Quit Your Witchin' Read online

  Table of Contents

  Excerpt

  Quit Your Witchin’

  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

  Chapter 19

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  Note from Dakota Cassidy

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  Excerpt

  So what does one do when confronted with a cold-blooded killer holding a sledgehammer?

  One runs.

  Fast.

  Or in my case, hobble/limp/stumble-run toward the kitchen in my ridiculously impractical bear slippers to get an equally impractical weapon to fight back.

  As I skidded into the kitchen, my eyes searching for the knives in the woodblock we’d bought from some fancy chef site online, I heard Carlito yell for me.

  “Miss Cartwright? Are you okay?” His footsteps followed his question, thumping ever closer.

  “Am I okay?” I shrieked, grabbing the knife and holding it to my chest. “Are you crazy? I will not be taken out in my own house! Hear me? I’ve been to this rodeo and I’m prepared to defend myself! I warn you, Carlito—I’m skilled with a knife! I’ll slice you up like a lobster on a hibachi chef’s grill! Drop the sledgehammer and I’ll let you live long enough to tell the tale!”

  I backed up against the fridge, eyeballing my phone on the table. If I wasn’t so beat up, I might be able to make a dash for it (because I’m sure 9-1-1 would be thrilled to hear from me twice in one day). But Carlito was young and probably much quicker than I am.

  And then he came around the corner.

  With the sledgehammer.

  I held up the knife, and I openly acknowledge I looked like a madwoman, if my reflection in the window was any indication. My hair was sticking up from the donut I’d had around my neck earlier, rubbing against it and leaving it full of static, my wide eyes were wild and hyper-aware, and my neck was a mottled mess of black and blue.

  I’d taken my shoes off when I got home and put on my big fuzzy bear slippers—because I’d heard they were all the rage with newb spies and made outrunning a killer a total breeze.

  A mistake in hindsight, I guess. But I didn’t care. No way was he taking me down. So when he made a move toward me and dropped the sledgehammer, I swung the knife in the air like it was a light saber and I had the Force.

  My pulse raced with adrenaline and my hands shook. This would not happen again. I was going to have the upper hand this round of How Can We Kill Stevie, if it was the last thing I did.

  “Don’t you come any closer, you hear me? I’ll cut you to ribbons if you—”

  “Stevie?” Win said in my ear.

  “Hmm?” I murmured, my breathing uneven.

  “He dropped the sledgehammer. I think he comes in peace. Ease up there, Stevie-San.”

  I looked at the sledgehammer on the floor. Oh.

  “Miss Cartwright? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I found the sledgehammer on the steps and I didn’t want anyone to trip on it and get hurt.” Carlito stepped forward, regret mingled with hesitation in his eyes.

  My heart rate slowed in increments before I let out a sigh of relief. “So you’re not here to kill me. What a relief.” I set the knife on the table and winced.

  “Kill you? I’m really confused, Miss Cartwright. Are you sure you’re okay? I heard about your brush with that food truck fish guy. Did he hit your head?”

  I chuckled in irony. “No, but you’d think he did after the way I just behaved. It’s just that—”

  “Oh, I get it,” he said on a nod, then smiled that lovely smile that didn’t resemble a single Bustamante’s, not even Tito’s. Though, he sure looked like his mother. “Liza told me what happened last month, and about the guy who killed her grandmother. I should have thought the sledgehammer through more thoroughly. Sorry.”

  I let my shoulders relax and chuckled nervously. “It’s okay, Carlito. Liza’s right. I’m just edgy now is all. That whole mess is still a bit of a fresh wound. So what brings you here? What can I do for you?”

  Quit Your Witchin’

  Witchless In Seattle Mysteries, Book 2

  Dakota Cassidy

  Published 2016 by Book Boutiques.

  ISBN: 978-1-944003-37-1

  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

  Poor Tito the Taco Man…it’s “nacho” lucky day…

  Yo quiero taco man!

  Hello again! It’s me, Stevie Cartwright, ex-witch and new Madam Zoltar! I was fresh off the murder-suspect list and just settling into MZ’s psychic medium shoes—with the help of my bat familiar Belfry and spirit spy Win—when another death rocked sleepy little Ebenezer Falls, Washington.

  Tito Bustamante, my beloved purveyor of mouth-watering Mexican munchies, has been found dead in the food truck court! Rumor has it Tito’s was stickin’ his chimichanga where it didn’t belong, and my gut—not to mention his less-than-natural death—says murder.

  No one is above suspicion. Not Tito’s own wife and daughter, not his arch food truck enemy Jacob…certainly not the son Tito didn’t know about, newly arrived in Ebenezer Falls and getting cozy with my hired help.

  Do join me (and try not to point and laugh) as I juggle catching a killer with the home renovations from hell, snooping for clues about Win’s previous life, gabbing with/eavesdropping on the locals and enduring a visit from my very unwelcome, very annoyingly gorgeous ex-coven leader—all while continuing to adjust to my new witchless existence!

