by Amy Boyles
“Interesting.” Under his direction I dumped sugar into the bowl.
“She was broke. Working as an assistant to an evil woman who never gave Lori Lou credit for her work. With my help she began perfecting her love potion. Then I found a buyer. The money started rolling in, but Lori wanted a store. A shop of her own.”
“That’s where Becky Ray came in.”
“Exactly. Becky Ray could bake as well, and let’s face it, her personality is a bit rough.”
“Agreed. So she baked while Lori Lou was the face of the business.”
“Right again. They’d had another baker, but that didn’t go well.” He eyed the mixture. “You need to mix your wet ingredients separately.”
“Thanks. Why didn’t it go well?”
He paused. “It just didn’t.”
“Rabbit,” I warned. “Mattie looks hungry.”
“Okay, it didn’t go well because the same thing happened.”
My jaw dropped. “The entire town ended up spelled?”
“Yes. It was horrible. I told Lori Lou to just stick to selling her potions under the table, but she made a mistake. She had a way about that. She was a little, I don’t know how to put it, a little dense or slow in those things. She wanted to help people, she really did, but in her desire to help, things went bad. Just like now.”
“Hmm. And what about Becky Ray?”
He sniffed. “What about her?”
“She knows all this, right?”
“Of course she does. She was in on it.”
But that’s not how Becky had acted. In fact Becky had made it seem that she didn’t know anything about her sister’s doings.
“What happened in the other town? In regard to Becky.” I was pushing. Would he give?
The rabbit nudged a bottle of vanilla toward me. “She was furious. Becky Ray said that all the hard work of opening a store and building it into a business had been destroyed. She didn’t want to come here, to Magnolia Cove. She wanted to leave and set out on her own. Start her own bakery, but Lori Lou begged her. She pleaded with Becky to give her one more chance.”
“One more chance that there baker blew,” Mattie said.
I dipped my head in agreement. “Sounds like Becky Ray was pretty ticked off about the whole thing.”
“We’d almost been arrested in the last town,” Collinsworth said quietly. “Once the dust clears about Lori Lou’s death and the murderer is convicted, Becky Ray will move on. She won’t sell to the witch mafia anymore.”
“Because there’s nothing to sell.” I started the mixer and stepped back, watching the paddle churn the ingredients. “Collinsworth?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you think Becky Ray was angry at Lori Lou enough that she murdered her?”
The rabbit hopped three feet in the air. “Of course not. Becky Ray would never have killed her sister.”
I hitched a shoulder. “I don’t know. She doesn’t seem too upset by her death.”
“Everyone grieves differently.”
“She also didn’t seem surprised her sister was murdered.”
“The people we do business with are dangerous. Becky Ray always told Lori Lou that one day she would get herself killed by working with those folks.”
“Yet she continued to work with her sister, too.”
“They loved one another.”
I clicked my tongue. Something wasn’t right. No shocker there. Nothing had been right about this whole deal to begin with.
“Where did Lori Lou live?” I fished lip gloss from my purse.
“With Becky Ray.”
I stopped. Confused. My gaze slowly ticked to Collinsworth. “You said you couldn’t return to your house. Didn’t you say that? You had to stay with me. Why can’t you return to the house where Becky is?”
Collinsworth worried his little paws. He was rubbing them so hard I thought he might rub the fur slap off.
“Collinsworth,” I warned. “Tell me. What is it about Becky that you’re so afraid of.”
“Okay,” he blurted out. “You’re right. I think Becky Ray killed Lori Lou. But I couldn’t say anything.”
“Why not, tasty treat?” Mattie said.
“Because.” He deflated onto the counter. The rabbit placed his head in his paws. It was such a human gesture my chest tightened. “Because Becky swore she would kill me if I said anything.”
THIRTEEN
“Why would Becky Ray kill you?”
I waited for what seemed forever before the rabbit spoke. “She swore that if I—”
A rap came from the front of the building. My gaze shot to Collinsworth and Mattie.
“Y’all expecting anyone?”
Both animals shook their heads.
“Who is it?”
The rabbit sighed. “Probably one of Lori Lou’s affected, returning for more pie.”
My eyelids flared wide. “You’re kidding.”
Collinsworth shook his head. “No, of course not. I never joke. I’m too much of a gentleman to do so.”
Right.
“What do we do?”
“Ignore it and focus on getting the cookies ready. It’s all we can do.”
I pointed at him. “We’re not finished with this conversation.”
“I didn’t expect we were.”
I stared blankly at the mixer. “What happens next?”
“Go to the big cabinet by the door and bring back the purple jar. It’s stoppered with cork. You can’t miss it.”
I did as he asked and slid it over the counter to him.
“Careful!” he snapped. “Without this, we won’t be able to break the spell.”
“Okay, sure. A little pixie dust in there?”
Collinsworth unstoppered the bottle. A white curl hissed from the neck of the glass. The rabbit inhaled deeply and sighed. “It’s better than pixie dust. It’s the best stuff on earth.”
“What is it?”
His whiskers twitched. “It’s a cure-all.”
Mattie gasped.
“What?” I said.
