by Cindy Stark
But still, she’d let a grieving friend crash on the floor? What kind of hostess was she?
She stood and winced at the piercing pain that slid through her temples like a hot steel rod. A wave of nausea rolled through her, and she quickly covered her mouth.
After a moment, the feeling passed, and she could breathe easier. She peeked over the table, finding Cora wrapped like a burrito in one of her grandmother’s quilts. The woman lay on her back, her mouth open, releasing soft snores with each breath.
If Hazel didn’t know better, she’d think they’d indulged in too many bottles of wine the previous night, but all they’d had was tea.
Clarabelle’s tea. She narrowed her eyes and shook her head. The stuff had obviously been more potent than she’d expected. If grief wasn’t enough for Cora, Hazel had practically poisoned her, too.
But it made no sense. The ingredients she’d used were all benign, simple herbs. They couldn’t affect her and Cora in such a way.
It must have been the spell she’d cast along with it. She must have said a wrong word, or said it in the wrong way, or…
Blessed Mother help her.
With tender, careful steps, she made her way around the end of the coffee table and lowered her hand toward Cora’s shoulder to give her a soft shake. The second her fingers touched her friend, a shrill meow pierced the air. She cried out in surprise and turned fast enough toward Mr. Kitty that she banged her shin into the coffee table.
“Son of a crunchy biscuit,” she ground out between clenched teeth,
Hazel pointed an accusing finger at her cat. “I swear, one day…”
She left the threat to hang in the air between them.
Mr. Kitty caterwauled again before launching himself up on the mantel where he proceeded to tip her small clock onto the carpeted floor.
This time, Hazel growled, ignored the throbbing pain in her head, and barreled toward him. “You little rascal.” She reached down to grab him, and he dashed between her legs, a flash of ginger fur and then gone.
She grumbled beneath her breath and bent to pick up the clock. When she straightened, the room tilted, and she was forced to grab the mantel to keep from tipping over.
She felt like three-day-old turkey dung. Maybe she was getting sick.
She filled her lungs and then lifted the clock to set it on the mantel. As she did, she glanced at the clock’s face, and then her heart jumped up to choke her.
Nine-forty-five? Holy harpies.
She’d overslept by more than three hours. Gretta would be arriving at her shop any minute, the same shop that should be opening in only fifteen. Even if she rushed through her morning routine, she wouldn’t make it on time.
Mr. Kitty gave her a sassy meow as he strutted in front of her.
She drew her brows into a frown and then a curious thought hit. “Were you trying to wake me up? So that I wouldn’t be late?”
He released a string of meows before he flashed his back end toward her and trotted from the room.
Hazel knew when someone had given her a piece of his mind, and that’s exactly what this felt like. “I’m sorry,” she called after him, feeling worse than ever.
She’d have to make it up to him. Cook them salmon for dinner, maybe. Then again, maybe he hadn’t woken her for her sake. Maybe he’d only wanted his breakfast.
A low groan rumbled from the snuggled burrito lying on her floor, and Hazel shifted her gaze to Cora. “Yeah. That’s exactly how I feel, too,” she whispered.
She needed to call Gretta to see if she could cover the teashop this morning. Thank heavens she’d asked Lobster Lucy the night before to come in for the day for Cora, too. Neither one of them were fit for work.
Even if Cora felt like going in at some point, she’d need backup. She wasn’t in any shape to manage a bustling café.
Hazel searched for her phone and found it beneath one of the couch cushions where it must have slipped during the night. Gretta sounded far too perky when she answered the phone.
“Hey,” Hazel said in greeting, her voice sounding like she’d drank gravel the night before.
“Where are you?” Gretta fired off, ignoring their usual pleasantries. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. I stayed up late with Cora and must not have heard my alarm.” Probably because her phone had been buried in the couch. “Can you cover for a few hours this morning?”
A snort of humor came across the line. “You know I can.”
