Dewitched (Witchless In Seattle Mysteries Book 3) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Excerpt

  Dewitched

  Blurb

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Excerpt from the next book

  Preview another book by Dakota Cassidy

  Note from Dakota Cassidy

  eBooks by Dakota Cassidy

  Excerpt

  Kicking off my shoes, I stooped to pick them up and decided to wait just another moment to go back inside and help my mother.

  “Stevie? I have intel,” Win said, his tone ominous.

  I sighed as I looked up at the stars. “Intel?”

  “A spirit here—no face, just a voice—says not to believe everything you see.”

  My head hung between my shoulders as a sardonic laugh spewed from my lips. “Oh, that’s hugely helpful. Bet it has to do with my mother. I think Dita just proved what she shows the world isn’t real. If that spirit’s contacting you because of her, it should be telling that to all the people she encountered tonight, including Carmella, who bought her Mary Poppins routine lock, stock and tea.”

  “Hold on—more coming…”

  Did I want to know what was coming? Would it be something horrible about my mother? Some piece of information I was better off not knowing?

  “The spirit says—a male spirit, in case you wondered—your mother isn’t what she seems… How curious, don’t you think?”

  Rolling my eyes, I headed back inside. “Tell your spirit he’s like twenty years too late. I’ve always known she gives good face. She’s only been my mother for almost thirty-three years. If he really wants to help, tell him to find Bart. Some answers would be nice.”

  “I’ve been waiting here on Plane Limbo since you found him, but no sign yet. Either he immediately crossed or he’s drifting.”

  “Well, if you see High Planes Drifter, tell him we have some questions, would you?”

  “I am nothing if not your minion, Dove,” Win joked.

  “Did you ever find Hugh?”

  How could a man claim to be my father then take off without another word? I wanted to talk to my mother about it, but it was a pretty precarious time to bring up something she never wanted to talk about to begin with.

  “I haven’t seen him since his confession. I looked everywhere, too. I’d like to chalk this up to someone attempting a scam with you, but my gut says something else.”

  “Perfect. Then I’ll have to ask my mother about him. Not looking forward to that conversation.”

  “But you must protect yourself, Stevie, and your mother.”

  “Stephania? Who are you talking to? I thought everyone had gone home?” my mother called from the kitchen.

  I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s a relief to finally tell another living soul I have a ghost. “It’s my ghost, Mom. His name is Win. Or Crispin Alistair Winterbottom, if you’re into long names that sound like they belong to a British butler.”

  “Oh, Stephania, will you never learn?” Win asked on a chuckle.

  Dewitched

  Witchless In Seattle Mysteries, Book 3

  Dakota Cassidy

  Published 2016 by Book Boutiques.

  ISBN: 978-1-944003-38-8

  Copyright © 2016, Dakota Cassidy.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Book Boutiques.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, locales, or events is wholly coincidental. The names, characters, dialogue, and events in this book are from the author’s imagination and should not to be construed as real.

  Manufactured in the USA.

  Email [email protected] with questions, or inquiries about Book Boutiques.

  Blurb

  I, ex-witch Stevie Cartwright, do hereby solemnly swear to avoid future murder-mystery shenanigans, nosiness, tomfoolery, and any further crazy killer-inflicted pain to my person, so help me goddess…

  Hah! Like I could help myself? But after busting my butt (literally!) on the last murder case in my beloved hometown of Ebenezer Falls, WA, I could use a nice long break. I was determined to take the time to enjoy the company of my bat familiar, Belfry; my British ex-spy ghost, Win; our adorable St. Bernard rescue, Whiskey; and of course our gorgeous home, Mayhem Manor, freshly and lovingly renovated.

  Until shazam—a dead man invites himself to our fancy housewarming party! When my mother’s husband number five ends up deep-sixed in my parlor, it’s not like I can’t NOT try to solve this mystery, right? Especially if I ever want Mom to leave so I can get back to my semi-peaceful existence.

  But our work is definitely cut out for us this time. With Belfry’s rascally bat family visiting and the two hundred or so guests, acrobats, mimes, cooks, catering staff, orchestra members—and a surprise guest who throws me for a loop in the house—suspects sure aren’t a problem.

  Looks like it’s time for another spirit-filled, witchless adventure in Ebenezer Falls!

  Acknowledgements

  Cover Artist: Valerie Tibbs, Tibbs Design

  Editor: Kelli Collins

  Author Note

  Darling readers,

  If you’re joining me for the first time, welcome to Ebenezer Falls, Washington! A fictional suburb of Seattle, where my heroine and amateur sleuth, Stevie Cartwright, has gone to lick her witchless wounds.

  This cozy mystery is a spinoff of my Paris, Texas, romance series. If you’ve not visited the whacky happenings in Paris, fear not, darling readers! This series is completely stand-alone. If you’ve read Paris, expect to see some familiar faces dropping in from time to time.

  Though, please note, the Witchless in Seattle Cozy Mysteries series is best read in order, to understand the back story and history of each character, as well as their journeys, which develop and continue from one book to the next.