  Acknowledgements

  Huge thanks again to Scharize Khamille for her help with the Spanish in this book—you’re a treasure!

  When I say it takes a village to create a book, it’s no lie. Sure, the writing part is pretty solitary, for me anyway. But the entirety isn’t possible without plotting, writing sprints, planning, tweaking, and editing to within an inch of the life of said book.

  Without the above from my BFF, Renee George, my dear friend and editor, Kelli Collins, my cheerleader, Michelle Hoppe, my FB readers, reviewers, my street team, my husband, Rob, the people I consider my own personal village, I’d never be able to get through this.

  I’m eternally grateful to all of them—from the tips of my toes to the bottom of my heart.

  Dakota XXOO

  Editor: Kelli Collins

  Cover Artist: Valerie Tibbs, Tibbs Design

  Author Note

  If you’re joining me for the first time, welcome to Ebenezer Falls, Washington! A fictional suburb of Seattle, where my heroine, 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 co
mpletely stand-alone. If you’ve read Paris, expect to see some familiar faces dropping in from time to time.

  And please note, the Witchless In Seattle Mysteries series is best read in order to understand the full backstory and the history of each character with each book, and how they connect to the next.

  Also, hope you’ll join me for Dewitched, Book 3 in this series, releasing in May!

  But no matter how you got here, thanks so much for joining Stevie and company on their journey to solve afterlife mysteries and her search to regain her witchy powers!

  Chapter 1

  “Crispin Alistair Winterbottom!”

  “What now, Miss Cartwright?”

  I ignored his aggravated sigh and my urge to lob something at the wall.

  “You know exactly what. This will never work if you keep trying to land a date with our client’s deceased lover. Understood?” I whisper-yelled at my partner in spy.

  “Bah,” he whisper-yelled back. “It’s not a date, Stevie. I was just asking if Kitty liked to dance. When has a trip around Plane Light Fantastic ever hurt anyone, Funstomper?”

  I ran my hand over my temple before giving it a good squeeze to ease the tension. “That’s not the point and you know it. When we agreed to do this—reopen Madam Zoltar’s with me as her successor—you agreed to play by my rules when contacting the dead.”

  “Nonsense. I am playing by your rules, Dark Overlord. You said nothing about asking a client’s deceased loved one if they had a hobby. Not a solitary word. Did she, Belfry?”

  Belfry, my tiny cotton ball bat familiar, stretched and yawned from the bed he’d made out of one of the leaves of an elephant ear plant. “I hate to side with the Cumberbatch-alike ghost, but he’s kinda right, Boss.”

  Chiding my ghost for not playing by the rules was as close to pointless as one got, but I did it out of habit. Much the way any mother of a toddler who needed repetitive reinforcement would.

  Winterbottom, or Win as I call him, is my afterlife connection—my conduit to the other side.

  Really. That’s the absolute truth.

  Plainly speaking, he’s a dead British spy who barged into my life (or my ear, if we’re being literal) just over a month or so ago when he needed my help and wouldn’t leave until I caved.

  If I helped him solve a murder, in return, he’d help me move on with my new life here in Ebenezer Falls, Washington, as a shunned, powerless, broke ex-witch—and give me all his worldly possessions as a reward of sorts.

  “Worldly possession” being a decrepit old Victorian in crumbling, graffiti-filled disrepair and more money to renovate it than I could spend in five lifetimes.

  The truth. My hand to God. That really happened. Though, according to him, he’d already planned on giving me his house and money before I’d agreed to help solve the murder.

  He said my afterlife connections were enough of a reference to consider me a worthy recipient. Also according to him, that was all he needed to ensure his monster of a house—what I now lovingly call Mayhem Manor—would be in good hands.

  Win never reminded me of what he’d so generously given my bat familiar Belfry and I. He never rubbed it in. He’d never asked for anything more than his initial request in return.

  But he sure made up for it in other ways. Like today. We’d taken over Madam Zoltar’s tarot card reading and medium business here in town in her honor.

  Madam Zoltar’s death was the murder I mentioned, and what brought Win and I together in the first place. Now it was the glue sticking him to my backside.

  I longed for the days when I was a witch and I desperately missed communicating with spirits—my specialty before I was shunned (another long story). Running Madam Zoltar’s helped ease that ache a bit, even if I was only communicating by proxy.

  Also something of note: Shunned is a kind word for what happened to me. After I literally had the witch slapped out of me by an angry spirit, I ended up booted out of my coven back in Paris, Texas, when I became mortal again, by the very leader I’d have trusted with my soul.

  And it hurt—stung like no tomorrow. My fearless leader was Baba Yaga, in case having a name to attach to my tragedy is necessary, and the longer I thought about how she’d dumped me like a fickle girl dumps a ’90s boy band, without listening to a word of my defense, the less I was able to continue to outwardly support what she’d allowed to happen to me. I worked hard not to be bitter because technically, she was still Belfry’s head honcho, but as of late, the work had become harder.

