Poison and Potions: a Limited Edition Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection

by Erin Hayes

  He smiled gently and waited for her to continue. Burrowing her hands into her lap, she took a steadying breath. “When I left his office, I heard the voices again. The same ones that told me to end it before.”

  A shadow crossed Rick’s face. “Brenner ... For some reason the name’s familiar. I’m almost certain I counseled a patient of his years ago.”

  “Really?” Martina raised her brows, intrigued. “Did it help, the hypnotherapy?”

  He stared at her for what seemed like an eternity. “She died a short time after I met her,” he said, his expression strained. “We should get back on track. Dr. Walker will be here any minute to do your evaluation.”

  Martina swallowed, her breath clogged in her throat. She placed a hand on his sleeve. “Please, I need to know how she died.”

  He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “It was suicide.”

  Martina suppressed a sob. She’d known there was something terribly wrong with Dr. Brenner the minute she’d set eyes on him. She should have followed her gut and walked away. Instead, she’d let him wrap around her mind, until all she heard were the twisted voices urging her to end it. He wasn’t helping people, he was aiding and abetting the dark side. She straightened up and leveled her eyes with Rick. “Do you think Dr. Brenner had something to do with her death?”

  “It would be irresponsible of me to suggest he somehow contributed to her death. She was a very depressed woman, from what I recall.”

  “But you’re a pastor, and you counseled her, you must have some feeling about it.”

  He furrowed his brow. “Dr. Brenner may have had good intentions, trying to modify negative patterns of thinking through hypnotherapy. But, in an altered state of consciousness, the mind can be susceptible to manipulative suggestions.” His expression hardened. “Even demonic ones, if that’s what the doctor’s meddling with.”

  “Like the idea to kill myself?”

  He nodded. “The mind is a portal to the spirit world. Spiritual communication is a mind-to-mind grafting of ideas, good or bad. The question is whether or not Dr. Brenner was aware of what he was doing.”

  The shrill ring of Martina’s cell phone cut into the conversation. Taggert! She reached into her purse and grabbed her phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Mom, where are you? There’s a cop here says you’re at some hospital!”

  “I’m okay, Taggert, just calm down. I had a ... panic attack while I was driving earlier. I might have to stay here tonight but I’ll be back in the morning. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  “Are you dying or something?”

  “What? No, of course not. Look, Tag, I know I scared you, but everything’s all right now.”

  “Are we still leaving?”

  “Yes, yes we are.” She let out a heavy sigh. “But we have to keep your court date first.” She paused for a moment. “Is Hal there?”

  “I told the cop he went for smokes. But he ain’t come home. He left in them new pants of his. He’s with her again.”

  Martina bit her lip. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about Hal laying into Taggert while she was gone.

  A knock on the door interrupted them, and a young brunette with chocolate-framed glasses peeked her head in. “Ready for me?”

  “Dr. Walker, come on in.” Rick pulled up another chair.

  Martina pressed the phone to her cheek. “Gotta go, Tag, call you later. Love you.” She ended the call, and eyed the young doctor skeptically.

  “Nice to meet you, Martina. I’m Dr. Sandra Walker, and I’m here to do your evaluation.” She took the chair Rick offered and edged it closer. “Are you more comfortable if Rick stays, or can we let him go home now?” Her chestnut bob swayed freely around her intelligent, oval face as she smiled.

  Martina dropped her phone into her purse. She wasn’t about to let another doctor grill her behind closed doors. “I want him to stay.” She threw Rick a pleading look. “If he can.”

  “Of course.” He nodded and gestured for Dr. Walker to begin.

  “Are you feeling any better?”

  Martina shrugged. “I guess.”

  “Would you like to tell me about what happened after you pulled over on the freeway?”

  Martina slid a glance in Rick’s direction. It was one thing telling a pastor an angel had saved her, but could she tell that to a psychiatrist? A tremor of apprehension skated across the back of her neck. If they thought she was crazy, they might never let her out of here.