  And lastly, I so hope you’ll join me for The Old Witcheroo, book 4 in this series, releasing in August 2016!!

  Chapter 1

  “Are you Stevie Cartwright?”

  A really good-looking older man dressed in a black suit with a lavender shirt and deep-purple tie stood at the opening of my door, where, just behind him, chaos ensued on my front lawn.

  In the middle of the swirl of activity, I couldn’t help but notice he stood out like a bright plate from Pier One in a sea of Corningware. Not that Corningware isn’t perfectly lovely. It is. It’s reliable and functional. But it’s not exactly Waterford—which is what Win informs me is the best of the best, in his snobby opinion.

  Me personally? I’m just fine with a paper plate, but Win (he’s my dead British spy ghost) insisted I at least consider upping my taste game and contemplate a more refined set of dinnerware.

  Looking up at the stranger decorating my doorway, his good looks so devastatingly handsome, I forgot the question.

  “So you are Stevie Cartwright, correct?”

  I scanned him from head to toe once again. Wow, the caterers didn’t just dip into the handsome lottery pool when they hired the help, they dove in head first.

  “You must be the
greeter, right?” I stuck out my hand and he took it, though he looked a little confused.

  But no worries. My house was enormous and there was more activity going on than at a beehive convention, as everyone prepared for my housewarming party. I was just as confused as him, to be honest. So I waved him in distractedly. What was one more person in the madness?

  I scanned him from head to toe again, noting his outfit didn’t match the rest of the caterer’s staff, but then, his job was to address the guests as they arrived. He should be showier.

  Sticking out my hand, I smiled. “It’s nice to meet you. Gosh, I hope you don’t mind me saying, but you’re really good looking. So I’d better warn you now. The mature ladies of Ebenezer Falls are going to have to be herded like cattle or you’ll have a backup at this door worse than anything you’ve ever seen on the I-5. Just a head’s up for efficiency’s sake.”

  At first he stood up straight and appeared to preen a little, but then he cocked his head, a head with just enough gray at the temples to be dangerously delicious. “I’m sorry, say again?”

  I winced, tightening the belt on my bathrobe. “Did I offend you? Sorry. Sometimes I say things before I think them through thoroughly. It’s a curse, I tell you.”

  “No. No, I’m not offended. Not at all. In fact, I’d quite agree,” he said on a velvety chuckle, smoothing his full head of thick black hair. “But I think we have our signals crossed—”

  “Stevie!” Win, my ghost I mentioned earlier, yelped in my ear, his distress crystal clear.

  I winced and held up a finger to the man who was still talking, his words muffled due to Win.

  Dollars to donuts my spy was all up in arms over some minor detail that wouldn’t make a hill o’ beans difference after tonight was through, but that didn’t stop him from nitpicking me to death anyway.

  We’d only been planning this housewarming party for a month. Yep, that’s right. It had been almost thirty full days of torturous choices—dinnerware, cutlery, silk or rustic-themed napkins, colors, ice sculptures, flowers, lighting, entertainment, and so on. Hence my analogies to Corningware.

  Torture, I tell you.

  I pressed my fingertips to the Bluetooth I used as my beard for communicating with Win when others were around. I’d been caught a couple of times talking to him as though he were in the room with me, not just in my ear, and it always proved awkward.

  So I wore the Bluetooth almost as an accessory nowadays.

  “What now? Swear, Winterbottom, if you’re interrupting me when I’m with the staff—the staff you insisted we hire for this housewarming—just to tell me some Cirque du Soleil member with a fancy, unpronounceable one-letter name is stuck at the airport with her leotard and satin rope again, I’m going to kill you!”

  “Now that’s simply impossible, isn’t it, Cheeky One?”

  I bobbed my head, turning around to attack the next problem in the kitchen, when I distractedly noted that the handsome man followed. “Fair point. But I’ll think of some way to make you wish you’d never met me if you throw one more problem on my plate. This housewarming was your idea, International Man of Mystery. I would have been fine just inviting everyone from town over for some Cheese Whiz and Triscuits—maybe even pizza or weenies in a blanket if ambition really struck. I’ve never hosted a party of this size before—let alone with fancy dishes, a string quartet, and some guy hanging from the ceiling in the parlor by a ruffled sheet! Give me a break, would you? It’s been Stevie, Stevie, Stevie all day long!”

  “Your husband, I presume?” the debonair man asked with a smile.

  “I’d rather eat toxic waste,” I replied. Curious as to why he was following me around.

  Petula, from Parties By Petula, the catering service we’d hired, said her people were go-getters, initiators. She must’ve said that a hundred times while we planned this party. As handsome as he was, he needed to go take some of that initiative.

  “Toxic waste, Dove? Really? Why do you have to be so curmudgeonly?”

  “Are we going to get into the million reasons? After you just finished asking me to shine the handle on the fridge with a cloth made of cashmere?”

  “Bah! I didn’t. I just said it had a lot of fingerprints and it should be freshened. Be careful not to scratch it, use a soft cloth. A mere suggestion, nothing more.”

