Don't Hex with Texas

Page 35

“Who’s your other suspect?”
“This one’s a stretch, but there’s a hippie chick who runs the card and gift part of the store. She’s someone I could totally see trying to explore magic. I could certainly imagine her wearing robes and dancing around the courthouse square. I’m just not sure I can imagine her doing anything mean or greedy. Though I guess she might have been collecting the money for charity. How does this work, anyway? Can you tell someone’s magical just from talking to them?”
“Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple unless I’ve been around them actively using magic. Right now, I’m getting a sense for things. Then I might know how to go about testing.”
I directed him to park on the square, and then we walked over to the pharmacy. A blast of incense hit us as we entered, and not far behind it was Rainbow, which I was pretty sure was not her real name.
“Greetings and blessings!” she trilled. “Is there anything I can help you find? I got a new shipment of healing aromatherapy candles that you might enjoy. There are some that balance your energy into harmony, and others that encourage the full bloom of love.”
Owen turned bright red again, but I wasn’t sure if that was because of the suggestion of encouraging the full bloom of love or because he was coughing and gasping for breath from the heavy, scented smoke in the air.
“No, thanks,” I said. “We just dropped in to get him some allergy medicine.” Then I dragged a still-coughing Owen back to the more sterile-smelling pharmacy part of the store.
Lester was around the pharmacy counter before we reached the first set of shelves, not so much because he wanted to offer great customer service, but because he was afraid we might be shoplifters.
Never mind that he’d known me almost since birth—the word “trust” wasn’t in Lester’s vocabulary.
“What do you need?” he demanded. If one of the chains moved to town or if someone else decided to open a pharmacy, as long as they had the basic customer-service skills of the Soup Nazi, Lester would be in huge trouble.
I grabbed a box of Benadryl off a nearby shelf. “Just getting some antihistamines for him. It’s his first time in Texas.” Owen coughed obligingly, and Lester glared at him.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Visiting Katie from New York,” Owen wheezed.
That was the wrong thing to say. Lester didn’t trust the townfolk he’d known his whole life, so he certainly didn’t trust a Yankee. He snatched the box from my hand and went back to the register to ring it up. Owen paid for the purchase before I could get my purse open, and the sight of money thawed Lester ever so slightly. “You in town long?” Lester asked.
“Just for a visit,” Owen said vaguely.
“If you need something stronger than that, I have some prescription antihistamines. You normally would need to see a doctor to get them, but I’m sure we could work a deal.”
Owen took a deep breath before we crossed through the gift part of the store and didn’t let it out until we were safely on the sidewalk. “Please don’t buy any of her aromatherapy,” he said as he gasped for air. “I’m not sure I could take it.”
“Her aromatherapy doesn’t exactly encourage the full bloom of romance in you, huh?”
“Well, there is some magic in it, but it’s not done right, so the effect on a magical person isn’t quite what’s intended.”
“You mean, that stuff is for real?”
“There’s a bit of a benign influence spell on the candle she was burning. You wouldn’t notice the effects, of course. On a normal person, it might promote a feeling of well-being. To a magical person it’s like…Well, it’s like being a person with perfect pitch and listening to a singer who’s just slightly off-key. Other people might find it perfectly pleasing, but someone with perfect pitch would be climbing the walls.”
“I guess she’s one of our suspects if she’s selling magical products.”
“Probably not. If she can tolerate it, she isn’t magical. It could be something the supplier has done, and she has no idea that magic’s involved. All she might know is that the candles make her feel good.
Just in case, you’ll need to go in there without me and buy one so the company can investigate. I can’t go in there again.”
“Hey, there’s a test for our magical person. We herd the whole town through the pharmacy and see who goes into convulsions.”
“That actually could work. Maybe you should buy a couple of candles and we could set a trap.”