  Anyway, once the dust settled after solving Madam Zoltar’s murder case, Win and I concocted a plan—one that had given me a reason to get up in the morning.

  I’d be the new medium, hence my turban and caftan (another shout out to Madam Zoltar and her keen, quirky fashion sense—hey, girl!), and Win would be my legit conduit to the afterlife. Being that he was in limbo and had no plans to change his afterlife Facebook status to “crossed over” anytime soon, our arrangement worked just fine—so far.

  We’d agreed to take this journey together in memory of Madam Zoltar, a beloved figure here in Ebenezer Falls, and also someone Win had become very fond of just prior to her death.

  But we had rules and stipulations to this agreement.

  Though, hear this, I’d never take money to contact the deceased from someone who was in the throes of grief. Never. I’d also never take their money if I couldn’t truly communicate with said deceased.

  So Win and I decided not only would we work as a team, we’d donate whatever the customer could afford to pay (yes, you read that right. Sliding-scale séances) to various charities—animal rescue being high on my list—and use only what we needed to pay the store’s expenses.

  And that’s what led me here—to Spy Guy’s otherworldly philandering.

  I looked at the picture of Kitty Talucci, the one our client, Edward Randolph, had brought to the reading. A picture of his lover, her luscious ebony hair falling down her back in a riot of curls, lying against the alabaster skin of her shoulders. Decked out in a strapless, red Lycra dress, which hugging her abundant breasts and accentuated her tiny waist and lush hips, she was beautiful. I pointed to it with the tap of my index finger.

  “You were not asking about her hobbies, Win. I know it and you know it.”

  “I beg your pardon,” he spat in that uppity British tone of his.

  “Does Kitty look like a woman who hasn’t danced a time or two, Win?”

  He gasped with his high-pitched-mock-Stevie-girlie-squeal. “You’re stereotyping. That’s against the law.”

  “Point for the dead spy,” Belfry chirped, stretching his wings.

  “It’s called profiling and I’m not a cop, but even if I were, I’m really not profiling. Kitty was a dancer. Burlesque. You’d know that if you weren’t busy looking into her deep, dark velvety eyes. Now quit trying to pick her up and help me help Edward find her last will and testament, so he can prove to her evil ex that Snape is now his cat because Kitty left him to Edward in her will.”

  “Who names their cat Snape?” Win balked.

  Repositioning my turban, I smoothed my colorful caftan and made a face. “Women who like Harry Potter and Alan Rickman?”

  “Ah, a fellow Brit. This bodes well for me,” he purred in his whiskey-smooth voice.

  “No. There is no boding anything. Now, get out there to that table and let’s get ’er done. One more swish of your flirty ghost hair and it’s curtains for you, International Man of Intrigue.”

  If I could actually see Win, I’d bet five bucks he was rolling his eyes at me right now. “Fine, fine. You’re the boss. Just remember, the spirits respond well to me and my hair swishing.”

  I made a face at the air. “When I was a witch, I never had to swish my hair to get the spirits to communicate with me. They just did. No bribes, no flirting, no cash exchanging hands.”

  “She speaks the truth, Winterbutt,” Belfry agreed, tucking back down into the green leaf. “Though, cash would have been nice.�
��

  Win scoffed in that way he had when he wanted me to hear he was disgusted. “That’s because you’re a woman, Stevie. The game of pickup is not a two-way street. It’s a proven fact that women are far more successful at picking up men than the other way around.”

  “I bet that fact checker was a man. A man who didn’t want to admit we just have better game. And you basically just admitted you’re trying to pick up Kitty.” I pointed to the door separating us from the room we’d privately dubbed Séance Command Central, and said, “Now go. We need to finish up because I have a lunch date with Forrest.”

  “Oh, then by all means,” Win drawled with his uppity British lilt. “We shouldn’t waste a second longer. I wouldn’t want you to miss a ham on rye on my account.”

  Forrest Sherwood was our next-door neighbor here at the shop. He owned Strange Brew, the coffee café to the right of us. He was also an old high school acquaintance who’d taken an interest in me since I’d moved back to my hometown, something Win didn’t seem to care for much.

  He was always picking at Forrest, who, of course, is thoroughly unaware of Win’s existence. Win’s dislike of Forrest leaves me scratching my head sometimes. Forrest’s a nice guy who works hard, makes amazing coffee, and has the cutest grandfather ever named Chester.

  But I didn’t have time to address Win’s sarcastic jabs at Forrest today. Today was all about finding our feet out here in the world of commerce in Ebenezer Falls.

  Madam Zoltar’s had been reopened just a week, and we were finally seeing some foot traffic as curiosity got the better of the locals and tourists alike. Everyone wanted to know if the formerly accused murderer, Stevie Cartwright, really could communicate with the dead.

  I won’t get into the murder accusation. Suffice it to say, even though I was utterly innocent and totally exonerated, the fact that my fellow Ebenezers had all but tarred and feathered me during the investigation into Madam Zoltar’s death still stung. So maybe I still feel a little grudgey, despite how kind the townspeople have been since my good name was cleared.