Potions and Pastries Read online

A movement outside the window caught my eye, and I looked up to see Orla Black walking past the bakery. I craned my neck enough to see her go into the bookstore next door.

  “Okay, big guy,” I said. “I’ll see if Bianca wants to meet you, but first I have to talk to someone.” Untying my apron as I went, I hurried toward the kitchen.

  The front door opened before I got there, and Cookie Rios, the youngest spellbook club member, walked into the bakery. Four years my junior, she exuded a cheerful sensuality. She was partial to miniskirts, which she definitely had the legs for, and today’s was denim with a simple mauve T-shirt. Cookie had been born in Haiti and still carried a subtle accent beneath her words. I’d learned a lot about voodoo from her, as well as some interesting ways to look at the concepts of good and evil.

  “Katie!” She approached and gave me a big hug. “What did you think?”

  “About . . . ?”

  She frowned. “The beautiful house I showed you and Declan on Tuesday! Closer to work, nice big yard, that extra guest room to turn into a nursery.” She winked. “It’s perfect!”

  Cookie had given up trading in a new boyfriend every three months for marriage to Oscar Ruiz Sanchez but still tended to change jobs on a frequent basis. This last switch had been minor, though, from selling commercial real estate to residential. As my neighbor had noted, it was good to have a friend in the business when you were shopping for a house. Maybe a little too good. Cookie had shown remarkable enthusiasm in poring over all the listings in Savannah, and even Tybee Island and Pooler, just in case our dream home existed a little farther afield.

  “We like it a lot,” Declan said from behind me.

  “Excellent!” she said.

  “Um,” I said.

  “But I think we’ll keep looking, okay?” Declan said.

  I shot him a grateful look. When we’d talked about it, I hadn’t been able to articulate what was wrong with it. I only knew deep down that it wasn’t right.

  Cookie pouted a tiny bit to let us know she was disappointed, but then she smiled. “Okay. I thought you two fussbudgets might say that, so I have another all ready to take you through tonight. Be ready at six o’clock, okay? I’ll pick you up at your place, Katie. Oh! And you really need to let me know when I can list the carriage house! We must get it on the market. You don’t want two mortgages, even if there are two of you now.”

  I stifled a groan.

  “Okay,” Declan said, looking at me for confirmation. “But just so you know, I’ll be on my regular forty-eight-hour shift starting tomorrow, so any other candidates might have to wait a few days.”

  “Noted,” Cookie said.

  Declan gestured toward Bianca and Jaida, who had gathered their things and moved into the library area. “Looks like the gang’s almost all here,” he said. “I assume the inimitable Mimsey is on the way. You didn’t mention that you guys were having a meeting.” He quirked an eyebrow at me, puzzled. The spellbook club didn’t usually have meetings at the bakery when it was open, only after hours or at one of our houses.

  “It’s not a meeting,” I said. “More books are going out of our little lending library than have been coming in, so the ladies agreed to supply a few additional volumes.”

  “Ah. Gotcha.” He grinned.

  Spellbook club members tended to bring in a disparate and eclectic selection of books for our customers. From self-help to construction how-to, innovative fiction to the occult, they were all somehow meant for a particular patron—though the ladies didn’t know exactly whom when they brought the volumes into the Honeybee. I’d benefited from a couple of their contributions myself, as a matter of fact.

  “Listen, I’ll be right back,” I said, and handed my apron to Lucy.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Orla just went into the Fox and Hound. I want to try and catch her before she leaves.”

  Lucy took off her own apron and shoved them both at Cookie, who took them with an expression of mild surprise.

  “I’ll come with you,” my aunt said.

  Though I’d hoped to talk to Orla alone, I nodded, and we went out together. Moments later we were in front of the bookstore.

  Through the window, I saw Orla at the cash register. Croft Barrow, the owner of the Fox and Hound, reached beneath the counter and brought out a book. He put it in a bag and handed it to her. She said something to him, turned, and came out onto the sidewalk.