Mattie padded over to us. “A cure-all is basically myth. It don’t exist. You can’t cure every possible problem with one solution.”
Collinsworth smiled. “You can’t cure all of them, but most of them.”
My jaw dropped. “Like cancer?”
He shook his head. “It must be magically related. That’s the only way the power works. If it’s natural, it won’t work. At least that’s what I’ve been told.”
I stared at the simple bottle. “But you don’t know for fact.”
“Do the folks y’all sell the love potions to know about this?” Mattie asked.
“No, of course not. They’d kill us for a potion of such strength. This isn’t supposed to exist, remember?”
I took the bottle gently and tipped it to my nose. Notes of rose and cardamon, cinnamon and wood trickled up my nostrils. “Then how does it exist?”
“I told you, Lori Lou and I together, we were magic. This is from our friendship. We worked together and created it. There’s not much, but there will still be a touch left over when we’re done. Now”—his gaze settled on me—“pour one teaspoon in the mixture. Let the paddle make ten rotations and turn the machine off.”
My hand shook as I held the teaspoon beneath the bottle. I exhaled a plume of air. Had to calm my nerves. I closed my eyes, counted to ten, opened them and poured.
The transition to the mixer went perfectly. I counted exactly ten rotations and shut it off.
“What’s next?”
“Spoon out cookies.”
Mattie scampered into the kitchen.
“Where’d you get to?” I said.
“I wanted to peek at whoever’s outside. It’s Mayor Battle. Y’all need to hurry.”
“Why?” I said, dipping a scoop in the dough.
“Because it looks like an army’s stalking down Bubbling Cauldron right behind him.”
My voice reached a pitch that could’ve broken glas
s. “What? What do you mean an army’s coming?”
“The whole town is on their way here,” Mattie said.
Maybe Mattie was wrong. I ran to the front room and heeled to a screeching halt. Faces covered the windows. Faces of people I knew—friends, neighbors, countrymen.
Yeah, yeah, I’m being dramatic, I know, but that’s about the truth of it.
Folks pressed themselves against the glass like they wanted to eat their way through. As soon as I was spotted—and let’s face it, that wasn’t hard since the storefront was completely open—fists started pounding.
They wanted in. They wanted pie. Lots of pie.
Their eyes were bloodshot wide, their skin pale, their flesh sweaty. There was a look about them—hungry, starved. As if it wasn’t obvious enough, a few folks clawed at the windows.
“Is this an episode of The Walking Dead?” It felt like it. I was just waiting for Rick to show up and start hacking his way through the crowd.
I stopped the thought as soon as it started. It wasn’t polite to think of folks I cared about as zombies.
I rushed to the kitchen. “We need to get those cookies baking now. Before someone breaks through.”
Collinsworth jumped to action. I’d never seen the rabbit move so fast. He helped me scoop dough onto sheets. I threw it into the warm oven. We scooped and plopped twenty more dough mounds onto another smooth pan. The kitchen had two ovens. We slid the next batch in. By the time it was cooking good, the first batch was done.
“Mattie, grab a towel and fan them cool.”
Mattie, bless her heart, did exactly as I asked. Without complaint, the cat nabbed a towel and did her best to fan the cookies.
“Y’all realize I don’t have thumbs.”
“You’re doing an amazing job. I’ll get you fish-flavored treats when this is all over.”
She shivered with pleasure. “Oh, I haven’t had any of those in ages.” Mattie worked double time to cool the cookies.
That’s how we did it. Scoop, bake, cool. After about forty minutes, I slumped onto a stool. Mattie and Collinsworth deflated too. We were exhausted. The sun was barely streaking the sky.
I smiled at the pile of cookies on the tray. “You think that’s enough?”
“It’s all we have,” Collinsworth said. “I counted three hundred. Should be enough to help those affected.”
I glanced toward the front. “No one’s broken the glass yet.”
“It’s only a matter of time. We need to get these into their mouths before it happens,” he said.
A knock sounded from the back door. Great. They’d gotten tired of trying to break in the front and had decided the rear would be a better entrance.
“Open up, it’s Garrick Young.”
A wave of relief washed over me. “Thank goodness.”
I snapped the lock off and heaved open the door. Garrick towered over me, his face a deep dark scowl that reminded me more of a black hole than actual flesh.
“Why is there a mob out front?”
I clicked my tongue. Oh, this was going to be so good. I’d tried to tell him, but Garrick hadn’t listened.
“There’s a mob because the pies Lori Lou sold were all filled with giving potions. She didn’t have the spell worked out right, and now we’ve got a bunch of addicts on our hands. Addicts in withdrawal.”
His face paled. His eyes widened. Garrick swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got cookies that will help. But I need you, Sheriff Young, to stop them from mowing me down when I open the front door.”
He raked his fingers down his face. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
“Rabbit, I’m going to need your help, too.”
Garrick stepped into the front room, took one look at the faces smashed against the windows and paused. “I’m going through the back.”
“What?”
“They’ll trample each other if we open this door. Too much of a bottleneck for it to work. I’ll pull them from the door and then you can go outside with your basket of goodies.”
Sounded like a better plan than mine. “Okay.”
