Dewitched (Witchless In Seattle Mysteries Book 3) (22 page)

“You know what I don’t get. How is it that none of these women ever told each other about the two of you? Like, have each other’s backs, warned others like them away from the likes of you?”

Ralph didn’t appear at all taken aback by my harsh tone. In fact, he seemed pretty unfettered by guises. He knew who he was. A cheat with no regrets.

Folding his hands in front of him, he shrugged nonchalantly. “The circle is small, no doubt, but when you’re like Bart and I, you get in, you get what you want, and you get out. You don’t linger. You swap out identities as fast as possible and you move on to the next mark. These women have reputations to protect. They don’t want anyone knowing we did naughty, naughty things to them in order to win their hearts and purses. It’s rather humiliating, wouldn’t you say? Would you want the world to know you’d been had?”

I’d want to let the world see me punch him in the face because I’d been had. But I refrained from saying as much. “Fair enough. So one last question, if you don’t mind. Did you call Bart or did Bart call you here at the prison?”

There it was again. A small flicker of discomfort, but then he looked me directly in the eyes. “Why would we call each other, Miss Cartwright? We were, essentially, foes. Now, as lovely as you are, as much as I wish there was something I could
do
about how lovely you are, I’m bored with this conversation. I’m sorry for your loss. Have a lovely life.”

And that was that. He rose from his chair with the grace of a gazelle, held out his wrists for the guards to take him away, and he was gone in a blur of orange jumpsuit and regal stature.

“
B
oy, he was some smooth operator, huh?” I asked when we reached my car and I was tucked safely inside.

“Cool as the north of Wales in spring,” Win agreed.

“He almost didn’t blink an eye when he heard Bart was dead.”

“
Almost
being the key word, Dove. He hid it well, but he glitched. It was in his tone, in the slight flicker of awareness in his eyes.”

I leaned back against the car door, facing the passenger seat, and considered that. “So you think maybe he really cared about Bart? Considered him a friend?”

“No. Hardly. But I can’t shake the feeling he knows something.”

“Like? I couldn’t get a feel on him one way or the other. I saw the glitch you’re talking about. But I feel like it was more about his mortality than Bart’s death.”

“Maybe,” Win murmured.

Sighing, I stretched my neck, the tension easing. I didn’t realize how edgy I’d been in there, but there’d been a heaviness that lifted when I left and breathed in the air outside the prison walls.

I was becoming frustrated though. We needed answers if we hoped to get CC out of this jam. “Well, that was our last viable lead. I’m telling you, Win. I felt like I was onto something. It’s like I’m this close, but the answer won’t get off the tip of my tongue.”

“Your theory that Ralph could have put a hit out isn’t outrageous, Dove.”

“But after all this time? He’s been incarcerated for three years. And it didn’t come off like he hated Bart at all. He might not have liked him encroaching on his turf, but I almost got a reluctant admiration vibe from him.”

“Then we move on and revisit this later.”

“So we probably should attack the list of staff at the party. We should start talking to some of them. All the wait staff, the chef, the sous chef, the linemen, the orchestra, the DJ. The list is endless. Remind me the next time you want to throw a party to run in the other direction. We’ll be talking to potential suspects ’til this time next year. Next party we do Cheese Whiz and Triscuits. Got it?”

“Ugh, you’re a heathen, Stevie Cartwright. I’ll eat my shoe before I put canned cheese on my tongue. Now, how about we ride home with a little Beethoven to soothe our stalled investigation and battered egos. It’s a bit of a drive, might as well enjoy it, yes?”

“My mother texted to tell me she and my father took Whiskey and the Bats on a day trip to Seattle. Apparently my dad’s never been to the Space Needle and Mom’s been cleared of any wrongdoing in Bart’s death, so they’re celebrating. She said they won’t be back for dinner.”

Win hummed “I’m In The Mood for Love” then chuckled. “Doest thou think your parents might rekindle their old flame?”

That made me pause. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. After I’d witnessed firsthand how my mother treated men, I wasn’t sure I wanted her to sink her claws into my father. “Thou is going to put that on the back burner.”

“How are you feeling about your father after last night, Dove? He truly rallied for you.”