  “Well, hello, you two,” she said when she saw us. “What are you doing out here?” Today there was no sign of the fedora or the swirling skirt. Orla had her hair in a tidy grandma bun and wore a simple A-line skirt, blouse, and espadrilles.

  “Waiting for you,” I admitted. “I saw you walk by and was wondering if you were going to be down on the riverfront again this evening.” My eyes cut to Lucy, who was watching me with interest, then back to Orla. “I’d like to know more about that, er, thing you were telling me last night.”

  A knowing spark lit behind her eyes. “Of course. If you’d like. But I’m not going to be working down on the riverfront anymore.”

  “Really?” Lucy asked.

  The other woman shook her head. “I don’t like how the family has been handling our presence down there, pushing people around, and I’ve decided to take a stand.” Her lips twisted wryly. “John wasn’t very happy to hear that, but—” She waved her hand. “Never mind. You don’t need to know all that. If you want to come to my house this evening around six, though, I’ll be happy to tell you more about what I saw in your future, Katie.”

  Ignoring the look I knew my aunt was giving me, I said, “That sounds great.”

  Lucy put her hand on my arm. “Isn’t Cookie showing you a house then?”

  I shrugged. “I’m sure she won’t mind if I reschedule.”

  “Here. This is my address.” Orla reached into the bag Croft had given her and pulled out the receipt. She jotted something on the back and handed it to me.

  “Thank you so much,” I said, putting the paper in the pocket of my work skirt. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  “We don’t have any peach fritters today,” Lucy said to Orla. “But we do have apple. My treat, and we’ll have a chance to catch up. Mimsey is on her way over for a late lunch as well.”

  We began walking slowly back toward the Honeybee. “As tempting as that sounds,” Orla said, “I’m going to have to pass this time. Just stopped by the Fox and Hound to pick up a book I ordered for my granddaughter, Nuala, before meeting with my lawyer.” She looked at her watch. “And I’m going to be late if I don’t get going.”

  “I’ll bring you a treat tonight, then,” I said.

  Orla brightened. “That would be great. Maybe some of those—”

  Mungo came barreling out of the bakery as if the hounds of hell were on his tiny tail. A shrill whistle pierced the air, making me wince. My familiar started to bark frantically, high and urgent. I looked down at him, bewildered and concerned.

  Katie, quick! Help Orla! The words came out of nowhere, as did the sudden, intense fragrance of gardenias. I knew that voice, that smell, and my heart bucked in my chest.

  “What—?” I managed to get out before Lucy’s scream cut me off.

  Tires squealed. The smell of hot rubber overtook the sweet scent of gardenias. At my feet, Mungo yelped and then fell silent. There were a few seconds of eerie quiet, before a cacophony of voices up and down the block erupted. I felt more than saw Declan and his coworkers rush out of the Honeybee.

  They ran past us and out to the street, where Orla Black lay alarmingly still in front of a red car.

  Chapter 4

  One of Orla’s espadrilles sat alone and undamaged by her bare foot. A thin red trickle of blood wound by the shoe. I watched it for what seemed like an eternity, my head swimming.

  Then I remembered to breathe. I sucked in a whopping hit of
oxygen. Then another. The darkness at the edges of my vision receded.

  “Orla!” Lucy cried, and ran out to our friend.

  The driver’s door of the red Toyota opened, and a very shaken middle-aged man got out. Declan and the other two EMTs, who seconds before had been eating their lunch inside the Honeybee, bent over the body. They murmured to one another as they worked together to check her vitals.

  I stood with my hand over my mouth, staring in horror. Even from the sidewalk, I could tell there were no vitals to check.

  Declan saw my aunt coming. He quickly stood and met her halfway. Catching her by the shoulders, he said something to her in a low voice. She shook her head emphatically as he led her back over to where I waited. He helped her to sit on the edge of a big barrel planter filled with purple and yellow petunias. Lucy swallowed hard and blinked back tears. My fiancé gave me a warning look and a slight shake of his head, then turned back to the accident.

  A sick feeling swamped over me, and I felt my knees buckle. Strong hands gripped my elbows from behind. Uncle Ben murmured, “I’ve got you.”

