Page 21 of Herbs & Hex-breaking

“Please don’t think less of me,” I said, as one of the lights blew with a muffled pop.

“Never,” she insisted. “Kate, we’re more like sisters than cousins, and I love you. Spill.”

“I haven’t been completely honest with you or Lorna,” I began as we walked over to her shop. “The night y’all came over for pizza...”

CHAPTER FIVE

Circe listened intently as I spoke about the night Dex had stayed over. While I didn’t go into graphic details, I did explain how I’d woken alone the next morning, his note, and why I’d kept quiet about the real time he’d left.

“Well, yeah you stayed quiet about it,” Circe said. “I would have too. That’s no one’s business but yours. But why was the detective back again?”

“Circe, do you know about Dex’s family?” I asked her. “As in who they are?”

“No.” Her darkened eyebrows rose. “What do you mean?”

“Well, thanks to the private detective I just found out about Dex’s people...and I’m pretty freaking shocked let me tell ya.”

“Oh gods,” Circe said. “His family’s not tied to the mafia, are they?”

“No.” I smiled despite myself. “Let me fill you in on what else I found out today.”

“You’d damn well better.”

“To begin,” I said, “Dex’s full name is, Beauregard Poindexter III.”

Circe’s jaw dropped. “As in the Poindexters from Mountain Brook?”

“Yes,” I said.

“They’re old money,” she said. “Snobbish and about as close to high society as you can get ‘round these parts. What else did you find out?”

I filled her in on the news of Dex’s father’s recent passing and the rest of my conversation with the detective. “Ellington wanted to know if I was aware that Dex had been in rehab.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Did he now?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “And I told him that I did know, and that as far as I could tell Dex had remained sober.”

“Yeah,” Circe agreed. “Dex’s been clean for as long as we’ve known him. I mean jeez! The guy’s a vegetarian and a fitness fanatic.”

“Do you recall that day he talked to us about his experience in rehab?” I asked my cousin.

“Yes, I do.” Circe jumped to her feet and began to pace back and forth.

Knowing that she thought better on the move, I sat back and waited. It was a relief to have someone else trying to wrap their mind around everything.

“His story damn near broke my heart,” she said. “Those stupid shrinks thinking his psychic abilities—the visions—needed to be stopped with a bunch of prescriptions.”

“Dex told us that the numbness from the so called ‘helpful pharmaceuticals’ was actually making him feel worse. Even worse than recreational drugs and alcohol.”

“I remember,” Circe said quietly.

“So he decided to get sober and get off the prescribed stuff from the doctors too. Then he checked himself out of rehab.”

She stopped and spun around. “I’m guessing that’s when the Poindexters withdrew their financial support—when he left rehab.”

It all made a horrible sort of sense, I realized. “Which might explain,” I said to myself almost as much as her, “why he shortened his name and began using an alias.”

“And Lorna knew who his people were this whole time?” she demanded.