“Owen had an STD. He was such a whore. So, you want to know what I think? I think Melinda got her nasty present from your husband, not hers!”
Emily slurped her iced coffee. “They did have an open marriage. I probably should be pissed, but honestly, if she got a disease from him, then she has sort of already paid. But wait, you don’t think Melinda killed him, do you? To get back at him for infecting her with yuckiness?”
Ingrid shrugged. “Who knows? But every little bit of info we learn emphasizes that he was, in fact, a dickhead and that everyone wanted to kill this guy. I’m pretty sure a homeless person who just saw him walking down the street was like, man, if only I could run that guy down with my grocery cart. That person’s a dickhead.”
Emily smiled. “Hey. You have any more truth serum left? I sort of wonder if he was screwing the gallery guy’s daughter. I think he was. But I think we should ask her.”
Ingrid picked up the tray. “Well, her dad is pretty sure she was. But that guy’s brain is clearly in the gutter. We have one bottle left. Enough for two more espresso shots laced with serum. Let’s go see if she’s around.”
“Speaking of gallery guy, Melinda stopped texting me finally. Like she finally got the message that I wasn’t interested in bonding with her.”
Emily followed Ingrid down the stairs and to the gallery storefront.
“Good,” Ingrid answered. “Now if we could just get gallery guy to leave us alone.” They walked into the gallery that was all white walls and big windows with paintings and original photography covering the walls. The gallery guy’s daughter, Mary, was working behind the counter. Perfect.
“Hey, Mary.” Emily called out. “Ingrid made some of her famous espresso. We have a couple left. Want one?”
“Sure. I can barely keep my eyes open. This job is the worst.”
Ingrid handed her the tiny cup, and Mary swallowed the shot in one gulp.
Emily watched as the girl’s pupils began to dilate. The serum was already working. It was pretty awesome stuff. Emily might get addicted to using it on people. Maybe.
Probably.
She couldn’t wait to randomly afflict strangers with it. She’d just dose them in the bookstore. They needed to get it running.
And learn how to make truth serum.
Was considering making her own batches in the near future a way to keep the coma at bay?
“So, were you sleeping with my husband, Mary?”
“Um,” the girl’s eyes darted to the side and then welled with tears, “Yes.”
Her lip was actually quivering, Emily thought. Was this for real?
Ingrid cleared her throat, eyeing those shiny eyes before she, “Did you catch an STD from him?”
The girl shook her head frantically. “No, it wasn’t like that. He wasn’t like that. He…you’ll think I’m stupid, but he loved me.”
“Oh,” Ingrid said, glancing at Emily and telling her with a look that Emily was going to have to take over.
“I think…” Emily said. “It’s just that…”
The tears fell down Mary’s cheeks.
“It’s just that Owen had an STD. He gave it to someone else.”
“Who?” Mary demanded. But she didn’t wait for an answer. “No, he didn’t. He wouldn’t have. He loved me.”
“He did,” Emily said gently, not believing that she was being so nice. But the girl was crying. And she was a girl. Owen was such a dickhead. “I’m not…”
“No!”
“Yes,” Ingrid said with less softness. “He did.”
“You just don’t know him. You didn’t understand him. He said you put him in a box of expectation and he couldn’t meet them and work, too, and…It’s your fault that he left you!”
“Is she joking?” Ingrid asked Emily.
“We truth-serumed her,” Emily reminded Ingrid. “This isn’t an act.”
“Sigh,” Ingrid said. “Listen, little dove.”
The girl shook her head, tears still rolling freely.
“Mary,” Emily snapped. “He had a disease. He probably gave it to you. Don’t be blind.Go get tested. And please,” she took a deep breath and said softly, “Owen was charming and handsome and smart and exciting.”
The girl looked up.
“He could take your breath away and make you dream the most wonderful things.”
Mary nodded, lips quivering but her gaze was fixed on Emily.
“He did that to me. And he got me to forgive him so many times.”
Ingrid shifted and then wrapped an arm around Emily as she said, “Please believe me and take care of yourself. You’re young and this is going to be okay.”
