One Potion in the Grave: A Magic Potion Mystery (5 page)

I didn’t know. And I didn’t like that I didn’t know.

As the hammering continued, I pulled open the back door leading into the kitchen and set the cats down. Poly immediately hopped onto the counter and stood next to the treat canister, and Roly slinked off to find Dylan. She had a crush on him.

I knew the feeling.

“Hello!” I shouted as soon as there was a break in the hammering.

“Up here,” he hollered back.

I climbed the scarred wooden stairs to the second floor, noticing every little pockmark in the stairwell plaster. I’d been renovating the house bit by bit ever since I bought it from my mama and aunties for a dollar a few years ago. They’d inherited it from Grammy Fowl and were more than happy to keep it in the family and not let some outsider in on “their” road. Mr. Dunwoody was fortunate to have inherited his house from his parents, or else his place would have been snapped up by the Odd Ducks long ago.

Personally, I think my mama and my aunts got the better of our real-estate transaction, money wise, but I loved living in the house my mama had grown up in. It just had a lot of problems that needed fixin’, which seemed to cost a lot more money than any of us anticipated.

I noticed a floor fan aimed into the bathroom as I hit the landing. When Grammy Fowl put in central air-conditioning, for some reason a vent was never added to the upstairs wash room. It was one of the many projects on the to-do list, seeing as how it could heat up mighty quick between those four walls, even with the window wide open. Roly sat in the doorway, her tail swishing.

Dylan stepped out of the bathroom shirtless, his light brown hair damp and curled into soft waves, his chest slick with sweat, a hammer in hand.

Lordy. Be.

“Hey,” I said dumbly, latching on to my locket as I tried desperately to keep my gaze on his face and my hands off his body. Talk about heating up mighty quick. I suddenly recalled what Ainsley had said this morning about heat and felt a flush creep up my neck.

“Hey.” He frowned at his watch. “You’re home early.”

“I need to help my mama at her chapel,” I mumbled.

He swiped a hand through his hair, raising brown spikes, then reached for his T-shirt that was draped over the doorknob. “That’s right. Here I was thinking I’d surprise you by getting this framing done today, and you’re the one surprising me.”

Oh, I was surprised all right.

Slipping on his shirt, he said, “I should have known.”

I said, “Known what?”

“You’re forever surprising the hell out of me, Care Bear.”

Usually the nickname bugged the hell out of me, but right now I didn’t mind so much. “Someone’s got to keep you on your toes.”

“That’s Roly’s job, isn’t it, girl?” he said as he scooped her up and cuddled her next to his chest.

Her purrs carried easily.

“Well,” I said, trying to ignore my melting heart, “I’m about to really surprise you. I’ve been calling around for you all morning about some news I have, but I didn’t realize you were here.”

His green eyes sparkled. “You finally decide you can’t live without me and want to elope?”

Yes
. “No.”

“That
is
surprising. I thought for sure you’d finally come to your senses.”

I cocked a hip. “Why do you have to tease me like that?”

He set Roly on the floor and took a step closer to me. His voice dropped. “Who said I’m teasing, Care Bear?”

Before I did something stupid, like agree to run off with him, I said in a rush, “Katie Sue Perrywinkle is back in town, and she’s mixed up with the Calhouns in a bad way.”

Whistling low, he said, “You’ve had yourself quite the day.”

“That’s not even the half of it.”

“Oh?”

“Delia had a dream about Gabi Greenleigh. She was covered in blood. I was there.”

His eyebrow inched up. “Maybe you should start from the beginning.”

I motioned for him to follow me to the kitchen, where I found Poly still staring mournfully at the treat canister. Solely for his persistence, I gave him a treat and one to Roly, too.

The kitchen itself was still in the midst of a remodel, but the floors had been refinished—gorgeous hearts of pine that now gleamed. I bustled about, making two grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches as I explained my visit with Katie Sue, how my witchy senses had kicked up, and told him all about Delia’s dream. I set his sandwich along with some chips on a paper plate and handed it to him.

I cut my sandwich in half. “I’d like to prevent whatever is about to happen.”

“The blood Delia saw . . . Was it Gabi’s? Had she been injured?”

“Delia didn’t know. Pretty much all she saw was Gabi covered in blood, screaming, and me trying to console her.”

“Doesn’t give me much to go on. Where’d the dream take place?”

Why I made lunch for myself, I had no idea. I couldn’t eat while talking about this. I surely didn’t learn my lesson from the brownie this morning. “Delia said my mama’s chapel.” I set my sandwich on his plate. “Can you assign someone to watch over Gabi?”

