A Potion to Die For: A Magic Potion Mystery Read Free Page A

knew there was one coming.
    “I felt I had to warn you. Because even though I don’t like you, I don’t particularly want to see anything bad happen to you, us being family and all.”
    Now I was really worried. “Warn me about what?”
    Caution filled Delia’s ice-blue eyes. “You’re in danger.”
    Danger of losing my sanity, maybe. This whole day had been more than a little surreal, and it wasn’t even nine a.m. I laughed. “You know this from a dream?”
    “It’s not funny, Carly. At all. I . . . see things in dreams. Things that come true. You’re in very real danger.”
    She said it so calmly, so easily, that I immediately believed her. I’d learned from a very early age not to dismiss things that weren’t easily understood or explainable. Maybe Delia’s dreams were akin to my witchy senses—which should always be taken seriously.
    “What kind of danger?” I asked. I’d finally caught my breath and needed a glass of water. I hauled myself off the floor and headed for the small break room in the back of the shop. I wasn’t the least bit surprised when Delia followed.
    “I don’t know,” she admitted.
    I flipped on a light. And froze. Delia bumped into my back.
    We stood staring at the sight before us.
    Delia said breathlessly, “It might have something to do with him.”
    Him being the dead man lying facedown on the floor, blood dried under his head, his stiff hands clutching a potion bottle.

Chapter Two
    T here hadn’t been a murder in Hitching Post in nearly five years, not since Mrs. Wallerman “accidentally” ran over Mr. Wallerman after finding out he’d taken up with a young clerk from the local market. When the jury took a look at the multipierced, bodacious young mistress and heard the story of the salacious affair, they found Mrs. Wallerman innocent on all counts. The people of Hitching Post had their own sense of justice and weren’t afraid to exercise it.
    Perhaps that’s why there is a dead man in my shop,
I reasoned.
    I was clearly grasping at straws.
    “Maybe it’s not murder,” I whispered to Delia as we sat on stools behind the counter in the front of the shop as sheriff’s deputies cordoned off the back room. I gripped my locket firmly to help ward off other people’s energy. My stress level had already shot through the roof. “Maybe he had a heart attack or something.”
    He being Nelson Winston, a local lawyer. How he’d wound up dead in my shop was beyond me. As far as I knew, he’d never even been a customer.
    “Right,” Delia said, rubbing her dog’s ears. She’d been unusually quiet since we’d found the body, and there was a dazed look in her eyes. “Because heart attacks cause people to bleed profusely from their heads.”
    I didn’t appreciate my cousin’s sarcasm, though I was actually grateful for her company. I bit my fingernail and focused on the crowd gathered outside, which had tripled in size, thanks to the sirens. Half the crowd was waiting for their potions; the other half consisted of curiosity seekers. Word hadn’t leaked yet that there was a dead body inside the shop. However, it was only a matter of time before the county coroner’s van arrived and the whole town, locals and tourists alike, camped on my doorstep.
    “This is a nightmare,” I mumbled, sinking my head into my hands.
    Delia dragged her fingertips across the wooden tabletop. “What’s in the potions that make them so deadly, anyway?”
    “Good try.” I wasn’t taking that bait.
    Currently, the secret ingredient, the Leilara tears, was known only to my father and me. Eventually the knowledge would be passed down to my oldest child. If I had kids. I could practically hear my biological clock ticking—and forced it to be quiet. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about how if I
didn’t
have kids, the Leilara secret would have to be shared with Delia.
    She narrowed her eyes. The dazed look was still there. “At least I’ve never killed someone with my