Free Hot and Irresistible by Dianne Castell Page B

middle of the table and read,
    Silver jewels and honey gold
Awaken powers young and old
With these treasures seal a wish
Hearts of fire more to kiss
I shall be yours you shall be mine
You shall be mine for all of time
     
    Bebe rubbed her eyes and tried to focus. “That didn’t sound right at all.”
    “We’re zonked. Nothing sounds right.” Prissy tapped the book. “Trust me, it’s all there, just like I read it, word for word I wrote it down from Minerva so there’d be no more screwups.” She grinned. “I ran it though spell check. A little soothsayer humor.”
    They all groaned and Bebe burped. “I’ve got a really weird feeling.” She stood and put her hand to her head. “I’ve got to go.”
    “See,” Prissy purred as Bebe headed for the door. “The spell’s working already. She’s forgetting about McCabe.”
    BrieAnn idly flipped through the book, then stopped. She peeled apart two wet stuck-together pages. “Oh…dear…heaven. You might want to rethink the working part.”
    She yanked her cell phone from her purse and hit number two speed dial for Bebe. “Pick up, pick up, pick up. I positively forbid you to send me to voice mail,” she pleaded till a phone rang and rang and rang from under the pile of jewelry in the middle of the table.

Chapter Four
     
     
    D onovan parked his Jeep in front of the morgue. Streetlights cast a yellow glow on the sidewalk and cars. Joggers, families, and couples walking hand in hand meandered through Forsythe Park, and Donovan couldn’t remember the last time he meandered or felt anything romantic. Hell, since Sly died he couldn’t remember feeling period.
    For the last ten months he’d been in a fog, doing the next thing that came along. He’d kept busy, and if life slowed down and he started to think about Sly, he came up with more stuff to do, like putting together the task force on organized crime, going to Atlanta for that conference, and saying yes to that abysmal congressman and winding up in Savannah. Donovan felt as if he were blood and bones held together by skin…until…until…ah, shit…until yesterday in the kitchen in this morgue on the table.
    He stopped at the wrought-iron fence in front of the morgue and gazed up at the kitchen window remembering Bebe, her head in the fridge and gnawing on drumsticks. And he remembered the sex. Like he’d ever forget. Mind-blowing, all-consuming sex. Had sex ever been like that before? It was always good, but with Bebe Fitzgerald, sex was out of this freaking world. Maybe because sex wasn’t casual with her. Friends with benefits was a term Bebe Fitzgerald would never use. Sex with Bebe counted.
    And…added the voice of sanity under all that freaking…Bebe Fitzgerald was the very last person he should get involved with because there was a little matter of Ray Cleveland sitting right between them. And the Ray Cleveland situation was not going to get any better, because Donovan had decided to take Joe Earl up on his suggestion of finding evidence to connect Cleveland with the murder. In fact, that’s one of the reasons he was here at the morgue now. The other reason was the thought of going back to a hotel room alone sucked.
    The morgue was dark, the only light spilling from the partially open third-floor window. Donovan banged on the front door and yelled, “Hey, anybody home in there?”
    A man who looked like an older George Clooney covered in sawdust stuck his head out the third story. “Buon giorno. Can I be of help to you this fine evening?”
    Donovan flashed his badge upward. “I’m Detective McCabe. I’d like to take another look at the room where that fire was.”
    “At this hour of the night?”
    “Things look different in the dark. I won’t be long.” It wasn’t hard to tell the guy didn’t want any part of a cop snooping in his place, but he faked a smile, probably because pissing off the police was never a good idea.
    “Of course, that would be okay. I am Anthony