about anything,” I said. “You have something that needs fixin’?”

Glancing over her shoulder, she turned back to me and said, “Kind of.”

Ainsley, never one to willingly be left out of a juicy bit of gossip, leaned on the counter. “Wedding day jitters? You need a calming potion? Carly can whip one right up. You’ll be positively Zen in no time at all.”

Gabi sighed and slipped off the sunglasses. “Poor excuse for a disguise, I suppose. You know who I am?”

“Your wedding’s kind of a big deal round these parts,” Ainsley said, putting it mildly.

Gabi stared at the counter for a second, then looked me dead in the eye. What I saw in her gaze near to broke my heart. The sadness was all-consuming.

Gabi rubbed Roly’s head and took a moment before saying, “I need one of your magic potions.”

“What kind?” I asked. “For the wedding jitters?”

“It’s not jitters, I have,” she said.

Ainsley patted her arm, consoling. “What is it you have, sugar?”

From the way Gabi was acting, I expected an answer along the lines of an STD or somesuch. Tears filled her big green eyes and pooled along dark lashes.

“What I have,” she said, “is a man who doesn’t love me. I need a love potion. The sooner, the better.”

Chapter Three

A
insley
tsk
ed sympathetically. “What do you mean he doesn’t love you? Of course he loves you, sugar. He’s marrying you Saturday in front of God and everyone, ain’t he?”

Gabi sniffled and mumbled, “He doesn’t love me. But that’s okay. For now I love him enough for the both of us.”

Ainsley tipped her head. “Is he gay?”

I shot her a look.

“Well, I mean, look at her!” Ainsley said.

I rolled my eyes.

Gabi snuffled—she even did that prettily. “I—I don’t think so.”

“Is there another woman?” Ainsley asked,
tsk
ing again. She turned to me. “Remember that time Widow Harkins started sweet-talking Carter? Asking him over to help her with this, fix that, stay for some fresh-made cinnamon rolls? And him being a pastor and all couldn’t rightly say no, could he? Lordy be. She was lucky I didn’t
pull her hair out by their bleached roots.” She harrumphed
.
“And I still can’t abide looking at cinnamon rolls to this day.”

“You did pull her hair out by the roots,” I pointed out. “Left her with a bald patch the size of a MoonPie.”

“Oh, that’s right. I did.” Ainsley winked. “
Accidentally
, of course.”

Gabi’s eyes went wide.

I said to her, “Widow Harkins took to wearing wigs and suddenly started going to church in Huntsville.”

Ainsley said, “You just don’t go stealing another girl’s man without consequences. Know what I’m sayin’?”

Gabi laughed nervously and nodded. “Why are women so sneaky? It just ain’t right.”

“Well,” I said, “sometimes wanting something so badly makes you forget right from wrong. Especially when it comes to matters of the heart.”

“Kind of like knowing it’s wrong to slip Landry a love potion, but I’m going to do it anyway?”

I smiled. “Kind of. But there is a hitch with my potions that you should know about.” I hated to tell her about the Backbone Effect, one of the supernatural rules that governed my potions. It prevented someone from being duped by a potion by taking their free will into consideration. Whoever the potion was intended for had to want—consciously or unconsciously—the potion’s result. It was especially important for love potions.

Twin vertical lines creased the smooth plane between her eyebrows as I explained, but then disappeared by the time I finished saying my piece.

“That won’t be an issue,” Gabi said. “He wants to love me . . . he just doesn’t.”

“Is there another woman?” Ainsley asked again. “You never did answer.”

Gabi blinked as though never truly considering the notion. “I don’t think so.”

Ainsley slid me a
what-the-hell-is-going-on-here
look. “Then why is he marrying you if he doesn’t love you?” she said, sounding truly puzzled by the notion.

Tears puddled again. “He’s only marrying me because his daddy is forcing him to. Some sort of political ploy, an agreement they made years ago.”

Dang. That was low, even for Warren Calhoun.

“You’re okay with that?” I propped a hip against the counter. “With marrying a man who doesn’t love you? Seems like you’re borrowing trouble, and I don’t think that’s the ‘something borrowed’ meant for your wedding day.”

