It wasn’t that I never wanted to get married. I wasn’t afraid of commitment. Once before I’d been engaged, but I hadn’t been the one who’d backed out at the last minute. Declan was right—he wasn’t anything like Andrew. I knew I could trust him. That wasn’t the problem.
The problem was that I loved my life so much. It was a nice problem to have. I loved my job, even if it meant long, sometimes crazy hours. I loved practicing hedgewitchery with Lucy at the Honeybee. I loved my friends, and the city, and the somewhat new knowledge of just who the heck I was. More important, the knowledge that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. It felt like a gift I’d been given less than two years ago, and I honestly wanted to revel in it for a while longer.
I looked around the room, now lit only by the fringed floor lamp next to the couch. Declan had helped me pick up both of them from an ad on Craigslist. Brought them over in his pickup. Gave me the patio set and the little hibachi that was still my only grill. He’d helped me cut the garden beds out of the expanse of back lawn, rototilled, and helped me plant.
All that only made me love the tidy carriage house more. But if I married Declan, I’d have to give it up. The thought brought tears to my eyes all over again. I reached for the wine bottle, then stopped.
Wine with dinner. Baileys with coffee, even if I only finished half of it. Wine again.
Not a good idea.
With a sigh, I wiped my eyes, gave Mungo a kiss on the forehead, and stood. I changed into yoga pants and a tank top and got to work storing leftovers, loading the dishwasher, moving the furniture back into place, and gathering the candles. The last I took up to the loft. After consolidating two bookshelves into one, I piled the candles into the empty space. The whole time I worked, my mind had gnawed on Declan’s marriage proposal. Now I was feeling jittery and not a little afraid. What if I’d ruined everything? Was I going to lose the man I loved?
My altar stood nearby. It was housed inside a secretary’s desk that Lucy had given me, closed against casual attention but easily accessible. Lowering the cover, I sat down and took a deep breath.
My nonna had knitted the lace shawl that served as my altar cloth. She’d been a witch, too, and since I’d learned of my heritage, her spirit had even stepped in a few times to help me from the other side of the veil. The items placed upon the cloth were variations on magical tools and reflections of the four elements. My chalice was a small swirly glass bowl I’d found at the flea market. A worn, antique kitchen knife was my idea of a ritual athame. There was a collection of smooth stones that I’d gathered over the years, and an Indian arrowhead my dad had given me. A small amethyst geode nestled beside a brilliant blue jay’s feather that had drifted into the gazebo.
Of course. I need to calm myself. Luckily, I had a way to do that.
I retrieved two of the white candles from the bookshelf and put them at the front of the altar. Between them I placed a small ceramic disc designed to diffuse scents, and placed a drop each of lavender and ylang-ylang oils from my small stock. Closing my eyes, I sat and breathed.
I am peaceful.
I am calm.
I am protected from all harm.
All will be well.
I picked up the amethyst and traced its contours with my fingers, allowing myself to absorb its inherent tranquility while I continued the calming incantation under my breath.
Soon a peace settled over me, and I came to know in my core that indeed, all would be well.
I don’t know what it will look like, but things will work out.
Licking my finger and thumb, I carefully pinched out each candle, thanked the Goddess, and closed the altar.
As I came down the stairs from the loft, I heard the text tone on my phone in the bedroom. When I dug it out of my tote, I found a message from Declan.
Just realized I left you with a big mess. What a heel. I’m sorry. Hope that doesn’t affect your decision. The text ended with a smiley face.
I texted back. No worries. It gave me something to do while I think. Going to sleep now. Love you.
A few seconds later he replied. Love you, too.
But of course, I wouldn’t be able to sleep for hours yet. Maybe a book would . . . my eyes fell on the list of suspects I’d made the night before, sitting where I’d left it on the bedside table. I grabbed it and went into the kitchen. There I cut myself another piece of chocolate torte and sat down at the table with my laptop.
First, I searched for Earl King. There were three listed in Savannah. Pulling up images on the search engine solved that problem. The one I was looking for owned a bar that was only a few blocks away from the Honeybee. I’d been in King’s Castle once or twice but didn’t remember seeing the portly gentleman from Saturday night.
Maybe another visit was in order.
Next, I looked up Nate Dobbs. The first page of results showed him linked to his wife or referred to by his wife, or led to excerpts from the book his wife had written. Next were links to his presence on social media, but he hadn’t posted any updates for at least six months. Not his cup of tea, I guessed. The only other link I found was an agenda from a conference in Atlanta. It was centered on food processing, and, at least last year, Nate Dobbs had worked for an agricultural fumigation company. It sounded pretty boring, and I had to wonder if he still worked there after his wife had achieved national stardom.
