One Potion in the Grave: A Magic Potion Mystery (8 page)

White hot anger so fierce it felt as though my skin were on fire. Someone had ticked her off but good. Had it been a result of her conversation with Warren on the patio?

All that came from Gabi was bewilderment and that soul-searing sadness. I held my locket and blocked it all out again.

“Ah. Well, I should get going to get cleaned up.” Gabi
turned to face me full-on. “Thanks for the help, Carly, and if you don’t mind, I’d like that potion we talked about earlier after all. I can pick it up in an hour or so.”

“I don’t mind at all, and I can save you the trip. I’m headed to the chapel to help out my mama, so I can stop by the shop on my way.”

“Great. Thanks.” She flashed a bright toothy smile at Katie Sue. “’Bye!”

Katie Sue responded only with a halfhearted smile. With fists still clenched, she watched Gabi hustle down the sidewalk. “Bless her heart.”

“You don’t like her?”

“I don’t
not
like her. She’s just so perfect, isn’t she? Perfect upbringing, perfect skin, perfect manners, perfect everything.”

I shrugged. “No one’s perfect.” Sometimes I wished others could have a fraction of my empathetic skills. If Katie Sue could feel Gabi’s sadness, maybe she’d have a different opinion of Gabi’s “perfect” life.

Before she could say anything, a fancy black SUV with tinted windows pulled up next to us. One of the rear windows powered down, and Warren’s twinkling eyes appeared. “Pardon the interruption, ladies. Kathryn, we should finish our conversation.” He wasn’t asking, he was telling.

One of the lug nuts jumped out of the front and opened the back door for her.

She gave a quick nod and turned back to me. Her eyes were filled with cold calculation. “Well, despite her
perfection
, I actually feel bad for Gabi because she doesn’t have any idea that her perfect little world is about to fall apart.”

A chill went down my spine. “What do you mean? How so?”

“I’ve got to go, Carly.”

With that, she turned, the lug nut helped her into the SUV, and they were off. A second later, brake lights flared red as they turned the corner headed away from town, leaving me with Katie Sue’s shocking words ringing in my ears.

Chapter Eight

“W
hat did she mean about Gabi’s world?” Ainsley asked, her violet eyes wide with astonishment. She sat on a stool behind the counter at Potions, her
Southern Living
magazine abandoned as soon as I came racing into the store. I’d already checked in with Dylan, who’d dispersed the reporters after Cassandra Calhoun gave them a quick statement and was getting ready to finish up the bathroom framing. He promised to lock up my place when he left. Aunt Hazel had a key to my house, so I knew Katie Sue could get in just fine.

As I went into the mixing room for Gabi’s love potion, I said, “I don’t know.” With Katie Sue now staying with me we’d have lots of time to talk—and I hoped she’d tell me what was going on in her life.

Ainsley poked her head through the pass-through. “Maybe she’s jealous of all Gabi’s hair.”

“That’s just you, I think.”

Ainsley chuckled. “Maybe so. Think I should grow mine out?”

Love potions were my easiest to make. I used a funnel to add one part lavender infusion to four parts distilled water to a beautiful red potion bottle—the only color bottle I used for love potions. I folded a rose petal and fed it through the top of the bottle. Now for the magic. I opened the handcrafted floor-to-ceiling cabinet my granddaddy had made decades ago. It had many secret compartments, and from one of them, I lifted out a beautiful silver flask etched with lilies.

The Leilara was cultivated from the dewdrops of a pair of magical entwined lilies that bloomed only once a year. There was a small window of time when the lilies cried, releasing the drops that made my potions . . . potent. Cultivation was nothing short of a nightmare due to the lilies’ location, and there was a finite number of drops. They had to last me the whole year, so I tended to use them sparingly.

“Grow it out? Don’t you remember the last time?” During one blow-dry, her hair had gotten so tangled up in a round brush that it had to be cut free.

I inserted a dropper into the flask and withdrew one tiny dewdrop. It was all that was needed for this love potion. As I let the droplet fall into the beautiful red potion bottle, I wondered what my great-great-grandparents would think of their legacy.

Leila and Abraham’s romance was legendary in these parts. Her goodness trying to overcome his darkness. It was a troubled relationship that ended in tragedy after Abraham was bitten by a poisonous snake, and Leila, an empath, had felt his agony and tried to suck the venom from his wound. They’d died wrapped in each other’s arms in the exact spot the magical lily bloomed every
year. Would they be enchanted to know their magic helped people find true love? I hoped so.