  But an angel had saved her. An angel who told her he cared if she lived or died. She had clung to the angel’s mysterious words for hours afterward. You will shine like the stars forever. They had given her hope even though they hadn’t made any sense at the time. Martina twisted her hair in her hand and stared at the floor. Rick believed an angel had spoken to her. But what if Dr. Walker thought she was losing it, deemed her an unfit mother? She couldn’t let that happen. Taggert needed her.

  She painted a puzzled expression on her face and studied a spot on the wall. “It’s all a blur at this point. I must’ve had a dizzy spell and pulled over. Someone grabbed me. Then there were lights everywhere, cops, an ambulance.” She pressed her lips together, meeting Dr. Walker’s questioning gaze, but avoiding Rick’s.

  “I understand you heard voices that distressed you. Can you tell me about them? Were they arguing about you, mocking you? What kind of voices were they?”

  Demonic voices. She knew that now, but did this young doctor have any clue as to what kind of evil was out there? Martina bent her head and twisted her hands in her lap. One of Dr. Brenner’s patients was already dead. And she had almost died today. She gritted her teeth. She had to warn Kyra Williams before it was too late.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Kyra thrust the phone in her pocket, vaulted upright, and dashed down the stairs two at a time. Brian was the least of her worries right now. She had to find a way to salvage her career. She couldn’t just run from the ruins of everything she’d worked so hard to build over the past three years.

  She hit the unlock button on the key fob and hopped in to her rental car, heart thumping. Curling her fingers around the steering wheel, she stared through the windshield at Buffington’s logo etched on the entry door. This was the end of everything she cared about. Maybe that’s what the angel meant when he said, The end is coming. The end had come. Blinking her damp lashes, she turned the key in the ignition, backed up, and tore out of the parking lot.

  She accelerated on to the I-95 in a daze. There was an element of truth in Don’s analysis of her ambition. Of course she wanted her name in the credits. But it wasn’t one-upmanship. All those Friday nights she’d chugged coffee past midnight wrapping everything up for the team project, while her colleagues clocked out early for cocktails. She worked twice as hard as everyone else. And all of a sudden, they didn’t like it. Bunch of back-stabbers.

  She swerved between lanes and swore when the truck behind her honked. Her heart pounded like a relentless gong. She could still go to the board with a carefully documented case, expose Todd for what he was—a scorned wannabe who’d suckered his dying boss into a desperate scheme to bring her down. Her chest tightened until she could barely breathe. A dark mantle of rage whipped her thoughts into frenzied peaks of fury.

  Todd must pay!

  With the board on her side, she would have him ousted. And if they didn’t stand by her, she would sue for slander and discrimination, walk with a settlement that would leave them limping into the next fiscal year and beyond. Beads of sweat threaded their way down her brow as she twisted the steering wheel, veering across surreal lanes of weaving color.

  She blinked when she noticed the flashing lights behind her. What on earth? She slammed her foot on the brake, frantically trying to gauge what speed she’d been driving. Her hands shook as she pulled over and dug around for her license and registration. She rolled down the window and looked in her side mirror.

  “Afternoon ma’am, do you ha
ve any idea what speed you were driving?”

  “No, I—” She looked up at the officer standing at the window. “Jim! Thank goodness!” She pulled off her shades, relief flooding through her at the sight of her dad’s friend. “You scared me. I’ve had the worst day ever, totally spaced on my speed. Nice rental, huh?” She gave him a sheepish grin, waiting for a reassuring rejoinder, but he stared back, unblinking.

  “Eighty-nine in a seventy mile zone.” Jim grimaced, deepening his hostile expression. “You’ve been speeding and driving erratically for several miles.”

  He’d been following her! Kyra stared at him, speechless, as he moved away from the vehicle and radioed in to the station. After a few minutes he sauntered back to her window, adjusted his holster, and pulled out his ticket book and pen.

  “Is this a joke, Jim? I have a flawless record.”

  “That’s a stretch.” He adjusted his felt Stetson and narrowed his eyes at her. “Has your near-fatal accident slipped your mind?” He bent down and leveled his gaze with her. “You could have killed someone on the freeway that morning.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Now it’s my fault I almost died, because some crazy trucker forced me off the road?” She tensed as the words slid through her lips.

