CHAPTER THREE
“IT DIDN’T WORK,” Sabina muttered as she walked through the bead curtain into the shop. She set the small brown bottle on the counter in front of Chloe.
Chloe took a sip of her quadruple espresso and stared at the bottle. Sometime between last night and this morning her hair had gone from pink to blue and she’d pierced her other nostril. Sabina shook her head in bewilderment. Chloe was strange, but she was the best employee they’d ever had.
“How much did you give him?” she asked, holding the bottle up to the light.
“I didn’t give him anything. I drank it,” Sabina replied.
“That’s not how it works. You give it to him and then he’ll find you irresistible. If you take it, then you’ll find him irresistible. And you already do, don’t you?”
“It worked!” Chloe and Sabina turned to see Mrs. Nussbaum hurry through the front door, the bell announcing her arrival.
“Are you all right?” Sabina asked as the old woman stumbled to the counter.
“I’m much better than all right,” she replied. “I’m…” She bent closer and whispered in Sabina’s ear. “Satisfied.” Mrs. Nussbaum drew back, her eyes twinkling. “I’m sure you know what I mean.”
Sabina frowned. “I’m not sure I do, Mrs. Nussbaum.”
The old woman fanned herself with her hand. “Your grandmother is a treasure. A worker of miracles. A gift from God. My husband, Irving, was having issues…” She lowered her voice again. “In the bedroom. Well, we tried everything. Those little blue pills, racy movies, I even performed a little striptease for him.”
“Did you try bondage?” Chloe asked. “I hear older guys like that a lot.”
Sabina shushed Chloe, then turned back to Mrs. Nussbaum. “What did she give you?”
“She gave me a potion. I have no idea what was in it, but it worked. I poured a bit on top of his apple cobbler and we had a night of passion that you wouldn’t believe. I just came to get more. I have big plans for tonight. I’m making a custard pie. Mr. Nussbaum loves custard pie.”
Sabina cleared her throat. “I’m afraid my grandmother is busy at the moment. But I’ll have her call you when she gets back.” She gently grabbed Mrs. Nussbaum’s elbow and steered her toward the door. “Good day, Mrs. Nussbaum.”
The elderly woman turned and smiled. “It is a very good day, isn’t it?”
Sabina watched the older woman exit, then turned and stalked to the back of the store, cursing beneath her breath. “One day, that stubborn old woman is going to get us both in trouble,” she muttered. “Nana! Nana, come out here right now.”
A moment later, Ruta emerged, dressed in her Gypsy costume. “I hear you had a date last night, Bina,” she said.
“That’s not what I want to talk about.”
“The charm is working.” She gave Chloe a wink. “You said he was handsome. Where did you meet him, darling?”
“I met the man on my way to get bagels. It had nothing to do with the charm. But we do have to discuss the potions you gave Chloe and Mrs. Nussbaum.”
“I have to get ready for Mrs. Marston’s reading. We are going to summon the spirits of her three dead ex- husbands today. Something about missing stock certificates.”
“Nana, what did I tell you about potions?”
Ruta blinked, then sent her granddaughter a nervous smile. “I don’t know, Bina,” she said, waving her hand distractedly. “Did you tell me something about potions?” She gave Sabina a blank look, but Sabina wasn’t about to fall for that old trick. Ruta was an expert at using her advancing age to manipulate any situation. She conveniently forgot conversations whenever it suited her, yet managed to remember the vital statistics of every single professional man who walked in the door of the shop.
Sabina raked her hair out of her eyes. “Do not play the old woman with me. We’ve discussed this at length and still you won’t listen.” She reached out and grabbed her grandmother’s hand, turning it palm up. “Let me tell you your fortune, Nana. If you want to lose this shop, then you keep right on mixing those potions.”
“What is wrong with my potions? They have been handed down for generations. Tested by time. I may be an old woman, but you worry like an old woman.”
“And if one of our customers has an allergic reaction or doesn’t follow your directions or heaven forbid, dies, what then? We will be sued and you will lose this shop and everything you own. And Simon Harnett will be waiting on the sidewalk to snatch it all up and turn it into condominiums or a huge hardware store or some silly shops that no one really needs. And then where will we live? Where will all our tenants live?”
Ruta waved her hand. “Don’t be so dramatic, Bina. No one is going to die. Neither Simon Harnett, nor his son, Alec, can force us to sell if we don’t want to.”
A sick feeling settled in Sabina’s stomach. “Alec Harnett?”
“Hey, wasn’t that the name of the guy who was in here last night?” Chloe asked.
“He came again last night?” Ruta asked. “Mario told me was here yesterday around noon. He dropped him off out front and saw him go into the shop. Did you talk to him, Bina, or did you kick him out? You should have called me. I would have given him a piece of my mind.”
Sabina swallowed hard. Her mind spun with confusion. They’d had no other customers over the lunch hour except for Alec Harper, the man she’d met on the sidewalk that morning. A whirl of emotions surged inside of her as the truth became more apparent.
Sabina drew a shaky breath. “No, Nana,” she lied. “We didn’t have any customers. Mario must have been mistaken. Besides, we’re not talking about the Harnetts, we’re talking about potions. No more. Agreed?” She reached up and tugged the charm over her head, then pressed it into her grandmother’s palm. “And-and no more charms. They give people false hope.”
“No more potions.” Ruta muttered something else in Hungarian before she spun on her heel and walked back through the bead curtain, her jewelry jingling as she moved.
She glanced over at Chloe. “Why are you smiling?” Sabina asked.
“This is the most interesting thing that’s happened in this shop since your grandmother summoned the spirit of Marilyn Monroe by mistake.” Chloe paused. “She was supposed to be looking for Caroline Monroe.” She tucked her hands under her chin and braced her elbows on the counter. “So, what are you going to do? You could always put a curse on him. Maybe make all his hair fall out. You know how men are about their hair. Or you could make him impotent. Not forever, because that would be cruel, but for a year or two.”
Sabina glanced up at the clock, then grabbed the phone book from behind the counter. “Find out where Alec Harnett’s office is. Harnett Property Development. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Where are you going?” Chloe asked.
Sabina didn’t bother with an answer. She and Alec had made a date yesterday to meet for coffee. “Same place, same time.” It was nearly nine. If he was waiting out on the sidewalk, then she wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to tell him exactly what she thought of his deception.
As she walked down the sidewalk, she recalled their encounter in his kitchen. Things had been going so well and then everything had come to a dead halt. He’d probably begun to feel guilty. No, Sabina thought. That would mean he had a conscience, something that didn’t run in the Harnett family line.
Sabina held her breath as she rounded the corner. She froze when she saw him leaning against a mailbox. In truth, she hadn’t expected him to be waiting. And now that he was, she wasn’t sure where to begin.
He straightened as she approached, his gaze fixed on her face. “I was hoping you’d come,” he said, smiling weakly.
Sabina stopped a few feet away. It wouldn’t do to get too close. “Alec Harnett,” she said.
His smile faded into a grimace. “So you know. Was it the mailbox? I just realized that my name was on the mailbox. When you left the house yesterday.”
“No, it wasn’t the mailbox,” she replied. “Never mind what it was. What difference does it make? You lied to me. You led me on. You tried to seduce me so that you could convince me to convince my grandmother to sell her building.”