“I don’t have that kind of manpower.”

The Darling County Sheriff’s office was tiny, the building itself three whole rooms with a basement lockup. Besides the sheriff and Dylan, there were only four other deputies and an office administrator on staff.

“We’ve got to do something,” I said.

“There’s a mess of U.S. Marshals in town along with
private security for this wedding. Someone is probably already assigned to Gabi. I’ll get a message out about an anonymous threat. That’ll bump up security around her.”

“Thanks,” I said but couldn’t help feeling it wouldn’t help.

“Do you think the danger you feel around Katie Sue is tied to Delia’s dream?”

I folded the top of the chip bag and used a clothespin to keep the bag shut. “I wish I knew. Could be. But it could be that Katie Sue is out to get the Calhouns for some reason. Or that they’re out to get her.”

There were days I wished my witchy senses came with a little more information. Like a two hundred and twelve–page manual.

“It isn’t likely anything will happen to the Calhouns, if you’re worried that Katie Sue’s going to act out. No one’s going to get within ten feet of that family unless they want them there.” He held up the plate. “This is good. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Thanks for fixing up my bathroom. But you’re not going to distract me with your manners and all. What if Katie Sue’s the one in danger from the Calhouns? Who’s going to protect her?”

He sighed. “You’re not going to let this go.”

It wasn’t a question.

“I have a soft spot for Katie Sue.” I set the frying pan in the sink and listened to it sizzle as I ran water over the hot cast iron.

He dumped his paper plate in the trash can and walked over to me. Nudging up my chin, he said, “I understand soft spots, I do. But she’s not Katie Sue anymore, is she? She’s Kathryn now, and you don’t really know who she is.”

“I know. But do you really think people can change their core, their heart, so easily? I want to believe she’s the same ol’ Katie Sue under all that . . . fanciness.”

“People change,” he said. “Sometimes not for the better.”

I nibbled a fingernail as I thought about that. I didn’t want to believe it, but I knew it to be true.

“I’ll see what I can find out about Katie Sue’s business in town,” he said, then leaned down and kissed me loudly on the lips.

A quick kiss. A tease. I wouldn’t have minded a bit if he’d lingered—and I had the feeling he knew it.

I was getting entirely too comfortable with him around. I grabbed hold of his T-shirt and was about to go in for another kiss when someone started pounding on the front door.

“Carly! Carlina Bell Hartwell!”

“Hazel,” I said to Dylan as I went to open the door.

“Lousy timing,” he grumbled.

She was peering in the leaded panes, her hands cupped on each side of her face, her nose pressed to the glass. Most knew her as the strangest Odd Duck, but that wasn’t saying too much.

Her flaming red hair burst about her head like some sort of fiery halo as she charged into the living room, her hand on her heart, her color high. She gasped as though trying to catch her breath, but I thought it was only a ploy to show off her generous cleavage to Dylan.

Hazel was a bit of an exhibitionist.

Her outfit of choice today was a short leather miniskirt and pink halter top, of which her bosoms were practically hanging out.

Before I could even ask her what was wrong, Eulalie
(the sanest Odd Duck), came racing inside, hot on the heels of her sister. “You said you’d wait for me to come see Carly,” she snapped at Hazel. She flung her hands in the air and adopted an
I’m-wounded-to-the-soul
tone. “I should have known you’d go behind my back.”

Eulalie had a flair for the dramatic.

The fact that she looked like Meryl Streep’s twin didn’t help the matter. She fancied herself an unfulfilled actress. The world was her stage.

Including my living room.

Hazel gained her breath and waved Eulalie away. “I never promised such a thing. You’re delusional. Heat stroke or something.”

“Well, I never!” Eulalie countered, peeling off her wrist-length white gloves one finger at a time.

“Why are you here to see me?” I chimed in, hoping they’d get to the point sooner rather than later.

“We want men,” Eulalie said, fanning her face with the gloves.

I stared at her. “What?”

“We want you to find us men,” she said. “Use your matchmaking talents on us like you did on Marjie. It’s not fair she has a man and we have no one at all to look after us. I had to change my own lightbulb this morning. Can you imagine?” She batted her eyelashes at Dylan.

“You should have called me, Miss Eulalie,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. It was just the opening she was looking for.

“I’ll do that next time. You’re a sweet boy. Carly never should have left you at the altar the way she did. Twice.”

“I agree.” He nodded sagely. “And then she went and burned down the place the second time.”