“A slight mishap.” Ainsley fluffed her bob. “I think I’ll give it another go.”

“I give you three months, tops.”

A sparkling tendril of white vapor swirled into the air above the potion bottle before dissipating. I quickly boxed the potion, placing it into a purple gift box, and hurried back out front.

“I’m more stubborn than that,” Ainsley said.

“I factored in your stubbornness. That’s why I said three months instead of two.”

“We’ll just see, won’t we?” she said with a smile as she flipped a page of the magazine. “You think Katie Sue is aimin’ to hurt Gabi? Maybe that explains Delia’s dream.”

“Maybe. Nothing’s making a lick of sense.” I glanced at my watch and was surprised my mama hadn’t started calling around looking for me. I was late. Really late. “Everything okay here? Any calls?”

“Nope. It’s just been me, the potions, and my magazine hanging out. Nothing as exciting as an inn room being ransacked or Marjie on a shooting spree. You have all the fun. But oh!”

“What?”

“Lyla Perrywinkle Jameson strolled by earlier, giving me the stink eye as she did so.”

“You think she knows about the note to Jamie Lynn?” It might also explain why Dinah and Cletus Cobb had been stalking Katie Sue at the Crazy Loon.

“I called up Francie right off. She said no one but Jamie Lynn was home when she delivered the note, and that Jamie Lynn swore up and down she’d keep the
secret. Ripped up the note, too, right in front of Francie, so we know no one found it by accident.”

Maybe Katie Sue was right and her family had been tipped off by another source. Either way, the whole Perrywinkle family apparently knew Katie Sue was in town.

Which wasn’t a good thing.

“Francie also said that Jamie Lynn broke down bawling when she realized the note was from Katie Sue.” Ainsley leaned on her elbows. “I could just cry myself.”

Me, too. Their separation had been so unjust that my heart still ached for them.

Ainsley said, “Jamie Lynn’s older now, and can make her own decisions. Maybe after this reunion they’ll stay in touch?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But I have the feeling it’s not going to be that easy. Lyla will put up a fight and we all know she fights dirty.”

“Oh, I know.” She rolled her eyes. “In addition to what she did to Katie Sue, I hear all the time about how Lyla cheated in the cooking contest at the Darling County Old Thyme Herb Festival last year by making those savory hand pies.”

It had been quite the uproar when Lyla showed up with meat pies instead of sweet pies. But after scouring the rule book, no one could find a specification that it had to be a sweet pie entered. She won by a landslide, garnering her a big trophy and a cash prize. Francie Debbs and her buttermilk pie had finished second, taking home a red ribbon and a bunch of resentment.

Rumors lingered to this day that Lyla (gasp) bought her herb plants from online nurseries instead of raising them from seeds, but I knew from experience that her
big garden was lush and beautiful. She might be a cold cruel woman, but she had quite the green thumb.

Ainsley frowned. “Francie also said that Jamie Lynn looked like she was wasting away. Whatever she’s got, it’s bad. I was thinking . . .”

I smiled. This was always how her schemes began. “Mmm-hmm?”

“That it wouldn’t be a bad thing if you happened upon their meeting. It’ll probably be at your house now that Katie Sue’s been displaced from the Loon. Perfectly reasonable that you should be there. And if you happen to be able to feel Jamie Lynn’s energy . . .” Ainsley innocently examined her fingernails.

“I’ll try to get back, but my mama has a to-do list for me a mile long.”

“What’s more important, Carly Bell Hartwell?”

“Don’t get all indignant with me. You’re not the one who has to deal with my mama.”

She stared.

“I’ll
try
.”

“Try real hard.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I grabbed up the bag and headed for the door.

“Oh, and Carly?”

I turned.

She grinned. “If you could call me as soon as you know what’s going on with her . . . I’m mighty curious.”

Rolling my eyes, I headed out into the heat. I squinted against the bright sunshine as I followed the Ring around to Dèjá Brew. A few treats would soften my mama’s blow about me being so late.

Jessamine “Jessa” Yadkin smiled when she saw me. “The usual, Carly?”

The usual: a cup of coffee and a cookie. “Plus some.” I eyed the dessert case. “I need to take the edge off my mama’s anger.”

She snapped her fingers. “I’ve got just the thing. Odell just pulled a chocolate hazel torte out of the oven. That’ll sweeten Rona up but good.”