The girl hiccuped and blew her nose.
Emily’s gentle lecture ended with, “You can do better for yourself.”
Ingrid nodded to emphasize what Emily said, and then asked, “So did you kill him the other night?”
The girl gasped, but she answered under the influence of the serum, Emily’s gentleness and the hug that Emily was giving Mary.
“No.”
Ingrid took a page off of Emily’s gentleness, and her voice was nice as she said, “What do you know about herbs? Do you know how to kill people with some?”
Frantic head-shaking was the reply before Mary sniffed again and then asked, “Is this about witch stuff? I’m not a witch. I think I might become one since my mom was and Dad hates it. My dad got us a new place on the other side of the island. I don’t want to live there but Dad…”
“Hang on,” Emily said, “And then…”
“Go to college,” Ingrid and Emily said together.
Emily kept going. “Life will get a thousand times better there.”
“But go to class,” Ingrid said, “or don’t. But tell your dad we told you to go, because he might stab us in our sleep if we say otherwise. Oh, hey. Speaking of your dad, do you think he might have killed Owen?”
Mary shook her head. “My dad isn’t like he seems. I know that he…well…he’s good to me. He’s not even my real dad. But, my mom left and he still takes care of me and fights my grandparents for me since I don’t want to live with them.”
Emily ordered, still gentle-toned but with no give when she commanded, “Go see Carol at the clinic. Tell her that you think you slept with someone that has chlamydia. She’ll hook you up with an antibiotic.”
Mary blushed violently but she was crying as she nodded. “Okay.”
Emily disentangled them, and when they left Ingrid shook her head as it to clear it from the weight of that girl’s innocence having been so thoroughly ruined by dickhead.
‘I’d like to murder him again,” Emily said.
“Me too,” Ingrid sighed. “That girl puts us to the rebellious shame,” Emily said. “Her daddy issues and dickhead’s ridiculous charm sucked her down a bad path.”
“She’s sad. But she’s living a big life already,” Ingrid said. “We just didn’t do our homework and skipped classes and lame stuff. We were lame. We didn’t even kill dickhead. I want to have killed dickhead.”
“We didn’t get chlamydia,” Emily countered. “And you married an old guy.”
“An old guy who loved his first love still and was super controlling but sweet at odd moments to keep me guessing.”
“Damn it,” Emily said. “Stop, you’re depressing me.”
“I know. I dumped it all on Gabe, too. Under the influence of that damn serum. Best nap of my life afterwards though. Let’s get some wine and chocolate or set something on fire. I need to feel better.”
They walked back into Ingrid’s apartment. Ingrid’s groceries were still good, so they melted chocolate into milk and savored a cup.
As they did, Ingrid said, “I kissed Gabe. Just a baby kiss.,” she lied knowing it had been far more than that. “But…”
Emily knew that Ingrid hadn’t kissed one single person since Harrison. She gave the confession the moment it deserved before she asked, “Are you okay?”
“I might have cri
ed after my nap.”
“And now?”
“I like Gabe. A lot. I dug for the goods when I had us dosed, and Em…he seems to like the stuff about me that Harrison didn’t.”
Emily didn’t say what she thought of all Harrison’s controlling ways. Their friendship had been challenged a lot during the time that Ingrid had let her love for Harrison override everything else.
“I like Gabe, too,” Emily finally answered. “He’s a good guy. He has been since I first met him when we were kids.”
“Do you think he’s another Owen?”
Emily shook her head in an instant.
“And another Harrison?”
That was a weighty question. Weighty with the past and all the hard things and the evenings that Emily had held Ingrid as she cried for a husband that Emily had despised.
“No,” Emily said honestly.
Ingrid shoved a bit of chocolate into her mouth. An oversized, mouth-gagging bite.
And Emily changed the subject as much out of mercy for herself as for Ingrid.
“Let’s go talk to gallery guy. If he knew his daughter was sleeping with Owen, he might very well have killed him.”
Ingrid’s hands fluttered for a moment against her face before she turned back to the subject. “If it wasn’t gallery guy, who did, by the way, beat on his ex, then my money is on someone else that dickhead infected with his filthy penis.”