  “Trucker?” Jim looked up from writing the ticket, his face an emotionless mask. “Anything else you’d like to amend on your statement?”

  Kyra bit her lip. “I wasn’t sure what went down, and I’m still not. This is nuts. I can’t believe you’re giving me a speeding ticket.”

  “You’re becoming a danger to yourself and everyone else. Weaving in and out of lanes, reckless driving.” Jim’s voice dropped to a level that strained her ears. “Maybe it’s a little clearer now what went down the day of your … accident. Can’t seem to keep the story straight, can you?”

  “How dare you!”

  “Are you using something, Kyra?”

  Jim’s words slammed into her like a brick. Panic looped a circuit through her brain. She gripped the gearshift, her stomach kneading. Everyone was in on it, trying to break her. She scanned the freeway, searching like a madwoman for shadows. Maybe the Soul Stalkers were watching her.

  Jim squared his shoulders. “Sure you don’t want to tell me anything? I could search your car right now on suspicion of possession.”

  “Are you accusing me of lying?”

  A strange look flashed across Jim’s face. “Does seem to be a pattern lately.”

  The mad notion of flooring it and dragging Jim onto the freeway flashed through Kyra’s mind. She shivered, unnerved at the depths her mind quickly plummeted to of late. Where did these thoughts come from?

  Jim finished scribbling in silence and handed her the ticket to sign. She snatched it from him and stabbed at it with the pen he handed her. “I can’t believe you’re pulling a stunt like this,” she snapped through clenched teeth.

  “I’ll be recalling you to the station to amend that report,” Jim added. “Hindering a police investigation is a felony, so make sure you appear.”

  “Well, lucky you. My schedule’s just opened up.” She shut the window, started up her car, and peeled onto the freeway, her insides a broiling cauldron of confusion. What on earth was that about? Even Jim had turned on her.

  Fifteen minutes later, she screeched to a halt in her driveway and climbed out, her legs close to buckling beneath her. Safely inside the house, she poured a glass of wine and sank into her couch. She adjusted a cushion behind her, closed her eyes and went rigid.

  Her mother’s card! She hurried back out to the car and wrenched open the passenger door. Her heart jolted when the envelope flipped out onto the concrete at her feet. By some miracle it hadn’t disappeared like everything else lately. She picked it up and trudged back inside, staring at her name in her mother’s handwriting spidered across the envelope. She’d had her fill of messages from the other side in the last couple of weeks. Would this be any less traumatic?

  She could still tear it up, flush away the past. After all, that’s what her mother had done with her and Bridget. Kyra reached for her glass and gulped down several mouthfuls of wine. She turned the envelope over and ripped the seam. Bracing herself, she removed a thin, white card with a single daffodil on the front. She snorted in disgust. How quaint. Whatever the rack at the liquor store had available, no doubt. She flipped open the card and a folded page, torn from a spiral notebook, fell out and fluttered into her lap. Kyra’s fingers shook as she flattened the sheet on her knees.

  Darling Kyra,

  I can hardly believe my baby girl is eighteen! I know I missed all your growing up years, but things were rough for me. My life has been messy and I’ve screwed up a lot, I guess. But I’m hoping we can start over now, woman to woman.

  I wanted to include some money for your birthday in this letter, but things are tight. And besides, I don’t trust Greg to give it to you. Maybe we can find a place together and help each other out for a bit. Greg’s had you to himself all these years. But you can do what you want now.

  I’m sure he’s told you about the affair. Greg was a workaholic, never had time for me, or his friends. Things happen when people get lonely, you know. Most everyone had it figured out by the time I was pregnant with Bridget, so of course they all thought she was Bruce’s baby. But she’s Greg’s all right.

