One Potion in the Grave: A Magic Potion Mystery (14 page)

She grabbed a fork and set to whisking the eggs. “Don’t you worry none about ol’ Johnny.”

“It’s not so much Johnny I’m worried about. It’s you. This time it’s a broken ankle, but what about next time?”

“I tripped on a tree root.”

“If you say so.” I set out two plates, forks, and napkins. “Did you see the jogger on the trail last night, too?”

“Of course. I ain’t blind.”

“Did you see anything about the jogger that could help with an identification? Man or woman? Facial features?”

For once, she didn’t give me a flippant answer. “Blazed by so fast my head was spinning so I didn’t see much. But,” she said, “I did see a bit of hair.”

This was news.

“Brownish. Longish.”

“Longish and brownish like Cletus Cobbs’ hair?”

She swiveled. “You think he has something to do with this?”

“Dinah was parked nearby, so we’re speculating that Cletus had to be around somewhere.”

Her gaze narrowed. “Wish I could say for sure it was him, but I can’t. The runner was the right size for sure, but I’m not certain Cletus could run that fast given his history of smoking anything that lit up.”

She had a point, but I also knew the body was capable of just about anything when adrenaline was involved.

She glanced over her shoulder. “Now git with you. I can’t abide talking in the morning . . . or hovering. I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

I went over and planted a kiss on her cheek.

“Ugh,” she said, wiping it off and pushing me away. “Git!”

Laughing, I headed for the front porch, and when I glanced back at Marjie, my heart warmed at the small—genuine—smile on her face. I slipped outside before she noticed that I saw.

Birdsong filled the morning air, and the humidity promised another hot day. Across the street, I noticed Hazel in her garden, bustling about with a pair of pruning shears. I glanced at the Loon and noticed someone looking out one of the upper floor windows. Louisa. She spotted me about the same time I did her and quickly swished the curtain closed.

I was wondering how Gabi was faring and if I’d get a chance to speak with her today when I spotted her running down the street. Her dark ponytail flew out behind
her, and a pink cast covered her left forearm. A line of stitches ran along her jawline near her ear.

Her concentration was so fierce, her steps pounding, that I had the uneasy feeling that she was trying to outrun some demons. She pulled to a stop in the middle of the street and walked in circles, shaking out her legs as her chest heaved from exertion.

Abruptly, as though she realized she was being watched, she glanced toward my house. I said, “Should you be doing that? You know, running with a broken arm?”

Her pained gaze landed on me, and I saw her take a deep breath. At which point, she burst into tears.

Chapter Sixteen

“I
’m sorry,” Gabi said, carefully avoiding the stitches on her face as she swiped at her eyes. “I can’t seem to stop crying on you.”

I put my arm around her and led her into the house, hoping she wouldn’t notice the pigsty that was my living room. Between the mattress on the floor and Katie Sue’s belongings on the table, and the pitchfork leaning against the TV stand, this looked more like a country flophouse than a home. “I won’t melt.”

Marjie poked her head out of the kitchen, gave me a questioning look, then disappeared again.

I led Gabi to the sofa, and went to grab a handful of tissues. Her wedding was tomorrow. It was supposed to be the happiest day of her life . . . If I were in her gym shoes right now, I might be sobbing, too.

Sniffling, she said, “It’s just been so . . . surreal. Like I’m living a bad dream.”

Sitting next to her, I handed her the tissues. “This is definitely nightmare material.”

“When I found out my parents died in that plane crash it was the worst day of my life.” She pressed tissues to her leaking eyes, nose. “This is a close second. I feel like I’m losing everything, but then I think about the poor woman who died and wonder how in the world could I be so selfish? At least I’m alive.” She sniffled again and took a few deep calming breaths.

The poor woman.
Katie Sue. My heart ached.

The scent of bacon filled the air, but I’d lost my appetite. I was sure Roly and Poly wouldn’t mind getting my share of breakfast. “Katie Sue—Kathryn—was an old friend of mine. She grew up here in Hitching Post before moving away about ten years ago.”

Confusion flashed across Gabi’s eyes, then sympathy. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know her well at all—we were passing acquaintances at best, but I guess it makes sense now that she was around if this was her hometown. I couldn’t figure out why she was here if it wasn’t for the wedding.”

I still wasn’t sure why Katie Sue had come back. That answer might have gone to the grave with her.

“I wish I could have helped her more,” Gabi said. “Maybe if I’d come across her lying there earlier . . . I tried so hard to get her up that trail.”

“Is that how you broke your arm?”