“I know I should have more pride, but he’s just . . .” Her voice trailed off, and her eyes once again filled with a sadness so deep it nearly broke my heart. “He’s everything I want.”

“Is he?” I asked softly. “Truly?”

Gabi looked between us, and I knew instantly the moment she realized she’d said too much. A cloud crossed her eyes—a flash of panic—before she slipped on a mask of indifference.

“You didn’t hear any of that from me,” she said. “I should go.”

The door swung open and Caleb Montgomery came into the shop carrying a cardboard tray filled with coffee cups and a take-out bag from Dèjá Brew. “Carly Hartwell, just for you I snatched the last fudge brownie straight off the plate of some national news reporter from
who-knows-where who then called me a two-bit hillbilly.” He snorted and set the bag on the counter. “I’m worth at least four bits. I mean, come on.”

Divorce attorney Caleb Montgomery was one of the town’s peacocks and was probably the least hillbilly of anyone in Darling County, with his fancy clothes and haircut, which cost a lot more than four bits. We’d been friends since second grade.

Gabi quickly set her hat on her head. “Look at the time. I best get going.”

“What about your potion?” I asked. “It’ll only take a second. . . .”

Emotion tumbled across her beautiful features. “I should go. Thank you for your time and for listening to me go on and on.” She dashed out the door.

Caleb lifted the tab on his coffee cup and an eyebrow at the same time. “Something I said?”

“Just your usual way with women.” Ainsley dug into the bag and pulled out a chocolate cookie.

Caleb smiled at her jab, taking it in stride. He was used to it. “At least I don’t have to bribe my mother-in-law with hooch to watch my kids.”

Ainsley bit into the cookie. “Not yet, leastways. Your time will come.”

A look of pure terror crossed his face—I wasn’t sure which comment hit him like a two-by-four. The fact that he might some day have a mother-in-law . . . or kids. He was a confirmed bachelor and liked it that way just fine. I, however, was determined to set him up. I had someone in mind, too, but getting them together was easier said than done considering they couldn’t abide being in the same room.

“Was that . . .” He gestured toward the door.

Crumbs littered the floor as Ainsley nodded and spoke around the cookie she was chewing. “Poor girl.” Poly happily pounced on the crumbs, lapping them up with a swift pink tongue. “If I were her I’d run and never look back.”

Caleb looked between us. “I give them six months. If that.” He had an uncanny knack for predicting how long a marriage would last. I’d never had the nerve to ask him if he thought Dylan and I could make it to happily-ever-after. There were some things this witch didn’t need to know.

“Only because she left without a love potion,” Ainsley said.

Poly stared up at her, hoping for more crumbs. He was out of luck.

“She was looking for a love potion?” Caleb set his coffee on the counter and leaned forward. “Spill.”

Ainsley and I filled him in on the strange visit—and on Katie Sue’s return as well.

His eyes widened. “I can’t believe Katie Sue is planning on going up against the Calhouns. It’s akin to playing with fire.”

“Maybe Katie Sue’s the one holding the matches,” I said, thinking about her possibly being a woman scorned. My skin tingled again. Trouble was in the air, and it swirled around Katie Sue like a mini tornado.

“Or she’s the one who’s going to end up in ashes,” he said, then added a dramatic
“Duhn-duhn-duhhhhn
.
”

“Stop that,” I said, swatting him.

But he was on a roll and couldn’t be deterred. “Seems I’ve heard Warren Calhoun has a reputation for getting
rid of people who cause him trouble. Isn’t that so, Ainsley?”

Her eyes alight, she nodded eagerly, a willing accomplice to his theatrics. “I heard that, too.”

Caleb said, “Didn’t he poison a rival who was inching too close in the polls?”

“That was a rumor,” I said. “That guy died of a heart attack.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” He tapped his coffee lid. “How about his campaign manager who vanished and still hasn’t been found?”

“He was found. In Switzerland with a lot of the Calhouns’ money.” I wrapped up my brownie and stuck it back in the bag. My stomach churned.

“Oh right. I forgot.” He winked. “Well, I’m sure I’ve read in the tabloids that his former mistress went missing.”

“Mistresses,” Ainsley cut in. “Plural.”