The reprieve lifted a huge weight from her chest, and Hazel was ever-so-grateful she’d found her terrific assistant. “Thanks.”
Hazel expected Gretta to sign off and hang up, but only silence came across the line for several long seconds. Then a sigh. “If Cora was with you, then I guess you know what happened.”
Hazel glanced toward her sleeping friend and stepped into the kitchen. “I know.” She spoke softly. “I was there when they fished Belinda out.”
“Seriously?” Gretta’s voice was a mixture of concern and interest. “Do you know what happened to her?”
“No more than you do. I left shortly after, and I’ve been with Cora ever since.” She’d hoped to get a call from Peter at some point last evening, but nothing.
“Well…that’s good. I’m glad you’re with her. Belinda was a pain in my pachootsky, but I know Cora liked her. Don’t worry about the shop. I’ll cover all day if you need me to. Just take care of Cora. She doesn’t have family, so she’ll need someone.”
Hazel wondered if Peter had managed to contact Belinda’s family, wherever they were, if she even had any living, to notify them of her death. “Thanks, Gretta. If I haven’t told you before, I appreciate you so much.”
A soft chuckle came across the phone. “You’d do the same for me.”
She would, Hazel realized. She didn’t have family in Stonebridge, either, but these people had filled that spot. “Of course, I would.”
Hazel promised to check in with Gretta in a while, and then she ended the call. Back in the living room, Cora was snoring again, and a big part of Hazel’s heart begged her to leave Cora alone and let her sleep.
But she couldn’t. A new day had come, and Cora had to face it. Though Hazel would make sure she didn’t do it alone.
She knelt next to her friend and gave her shoulder a gentle shake. Cora blinked, muttered, and then closed her eyes again.
Hazel tried again, and this time Cora focused on her with the red, swollen eyes of someone grief-stricken.
“Hi there.” Hazel smiled and swallowed past the pain in her throat. She must be getting sick. That would explain so much. “How are you?”
“Head hurts.” Cora’s voice sounded a lot like Hazel’s and she realized she’d have to chalk it up to her bad spell-casting skills.
She did her best to bury her pride. For a witch who boasted about making excellent tea, the thought that she’d screwed that up didn’t set well with her. “I’m sorry. Mine hurts, too. I must have done something wrong when making tea last night.”
Cora glanced about the room as though trying to get her bearings. “Yeah, I think so, too.”
Great. “I’m sorry I let you sleep on the floor when there was a perfectly good bed available. I don’t even remember falling asleep.”
Cora shifted to a sitting position and groaned. “I don’t remember much either. Just that I woke up sometime during the night and was cold. I found this quilt on the back of the couch and wrapped up in it, and that’s the last thing I remember.”
She really was the worst friend. “You should have woken me up.”
Her friend attempted a snort and then stopped, placing two fingers against her right temple. “Grabbing the blanket was all I could muster. Blessed Mother, I feel like I’ve been on a two-day bender.”
“Same. If you think you can manage your way to the kitchen, I’ll brew us up something for the headaches.”
“Only if you promise not to drug me again.”
She winced. She suppose
d she deserved that. “I promise. This one will be a tried and true recipe, not an untested, old family one.”
“Ah. One of those. I think things were much different back then. Got to be careful with the old ones. That or your magic is a lot stronger than the person who crafted the potion.”
Hazel rolled her eyes. “Doubt that.” Clarabelle’s powers and potions were obviously much stronger than hers.
A few minutes later, they were both seated at the kitchen table with steaming mugs between their hands. They spoke little as they sipped and allowed Hazel’s tea to work its magic. By degrees, the pain and pounding in Hazel’s head eased.
Cora sighed. “I think I might actually survive. At least I feel like I got a good night’s sleep, and I probably wouldn’t have otherwise.”
“Yeah. Same. Yesterday was an awful day.”
“The worst.”
Hazel eyed her friend, wondering if she was up for this conversation. “Are you feeling any better today?”