“Wrist,” she said, eyeing the cast. “I fell backward while trying to pull her up the trail. I broke the fall with my hand.”

“Ouch.”

“And then I fell again, and cut my cheek on a rock. It was . . . terrifying.”

“Why didn’t you just run for help?” I asked. Especially knowing she could run really well.

“I knew I didn’t have time. By the time I made it to a phone, called for help, and that help arrived . . .” Her brow furrowed and she shook her head as though trying to erase bad memories. “When I found her, her pulse was so weak I wasn’t even sure she was still alive at first. I was never so grateful in my whole life to get an answer to my shouts for help.”

Glancing behind me, I spotted Marjie standing in the doorway to the kitchen, listening to our every word.

“What were you doing on that trail in the first place? Weren’t you supposed to be at supper with the Calhouns?”

“Oh my word, that supper.” She closed her eyes. “A fiasco.”

“What? Why?”

“Where to start? I mean, the restaurant, the Delphinium, was lovely, and they’d gone above and beyond meeting our needs for a private room and it was such a beautiful table setting and the food was wonderful . . . But Louisa was drunk and Warren was outright angry—they’d been fighting earlier and I think they carried their disagreement to supper.”

“Fighting about what?” I could only guess that it had been about Katie Sue—maybe she had been seen at Mama’s chapel earlier. Perhaps it had something to do with why Katie Sue was so happy. Had Warren agreed to her demands?

“I’m not sure. I could only hear their raised voices. And Cassie was so distracted by her parents that she wasn’t even making her usual comments to Landry that it wasn’t too late to change his mind.”

My nosiness demanded that I cut in. “Why’s she so against the wedding?”

Her bottom lip jutted. “She wants Landry to marry for love, not because his father told him so.”

Ouch. The hits kept on coming for Gabi.

“Warren and Louisa are the only ones on my side.” She frowned. “I’m not stupid, Carly. I know that Warren only wants this wedding because he believes that Landry and I as a couple can win Warren the younger voters in a presidential election. We’re America’s hottest couple,” she said scathingly. “We both have large social followings, and Warren wanted to tap into that.”

A puppet master, Katie Sue had called him. An accurate description, it seemed.

“And Louisa?” I asked.

Biting her lip, Gabi said, “Part of it is the votes for Warren—in that family, politics comes first— but she’s also hoping that one day Landry will use the popularity he gained as a musician and run for governor. But I also think she loves me like a daughter and wants me to be officially part of the family, to fulfill my mama’s wishes for looking after me.”

I sighed. It sounded to me like Gabi was being used, plain and simple. I think she knew it, too, but didn’t have what it took to walk away from the situation. She loved Landry. She longed for a family. The high price of a loveless marriage was one she was willing to pay. It made my heart hurt.

“The worst part of the dinner,” Gabi went on, her eyes filling with tears, “was Landry. He was awful.”

“How so?”

“He totally ignored me and kept getting up, pacing, using the restroom, going outside for a breath of air.” She shifted toward me. “I’d already slipped the love potion into his water at that point, but his behavior made me second-guess giving it to him, so I switched the glasses at the last second and ‘accidentally’ knocked the love potion over,” she said, using air quotes around the word “accidentally.” “I couldn’t go through with it. Landry ended the meal before we’d even had dessert and took off. Everyone else headed back to the house but I . . .”

“What?”

“I was suspicious. So I followed him.” Her brow knit. “He went back to your mama’s chapel, but then I lost sight of him. I checked the chapel and the grounds but he wasn’t to be found.”

“Did you see Katie Sue at the chapel, in the gazebo?”

She looked confused again.

“Kathryn?” I corrected.

“No, no sign of her. Or Landry either. So then I thought maybe he’d gone on the trail, to Lover’s Leap—we’d talked about that spot earlier, and how romantic it sounded. So I went in after him. I thought . . .”

“You thought he might be meeting someone.”

She nodded. “I was grasping at straws, trying to come up with an explanation for his behavior other than the obvious.”

“Obvious?”

“That he had a bad case of cold feet. Even though I knew he didn’t really want to marry me, I never dreamed he’d go against his daddy’s wishes and break the deal they’d made. But”—her nose wrinkled—“I’d sensed the change in the air. He was going to walk away.” She
laughed—there was no humor in the sound. “Not walk. Run. Run away, fast as he could.”

Her comment struck me hard. “Does he jog, too?”

Swollen eyes grew wide, and she sniffled again. “Oh, I didn’t mean
literally
run.”

“I know.” I smiled. “But does he run? Jog?”

“Yeah. A few miles a day usually. Why?”