  “Okay, fine. Let’s get to the point. I still have to dress and do my makeup before my mother arrives. I’ve told you about Dita, haven’t I? She makes me unreasonable, surly even. I want everything in place before I have to locate her world and make it revolve around her. So what’s the problem this time?”

  “Your mother’s attending the party?” the stranger asked, catching a glimpse of himself in the freshly shined fridge. He stopped for a moment in front of the French doors and smiled at his distorted image.

  No, he really did. It was exactly like you’d see on a cartoon where the character catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, smiles, and his teeth sparkle. He flashed a million watts while he lifted his chin and checked each angle with a tilt of his head. Then he gave himself a thumbs up—two, if I’m to be precise.

  Healthy self-esteem is a good quality for sure.

  But I had things to do. So I tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the entryway. “Listen, er…really great-looking guy. I have five hundred million things to do before this shindig starts. So if you’d just go wait by the front door for instructions from Petula, I’m pretty sure you won’t lack for company.”

  I didn’t bother to wait for his answer of compliance; I had a dress to squeeze into. Waving to the chef in our amazing new white and Italian marble gourmet kitchen before grabbing a blob of cheese with some brown thing under it, I zipped out of the kitchen and up the gorgeous new staircase, alight with twinkling fairy lights.

  Racing down the wide hall, I didn’t even take the time to admire the smooth, creamy-colored walls or the pictures of scenic cottages Win had personally picked out.

  Skidding around the corner, I fell into my bedroom where my familiar, Belfry, napped on the furry back of our rescue dog, Whiskey.

  Setting my blob of cheese on the nightstand, I did take the time to appreciate my bedroom.

  Gosh, I loved this room. It was every dream I’d ever had as a teenager. Especially my bed, literally built against the tall windows facing the Puget Sound. Framed with wainscoting in pale lemon and a bookcase built into the headboard, and blue and white chintz bedding with tons of fluffy French country pillows. It was, in a word, magnificent.

  A hanging chandelier cast a warm glow over the room, the sparkly multi-shaped jewels making shadows on the walls. A white brick fireplace—which I wasn’t able to take for a test drive right now at the end of May—sat on the far wall, and would keep me toasty come December. A matching wingback blue chintz chair with a warm cashmere pale lemon throw draped over its back sat by yet another set of windows overlooking the front lawn. To top it off, a big braided rug lay in the center of it all.

  It was heaven.

  And I really wanted to crawl back into that heaven and forget this whole party thing.

  But I’d promised Win I’d get involved with my fellow Ebenezer Fall-ers, and he told me this was the best way to do it. Good food, expensive wine, and ridiculous ice fountains were the way to reintroduce myself to the people I’d grown up with and forge new adult friendships.

  He’d said this was how to welcome everyone into my life again after having left when I was just out of high school to move to Paris, Texas, for training as a paranormal 9-1-1 operator for my coven of witches. Who were no longer my coven, by the by.

  This party was a friendly way to say “howdy neighbor.” For some reason, probably because not so long ago I’d lost everyone in my life, Win felt it important to thrust me into the face of anyone who crossed my path because he never wanted me to be alone.

  Which I mostly never was. Not with him in my ear, our new dog Whiskey and my bat familiar Belfry. This particular worry of his made
me worry about Win’s future on what we laughingly called the place he was spending his afterlife—Plane Limbo.

  Where spirits who aren’t yet sure they’re ready to cross hang out and linger. Or in Win’s case, turn their afterlife into one big party, conga line included. I wondered if all this getting-me-involved meant he was considering crossing over for the first time since I’d met him.

  Win had refused to cross over from the start, but I wasn’t pushing him to, either. He was one of the reasons I’d been able to keep my head above water after I lost my witch powers. But I worried someday he might not have a choice, and as selfish as it seems, he was my tether these days. My glue. I needed him, and I’d mourn his loss for a very long time if he left.

  Whiskey, our St. Bernard, stretched on the bed, his mahogany and white fur rippling as he groaned his pleasure, rolling over for tummy scratches.

  “Duuude!” Belfry chirped his discontent. “A little warning before you do that, huh, buddy? You could crush me and then what? Who would you have to pretend-throw the ball to you when these lugs are too busy solving murders?”

  I giggled. Belfy is a cotton ball bat. Two inches of snarky, snarly, snow-white, loveable, forever-napping bat, and I’d have never made it this far without him after being kicked out of my coven and losing my powers. He remained steadfast in his loyalty to me as my familiar, the coven be damned.

  Plucking him from the bed before Whiskey crushed him, I held him up and looked him in the eye, his yellow snout and ears twitching as he asked, “You ready for tonight, Cinderella?”

  “I’m afraid of tonight,” I replied, eyeing my glittering red designer dress. A brand-new designer dress Win insisted I purchase, rather than dig into my stash of secondhand vintage clothing.

  I love the coup of finding a designer label in a secondhand store. There’s nothing more fulfilling when it comes to shopping for clothes. Win insisted I could more than afford all new designer clothing, but he missed the point entirely. If I can just buy whatever I want, it takes the fun out of the hunt. Also, there was a time when I couldn’t just buy what I wanted—before Win gave me all his worldly possessions.