He sure had, and I’ll admit, it made my insides all warm. I smiled. “He kinda did. I don’t think he had anything to do with Bart’s death anymore. But it’s my mother and what
she
did, that still has me feeling like I’m going to wake up and this will all have been a dream.”

Win snorted. “I’ll say. I mean, she did willingly take those filthy animals to the Space Needle. Surely she’s turned over a new leaf.”

“You should have seen her, Win. She was all fire and brimstone with the rain pouring down on her and sleet pecking at her perfect skin. She’s never gone to bat for me before. No one ever has but you.”

Win’s warmth washed over me, his aura brightening. “I will always go to bat for you, Dove. However, I rather like knowing Mama Bear is right beside me. I can’t tell you how pleased I am to find Dita has a redeeming quality and that you were the one who benefitted from such. I don’t know what I would have done without her help.”

“What exactly did she do? I’ve never heard the spell she used before. Could you see her? Hear her?”

“At that point, it was more a feeling than anything else, though I could hear you screaming in the distance…” Win paused then, his voice growing hoarse. “Yet, I knew with certainty it was Dita, or her power, that helped me survive.”

“Are you ready to talk about what happened?”

Win’s gruff sigh sounded tired. “I can only tell you it happened as quickly as the last time when he possessed the Bustamantes’
abuela
. One moment I managed to make myself appear to you, the next I was sucked into some sort of vortex. It was ugly, desperate, then it got hotter than Hades itself…and I felt his hatred for you, tasted it. The emotion was palpable and left me gagging. I didn’t know what to do. The only thing I
did
know was I had to move toward whatever was pushing me into this black hole of despair. Call it instinct or whatever, but I’d have been and
will be
damned before I let that happen.”

His words were so final, they frightened me. Shook me to my core. “How did you make yourself appear?”

“Lots and lots of practice behind your back. But here’s something to chew on. You saw me, Dove. You, the ex-witch with no powers,
saw
me. And that isn’t all you’ve had happen over the last couple of months. I firmly believe we can find a way to get your powers back.”

I couldn’t think about that right now. The notion was too fleeting. Too based in hope rather than reality. There was more to focus on anyway. Like Win and the chance he took trying to save me.

“Listen. I know being a big bad spy, you don’t want to talk about this, but I need you to promise me something, Win. If Adam comes for you again, find the light. Just go into the light. Please. I’m begging you. If he steals your soul…” I had to swallow back my tears before I could finish. Gripping the steering wheel, I bit the inside of my cheek before I said, “If Adam can get his hands on your soul, it will be the worst hell you’ve ever known. Please, don’t do that for me. I’d have to live with that, and I don’t think I can.”

“You won’t have to, Dove. I won’t allow it. Now, Beethoven, please.”

I started the car and put on Beethoven, letting it flood my ears as the sun pierced my eyes, making them sting. I was pretty sure the golden rays weren’t the only thing responsible, but I couldn’t dwell on what could happen.

Not yet.

* * * *

“It’s good to be home, huh, Spy Guy?”

“Indeed, Mini-Spy. There really is no place like home.”

I sank down in the chair in the parlor. Apparently, while we’d made the trip to the Penn, the police had cleared the room and we could now use it as a living space again.

My father had taken great pains to clean it up and rearrange the furniture so I could hopefully forget it had been a crime scene. He said so in the note he’d left me with a box of blueberry Pop-Tarts on the counter, for which he left strict instructions they were to be eaten
after
my dinner.

Now, Win and I sat by the hearth, a small fire glowing. Me tucked into my jammies after a long hot shower, and Win in my ear as we looked over the list of wait staff in order to tackle questioning them first thing tomorrow morning.

“Do any of the names ring a bell, Dove?”

“Nope. Not one. I say we just tackle them alphabetically tomorrow. Sound good?”

“First thing,” Win agreed.

Looking to the end table next to the chair, I grabbed the box I’d previously forgotten about Hardy dropping off and slit it free of tape with my letter opener.

That was odd. It was addressed to me in a lovely script scrawl, the lines of each letter billowy and precise. “No return address. Huh.”