  The thing is, I was seeing Bruce on the side, on and off for years, before Greg and I got hitched. Bruce wasn’t the marrying kind, he always told me that. So when I got pregnant with you, I married Greg to give you a stable home—

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The room spun, the words suspended in the empty space inside Kyra’s head. She blinked and stared up at the underside of the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, perplexed by the flickers of morning sun jiving on the crystals. How long had she been asleep?

  She eased herself up from the couch on the palms of her hands, pain pick-axing through her temples. Her wine glass rested on the coffee table, the dried ruby dregs in the bottom a testament to her late-night binge after she’d shredded her mother’s card. The remnants were strewn all over the floor, like an exploded snowglobe.

  Groping around for whatever was jabbing her in the side, she found the empty Cabernet bottle. Her fingers shook as she struggled to grip the smooth glass neck. She moistened her lips, balking at her rank breath. Panic battered her brain. How had this happened? She’d slept in her clothes like a seasoned drunk.

  Like my deadbeat mother.

  Kyra glared at the emerald bottle in her lap. It had to be a lie! The card was a ruse to turn her against her father. How dare her mother suggest her lowlife lover was Kyra’s biological father! Pretending she was remorse-stricken in a few throwaway lines, hoping to sucker her own child into funding her addiction.

  Kyra groaned and tried to collect her thoughts. Was it even remotely possible that Greg Williams was not her real father? Surely he wouldn’t have kept something that monumental from her. Her head spun with doubts and too much wine. He had been keeping things from her all these years, well-intentioned as that may have been. And something else had been on his mind that day at the bank. Maybe I should tell you …

  The house phone rang, and Kyra tensed. She placed the wine bottle beside her glass on the coffee table. Fighting to clear her thoughts, she reached behind her head, picked up the receiver, and reluctantly pressed it to her ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Babe, where have you been? Why aren’t you answering your cell?”

  Brian. Kyra cringed inwardly. Not now. Not on top of everything else piling up like scrap metal in her brain.

  “I know you’re ignoring my calls. Why aren’t you at work?”

  Kyra squeezed her eyes shut and tried to focus her thoughts. Already, her career debacle was a distant memory, buried under the rubble from the paternity bomb that had blown up afterward.

  “I quit.”

  “What?”

  Kyra clenched the phone tighter. “I didn’t get
the promotion. Turns out Todd was spreading lies about me behind my back.”

  “And you didn’t know?”

  Kyra swallowed hard, reeling from Brian’s stinging tone. So much for a shoulder to cry on. Willing herself to hold it together, she took a few deep, breaths. “It’s called sabotage, Brian. It’s not like I knew he was selling me down the river.”

  “Go to the board. Have him removed for unethical behavior. Sue that pack of stuffed suits.”

  “That’s exactly what I intended to do,” she said, a defensive edge creeping into her voice. “But I bumped into Todd after I walked out of the meeting and we got into it. I made it clear I wasn’t going to grovel as his assistant on my key accounts, and I stormed out.”

  “You walked away from a lucrative career because of some juvenile knee-jerk reaction?”

  Kyra flinched at the clang on the other end of the line. Did Brian just kick something?

  “Are you out of your mind, Kyra? The Stockbroker’s Conference is next week. I’ve spent months laying the groundwork to swing that deal. I personally vouched for Buffington’s track record and you were supposed to pitch the proposal. Great timing on your dogfight with Todd.”

  A muscle twitched in Kyra’s jaw. The festering sore of anger and frustration that had itched since the onset of the conversation erupted. “I’ve just lived through one long, sweltering day in hell, and you’re worried I won’t be there to shine your golden-boy boots on your way to the top,” she screamed into the phone. “Why don’t you take your little Stockbroker’s play date and jump off a cliff with it?”

  “Twenty-million-dollar annual contract. Heck of a play date, Kyra.”

  She shook so hard she could barely hold the phone. “You know what your problem is, Brian, you’re so self-absorbed in your own trumped-up ego, people are only a means to an end for you.” Her cheeks burned as she spat out the words. “You don’t even realize how shallow you are, you—” Her voice cracked and she clicked the phone off and hurled it into the corner of the couch. She sank into the soft cushions and buried her face in her hands.