Garrick left. After about a minute I heard him yelling at people, but it didn’t appear that anyone was listening. Their faces were still eyeing me like I was a T-bone steak and they were stranded on a deserted island.
“Come on, Garrick,” I said.
Finally folks peeled from the glass. It was slow and painful, like a little kid afraid of ripping off a bandage.
“About time.”
Finally, when there was enough room for me to open the door and stand without being suffocated, I quietly turned the lock and glanced over my shoulder. Only Mattie stood in the room with me.
“Collinsworth, you little chicken, get your butt over here.”
The rabbit hopped out from behind a chair. “But I’m so small and delicate. I can’t be manhandled. My fur. It’s so white and beautiful.”
My gaze tipped to the ceiling. I shook my head and sighed. “Get. Over. Here.”
His whiskers twitched as he hopped. “Promise no one will harm me?”
“I’ll harm you if you don’t grab your little basket and help. Not come on.”
I pushed the door slowly, slightly afraid that if I moved too quickly, the Thanksgiving apocalypse would descend on me. I stepped around the crowd, knowing that my biggest ally in this was Garrick. If I was next to him, nothing would hurt me.
Except Axel twisting my heart with his absence.
Okay, I really needed to focus on the now.
I sneaked around the crowd and padded to Garrick, who had his arms out and his mouth drawn to a grim line.
He pointed to the basket. “Everyone just take one. You get one cookie. That’s all. Move slow.”
I held out the basket as folks greedily took a cookie. Most of them shoved the discs in their mouths immediately. A few nibbled the edges slowly, savoring it.
My eyes nearly bugged from my head when I saw Betty among the knot of folks. My heart jumped in my chest. She needed a cookie in a bad way.
I waved and called, “Betty!” I looked like I was bringing in a plane for landing. “Betty!”
She shuffled toward me. I still had a few left when another voice rang out in the morning.
“Everyone stop eating!”
Garrick scowled. We turned in unison to the sound. Not far off stood a small woman wearing a bright red suit. She had a short blonde bob, thick legs and her hands on her hips.
She raised a sheet of paper. “Give me all your cookies! I’ve got a warrant for them.”
Anger gushed in my chest. No way was this little woman wearing a garish suit going to ruin the one shot I had at keeping this town safe. “Who are you?”
“I’m Farinas Harrell.”
“Carmen’s attorney,” Garrick said.
She clomped over on cherry-colored heels. She waved the paper in my face like it was the flag and I should’ve been saluting it. The only thing I wanted to salute was her with my middle finger.
Yes, y’all, I was pretty upset about the whole situation.
“I’ve got a warrant for these cookies. Hand ’em over.” Farinas snatched discs from addicts’ hands and stuffed them in her purse.
“Wait a minute.” I yanked them right out. “You can’t do this. These people need them.”
She shoved a finger under my nose. “I can do this. I have a warrant. Every last one of these is mine. They’re now evidence in the case the police have against my client.”
I stood dumbstruck. “Why?” She grabbed the cookie I held limply. “Why are you taking them? These people…” I didn’t want to come right out and say they were addicts, that they needed these cookies. It sounded so stupid.
“These people are sick. There’s medicine in them,” was all I managed.
Farinas continued plucking and stashing. “That’s what I aim to prove. That Lori Lou was killed for reasons other than jealousy. These are evidence.”
I shot Garrick
a pleading look. “You have to help me.”
He lowered his badge. “I can’t. She has a warrant.” He said it so limply, like he was resigned to the same fate as I was.
“But Garrick.”
He squeezed my shoulder. “There’s nothing I can do.”
“You can help me round them up,” she snapped.
I wanted to punch her. I raked my fingers down my face. “Look, you’re helping my cousin. I’m trying to help these people.”
“Warrant,” was all she said. “Look, if you’re going to stop me, I’ll have you arrested. I’ve got the law on my side, honey. The law and my handbag.”
“Which you’re stuffing full of cookies.”
She snatched one from Mayor Battle before he could take a bite. “Evidence.”
I ran back to Garrick. “Cordelia ate the pie.” It was the only ace I had left.
His gaze darkened. He shuffled his weight and hung his head in shame. “I can’t do anything.”
There was only one choice. I rushed over to Collinsworth and pulled him to the side. “Do you think there’s enough potion left to make one more batch?”
The rabbit worried his paws. “Possibly. If you stretch it.”
I nibbled my bottom lip. If Farinas was here to inspect the entire store, I needed to get that bottle and get the heck out before she saw me.
“Cover for me,” I said to Mattie.
“Sugar, ain’t nothin’ I would love more.”
Mattie scampered up to Farinas and jumped in her purse. The attorney teetered on her heels.
“What in the…? Get out of my bag, you stupid cat!”
It was official. I did not like Farinas. Anyone who dared to call Mattie stupid was at the bottom of my I-like-you list.
Farinas stumbled back, managing to turn completely away from me. I sprinted into the building, heading straight to the kitchen. I flung open the cabinet door and searched for the bottle.
Collinsworth had placed it on the center shelf, right in front. I’d seen him do it. There had been lots of other bottles in there too. But now the entire cabinet was empty.