I kicked his shin. “Don’t make me throw you out.”

“You wouldn’t know what to do without me,” he said, smirking.

I said to my aunt, “The fire was
accidental
.”

Hazel readjusted her breasts as she said, “Let it be known that
I
have a man. Leave me out of this.”

“You have a
child
,” Eulalie countered.

“John Richard is twenty-seven,” Hazel corrected. “Of legal age, last time I checked.”

“You’re not still seeing him, are you?” I groaned. Attorney John Richard Baldwin had tumbled into my life—quite literally—a few months ago, and I couldn’t seem to extricate him. He’d been fired from a law firm in Birmingham and had moved to Hitching Post, where he was apparently getting quite cozy with my aunt. I had believed their flirtation with each other was just . . . flirtation. The thought of them actually getting
together
was too much for me to stomach.

Eulalie kept waving her gloves in front of her face as a fan. “The poor boy doesn’t even know he’s dating her. Just keeps coming over at her beck and call. Fix this, tend that, all the while her boobies are heaving out of her tops. You should be ashamed. Ashamed!”

“Calm yourself down, Reverend Green,” Hazel said snidely.

“Men?” I asked loudly, hoping to stop a catfight before it started. I’d broken up more of their brawls than I cared to admit. “I can certainly set you up.”

“I already said I don’t need a man,” Hazel protested.

“Then why’d you come sprinting over here, first chance you got?” Eulalie demanded to know.

“I didn’t come to see
Carly
,” she said as though that made a lick of sense. “I came to see
Dylan
.”

Dylan straightened in alarm, as though she’d suddenly turned her amorous attentions on him. “Me? Why?”

“Yes, why?” I added. I’d rip her hair out if I had to. I didn’t want to, us being family and all, but as Ainsley said, you don’t go stealing another girl’s man.

But
huh
. He wasn’t quite mine, was he? He was open for the stealing.

The thought made me slightly queasy.

Hazel rolled her eyes and set her hands on her curvy hips. “I came for Dylan because he’s the law, and I’m in need of a lawman. I’ve been burgled!”

Chapter Five

D
ylan used my phone to call for an additional deputy, and then as the four of us trooped across the road to Hazel’s inn she explained that one of her guest rooms had been broken into and ransacked. My witchy senses were acting up again, and I didn’t need Hazel to tell me whose room had been violated.

The Crazy Loon was a long white gorgeous two-story home with attic dormers and eight guest rooms. A wraparound porch dripped with healthy ferns, wind chimes, and a feeling of hospitality. The expansive garden reflected Hazel’s eccentric personality, with its vibrant colors, whirligigs, and unusual sculptures.

My aunts might be odd, but they were savvy businesswomen, and Hazel knew just how badly a break-in could affect her inn’s reputation.

“Nothing is missing, and my guest didn’t even want the break-in reported, but I can’t be having none of that.” Hazel led the way across the road.

I had just stepped off the sidewalk when I caught the
scent of cigarette smoke hanging in the humid air. I turned and noticed a rusted-out junker pickup truck parked a little ways down, a woman behind the wheel. She slouched low to keep out of sight, but even though Dinah Perrywinkle Cobb was trying hard to become invisible, she was impossible to miss with her sky-high blond hair and cigarette hanging out the window.

“Carly?” Dylan asked when he noticed I’d stopped walking.

I nodded to the truck. “Katie Sue’s mama.”

Everyone knew Katie Sue’s background. It was a colorful square woven into the crazy quilt that was our town. This was a place with very few secrets. Dylan didn’t need to be told what a big deal Dinah’s presence was.

A second later the truck made a speedy U-turn out and zoomed down the street in the opposite direction. The cigarette was tossed onto the road, a parting shot.

“Miss Hazel, was Kathryn Perry staying in the room that was broken into?” Dylan asked, apparently making the same conclusion as my witchy senses.

Hazel’s glittery gold eye shadow sparkled in the sunlight as her eyes grew wide. “How’d you know? Do you know her? She looked mighty familiar to me, but I couldn’t place her face.”

“Kathryn Perry,” Eulalie said, trying the name on for size. “Hmmm. Nope, I never heard of her, and you know I have a deep recollection of names. It’s a talent of mine,” she said to Dylan specifically. “All great actresses have to have a good memory. And I never forget a name. Not ever.”

Hazel huffed and started up the steps. “I wasn’t asking
you
, Eulalie.”

My gaze followed the truck as it disappeared around the corner. What I wanted to know was how Dinah knew Katie Sue was here. Had the note Katie Sue sent to Jamie Lynn been intercepted? Or had she told her mama about it?