Her happy raspy voice was just the balm I needed right now. I was feeling out of sorts with this Katie Sue business.

“Perfect,” I said. Odell was the finest baker I knew, and his chocolate-anything was hard to resist.

“I heard about that business at the Loon,” Jessa said, leaning in. “I can’t believe Katie Sue Perrywinkle is back in town. I never thought I’d see the day.”

Never underestimate the speed in which gossip traveled in this town. Katie Sue may have wanted to keep her presence here a secret, but the news had already made the rounds. “How’d you hear?” I asked.

Pursing her lips, she said, “Dinah and Cletus are spreading the news all over town. As I live and breathe, I’ve heard it from five people in the last half hour. Oh, and that she’s now staying with you after her room at the Loon was burgled. Do you know why she’s back?”

I groaned. “Not yet. I hope to find out more when I see her later.”

Looking disappointed that I didn’t have gossip to share, she said, “I’ll be right back with that torte.” She pushed through a swinging door into the kitchen. I was still peering in the dessert case when my witchy senses
sent a shiver down my spine. I turned around just in time to see Lyla Perrywinkle Jameson storming through the doorway, the snap of her flip-flops sounding like gunshots.

She marched right up to me, poked my shoulder, and said, “I’ve been looking for you, Carly Bell Hartwell.”

“Poke me one more time and you’ll wish you hadn’t found me,” I fired back, trying to keep my temper in check.

“You have some nerve,” she said, her body tense as a bull ready to charge.

If not for the bad attitude that shone in her every pore she might pass for pretty. With sun-streaked brown hair, sun-kissed skin, and pink cheeks, she was medium height, thin and wiry, but strong. Wearing a white tank top, cutoff shorts, flip-flops, and clenched fists, she looked ready for a fight.

“Me? I think this”—I gestured to her stance—“is pretty nervy.”

The healer in me tried to find the good in her. After all, she hadn’t had it any easier growing up than Katie Sue. She’d been raised by the same parents, suffered the same stepfather. Married at seventeen, she was widowed at twenty-six, just a year after Jamie Lynn came to live with her. Her gardens were her main income, and she worked harder than just about anyone I knew to make ends meet.

I wanted to like her because a part of me admired how she had pulled herself out of the muck and refused to be a victim. But that being said, it was hard to muster any compassion for her, knowing how she had hurt Katie Sue.

“Don’t be turning this back on me, Carly. I heard you were putting up Katie Sue at your house.”

Her and everyone else in town. “You may have also heard she needed a place to stay after her room at the Loon was ransacked.”

Her stubborn chin jutted. “She made that bed. Now she has to lie in it.”

“You sound like you know exactly what happened,” I prodded. “Maybe you heard it from your mama or Cletus?”

Blue eyes narrowed on me. “I have no idea what happened.”

“Did Cletus tear that room apart?”

“I ain’t going to stand here going round and round with you. I came to have you pass a message on to Katie Sue. Tell her to stay away from Jamie Lynn.” She looked about to poke me again but thought better of it and drew her hand away. “The same goes for you, Carly.” Her voice caught as she added, “Jamie Lynn doesn’t need another upheaval in her life right now. She has more important things to worry about.”

The raw, desperate emotion in her voice caught me off guard. It was rare to see Lyla show any emotion but irritation. “But what if we can help her get better?”

“What? Because now Katie Sue’s some barely graduated doctor? And you with your phony potions? I don’t think so. Jamie Lynn has real doctors in Huntsville takin’ care of her. Like I said before, stay away from her. The farther, the better.”

With that, she turned and stormed out, much the way she’d come in.

“What was that about?” Jessa asked, stepping up behind the counter. A cardboard cup of coffee, its lid askew, was balanced atop the pastry box in her hands.

“A warning to stay away from Jamie Lynn Perrywinkle,” I said, taking the goodies from her.

Jessa’s messy bun wiggled as she tipped her head back and snorted. “That Lyla Jameson doesn’t know you so well, does she, Carly?”

I paid for the order and tightened the lid on the coffee. “What makes you say so?”

“Tellin’ you to back off, darlin’, is like an invitation for you to butt on in. A big gold-embossed invitation with swirly lettering and no need to RSVP.” She wrinkled her nose as she handed me my change. “Give my best to your mama.”

As I walked out of the coffee shop, I was already trying to figure out how I could sneak out of my mama’s later on so I could catch up with Katie Sue and Jamie Lynn.

No need to RSVP indeed.