“Wait, what?”
“Yep, Gabe told me. He told me to stay away from gallery guy because he was dangerous and he beat on his ex for, get this, being a witch.”
“And she left her kid when she left the jerk?”
“Yup.” Ingrid’s furious voice matched the furious face of Emily.
“Okay, I might feel a little worse about poor Mary having done Owen. She’s already had a bullcrap road.”
“I know! And then she added Owen to it. Poor kid.”
Emily grabbed Ingrid’s keys and stomped out of Ingrid’s apartment. She tossed them to Ingrid. “I don’t feel like driving. My almost ex-husband was a super whore. I need time to process. You drive.”
“Whiner,” Ingrid said, taking the keys. “I assume we’re going to steal the serum. And by the evil look on your face I assume that we’re stealing it from Autumn.”
“She’s going to hex us anyway. She’ll be gone tomorrow morning. I saw it on the coven calendar. She’s running some charity event or whatever. ”
“Might as well get good value for whatever she does to us.”
Ingrid led the way to the sheriff department and her shiny new car. She liked to drive when she was thinking about other things. The answers to how she felt popped up on her as she felt the wind on her face and the music blaring.
Thank goodness for Emily and her knowing of Ingrid’s ways.
“Where are we going again?”
“To the coven shindig tonight.”
“But I’m tired,” Ingrid said. “You mentioned steak when you woke me up. I thought we were getting steak? And potatoes. I want butter dripping from my fork.”
“Right,” Em agreed. “Steak, potatoes, chocolate cake, and then whatever this moon thing is. Hazel said we had to go or she wouldn’t fix Autumn’s hex. We could end with hair on our boobs forever.”
“But steak first?”
“I’m not entirely without priorities,” Emily said as she latched her belt. “I made reservations and everything.”
•
Tuesday Night
Ingrid and Emily pulled up to the deserted park and climbed out of the oversized SUV. The light from the full moon filtered through the enormous evergreen trees, making the walk from the parking lot to the meadow where the ceremony would occur a little spooky.
“Did you have to wear flowers in your hair, Emily? You look like a hippie, not a witch. Where is the black hat? Why don’t you have a caldron and a wart?”
“These are for you,” Emily said, throwing some loose lilies at Ingrid. “It’s a moonlight celebration. Hippie seemed the way to go. I feel like we should be creeped out by these woods, Ingrid.”
“We are witches. The moonlight should be our friend. And the dark. Oh, and cats and broomsticks. And apparently hippies.” Ingrid eyed the flowers she’d caught with disdain.
Emily laughed. “Right. Maybe that’s the next spell I will learn. How to fly.”
Ingrid snorted as they walked into the meadow. “You might want to start with something small. Like making your pillow smell like chocolate-chip marshmallows. Also I think I have a food baby and may puke into the bushes.”
They both stopped suddenly when they saw the other witches gathered in a circle. “Are we late?” Ingrid whispered.
“Dude, I don’t think late is our biggest problem. These chicks are butt-freaking-naked. What the hell?”
“I’m guessing that aura spell we tried really did mean more than our feet naked considering all the boob I’m seeing. I’ve never seen more boob in my life. I’m on boob-overload. Holy boobs flopping, Batman!”
“Stop saying boobs,” Emily hissed.
The two of them, junior witches that they were, stood at the edge of the meadow, the dark forest behind them and the nude coven swaying in a circle formation before them.
“Um…” Ingrid said. “Yeah, I’m outta here. I can’t do it.”
Too late, though.
Hazel spotted them and left the circle to greet them.
“Oh my sainted aunt’s boobs,” Ingrid whispered into Emily’s ear.
Emily barely bit back her laugh, trying desperately to not see anything, anywhere.
“Just in time, girls. Thank you for coming.”
“Emily said we were threatened into coming,” Ingrid said.
Emily glanced over and found her friend staring at the sky.
Emily tried to avert her eyes, but Hazel’s sagging old woman breasts were too bright in the full moonlight to not see. They were eye magnets.