Dylan whispered to me, “I’ll be sure to pay a visit to the Cobbs.”

“Can I come with you?” I asked.

“No.”

“Couldn’t hurt to ask,” I murmured with a smile.

The double front doors led into a spacious reception area with a fireplace inset into a wall covered in white wainscoting. Hazel’s personality was reflected in brightly colored furniture and unique knickknacks, but the area was kept neutral enough not to scare off guests. Katie Sue sat on a striped turquoise, purple, and green armchair, and she was busy sticking what looked like a whole book of stamps onto the coffee-stained manila envelope I’d noticed in her purse earlier while she was at my shop. As we filed into the room, she rose and quickly stuffed the envelope into the outgoing mailbox attached to the reception counter. I thought I heard her groan when she finally took stock of us all.

“I’ve gone and fetched the law,” Hazel announced, bounding over to Katie Sue and grabbing her hands. “Don’t go worrying any. We’ll get this sorted out.”

Eulalie bumped Hazel aside. “Eulalie Fowl,” she introduced herself as she took a long look at the newcomer. “We haven’t met before, have we? You do look a mite familiar. . . .” Before she could get an answer, she thumped her small chest. “
My
inn is across the street, and I’m right pleased to say that nothing of this kind has
ever happened
there
. I hope this incident doesn’t taint your stay in Hitching Post.” She lifted a thin eyebrow at her sister. “It’s truly a lovely little town despite the sudden jump in the crime rate.”

Hazel tugged her sister toward the door. “Shouldn’t you be getting back, Eulalie?”

Katie Sue smiled as though just now remembering how odd my aunts could be, and for a split second she looked like the girl I used to know. I stepped up beside her. “Kathryn, you remember Dylan Jackson, right? He’s a sergeant with the Darling County sheriff’s office now.” I took stock of his thin T-shirt and shorts. “He’s, ah, off duty right now.”

“Hey, Dylan.” She leaned in to me and whispered, “Is this the complicated situation you mentioned?”

I felt heat rising up my neck. “Complicated doesn’t begin to cover it.”

He strode closer. “I heard you were a doctor now, Ka—Kathryn.”

Katie Sue peeped at me. “Word travels fast around here.”

“I have a big mouth,” I said, shrugging.

Dylan glanced around. “This probably isn’t the homecoming you were expecting.”

Hazel interrupted her displacement of Eulalie, and her gaze bounced from face-to-face. “Y’all know each other?”

“Obviously they do,” Eulalie said. “Have you gone daft, sister?”

Before Hazel threw a punch, I said, “You two surely remember—
Ow!
”

Katie Sue had stomped on my toe. I glanced at her,
and she was shaking her head. She didn’t want me to tell them who she really was.

“Remember what?” Hazel said.

The sound of a siren shifted our attention. A sheriff’s cruiser had arrived and double-parked in front of the inn’s gate.

“Oh no,” Katie Sue murmured. “Honestly, Miss Hazel, could we just forget this ever happened, please?”

“Heaven’s no,” Hazel said. “I need to file a report with the insurance company for the damage to the room.”

“Damage?” Dylan asked.

“Lawdy, yes,” Hazel said. “I’ll show you.”

“I’ll pay for the damages,” Katie Sue said. “No problem. I don’t want to make a big deal out of this.”

“Pshaw.”
Hazel led the way up a wide staircase. “That’s what insurance is for, honey.”

I was fascinated by the way Katie Sue wanted to sweep the matter under the rug. Why?

Katie Sue’s guest room was on the second floor, at the end of a long corridor. The door stood ajar. Dylan instructed us all to remain in the hallway while he stepped inside the space. We crowded the doorway, except for Katie Sue, who hung back a ways.

“My housekeeper, Dotsie Mayhew, was in here at noon and said the place was clean as could be when she left,” Hazel said.

“Did she lock the door behind her?” I kept tight hold of my locket as my gaze swept the doorframe and noted that it didn’t look like any force had been used on it. The lock was a simple one—nothing a good credit card or hairpin couldn’t bust open if one knew what they were doing.

Hazel adjusted her top. “She says she did, and I believe her.”

Inside the room, my breath caught at the damage done. The bedroom had been thoroughly and meticulously searched and destroyed. The pillows had been sliced open, the mattress. Floorboards had been jimmied. Curtains shredded. Dresser drawers had been emptied onto the floor, and furniture had been pulled away from the walls.

