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  Starshine glanced at the untouched cup of tea in Selena's hand. "Go ahead. It won't turn you into a toad."

  She seemed to be a cross between an earth mother and a flower child, with stray braids dotting her silver hair and a ring on every toe. It made Selena nervous. She kept expecting to be zapped into nothingness, or for this woman to wiggle her nose.

  She glanced around at the walls of the store. "You get a lot of teenagers in here?"

  "Too many," Starshine said, and sighed. "The spells attract most of the kids. They hear the word witch, and immediately think they'll be able to wave a wand and hurt the bullies in school or to make the star of the basketball team fall madly for them."

  "Something tells me they're not running home to tell Mom and Dad they're Wiccans."

  "No," Starshine agreed, "and it goes right back to the Inquisition, I'm afraid. Being a witch is not something that invites confidence, because too many people misunderstand what it means if you say that you are one. And unfortunately, I think teenagers are attracted to that part of Wicca--doing something, even something natural and innocent, behind their parents' backs."

  "Does Gillian Duncan come in here often?"

  The older woman shrugged. "Just recently, she came in looking for belladonna."

  "Belladonna? The poison?"

  Starshine nodded. "She wanted it for an obsolete recipe, once used for out-of-body experiences and psychic visions. Needless to say, I tried to redirect her focus."

  "How?"

  The cat leaped into the woman's lap; she stroked its fur until its eyes slit shut. "I told her to celebrate the upcoming sabbat instead."

  "Do you remember when that conversation occurred?"

  "Right before Beltane," Starshine said, then noticed Selena's blank look. "The night of April thirtieth."

  "What if she found it somewhere else?" Jordan asked. He and Selena sat on a teak bench in his backyard, watching a blue jay fight a flock of finches at the bird feeder. They sat side by side, and Jordan could have told her exactly how many centimeters of space separated their bodies from shoulder to hip to thigh. Christ, the electricity between them was enough to keep the mosquitoes at bay.

  Selena didn't seem to notice. Or if she did, she was doing a damn good job of hiding it. "The belladonna?" she asked.

  "Yeah. What if she made her recipe and passed it out the night of April thirtieth? Then Jack stumbles by, drunk, and Gillian hallucinates the assault."

  Selena frowned. "It must have been some pretty good shit, then, to conjure up the semen on her thigh."

  "Okay," Jordan conceded, "that's a sticking point."

  "No pun intended?"

  "I can't explain the semen. But that's not my job. All I have to do is make the jury think for a nanosecond that there might be another explanation for what happened that night, other than rape. And the victim's credibility is called into question if we prove that her recollections are drug-impaired."

  "Still, Jordan," Selena argued, "it's not like there are occult suppliers on Main Street. Belladonna's a poison. It isn't easy to come by."

  "She could have substituted another hallucinogenic drug."

  Selena snorted. "From the local pharmacy?"

  "From the high school dealer," Jordan corrected, and then smiled slowly. "Or from Daddy."

  It took three and a half hours for the Reverend Marsh to leave the house, three and a half hours that Addie spent sitting behind a small clot of hydrangea in the front yard. She waited until he had driven off in his Buick and then she knocked on the door.

  "You lied," Addie said, the minute Catherine Marsh opened it.

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "You didn't have a relationship with Jack St. Bride. You never slept with him. I don't know why, Catherine, and I don't know how, exactly, but you somehow got this rumor started and managed to ruin his life."

  "He told me ... he told me ..."

  "He didn't tell you anything he wouldn't have told any other student."

  Catherine started to protest but then crumbled. There was no other word for it--the edges of her mouth waffled in, her eyes drifted shut, and all her bravado collapsed. "I didn't mean for this to happen," she whispered. "My father ... he found birth control pills in my underwear drawer, and it made him crazy. Then he found my diary ... and read that, too." Catherine swallowed. "It was only pretend. I mean, we all had crushes on Coach. When my boyfriend broke up with me ... Coach took extra care to make sure I was okay, to let me cry on his shoulder. I pretended it was because he liked me, you know, that way, a little. So I wrote about him. I wrote about us."

  "Fiction," Addie said, to clarify, and Catherine nodded miserably. "And when your father went to the police? Did you ever think that maybe you ought to tell them?"

  "I did. But they all thought I was just trying to keep him out of jail because I loved him." She dashed a tear from her cheek. "When I was lying, they hung on every word. And when I told the truth, no one listened."

  "Catherine--"

  "I am so ashamed," the girl whispered. "I am so sorry I did this to him."

  Addie fought for control. "Then help him now."

  "You're the last guy I expected to see," Charlie said, holding the door open so that Jordan could walk inside.

  "That's because I'm not here as an attorney," Jordan answered. "Just as a dad."

  Charlie invited Jordan to sit down on a floral couch with an afghan hanging over the back. "That's right. I forget you have a kid."

  "Bad news, I guess." Jordan grinned. "We defense lawyers can procreate."

  That surprised a laugh out of Charlie. "Your boy's in, what? His freshman year?"

  "Yeah." Jordan could feel himself sweating through the back of his short-sleeved polo shirt. He had absolutely no proof of what he was about to tell Charlie--this was a pure hunch, one that he hoped would prey on the detective's parental sensibilities and net Jordan a windfall. Short of this white lie, he didn't know how else to confirm his intuitions. "Charlie, first things first. This is all off the record, all right?"

  The detective nodded slowly.

  "My son--Thomas--has been seeing Chelsea Abrams."

  "Oh?" Charlie said easily. "She's a sweet kid."

  "Yeah. Well, he certainly thinks so, anyway." They both laughed. "This is a little awkward, Charlie," Jordan said, exhaling heavily. "Thomas came home with some information I thought I should pass along."

  At that, Charlie sat up, immediately alert.

  "Chelsea said that the night the girls were in the woods, they were doing drugs."

  Charlie didn't move a muscle. "My daughter doesn't ... she wouldn't do that."

  "I didn't think so. And you have to know, given our circumstances right now, this was about the last thing I figured you'd want to hear from me. But as a father--well, hell, if someone knew that about Thomas, I'd want to be told." He stood, wary of overstaying his welcome. "It's probably a misunderstanding."

  "Probably." Charlie led the way out of the house. He watched the lawyer walk down the slate path that led to the driveway. "Jordan."

  For a moment, the two men simply stared at each other.

  "Thank you," Charlie said.

  As laboratory technician, Arthur Quince had enough trouble trying to keep afloat at Duncan Pharmaceuticals without investigators coming along to foul up the rhythm of his day. Especially investigators who arrived with a light in their eyes, intent on linking your place of business to a crime. First the rape of his boss's daughter, and now a drug case right here in Salem Falls? What was this world coming to?

  "I don't know if I'll be able to help you," Arthur told Selena Damascus. "On any given week, we might be making six drugs at a time."

  "Like which six?"

  Jesus, the woman was like a dog with a bone. Arthur punched up records on his computer and pointed to the screen. "Recently, we've been making fentanyl citrate, lidocaine hydrochloride, and phenobarbital sodium."

  "What about before that?"

  He s