That was interesting. He also had longish brownish hair. Had he been sent to do his father’s dirty work? “He headed toward the chapel directly after supper?”

She nodded. “Why?”

“There was a jogger on the trail last night that the police are trying to find. That person could be an eyewitness.” Or a killer, I silently added. “But I don’t think it could have been Landry because he wouldn’t have had time to change into running clothes. Did you see a jogger?”

“I didn’t see anyone until I looked down that bluff and saw a body on the rocks.” She drew in a deep breath. “It was just awful.”

I let my guard down to read her energy and felt absolutely no deception. As suspicious as it was for her to have found Katie Sue, for Gabi it had in fact been a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“What was Landry’s excuse for his behavior?” Gabi might have a good excuse for being where she was, but where had Landry been? Did he have an alibi?

She shrugged. “I haven’t spoken with him. I haven’t even seen him since last night when I followed him to the chapel.”

Shocked, I said, “He didn’t come see you at the hospital?”

“No. Apparently, no one could find him.”

“Is he missing?” Lordy, what was going on with the Calhouns?

“No, I heard him arguing with Warren late last night, so he returned from wherever he went. I couldn’t hear specific words, but I imagine it was about the wedding and Landry’s cold feet.” Tears filled her eyes again. Tipping her head back, she inhaled deeply, trying to get hold of her emotions. Her cheeks puffed as she let the breath out. “I haven’t cried this much in years. I’m not usually a cry baby.”

“Nothing wrong with tears,” I said. “You’ve been through a lot, and I’m guessing you’re wrestling with some hard decisions.” If she took back the love potion, she must be having second thoughts about the wedding.

“I got to thinking about what you said yesterday, about borrowing trouble.” Picking at the tissue, her voice grew louder, stronger as she said, “I love Landry, I do, but if I had a sister or a friend who was willing to marry a man who openly admitted he didn’t love her . . . I’d knock her upside the head. What kind of weak-willed woman would marry a guy like that?”

I stretched my legs. “Probably a woman who desperately wants a family again, and is willing to risk her heart to get it. I’m not sure I’d call her weak-willed. In a way, it’s actually kind of brave.”

She dropped her head and kept picking at the tissue. Shreds of it littered the floor. “But it’s a completely foolish thing to do.”

“It is at that.”

Her gaze snapped to mine, as though she couldn’t believe I’d just agreed with her. I took hold of my locket.
“What that woman didn’t understand is that marrying a man who doesn’t love her is opening herself up to a world of hurt. A hurt so powerful that it pales to the grief she’s been carrying around at the loss of her own family.”

Pain filled her eyes. “I . . . I don’t want to lose Landry.”

Softly, I said, “Seems to me you never really had him.”

“I know,” she whispered. “Lord, how I know.”

Her jaw quivered before it clenched so tightly my teeth hurt in sympathy without even doing a reading on her.

She said, “Louisa and Warren have asked me to make a decision this morning about postponing the wedding. They need advance notice to hold a press conference.”

“Postponing?” I asked, holding my tongue about the press conference. “Or calling it off?”

“I . . . I need to think about it. I don’t want to disappoint Louisa and Warren. I have to think about my future, too. All my plans were tied into being with Landry.”

A pot clanged in the kitchen, and she jumped a bit, as though suddenly realizing we hadn’t been alone. “Oh! I didn’t know you had company.”

“Not company. A squatter.”

Marjie appeared in the doorway. “You can damn well make your own coffee from now on, Carlina Bell Hartwell.”

“Did I say squatter?” I smiled. “I meant my beloved houseguest.”

Marjie glared.

Gabi stood. “You . . . you’re the woman from last night.”

“Gabi, this is my aunt, Marjie Fowl.”

Gabi’s gaze flew to me. “The one with the gun?”

I laughed. “Yes.”

Marjie rolled her eyes.

“Are you okay?” Gabi asked her. “How’s your leg?”

“Blessed ankle is broken.”

Gabi held up her wrist. “I know the feeling.”

Marjie narrowed her gaze. “Your face ain’t looking too good, either.”

It was my turn to glare.

Marjie said, “What?”

Raising her hand to her face, Gabi’s lip quivered. “It’s okay, Carly. I know how bad it looks. The doctors said I could probably get plastic surgery to cover the scar.”

“You don’t need plastic surgery. Stay right here.” I dashed up the stairs and grabbed the potion I’d used on my palms. Back in the living room, I handed it to her. “Use this on it twice a day. In a few days’ time you won’t even know there was an injury. And come by the shop later, too. I have a potion that helps speed the healing of broken bones.”