I nearly snorted appletini out of my nose. I grabbed a few napkins and dabbed my face. “I’m sorry?”
She smirked. “Don’t think that I don’t know what Sadie said about me.”
“Truth is, she never said anything about you. The most she ever told me was that the two of you didn’t get along.”
Hannah sipped her whiskey, her glittering gaze pinned on me. “My relationship to this town is complicated. There are many here who hate me, and so when I could, I left. Sadie stayed on, but we had to make it look like we had parted ways.”
What in the world had happened? “I’m not gonna pretend that I understand a lick of what you’re saying.”
She folded her hands. “I’ve been sick. I don’t suppose you know that.”
I shook my head. “No idea.”
“My treatments cost a lot of money.” Hannah leaned back in her chair. “You have to understand, when I abandoned this town, I left with nothing, not one penny. I think that was the beginning of my illness. That’s when it started, but it didn’t progress for years. It lay dormant, and when the doctors discovered the cancer, they told me it would be expensive to treat.”
Hannah stared at the wall behind me, her eyes taking on a faraway look. “I told Sadie, of course, and she took it upon herself to do whatever she could to take the extra stress from my life.”
Now the pieces started snapping into place. “She gave you the money.”My money, I wanted to say. Well, technicallyourmoney, but at this point I considered it mine.
Hannah nodded. “And a lot of it, too. I needed more than I ever could have imagined, and Sadie always helped me out. I would ask where she got it from, and she just said that she had taken out a loan.”
“Mmm,” I said.
Hannah’s face pinched with sadness. “I hated the idea that my own child had taken out a loan for me, but I couldn’t stop her from doing it, you know?”
I licked my lips. “I’m afraid that Sadie wasn’t completely honest with you.”
“No?”
“She was taking out a loan, but it wasn’t from a bank. She found, let’s just say…some shady men who don’t like it when the bills aren’t paid.”
Hannah looked horror-struck. “You mean she took money from the wizard mafia?”
Now it was my turn to look horrified. I dropped my voice to a whisper. “You know about them?”
“Of course,” she snarled. “Everyone does.”
“I didn’t.”
Hannah pursed her lips. “That’s because anyone can see that you don’t want to have a thing to do with your magic.”
“I resent that. And why the heck can everyone tell that about me?”
Hannah flicked her hand at me. “Shh. Keep your voice down.” She sipped her whiskey and sucked on her teeth. “I had no idea that Sadie had done such a foolish thing.”
“Not only that,” I added, “but she put our business up against the loan, and now they want twenty grand or they’re taking my business away.”
Hannah clutched my hand. “I’m so sorry. So very, very sorry. I hate that you’ve gotten wrapped up in this.”
I hiked a shoulder to my ear. “What can I do about it now? Nothing.”
“If I had known that, I never would have taken the money. I would have come down here and handed it back.”
I shook my head. “Please don’t say that. But are you well?”
Her lips tipped up into a sad smile. “It’s the only good thing that’s come out of this—that Sadie got to hear me say the words, ‘I’m healed.’ Have been for a year.”
“A year?”
