He swallowed. He could hear the old grandfather clock in the library ticking, and a boat out on the water, big from the sound of it. The wind rustled in the tall marsh grasses. Hannah Macintosh Frye believed she had watched the man she would marry more than five decades later dig a hole in his back yard the night her parents died. She had lived in this house, amidst its quiet sounds and fragrances, for twenty-five years. And only now, after she'd sold it, did she remember.
She was eyeing him. "I knew it would be difficult with you. This winter, when I decided to put this place on the market and expected you would come, I knew."
"Mrs. Frye, you're welcome to your fantasies, but I—"
"But it's even more difficult than I imagined."
He bit off a sigh. "Do you really believe you summoned me here?"
She smiled. "Does it matter?" She didn't wait for him to answer. She leaned over, touched his hand. "Thank you for making me tell you. I feel better now that someone else knows."
Clate didn't feel very good at all. Before she left, he took her out to her witch's garden. She frowned at the missing herbs, mystified. "You have no use for these plants, Clate. You don't have the knowledge—" She stopped, gasping, her voice hoarse as she stared wide eyed at the chopped area. "Burn them. Burn them all. Promise me!"
Piper came round to the front of her house, only to find Sally Shepherd standing in her driveway. Sally jumped back in surprise. "I'd just given up on you."
"Sorry. I was talking a walk on the beach. I needed to clear my head."
"I understand. It's been hectic for you, I'm sure. At least Hannah seems to be doing well. I stopped in earlier, and she's looking quite fit and spry."
"She's amazing. Would you like to come in?"
Sally glanced around, as if someone might pop out from the roses. She was unusually nervous, clasping and unclasping her hands; she kept her nails blunt-cut and wore only a thin gold wedding band. Today's outfit was straight out of the Talbot's catalogue: a striped top and walking shorts in white and primary red. "If I'm not disturbing you."
"Not at all. I don't have any classes coming in today."
She relaxed somewhat. "I've been wanting to sign up for your scented candles class. I'd never put candles in the rooms at the inn, of course, but I'd like to make some for myself. They're wonderful. I especially love the smell of strawberry in the winter. Strawberry candles and a hot bath." She gave a small, almost embarrassed laugh as she followed Piper through the rose-embroiled fence and up her front walk. "Decadent."
Piper laughed. "So long as you have warm apple cobbler to go with it."
"No. Warm chocolate-pudding cake."
They exclaimed over desserts and fragrances until they reached the kitchen, where Piper offered iced tea to drink. "It's all I have, except for water, of course." She grinned. "No chocolate cake."
"Well, I suppose tea is safe here." She blanched. "I'm sorry. I meant that as a joke, but the timing—"
"It's okay, Sally. I say the same thing about Hannah and her teas. At best, most of them taste lousy. I'm surprised Stan Carlucci managed to drink enough to make him sick." Piper opened her refrigerator, withdrew a glass pitcher of tea. Her walk on the beach had left her thirsty, if not clearheaded about poisons, treasures, and her next-door neighbor. "He and Paul haven't mentioned the tincture episode to anyone?"
Sally accepted the glass of tea. The temperatures had fallen dramatically since morning, the air feeling more like early spring than the onset of summer. She lowered her eyes, spooning in sugar as she sat at Piper's kitchen table. "That's one of the reasons I stopped by. They're thinking about it. Stan—well, you know how he is. He has it in his head that Hannah passed out because of some tea or infusion or whatever she drank."
Hannah had the same thing in her head, with the difference that it had been slipped to her, not that she'd slipped it to herself. Piper shrugged, trying not to seem disturbed at what Sally was saying. "Who would he tell? I already know what he thinks, and my father and Andrew and Benjamin lost patience with her potions ages ago."
"I think he might tell her doctors." She tried her tea, then added another quarter teaspoon of sugar. Her eyes didn't meet Piper's. "And perhaps the police."
"You think he might, or the plan's in the works?"
"I think it might already be in the works."
Piper gritted her teeth. "Sally—"
Sally breathed out, looking older than her thirty-eight years. Piper felt a stab of sympathy. It couldn't be easy coming to her with this news. Sally swallowed hard, visibly, then blurted, "He told Paul he's going to her doctor, then to the police, first thing in the morning."
"And he has the best of intentions, I'm sure," Piper said sarcastically.
"That's what he says."
"Oh, Sally. Hannah didn't leave him that tincture, and she didn't poison herself. Stan's just going to end up looking like an even bigger ass."
Sally didn't answer, but simply stared out the window at the gusting wind and gathering dusk. "When I was growing up, Hannah was always so wonderful to me. We didn't come here that often, but once, I remember, we got caught in a hurricane. I was ten. I wanted to leave, I was so scared, but my grandfather didn't think it would be that bad on this side of the Cape. And I suppose it wasn't." She drank more of her tea. "I remember everything about those two days."