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Not that she’s a murderer,I reminded myself as I made my way to the porch.Or at least, I don’t think she is. Not exactly, anyway.
I pushed the button for the doorbell and waited. A moment later, Kimberly Parker opened the door.
I’d forgotten she was so tall, an inch or so more than my own five foot eight, but otherwise, this was definitely the thin, pretty woman who’d come into my store back in April to buy those love candles. She wore pale green scrubs and had her dark, straight hair pulled back in a ponytail that fell to mid-back.
When she looked at me, she didn’t smile. “Selena. Come on in.”
I followed her inside, noting that the interior of the house appeared as neat and tidy as the exterior, if a bit plain to my eyes. A beige rug bordered in taupe sat on the polished wood floor, and the couch and armchair were beige as well, the coffee table and side tables metal and glass. The only real burst of color in the room was a spray of early-turned oak leaves in a green ceramic vase that sat on the mantel.
“Go ahead and sit down,” Kimberly said, indicating the sofa. “Would you like something to drink?”
Considering why I was here, I didn’t think that was such a good idea. “No, I’m good.”
What might have been the faintest hint of an ironic smile touched her lips, lightly coated with pale peach gloss. “Suit yourself.”
I sat down on the couch as requested, and a moment later, she took a seat in the armchair. To my relief, Danny materialized a moment later, standing by the unlit fireplace. While I couldn’t exactly let myself smile as I caught sight of him, I did feel much better knowing he’d shown up as promised.
Kimberly perched on the edge of her seat, hands folded loosely in her lap. Every inch of her slender frame seemed brittle to the point of breaking. For just a second, her aura shimmered into view, a soft rose color spiked with the dark yellow of guilt.
“I should have known you’d figure it out,” she said at length, her voice barely above a whisper. “But I really didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“I know,” I told her, trying my best to sound calm and reassuring. “You made a mistake.”
Her dark eyes flared with surprise. “How do you know that?”
“Because I heard what you put in Danny’s wine,” I replied, although I thought it best not to mention exactly from whom I’d learned that particular tidbit. “Some of the ingredients sounded familiar, so I did a little investigating on my own. You were just trying to make a love potion, right?”
Kimberly nodded. Her fingers were tight on the knees of her scrub pants, so tight I could see her knuckles standing out white against the lightly tanned skin of her hands. No rings on those fingers, and no nail polish, either, although I didn’t know for sure whether that was personal preference or whether she was merely following the dress code of her place of employment.
Over at the fireplace, Danny shifted his weight slightly, but he remained silent. Not that it probably would have mattered if he’d spoken; so far, it seemed as though no one other than me could see or hear him.
“I know it sounds crazy,” she said. “I mean, I thought it was crazy even while I was doing it. But I just couldn’t get Danny out of my head. I even quit my job at the high school at the end of the school year and came to work for Dr. Maxwell so I could put some distance between us, but it didn’t seem to matter. In fact, I think that made it worse, because at least when I was working in the same place, I could see him most days, could hear his voice. And so….”
She let the words trail off there. Danny sent me a questioning look, as if he was wondering whether I should try prompting her to continue with her story, but I gave him the faintest shake of my head. It seemed much more prudent for me to wait silently and hope Kimberly would continue with her account.
Which she did in the next moment, after releasing a sad little sigh. “So…I got the invitation to Josie’s party, which was nice of her. It’s not like we’re best friends or anything, but I volunteer to be an usher at the Globe Theatre shows, so that’s probably why she did it. And I realized Danny would be there…and I got to thinking. I’d bought those love candles at your store, and they didn’t seem to do much of anything….”
Once again, her comment trailed away into the air, and she sent me a glance that was vaguely accusing, as if it was my fault the candles hadn’t worked.
My shoulders lifted. “Candle magic can be very powerful,” I said. “But, like everything else, so much is tied into your intentions as you work it. I’m sorry they didn’t do much for you.”
Kimberly shrugged, an echo of my own gesture from a moment earlier. “Anyway,” she went on, “I watched some YouTube videos about magic and being a witch…inspired by your example, I guess…and then I found a Facebook group about spells and potions. A lot of the women on there talked about love potions, and I thought I should try one on Danny. If it didn’t work, then I could tell myself I’d been an idiot about the whole thing and then move on, but no one else would have to know.”
“Where did you find the recipe for the potion?” I asked, still trying to sound as calm and gentle as I could. Goddess knows, making this confession couldn’t have been easy for her. Aside from all the personal embarrassment about making a love potion like some lovesick high school student, she also had to bear the overwhelming guilt of being someone whose job was to care for others and who had instead killed the man she purported to love.
Kimberly’s fingers knotted again. “Online. It was a reputable site,” she added swiftly, as though she wanted to make sure I didn’t think she’d gone entirely off the deep end. “I tried to fact-check as much as I could. And it really did seem to be okay. Only….”
“Only you thought the foxglove in your yard was comfrey,” I finished for her. “That is what happened, isn’t it?”
A guilty nod. “I know I shouldn’t have made such a stupid mistake. But I don’t know a lot about gardening — everything in the yard was here when I bought the house. It wasn’t like I planted it myself. And the pictures of comfrey I found online looked like what was growing in my yard. Only…it wasn’t.”
To the uninitiated, the two plants did look very much alike, with tall stalks of purple bell-like flowers. Even comfrey wasn’t entirely nontoxic, although it wouldn’t have had the same effect as the digitalis, and probably would have only caused Danny to get very sick to his stomach if enough of it had been contained in the potion.
“So, you went to the party and slipped the potion into his drink while he was in the bathroom.”
Although Kimberly had olive skin to match her dark brown eyes and hair, now she looked almost ghostly pale. “Yes,” she replied. “And afterward, I was so embarrassed by what I’d done that I left the party right away. The write-up on the potion said it would take a few hours or even a day or so to take effect, and so it wasn’t like I had to be there for it to work.” A pause as she drew in a gulp of a breath, tears glittering in her eyes. “I didn’t know what had happened until the next morning. I’m so, so sorry.”
And then she broke down, sobs wracking her slender frame.
