Leah Gryffin rushed over to help her sell her performance. A Gryffin was helping her lie to a Maris.
It had been a strange few days.
She cooed. “You have amazing taste. I have been eyeing that since it arrived yesterday. Mr. Maris simply refuses to tell me where I can get one like it.”
“Yesterday?” Con and Lorie both spoke at the same time, glaring at each other as Maris hobbled in Sarah’s direction.
“No! No, I’m um, sorry dear but no. I’m just holding that for a friend, you see. I never sell what isn’t mine. Wouldn’t be legal. Pick something else. Anything else.”
Sarah noticed the change in Leah first. Her brilliant smile faded and her hands rose, covered in flames. Sarah took several steps back, until she was pressed against the bookshelf.
“Oh, Winnie? I don’t think you’re being entirely up front now, do you? You sell things that aren’t yours all the time. I happen to be wearing some of the proof.” She opened her arms, the flames following her movement, to reveal three necklaces and a pair of antique earrings. “I was about to leave and send the law in your direction, but how about I make you an offer? I’ll tell them to go easy on you if you give the lady the box.”
Harrison joined the others in the crowded room. “We should also know who brought it to him yesterday. I knew this wasn’t the guy.” She paused for a moment. “By the way, Leah? Remind me not to tell your brother about your first bust. I don’t think his heart can take it.”
“What’s going on here?” Maris was mad now. “I let you into my home and you steal from me? Threaten me? I know the law too, young lady. You aren’t allowed to use unnecessary force.”
Leah’s hands snuffed out, the flames evaporating. “You’re right, Winnie. I apologize. Just tell us who left you the box and we’ll leave you alone. Probably.”
“Yeah, Winston.” Lorie’s blue eyes burned as they stared down the nervous man. “Tell us who brought you the box.”
At the sound of his name, Mr. Maris seemed to deflate before their eyes. “I need a drink. Can I at least get my drink?”
He pointed to the closed, dusty bottle on his end table, and Lorie nodded.
“Thank you. Why do you want to know about that box, anyway, Abbott?”
Sarah, who’d been silent, watching the exchange, came forward. “Are you Hester’s descendant?”
“Who?” His hand shook on the bottle. “Oh. Yeah, I guess so. I never was that interested in genealogy. Can’t sell a family name, now can you? And all they’ll ever cause you is grief. Who wants to know?”
She felt the anger pulsing beneath her skin, her hands curling into fists at her side. “Sarah Blackwood wants to know.”
Lorie tensed. “Sarah, wait—”
The bottle slid out of his hands and rolled to her feet, still unopened. “Blackwood? That’s not possible.” He shook his head, looking around the room with wild panicked eyes. “It’s not possible.”
“You look worried, Winston.” Con knelt beside her, picked up the bottle and handed it back to the trembling man. “Any reason why?”
Sarah watched, unblinking as he twisted off the bottle’s top and tipped his head back. A sudden sinking feeling hit the pit of her stomach when he finished the bottle with one swallow. “Mr. Maris, what’s in that? What are you drinking?”
He started to laugh, though it came out more like a choking, gargle. “You’re not possible, Blackwood. But you’re here, aren’t you? You are here.” His small, dark eyes, so much like Hester’s, met hers with resignation. “So I can’t be.”
“What the hell?” Con reached for him just as Maris tilted over on the couch, white foam lining the seam of his lips. “What just happened?”
Leah came to kneel beside him once he’d stopped seizing, searching for a pulse. “He’s alive. His pulse is normal. Weird. We’ll have to take that bottle in and find out what was in it.”
Sarah noticed Lorie staring at her as his sister came to stand beside him. “Can you heal him, Sarah?”
She held out her hands and shrugged, feeling helpless. “He isn’t sick or injured. It’s a potion. He must keep it out in case of emergencies.”
Leah snorted. “How does that work? ‘Uh-oh, I’m in trouble, better take a nap’?”
“In a way he got what he wanted, didn’t he? He won’t be answering any questions for a while. He’s not responsible.” Sarah glanced over her shoulder at the closed, black box. “At least we have the book. It is definitely in there. Maybe the answers are inside.”