There was a playfulness in their eyes that told me they were teasing. But this all felt too real to me. “
Alleged
mistresses,” I said, feeling a lump growing in my throat.

“All I’m saying,” Caleb leaned in, “is that Katie Sue best be careful . . . or else.”

I could easily picture the “or else.” I had a good imagination.

Ainsley, however, apparently decided to act it out.

She staggered around making choking noises. Slamming shut her eyes, she stuck out her tongue, and collapsed into a spasmodic bundle, her yellow dress billowing about until she finally settled in for her eternal rest.

Her little death scene was loud and dramatic. Much like she was.

Caleb laughed as the ever-hopeful Poly tiptoed forward to sniff Ainsley’s outstretched fingers.

My stomach twisting, I said, “Don’t even joke about it.”

Caleb said to Ainsley, “She’s gone and lost her sense of humor after finding the dead guy in the back of her shop.”

I glared at him. “I didn’t lose my sense of—”

The front door whipped open, and an ice-blond typhoon blew inside, her black cape flying out behind her.

Only one person could get away with wearing a black cape in the ninety-five degree weather of an Alabama August.

My cousin Delia Bell Barrows took one look at Ainsley lying on the floor, stepped over her prone body, and stormed to the counter. “I can’t believe you hung up on me!”

“Well,” Caleb drawled, his gray eyes narrowing on my cousin, “look what the devil done dragged in.”

Delia speared him with a death stare.

He winked at her.

No, it wasn’t going to be easy setting these two up, but I was game for the challenge.

Delia ignored him but grabbed on to the locket dangling around her neck—an identical charm to mine—as if to block his energy. She leveled her icy gaze on me. “It best have been a matter of life and death, Carly Bell Hartwell.”

“Look,” I said innocently. “Ainsley’s dead.”

Ainsley’s body jerked twice in deathly emphasis.

“Nah, she’s not dead.” Caleb straightened. “She’s just doing a fair imitation of Francie Debbs after keeping the Clingons for a bit.”

“Bite me,” Ainsley said, sitting up. “Your time to have a family will come, Caleb Montgomery.”

He scooted around her on the way to the door. “Not if I can help it any. Keep me filled in about the—” Drawing his finger across his throat, he winked at Delia again, and slipped out into the sunshine.

As we watched him go, I caught the reflections of mine and Delia’s faces in the glass door panel. We looked a lot alike, Delia and me, yet were easy to tell apart. Aside from our bitten-to-the-quick fingernails, my blond hair was darker than her platinum, my eyes brown to her frosty blue. Plus I had dozens of light freckles dotting my face, and she had a beautiful clear creamy complexion.

Six months ago, if someone had told me Delia and I wouldn’t only be speaking but would be friends, I’d have laughed at the absurd notion. We’d been sworn enemies since the day we were born.

Enemies, because this shop and its secrets had been destined to me upon my birth—the legacy was passed down to the eldest child in the family, and thanks to being born two months prematurely, I was older than Delia by six whole minutes. Outraged, my aunt Neige, Delia’s mama, had argued that gestationally Delia was the older of us, but my Grammy Adelaide turned a deaf ear.

Furious, Neige had rebelled by opening Till Hex Do Us Part, a shop that sold hexes, and started embracing her dark heritage wholeheartedly. Though she had no access to the Leilara, the enchanted lily drops, her black magic was still strong and her shop prospered. But she’d do anything to attain the Leilara—and the power that came with them.

Delia and I had grown up as rivals.

But then Aunt Neige had followed her heart to New Orleans, Delia had taken over the hex shop, and just a few months ago had taken a leap of faith to bridge the chasm between us when she learned I was in danger. Since then we’d slowly been getting to know each other.

But—and it was a big but—there was still a tiddly bit of worry on my part about the Leilara secret. And if Delia’s friendship was only a ploy to get her hands on the legacy that should have rightly been hers.

“Argh,”
Delia said. “How can you be friends with him? He’s impossible.”

Under her cape, she wore a pair of black skinny jeans, a black tunic top, and black sandals. Even her dog Boo was black, but I noticed she hadn’t brought him with her. He usually sat in a wicker basket that hung from her arm, ala Toto from
The Wizard of Oz
.