  “I’m okay.” I forced strength into my legs and pointed. “Lucy.”

  He let go of me and moved to his wife. Her hands were on either side of her neck, her eyes locked on the body in the street. They dropped to her lap as she turned to stare at me.

  “Did you see that?”

  “I wasn’t looking—”

  Jaida, Bianca, and Cookie rushed out of the open doorway. “What happened?” Jaida asked. “Oh, no. Who’s that? Is she okay?” She stood on tiptoe to try and see better.

  “It’s Orla Black,” I said, my voice strangled. “We were just talking, and then Mungo . . . he barked. . . . I looked down . . . and I didn’t see.”

  Bianca put her arm around my shoulders and gave a squeeze.

  The driver who had hit Orla stood by the side of his car. Disbelief and horror creased his features, and he blinked rapidly as if hoping each time he’d open his eyes and discover the accident had all been a dream. “She just walked out in front of me. Stepped right off the curb,” he said to no one in particular. “She looked right at me, and then she walked in front of my car.”

  The alarm bells going off in my mind grew louder. What had really just happened?

  The EMTs stood as sirens approached. I’d been too stunned to think of calling 911, but thankfully someone had their wits about them. The police and ambulance arrived first, quickly followed by a ladder truck. Declan and the other two firemen spoke with their coworkers; then my fiancé came over to where I stood, still rooted to the spot where I’d first heard Lucy’s scream.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Is she dead?” I countered, even though I knew.

  His look was answer enough.

  “I didn’t see,” I said. “Mungo came out and started barking. I was looking at him to see what was wrong.”

  Next to me, Cookie frowned. “He was in the reading area with us, calm as could be, and then all of a sudden he shot out of his bed and ran out the door. I thought maybe you’d called him.”

  “Mungo came out before Orla was hit,” I said slowly. My brain wasn’t quite working at full speed. “I wonder if he was trying to warn me.” I cleared my throat. “If so, he wasn’t the only one.”

  Lucy whirled to face me. “What do you mean?”

  The other spellbook club members and Declan were looking at me, too.

  “Nonna,” I said. “I smelled her gardenia perfume.”

  Understanding dawned in my aunt’s eyes. “She spoke to you?” she asked quietly.

  The spirit of my dead grandmother had reached through from the other side to warn me of impending danger before. In fact, she’d twice saved my life. She’d also talked to my mother at least once that I knew of, but hadn’t ever communicated directly with Lucy in the same way. My aunt kept hoping, though, and now a flicker of sorrow mixed with the curiosity on her face.

  Tears threatened, burning my eyelids. “Nonna told me to help Orla. She said to hurry. But everything seemed to happen at the same time. I didn’t know what she meant. I didn’t—” A sob broke from my throat.

  Declan stroked my hair. “It’s not your fault.”

  I nodded, struggling to get myself back under control.

  He took a deep breath. “Um, but there’s something you . . . Never mind.”

  “What is it?” I managed.

  His look contained such sweet tenderness that it nearly undid me all over again. “Later, hon. There’s enough going on right now. Are you going to be okay for a while? I know I was just doing inspections for overtime today, but I want to check in with the crew and see if I can help. As long as I’m here, you know?” He gave me a knowing look. “Maybe accompany the, er, Ms. Black to the hospital.”

  I ventured a little smile, admiring his dedication. “Of course. I’m fine, really. Stunned, mostly. Numb. And somehow feeling like I should have been able to prevent Orla from walking in front of that car. Declan, I’m still not sure how it happened.”

  “I know,” he murmured. “But trust me, whatever caused Ms. Black’s death, it’s awfully suspicious—and not your fault.” He kissed me on the cheek and walked over to where his buddies were gathered by the ladder truck.

  Awfully suspicious? And had I heard a slight Irish accent beneath his words? There was something he wasn’t telling me. Was that what his Later, hon had been about?