I shut the laptop, considering. Of all the suspects on my list, I knew the least about Nate Dobbs. Somehow, I didn’t think he’d appreciate me showing up on his doorstep with a pile of personal questions. Detective Quinn could probably fill me in on a few details, but it was unlikely he would unless I could give him a good reason to. I needed someone else who knew details about Nate Dobbs.
Like someone who had been following his wife.
Angie.
I looked at my watch. Too late to call anyone with a normal sleep schedule. But I could at least text Bianca and ask if she would go with me to talk with Angie, even if she wouldn’t get back to me until morning.
Not only would I welcome Bianca’s moral support, but I figured she and Angie might be able to connect because they’d had similar experiences with their husbands. Bianca had discovered an affinity for Wiccan beliefs and began studying on her own long before she’d joined the spellbook club. The more she’d learned, the more excited she’d become, until finally she’d shared that excitement with her husband.
He’d blown a gasket and left Bianca and their daughter, Colette. From what she’d said, he hadn’t wanted to listen to any explanations, either. All else aside, she’d realized that she was better off without a man who would leave his family over something like that. However, Bianca had started practicing the Craft after she’d gotten married. According to Angie, she’d stopped practicing before her marriage.
At least Declan really knew who and what I was. I didn’t have to keep secrets from him, and I was pretty sure he felt the same way.
To my surprise, Bianca texted back a little after midnight that she would be happy to go with me. Then I realized she might have been out on a date. Huh. Declan and I preferred to stay home most of the time, rather than hitting the town.
Just like an old married couple.
* * *
The Tuesday and Wednesday before Thanksgiving were considered “high pie” days at the Honeybee Bakery. We’d been taking orders for holiday pies for weeks, but of course we wanted them to be as fresh as possible. We already had racks of extra fruit and pecan pies in the big freezer for those who wanted to bake them up on Thanksgiving Day, and today we’d prep for the slew of pies we’d bake the next day for afternoon pickup.
A part of me was grateful to be so unusually busy. Images of Declan’s face the night before—when he’d asked me to marry him, and then when he’d realized I wasn’t going to say yes to his proposal right away—had haunted my dreams and continued to rise in my mind as I worked. However, baking soothed me, distracted me, and allowed me to sink into a deep sense of self-assurance that I rarely felt, at least to such a degree, in most other parts of my life. Since I couldn’t help second-guessing every thought I had about getting married, pro and con, the confidence and pure joy that came with measuring and mixing, scooping, and kneading was more than welcome this particular morning.
Suddenly, I remembered Nate Dobbs at the commercial building in Ardsley Park, trying to stay busy the day after his wife died. Maybe he’d been telling the awful truth.
As for the pies, there were the standard apple, cherry, and peach, as well as gooseberry, apple cranberry walnut, salted caramel apple, and a dark chocolate bourbon pecan pie that made my mouth water every time I thought of it. All the pumpkin pies would be baked the next day, as they didn’t freeze well.
Ben took care of the everyday customer business of dispensing pastries and making coffee drinks. Lucy helped him between helping pie customers. Cookie, who had worked at the Honeybee for a few months before she decided the hours weren’t for her, had come in to help after the regular day’s baking was done.
She and Iris were standing at the main worktable, preparing fillings to bake up the next day. Across from them, I mixed up flaky piecrust and buttery pâte brisée. I added a bit of rum to each bulk batch, then quickly measured out precise amounts for top and bottom crusts and put them in oversized zip-close bags before the alcohol could evaporate. The dough would then be rolled into circles inside the bags, saving mess and enabling us to stack them in the fridge for quick pie construction the next day. The alcohol would all burn out during baking, leaving behind extra pockets of flakiness, and the rum flavor lent a subtle piquancy to the sweet pies.
Since our production needed to be efficient, we couldn’t take the time to practice a lot of kitchen magic. However, the rum that went into each crust inherently attracted good luck, and we gave that a boost for each and every person who took a bite of Honeybee holiday pie. When we could, we added intentions for gratitude, good luck, and love into the various fillings.
“Mr. Clovis is still being a pain,” Iris said as she chopped a pile of walnuts. “That teacher I told you about? He yelled at a friend of mine for coming in thirty seconds late. I mean, really yelled.”