“Please say this isn’t happening,” Ingrid whispered to Emily.
“Boob hair,” Emily whispered back.
“Don’t say boobs,” Ingrid whispered.
“Follow me,” Hazel said, ignoring them both.
“I’m pretty sure I’m gonna be scarred for life,” Ingrid choked out. “The chick who’d just had a baby was leaking milk. Oh my gosh.”
But Emily couldn’t look at whatever Ingrid was staring at, because she was staring at Autumn’s perfect boobs. When Emily didn’t reply, Ingrid followed her friend’s gaze.
“Oh, she totally has boob magic down,” Emily whispered to Ingrid.
“Oh, hell yeah,” Ingrid whispered back.
“Sisters, welcome. Emily and Ingrid are working on increasing their personal powers. Though they have been members of the coven for a long while now, they are just now becoming active. We are happy to have them, and I expect each of you will make them feel welcome.”
“Hi,” Emily squeaked, intimidated by seventeen sets of naked breasts. Holding back the hysterical laughter was harder than she’d imagined.
Ingrid gulped and gave a semi-friendly wave, but her eyes were back on the sky.
Emily whispered in Hazel’s ear.
“Auntie, do we have to, you know, strip down?”
Hazel’s lips formed a thin line. “You want help with the hex or not,” she asked, looking directly at Autumn across the circle.
Ingrid let out an exasperated sigh, eyeing her current arch-enemy and whispered to Emily. “I feel I deserve a better nemesis than that cow-dove. You know what. Even without magic, ours are perkier and cuter. We may as well show them off.”
“Everyone please join hands.”
Instead, they waited while Emily and Ingrid slowly stripped. Ingrid’s mutters were as foul-mouthed as a frat boy’s. Once their clothes lay on a log nearby, they joined in the circle, gripping each other’s hands as they joined hands with the others in the circle.
Emily spoke under her breath. “The truth serum was your idea, Ingrid. I’m never lettin
g you forget this.”
Ingrid used her magic to flick the back of Emily’s head. “See, you need to practice your magic so you can do stuff like that. Also, you’re the one with the budding ‘I need to serum the world’ problem.”
“I’m slipping it randomly into your coffee as soon as I get the spell down.”
“Cow,” Ingrid hissed.
“Wench,” Emily hissed back.
Hazel started to speak. “Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Feel the power of nature around you.”
“Finally. An excuse to close my eyes,” Emily rejoiced.
“I know, right? Red-head’s boobs are entirely too bouncy to be without a bra. I feel like I’m watching those glass-ball-thingy-magigs. You know?”
“Totally,” Emily said.
Ingrid laughed and glanced at Emily. They didn’t need to talk about what they absolutely were not looking at. Or think about anyone else checking out their own. They were not going to look further south. Boobs were bad enough. Neither wanted to see one other body parts. So eyes were strictly up. The bouncing lady flesh might be drawing their eyes, helplessly.
Or they were choosing to see that. And not one other thing.
Not one.
Damn it.
Emily’s laugh, echoed by Ingrid’s, earned them both a stern look from Hazel.
“Eyes closed, that means all of you. Also, Ingrid and Emily, you are not children.”
That made Ingrid laugh harder.
Hazel pretended not to notice.
“Very good. Now with each deep inhalation I want you to imagine that you are inhaling all the power of nature. Breathe in seven times and then take three steps to your left.”
Emily started counting out loud, which earned a harsh “shush” from someone in the group. Once she’d hit her seven breaths she took a step to her right and ran right into the person who was simultaneously stepping left.
“Wrong way, Em.” Ingrid’s laugh suddenly annoyed Emily. There was something.
Something.
“I know my right from my left, Ingrid,” she said harshly. “I just forgot which way we were supposed to step. I can’t count and walk at the same time.”
“Cow-dove,” Ingrid said, without heat, as Emily stumbled three steps to the left, cracking her eyes open to make sure she was traveling in the right direction and then abruptly closing them again after getting an eyeful of someone’s nipples across the way.
Inconvenient Murder: An Inept Witches Mystery Page 12