“Not really. I still can’t believe she’s gone. She had so much potential, but she just couldn’t see it.”
Hazel hadn’t seen that side of Belinda, but Cora knew her much better.
Cora’s gaze drifted to somewhere else for a moment and then she blinked away the moisture accumulating in her eyes. “She struggled to get along with the group, though. Said they didn’t understand her. As within any system, there is a hierarchy, and she balked at it. She didn’t trust most of the others, and she wouldn’t listen to what they had to say.”
Hazel remembered the sloppy inverted pentagram that had been drawn on Belinda’s arm. “You make it sound like one of your group might have had a vendetta against her. Did they dislike each other enough for one of them to drown her?”
“No,” she answered quickly. “None of them would take it that far. They might curse her and make it so she couldn’t use her glamour or some such thing, but I think all of us in town realize that we need each other. Besides, when I checked my phone a few minutes ago, several of the coven had messaged me saying witnesses at the lake said she was alone and acting very drunk.”
But that didn’t explain the pentagram.
Hazel battled her conscience, trying to decide if she should tell Cora. She had to. Cora had become like a sister to her, and if something nefarious had happened to Belinda, she couldn’t ignore it.
“Cora?” She met and held her friend’s gaze. “When I was at the lake yesterday, I saw something. On Belinda. It looked as though someone had used a thick marker and drawn an inverted pentagram on the underneath of her bicep. Does that sound like something Belinda would do to herself? An act of rebellion maybe?”
Cora stared at her for a long, hard moment, and then slowly shook her head. “No. I know Belinda was headstrong and did have a rebellious streak, but she believed wholeheartedly in the traditions and strength of our craft. I can’t picture her dishonoring it in any way. That was one of the things I admired about her.”
“I wonder, too, about her drowning. You said she was an excellent swimmer. She would have to have been pretty drunk to not be able to make it back to shore.”
Cora blinked several times and studied Hazel. “Are you saying you don’t think her death was an accident?”
Hazel traced the handle on her mug. “All I’m saying is there are things that don’t seem to add up. The pentagram, for one. Most people think an inverted pentagram is the sign of the devil, but we know otherwise. You don’t think Belinda would do that to herself, so I can’t help but wonder who would. Peter told me when we first met that if someone in Stonebridge was suspected of being a witch and they stuck around town, they might likely disappear.”
Cora nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve heard rumors of that from years ago, but I don’t think anything has happened recently. At least not that I know of.”
“But let’s say that Belinda managed to somehow reveal herself to one of those who play for the haters. I worry they may have done something about it.”
She lifted her tea and sipped. “If we’re going to consider murder as a possibility, then we should look at Quentin, too. I can’t see him killing anyone, but he was furious with Belinda the other day.”
“Yes.” Hazel stood and retrieved a pad of paper and pen from a nearby drawer, and then returned to the table. The yellow legal pad reminded her of Peter when he took notes, and her heart smiled.
She wrote Timothy Franklin as well as Samuel Canterbury, the guys who she knew to be witch-haters, on one line, and then Quentin’s name below theirs. “What about Charlie? He wasn’t too happy about being dumped.”
Cora shook her head. “Charlie is such a good guy. I can’t picture him doing something like that.”
“Sometimes people are very good at hiding their true selves. Look at us. No one in town would suspect us of being witches.”
She glanced between the notepad and Hazel, obviously not happy about adding Charlie. “I guess that’s true. I just hate to think that someone who comes into my café often could be capable of murder.”
Hazel compressed her lips and tapped the pen against the pad of paper. “I don’t like considering that either, but I don’t think we should rule him out. Anyone else who might not like Belinda?”
Cora gnawed on her bottom lip for several moments. “I guess if we’re going to consider everyone, we should add Glenys Everwood to the list. Rumor was that Belinda was trying to steal her boyfriend.”
Something in Cora’s eyes or perhaps an emotion radiating from her tipped off Hazel. “She’s a witch, isn’t she?”