  Quickly, the authorities set up a temporary shield, so the gawkers wouldn’t have anything to ogle as the emergency personnel worked. As intended, people began to wander away. Croft Barrow’s eyes met mine, and his usually gruff expression softened before he shook his head sorrowfully and went back into his bookstore. Annette Lander, the owner of the Fiber Attic yarn shop on the other side of the Honeybee, stood inside her front window with two of her customers, gazing pensively over a pile of fuzzy wool skeins at the scene playing out in the middle of Broughton Street.

  “Come on, everyone. Let’s go inside,” Jaida said. “There’s nothing we can do out here.”

  There were murmurs of agreement.

  Uniformed officers were questioning bystanders. Ben went over to one of them and spoke for a moment, pointing to the Honeybee. She nodded, and he came back over to us. “I let them know where we’ll be. They have enough of an audience without us adding to it. They’ll come speak to us when they can.”

  I gave Ben a grateful look, sure that none of us had a desire to watch what was coming next. Everyone went inside, and Lucy flipped the sign in the window from OPEN to CLOSED.

  Turning to join them, I saw something on the ground. It was the book Orla had just purchased for her granddaughter at the Fox and Hound. She must have dropped it before stepping into traffic, because it was on the sidewalk, still in a plastic bag with the bookstore logo on the side. I bent and picked it up. Sliding it out of the bag, I saw the title. Maeve, Traveler Girl.

  Scanning the back-cover copy, I made my way with slow steps to the door of the Honeybee. It looked like the story of a young girl who had been part of a band of Irish Gypsies in the 1950s.

  Orla. Taber. Fern. Nuala. All names as Irish as my dear Declan McCarthy.

  A flash of color in my peripheral vision caught my attention. A short, stout figure hurried through the remaining crowd. Her bright orange pantsuit and the matching bow on the side of her white pageboy haircut looked like a flame cutting through the darkness. Mimsey Carmichael, the octogenarian de facto leader of the spellbook club, marched toward the hubbub with an air of determination. She was particularly fond of color and flower magic. Orange promoted creativity, self-expression, vitality, and fun, and was one of her favorite colors to wear.

  She slowed on the other side of the police screen, looking at the ground. An officer shooed her along, but not before I saw Mimsey’s mouth form a tiny O. She bustled over to me.

/>   “Lord love a duck, Katie. That’s Orla Black!” she said.

  I nodded. “She was hit by a car.”

  “Horrible.” Mimsey squinted at the stunned driver, who stood nearby speaking with a uniformed patrolman.

  “I feel terrible for him,” I said. “How awful to be involved in an accident like that.”

  She eyed me. “What happened?”

  “Lucy can tell you more than I can. The others are all waiting inside.”

  “All right.” Mimsey nodded and pushed open the door.

  I was right behind her when another car pulled up to the scene, and Detective Peter Quinn got out.

  Great.

  The homicide detective and I had had a rather strained relationship since the previous November when a visiting author had been killed in the Fox and Hound. I’d reluctantly become involved in clearing the name of his primary suspect, which I’d also done when he’d been ready to arrest Ben for Mavis Templeton’s murder. In between, there had been four other investigations that I’d stuck my nose into, each of them with some kind of supernatural connection. And yes, that was all in the mere two years since I’d lived in Savannah, thank you very much.

  The last situation had been unique in that Quinn, who’d always pooh-poohed any notion of the occult being real, despite repeated evidence to the contrary, had actually seen me perform magic. Since then, we’d generally avoided each other, even to the point of him giving up his usual Honeybee pastry fix. It was a shame, because I liked the guy. Barring the fact that he’d been willing to think my uncle might have been a killer, he was good at his job—smart, insightful, and more open-minded than he realized.

  I paused in the doorway, waiting to see what Quinn would do. He surveyed the scene with his hands on his hips. His more-salt-than-pepper hair caught the sunlight, and his tanned patrician features looked grim. I couldn’t see the gray eyes behind the designer sunglasses, but I knew they were judging and assessing everything that was going on.

  He looked up and saw me. His lips thinned, but he didn’t look away. Then his shoulders squared as if he was about to face something unpleasant, and he walked toward me. He passed the driver, who had turned an increasingly sickly shade of green. I pulled the door of the bakery closed and waited until Quinn stopped in front of me.