She tried to recall whom she had seen at the bar that evening, if she had picked up anything, any sign of distress or intent, but she wasn’t Ingrid, a seer, someone who could peer into a person’s future, into their lifeline. If Ingrid had been there, would she have seen what type of darkness would soon claim Molly? But who knew if Molly was even in danger? She was an adult; what if she just decided to disappear on her own? It was possible. Could everyone just be jumping to conclusions?
“I think we better put these away for now,” Sal said, picking up the laminated potions menu. He read the newspaper over her shoulder and pointed to the damning sentence in the middle of the paragraph, reading it aloud. “ ‘The girls said that there must have been something in Molly’s drink that made her so wild. Some kind of crazy potion.’ Hear that, Freya? Some kind of crazy cocktail from the North Inn made her act slutty, they’re saying. They’ll come after us for sure.”
“No, they won’t.” Freya shook her head, aghast. How could anyone believe that? Besides, how could anyone think a cocktail could lead to her disappearance? It was ridiculous. Wasn’t it? She tried to remember what happened that night—she could picture every moment clearly, saw Killian enter the bar, snuggling with her a little too close behind the counter; she saw herself making the potion, Killian by her side. Could it be possible that she had put in too much vetiver root? And if she did, what of it? It wasn’t a harmful herb; it was only there to enhance the drinker’s desirability. It seemed highly unlikely that it could cause any harm. Of course, magic was unpredictable, and there was a possibility that something might have gone wrong. But she had seen nothing in the boys’ spirits that night except for raucous enthusiasm for the evening’s delights and the usual schoolboy excitement caused by the presence of pretty girls. If one of them was a killer she would have seen it. She always did. Except for Bill Thatcher. No one had solved that particular murder yet and the police seemed to be as clueless as they had been when it happened. There was no hope for his wife, either. Maura’s family was talking about pulling the plug.
All right. She had to try harder to remember. Who else had been at the bar on Friday night? It was all a blur; there was a blank haze over her memory, perhaps a side effect of the guilt she felt for cheating on Bran. She felt sick, like she wasn’t herself. She should have paid attention. Maybe if she wasn’t so busy making out with Killian all weekend she would have noticed something. Now Molly had disappeared and boys whom she had joked with and liked were under suspicion.
“You’ll see. We should keep our heads low. Only a matter of time.”
Freya felt a darkness settling into the room. “You think my cocktail killed her, Sal?”
“Course not,” Sal sniffed. “I don’t know what you put in those drinks, but they are potent. Lots of people been talking, mostly about how good they make them feel, how they’ve met the love of their lives in our little bar. But I think people here are going to want an answer. And those are rich boys. Their parents are going to find every scapegoat they can. You be careful, maybe take a few days off.”
chapter twenty-six
The Worm Turns
A week after Freya was encouraged to take an unwanted leave of absence, Ingrid was contemplating quitting her job altogether. And without it, what would she have? For Ingrid, if work was unbearable there was no reason to live. She never had much of a home life in the first place and she missed her sister’s sparkling company. Before Freya met Bran, Ingrid could count on her sister for movie nights, the occasional dinner or two. But ever since the engagement Freya was hardly home, even with Bran away in the city or on trips so much. Ingrid wondered about that; she thought Freya would miss him more, but she had the same red cheeks, dreamy expression, and late nights whether he was in town or not. Maybe they were having a lot of . . . what did they call it? Phone sex? Ingrid shuddered. Lately Freya had seemed out of sorts and agitated, however, so maybe the separation was beginning to take a toll.
As for where Joanna had gone, Ingrid could not even hazard a guess. Her mother was somewhere her cell phone service did not reach apparently, since calls to Joanna went straight to voice mail. Ingrid could always use the underlayer to probe for her location, or maybe send Oscar to look for her, but Ingrid had a feeling her mother wanted her privacy.
Ingrid never felt lonely, not when she had so many books to read and such good friends at the library, a job that she had looked forward to every morning for the past seven years. She knew that her mother believed that she was wasting her time, her skills, her intellect, her everything, working in some pokey small-town library, and that Freya thought it was all so incredibly boring. But to Ingrid, her library was her home; yet for the last several weeks she had been going to work with a heavy heart, and she wondered if maybe her mother and sister were right. If maybe it was time to quit. Practicing magic again had returned excitement and purpose to her life, but she did not have to do it in the library. She could set up her own clinic, a proper one, with an office, a schedule, and a receptionist. There were so many things she could do with her magic other than cure nightmares and help women conceive.
On a lighter note, since the Fourth of July, however, Ingrid had noticed there was less of that gray darkness in people’s spirits. Maybe it was dissipating from the town; even that weird toxic sludge in the middle of the ocean had stopped moving, and the latest reports said it looked as if it were finally shrinking. Although the latest news reports said that a similar mass recently reappeared near the Alaskan coastline.
She parked her bike and chained it to her usual post. Hudson’s bike was already in its place. The door was open, the lights were on, and everything was bright and orderly. “Good morning,” she said, trying for cheerfulness as she walked to her desk.
“Morning.” Hudson yawned.
“Hi, Ingrid.” Tabitha smiled. She was only in her second month and enjoying every minute of it, even the wretched morning sickness and the inability to eat anything but tea and crackers and still look puffy.
There was nothing from Caitlin but stony silence. Ingrid ignored it, as she didn’t much care what the latest drama was in that particular romance novel. For the past week Ingrid had had to endure Caitlin’s prattle about how she and Matt were going away for a romantic weekend later that month, to a bed-and-breakfast in Martha’s Vineyard. Caitlin had regaled Hudson and Tabitha with the details of her trousseau—lingerie, champagne, the works. Hudson had fun modeling the nipple covers, while Tabitha gave too-earnest pointers on the advantages of lubricant and other erotic accoutrements including a much-too-detailed description of various handcuffs, metal rings, and electronic devices. It was right about then that Ingrid had begun to question her commitment to the job. Either she would have to fire Caitlin or quit herself. But she could not take one more day of the entire office sending the girl off to romance nirvana with condom banners flying.
When Caitlin left the room, Ingrid texted Hudson.
<<what’s wrong with her?>>
He swiveled around, a wicked grin on his face. He motioned to Tabitha to shut the door. “You haven’t heard?” he whispered.
“Haven’t heard what?” Ingrid asked.
“Romance weekend on Martha’s Vineyard is off!”
“Pardon?”
“You left too early yesterday.”
“Obviously.”
Tabitha looked over her shoulder and filled her in. “Matt came by yesterday afternoon as usual. I saw them fighting outside. Then he drove off without her. I asked her what happened and she said it was over. He’d canceled the whole weekend because he had to work on that missing girl case, you know, Molly Lancaster. He said it wasn’t working, anyway. He wasn’t feeling it. He was sorry.”
“Oh, dear!” Ingrid said.
“I know!”