Free A Sprinkle of Magic (A Sugarcomb Lake Cozy Mystery Book 4) by Alaine Allister

of the world to bow down to her.  She had been popular, pretty and rather cruel.
    As an adult, Kimberly was a hairdresser.  In fact, she worked with Clarissa’s old friend Amy – much to Amy’s displeasure.  These days, Kimberly pranced around in skin tight clothes and sky high stilettos.  Her hair was dyed black with blue streaks, her makeup was overdone and she had a permanent sneer on her face.
    It was clear that Kimberly still thought she was better than everyone else.
    Needless to say, Clarissa was never thrilled to run into her old high school acquaintance.  But this was an especially inconvenient time!  Couldn’t she just mix up her potion in peace?  Turning her back, Clarissa kept her head down and hoped Kimberly would ignore her.
    Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.
    “Clarissa Spencer?  Is that you?” Kimberly demanded.
    Darn it. 
    Smiling with gritted teeth, Clarissa turned around.  “Hi Kimmy,” she replied.
    “It’s Kimberly ,” the overdone, underdressed woman shot back.  “I haven’t gone by Kimmy since high school!  Get with it!”  She scrutinized Clarissa from head to toe.  “You look terrible,” she said bluntly.  “No wonder you’re here.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Well you’re obviously here trying to pick up a man,” Kimberly shrugged.  “I knew that reporter guy you were dating wouldn’t stick around for long.  He was way too good looking for you,” she said matter-of-factly.
    Clarissa was seething. 
    Back when Kimberly had first met Parker, she had tried to steal him away.  When that hadn’t worked, she had resorted to hurling thinly-veiled insults at Clarissa at every opportunity.  Well, maybe “thinly-veiled” was giving Kimberly too much credit.  Her insults were pretty blatant!
    “As a matter of fact,” Clarissa said, “Parker and I are still dating.  In fact, he’s here with me.”
    Kimberly looked so envious she may as well have turned green.  Her mouth opened and closed a few times as she struggled to come up with something rude to say.  Finally she settled on, “I guess he mustn’t be such a great catch after all if he’s with you !” 
    “Good luck finding a man,” Clarissa said sweetly.  “That is why you’re here, isn’t it?”
    The look on Kimberly’s face was pretty satisfying.  First she stared at Clarissa with her mouth hanging open.  Then her eyes narrowed and she turned about twelve shades of red.  She was practically fuming. 
    “You are such a witch!” Kimberly hissed.
    Well, maybe she had said something slightly different than that.  But that was what it had sounded like.  And the accusation was rather fitting considering Clarissa was in the middle of mixing up a potion!
    “Thank you,” Clarissa smiled.  She refused to let the rude woman get under her skin.
    Giving a loud “harrumph,” Kimberly turned on her heel and stormed into one of the bathroom stalls.  She slammed the door so hard that everything rattled and shook.  It seemed throwing childish tantrums when she didn’t get her way was kind of Kimberly’s thing.
    Clarissa paid the raging woman no attention.  Instead, she hurried to finish assembling her potion.  Her goal was to be out of the ladies’ room before Kimberly emerged from the stall.  The last thing she wanted was to have to face that nasty diva again!
    “All done,” Clarissa smiled to herself a moment later.  The truth serum was in a small plastic canister.  All she had to do was sprinkle a bit of it into Vinnie’s drink and ask him a question.  He would be powerless to lie.
    Clarissa rushed to gather up her things…and there were a lot of things!  It was fortunate that the bathroom counter was so wide, because somehow a whole pile of random items had accumulated there.  Yikes!
    When it came to handbags, Clarissa wholeheartedly believed that bigger was better.  She had always felt that way, even before she had discovered she was a witch.  What was the point of carrying