A Hex for Danger by Esme Addison

Author:Esme Addison
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

Chapter Fourteen

The next morning in the shop, Alex was surprised to see her first customer.

It wasn’t Jack.

It was Evelyn Robinson. She still looked unnaturally pale, like she’d been hiding in a dark room, crying for days. And considering that her husband had accidentally killed himself, she probably had been. Her brown hair, which Alex could tell had been cut into a chic chin-length bob with blunt-cut bangs, now hung limply, framing her oval face.

The front door opened again, and a teenage boy entered with a sullen expression on his face, hands jammed into the pockets of his faded black skinny jeans.

Evelyn held up the business card Alex had given her the night before. “I need something for anxiety,” she said when she approached the counter. “My nerves are … bad.” Her lips trembled, and Alex wondered if she would start crying right here on the shop floor.

“I have just the thing. One moment.” She went to a shelf of jars filled with loose teas and began adding herbs from several glass jars into a sachet for her.

Evelyn followed her to the shelf. “Anything for grief? For the pain I’m feeling?” She looked back at the teenager and then at Alex. “That’s my son, Tanner. Sixteen and angry with the world.”

Alex paused and looked past the woman to her son. She smiled at the boy, who ignored her and crossed his arms over his T-shirt, black with a picture of ET and emblazoned with the words “Phone home?” from the famous movie.

“We don’t have anything for grief specifically, but what I do have is ashwagandha, St. John’s Wort, valerian, and lavender for anxiety and depression.” She turned around and handed the bag to the woman. “Drink two to three cups beginning around five pm. By bedtime you should sleep soundly. And you need to sleep. I can tell you’re not rested. The effects should carry over to the next day … you’ll feel calmer, more relaxed.”

Evelyn followed Alex to the counter. “How can I rest knowing that my husband’s murderer is walking around free?”

Alex glanced at the teenager with alarm. Did he know what his mother thought? But he appeared not to have heard, or maybe he’d heard it all before and didn’t care. Alex rang up the purchase, took Evelyn’s money, and began counting her change.

“I talked to Detective Frazier about your case,” she began in a low voice. “We’re friends, and of course, while he didn’t tell me anything confidential, he did tell me that the evidence clearly pointed to a determination of accidental death by overdose.” She handed the woman her change. “Besides, who would want to kill your husband? By all accounts he had no enemies.”

Evelyn’s eyes shone with tears as she stared at Alex. “I heard about you. After we met last night, I looked up your store’s website, and your name came up on a local blog. You found out who killed that man when the same detective who is ruining my life charged your aunt.

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