Free It Takes a Witch: A Wishcraft Mystery by Heather Blake Page B

probably seen his commercials. They certainly run often enough.”
    It had been a few hours since I’d seen Griffin beating on the door to Lotions and Potions. I’d stuck around just long enough for the village police to stuff him into the cruiser. Elbow-deep in flour, glue, and newspaper strips, I tried to recall if I knew the name. “Wait. The used-car dealer with the bad dye job and cut?” His hair was an unnatural ebony and always slicked back in a pompadour.
    “That’s him. The Elvis wannabe.” Harper dropped a straw into her glass. Her first day on the job at the bookstore had gone well, and she’d come home all smiles with stories to tell. “Vince told me Griffin was a client of Alex’s. He wanted to be handsomer, richer, and desperately wanted his hair to stop falling out. He thought Alex’s potions could work miracles. He was wrong. The crème she gave him made all his hair fall out.”
    My papier-mâché skills were lacking. I was having a hard time keeping strips of newspaper from sliding off the balloons I’d rigged together to look like a wombat. “Did Griffin really think Alex was a witch? That she had powers?”
    Harper nodded. “He’s not the only one. Vince thought so, too. She had a lot of people convinced.”
    Tilda hopped up on the counter, sniffed at the wombat, and hopped down again, her tail in the air as she sashayed away. Missy rose from her doggy bed, yawned, stretched, and headed toward the doggy door. The tiny fenced-in backyard was perfect for her to roam on her own, though she’d managed to escape a time or three over the last couple of weeks.
    “How much did she charge for her potions?”
    “Not much. According to Vince, she really just wanted to help people.”
    “Like Evan and Griffin? That’s help I think I’d pass on.”
    Harper rummaged through the cabinets. She pulled out a sleeve of crackers and grabbed a tub of garlic-and-herb cheese from the fridge. “If you ask me, Griffin was plenty handsome before. You know, if you didn’t count his hair. At least now he doesn’t have to worry about that. He should be grateful to Alex.”
    I pasted on two tiny wombat ears and tried to figure out how I was going to rig a marsupial pouch on its back. Would birthday boy Jake notice if it was missing? “No wonder I didn’t recognize him. His pompadour was gone.
Completely
gone.”
    Smiling, Harper nodded. “Every last strand fell out after he used the phony potion.”
    Her face glowed with happiness—it had been a long time since I’d seen her this way. She obviously liked her new job—and all the information she could get from Vince about Alex. If she was on a quest to clear Sylar’s name, she’d be eager to fill in the blanks about Alex’s life. I also suspected she liked Vince. She had that falling-for-someone look about her.
    She reached into a quilted tote bag and pulled out a reporter’s notebook. “I ran into Ramona Todd from the Magic Wand Salon on the way home, and she said Griffin—”
    “You know Ramona?”
    “I met her last night at the meeting. She’s nice. Suggested you get some hip and chic blue highlights and a more flattering cut. Your hair is too blah and too long.”
    “She did not.”
    “You’re right. That was me.”
    I stuck out my tongue. Harper had been on me to get a mini makeover since my divorce. I happened to like the way I looked just fine, with the exception of that flaccidness. “I’m not one of your pet projects.”
    “Don’t get cranky with me. You’re the one who taught me that first impressions count, and to always look well put together and respectable.”
    “Hey, I look respectable!”
    “For an old maid. You’ve let yourself go. A lot.”
    “I’m not old.”
    “Thirty. Soon it will be thirty-one. Then thirt—”
    “I can count.”
    “Old.”
    “What did Ramona say?” A change of topic was desperately needed or Harper would, well, harp. What was the point of getting my hair and nails done? I had no one to