Dylan came out and said, “Appears as though someone was looking for something specific.” He glanced at Katie Sue. “Are you sure you aren’t missing anything? Jewelry? Credit cards?”

“Nothing of mine is missing. The only jewelry I brought is what I have on.”

A diamond watch, the pink sapphire ring, and simple gold-hooped earrings.

Eulalie gasped and grabbed Katie Sue’s hand. “My lord, child. Look at that stone.”

Katie Sue tried to pull her hand back, but Eulalie was having none of it. “Is that real?”

Tact was not a word in the Fowl family vernacular.

“Of course,” Katie Sue said, her chin lifting in a strange defensiveness.

“It’s
gorgeous
.” Eulalie cooed to the ring, “You’re gorgeous.”

Katie Sue pried her hand away. “Thank you. It was a . . . gift.”

Eulalie fanned her face. “Sister,” she said to Hazel with a teasing smile, “why don’t you buy me gifts like that? I’m sure you have an extra fifty thousand dollars lying around. I deserve it.”

“Fifty thousand?” Dylan asked, his jaw dropping.

Katie Sue fidgeted. “It’s insured for eighty.”

Shoo-ee.
A gift that cost eighty thousand dollars? It had to come from someone with deep pockets. Someone like Warren Calhoun.

“I’d say that’s just cause for someone to break in here,” he said.

“I would break in to steal that ring,” Eulalie said. Then she looked around at our stunned expressions. “Did I say that out loud?”

“I’m sure the break-in was random.” Katie Sue twisted the ring nervously. “I never take the ring off.”

The break-in didn’t feel random to me. It felt . . . personal.

A deputy loped down the hallway. Eulalie immediately forgot the ring and began fanning her cheeks with her gloves again, all the while batting her eyelashes and cocking a hip to give her thin rectangular shape some curves. She was in full-on flirt mode. I guess she hadn’t been kidding about finding a man.

Dylan said, “Why don’t all y’all wait downstairs? I’ll be down in a bit.”

Eulalie kept batting her lashes, and Hazel said, “You got dust in your eyes or something?”

“Maybe so,” Eulalie retorted. “You should do a better job of cleaning this place.”

“I never!” Hazel cried.

“Obviously!” Eulalie countered.

“Go on with the two of you,” I said, giving them a push.

They rushed ahead, still quacking at each other.

I fell in step with Katie Sue. “What do you think that was all about? Your room, I mean.”

“Not sure,” she said.

“And you don’t know what someone was looking for?”

She looked me dead in the eye. “No. I’m sure it was random.”

I didn’t believe her. And that realization took me by surprise. She
had
changed—more than her looks. It was best I kept that in mind. “I saw your mama outside when I came in. Did she come by for a visit?”

She stopped short. “My mama? You’re sure?”

I nodded.

“I haven’t seen her since I left town ten years ago. No one knows my new identity . . . How’d she find me here?”

“Maybe your letter to Jamie Lynn got back to her?”

“Maybe,” she murmured. “Or more likely someone tipped her off.”

“Someone like who? No one knows you’re here.”

She didn’t answer me, and instead asked her own question. Her voice shook slightly as she asked, “Was Cletus with her?”

Cletus Cobb was Katie Sue’s no-account stepdaddy. I studied Katie Sue and felt a surge of her fear. Latching on to my locket, I wondered what he’d done to her. Fear like that didn’t come from threats alone. It came from pain. Physical pain. “Not that I saw.”

“Well, where she goes, his special kind of crazy follows,” she said, “so he’s probably lurking around here somewhere.”

“You don’t think they could have . . .” I hitched a thumb over my shoulder, indicating the torn-up room.

“Carly, they’re capable of just about anything.”

“What did he do to you?” I asked.

Her eyes flared. “What do you mean?”

“He’s hurt you.”

Pain flashed in her eyes, and she must have realized it was fruitless to deny it to me. “Let’s leave the past in the past.”

“But if he was responsible for what happened in your room, then it’s not the past. It’s the present.”

“I don’t think he did that,” she said. “It was . . .”

“Random. Yes, I heard.”

She gave me a thin smile. “One way or another this will all be settled by Saturday, and I’ll be leaving town. Give it a week and no one will even remember I was here.”

We’d reached the upstairs landing, which looked down on the reception area below. Her gaze narrowed on something downstairs.

Not something.

Someone.

Warren Calhoun stood in a shadowy corner of the small library adjoining the reception area. His arms were folded, his brow drawn tightly as he locked eyes on Katie Sue.