Cora paused and then nodded, guilt coloring her features. “I shouldn’t tell you. She hasn’t given her permission. But I can trust you, right? You’d never do anything to hurt one of us?”
Hazel reached across the table and grasped one of Cora’s hands. “Of course not. Never. You know me better than that.”
The tension in the room eased. “I think I do, Hazel. I’ve seen into your heart, and it’s a good one.”
Her words tugged at Hazel. “I feel the same about you, Cora. You’re the sister I never had.”
Tears sprang to Cora’s eyes. Hazel realized Cora might have felt that way about Belinda, too, and she quickly shook her head. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry again. You’ve had too much of that.”
Cora sniffed. “It’s okay. Tears cleanse us.”
Hazel agreed with a kind smile. “So, now that we have all these questions, we need to figure out what to do with them, and how to get answers.”
“You can talk to Peter. He’ll listen to you.”
He’d listen, all right, but she wasn’t sure what she could reveal to him without exposing herself. “I don’t think I can talk to him about the pentagram. I’m sure he’s seen it by now, but I didn’t say anything yesterday. If I tell him the true meaning behind it, I don’t want him to question why I know about such things.”
Cora nodded in understanding. “But you could mention that she’s a good swimmer, right? And you could tell him that, as long as I’ve known her, she hasn’t been one to drink much.”
Yes, that would be a good start. “I’ll try to talk to him today. In the meantime, how about if I cook us some breakfast? It won’t be anywhere near as good as your food, but I’m sure I can manage something.”
Gratitude washed over Cora’s face. “You don’t know how wonderful that sounds. I’m always expected to be the cook and take care of others, so it’s nice to have someone fret over me.”
Hazel smiled, stood, and headed to the fridge to gather ingredients. If Peter didn’t call her by lunch time, she’d find a reason to visit him at the station. She knew he was busy, but he couldn’t expect her to wait forever for answers.
Ten
A misty morning hung over Stonebridge when Hazel dropped Cora at her house just before noon. Since she hadn’t heard from Peter, Hazel turned her car toward the police station, but a moment later, her phone rang. She glanced at the screen and smiled. The man must have read he
r mind.
With a push on her brakes, she pulled to the side of the road, parking her Honda within view of the Old Stone Church. She pushed the answer button on her phone and shifted her gaze back to the church to study its incredible architecture. “Hello?”
“Hazel?” Peter’s voice came across the phone smooth and sexy. “Sorry I haven’t called. It’s been crazy around here.”
She wanted to say no worries, but she had worried and wondered. “At least I’m talking to you now. How are things?”
He released a long sigh. “Messy.”
She drew her brows together. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“It isn’t. Hey, I was wondering if you could slip away from the shop and meet me. I’ve already lost my cool with the guys this morning, and I need a few minutes away.”
Exactly what she’d been hoping for. “Of course. I actually haven’t been into my shop yet this morning. I just dropped off Cora, and I’m sitting in front of the old church.”
“Great. Wait for me. I’ll be there in two.” He hung up before she could reply.
It seemed only moments before Peter pulled up behind her car. He exited, and she did, too. He strode forward, placed his hands on her upper arms, and kissed her on the lips. “Thanks for coming, Hazel.”
She blinked in surprise. “Of course.” Had they reached the point that they were that familiar with each other? She weighed the idea. They did like each other, and it seemed they trusted each other…with most things.
So, yeah, maybe they had progressed that far. In any other town, she would already be calling Peter her boyfriend.
He took her hand and led her across the street to where a paved path wandered through one of the town’s beautiful parks. Fat robins tweeted from their perches high in the trees. In the gardens all around them, red tulips and sunny daffodils vibrated with life.
The Blessed Mother’s glorious beauty, showcased at its finest.
She lifted her gaze to Peter and studied the hard lines of his jaw. “You seem pretty stressed.”
He blew out a frustrated breath. “You have no idea.”