“Maybe you have a secret admirer, Dove. A gallant young man on a white steed who’s sending you gifts to express his love.”

I snorted sarcastically. “Or it’s my stuff from Woot.”

“Stuff?”

“I might have ordered Whiskey a little something…”

Win’s chuckle was indulgent. He loved Whiskey as much as I did, and I’d caught him instructing Bel to order things online for him on more than one occasion. “More tennis balls, perchance? Honestly, I don’t know where he hides them all.”

“I’ll tell you where he hides them all. In the backyard, where all the holes that are deep enough for bodies are.” I stuffed the letter opener in the pocket of my bathrobe next to my phone and flipped open the box.

My hands stopped all motion as I recognized the vinyl blue squares in the box.

Passports?

There had to be a dozen or so at least. My first thought was they were Bart’s. Maybe the aliases he’d traveled under, because there were a bunch of them. Possibly the man who’d leased the villa to him had gathered his things and sent them?

I looked at the postmark, but it wasn’t from Greece. It was from Paris…

With shaking hands, I pulled one blue vinyl square from the box and flipped it open, fully expecting to see Bart’s handsome face staring back at me.

But that’s not what I saw. That’s not what I saw at all.

No. I’ll tell you what I saw.

I saw Win’s.

I
gasped, the echo harsh in my ears as it reached the raised ceiling. I dug into the box again and pulled out yet another passport and flipped it open.

And there was Win’s face again.

And not one of them said Crispin Alistair Winterbottom. In fact, they had all sorts of names: Franz Henry, Marco Desalva, Leopold Arnold.

My mouth ran dry, my lips sticking together as I dug through the box with frantic fingers. It was just full of passports. Who would send these to me? Who knew of my connection to Win?

Why would they send them to me
now
?

“Shall I explain?” Win asked, his tone stiff.

“I think I can guess what they are, Win. They’re your aliases when you were a spy, right?”

Please, please, please say that’s what this is
. For a crazy moment, I wondered if I’d been had just like all the women in Bart’s and Ralph’s lives.

“That’s exactly what they are.”

I let out a breath. Of course that’s what they were. “Any thoughts on who would send them to me?
Why
they’d send them to me? Did you call up MI6 and tell them I was your earthly friend and all your belongings could be sent here?”

Win’s silence deafened me, making my concern grow in leaps and bounds and my stomach rumble with discontent.

When he finally spoke, he said, “I don’t know, Stevie. No one knows you exist or have any connection to me. I made sure of that. I made sure of that for a reason.”

Now I was quiet while I tried to form a theory. “Do you think this has to do with Adam? Do you think he could contact someone you know and give them the head’s up that I got all your money?”

“If I find that’s the case, I’ll—”

The doorbell rang, interrupting his words, but I knew what he was about to say anyway. I just wish he realized that even spies like him weren’t a match for powerful warlocks like Adam.

“Hold that thought,” I said, slipping from the chair to run to the door before they rang again. Win had insisted on an obnoxious gong as the sound the doorbell made. He said it had a regal air to it.

I said it sounded like we’d just entered the Temple Of Doom.

It was dark by now, but this time I was ready. I’d been caught off guard twice at my front door, once by a deranged killer, and once by someone who wasn’t a deranged killer at all, but no one was catching me with my pants down this time.

So I grabbed my car keys from the basket on the entryway table and put them between my knuckles. Win had taught me keys in the bad guy’s eyeball sockets could cause some severe damage.

The light was bright on the front porch for the reasons I listed above, but I didn’t see anyone. If it was those kids who’d dropped by and ding-dong-ditched me because they were angry I’d stolen their super-secret hangout when I’d moved in, I was going to do some ear pulling while I called up their parents.

Pulling the door open, I looked outside, peering into the darkness to the edge of my lawn that fell off like a cliff right down to the beach below my property. The lights on the front lawn glowed, soft and dewy in the mist of rain, the stars and moon covered by the clouds moving in.

And nothing but crickets.

Slamming the door, I held up my fist in rage and gave it a mighty shake. “Swear it, Win. I don’t care if those boys are just kids, I’m going to find those little wankers (I love that word. Win taught it to me. It made me feel very British) and steal their lunch money—”