“That’s a bummer,” I said, distracted by the mental list of what would need to happen the next morning.
“Did you try giving him the cookie like I suggested?” Lucy asked, passing through to grab a frozen pie for a customer.
Iris shook her head. “Nah. It wouldn’t work, anyway. I feel terrible for my friend, though. She was almost in tears. After we get back from Thanksgiving break, I’m thinking of casting a spell against him. Like a curse.”
Lucy stopped dead in her tracks. “Iris!”
Cookie waved my aunt’s admonition away. “What did you have in mind?”
Lucy took the frozen pie out to the woman waiting by the register, tossing a worried look over her shoulder as she went.
Iris grinned. “I was thinking a nasty rash.”
I started to protest, but Cookie spoke first. “How would that help?”
“Well, it would make me feel better.” She laughed.
Cookie snorted. “It might.”
I paused in my work and turned to them both. “What about karma?”
“There is that, of course.” Cookie shot me a glance, then looked back at Iris. “But I want to know how that would solve the problem.”
“Well . . .”
“It wouldn’t, would it?” Cookie asked.
Iris stopped chopping. “Maybe not, but—”
“But nothing. It’s revenge. And revenge, like guilt and regret, is useless. None solve any problems whatsoever.”
I stared at Cookie.
“You’re training in the Craft, yes?” she went on.
Iris nodded, wide-eyed.
“And Katie and Lucy are your primary teachers.”
Another nod.
“I know neither of them would suggest anything like a curse. Therefore, you’ve been reading, investigating on your own. I understand.” Cookie whacked an apple in two, and Iris jumped. “I was raised in a tradition of magic that embraces curses. Voodoo.”
Iris blinked.
Cookie gave her a hard look. “Curses are part of that belief system’s lifeblood. I turned my back on it for a long, long time. But recently I became, shall we say, reacquainted with my native religion. Thanks to Katie here.”
I smiled uncertainly, unsure of where she was going.
“I will tell you this—curses are not to be trifled with. Not for stupid revenge.”
“Uh, and there’s the Rule of Three, too,” I said as I dropped cubes of cold butter into the big food processor. “You wouldn’t want a curse to come back to you threefold, would you?”
Cookie looked at me. I knew she had a complicated relationship with the Rule of Three, but she didn’t contradict me.
“Golly, no,” Iris said. Then she smiled. “I guess giving him a cookie isn’t such a bad idea. Maybe it would come back to me as a good grade.”
“Good idea,” I said, and changed the subject. “So how are your other classes going?”
Iris scraped the walnuts into a bowl and started sorting through cranberries, looking for any that were soft or underripe. “I finished the short story. It’s about a girl who’s bitten by a vampire at a football game.”
“Sounds . . . interesting,” I said.
Cookie smiled.
“And yesterday a professional goldsmith spoke to our metalsmithing class. He did an electroplating demonstration. Did you know pennies aren’t really copper? They’re made out of zinc, and the copper coating is electroplated onto the outside.”
I paused. “Really?”
She nodded. “Uh-huh. They dissolve metal in a bath using cyanide, and then use an electrical current to get it to deposit back on whatever is being plated.” She frowned. “I think I got that right. There was a lot of chemistry stuff.”
But I’d stopped listening at the word cyanide.
“What kind of cyanide?” I asked.
Iris’ eyes grew wide. “Oh. Gosh. That lady who was killed next door . . .”
I exchanged a look with Cookie. “Detective Quinn said it’s highly regulated and really hard to get ahold of.”
Our teen helper shook her head. “It might be for some people, but I can tell you it’s used in at least two of the classes I’m taking.”
“Which ones?” I asked, stunned.
“Metalsmithing, like I said. And it’s in some photographic chemicals, too.” She rolled her eyes. “Not that normal people actually develop film anymore. I read about it in a textbook. They used to use it in printmaking, too. Something about blue dye.”
“Wait a second. You can get cyanide at school?” I was having a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea.
“Well, I can’t just go in and pick it up. I wouldn’t even know where to look. Maybe I could find out, though.” She looked eager at the prospect.
But I shook my head. “That’s okay, hon. I don’t want you to get in any trouble.” Besides, classes wouldn’t be resuming until the next week.
She looked disappointed, but it was short-lived. Soon she and Cookie were exchanging fashion tips, and Iris was back to her cheery self.
Quinn had made it sound like cyanide was some kind of biohazard, under lock and key by the powers that be. But it was starting to sound like it wasn’t that hard to find after all.