Witch Way Did He Go? Read online

  Witch Way Did He Go?

  Witchless in Seattle Book 8

  Dakota Cassidy

  Dakota Cassidy

  Witch Way Did He Go?

  Published 2018 by Dakota Cassidy

  ISBN: B07JHBYD22

  Copyright © 2018, 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.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  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

  Epilogue

  Preview Another Book By Dakota Cassidy

  Note From Dakota

  About the Author

  Other Books By Dakota Cassidy

  Author’s Note

  My darling readers,

  Please note, the Witchless in Seattle series is truly best read in order, to understand the full backstory and history of each character as they develop with every connecting book.

  Especially in the case of the mystery surrounding Winterbottom (I know it drives some of you crazy. Sorrysorrysorry!). However, his story is ever evolving and will contain some mini-cliffhangers from book to book. But I promise not to make you wait too long until I answer each set of questions I dredge up.

  And, too, I promise the central mystery featured in each addition to the series will always be wrapped up with a big bow by book’s end!

  Also, please note, I’m prone to taking artistic license with locations and such, so forgive any places near and dear to your heart if they’re not completely accurate.

  This will be the last addition to the Witchless series for 2018, so from all the gang (and me, too) in Eb Falls, here’s to a wonderful holiday season filled with love, laughter, family, and friends!

  * * *

  See you in 2019 with more titles, like Witches Get Stitches and Witch Lash, in the Witchless in Seattle Mysteries!

  * * *

  Dakota XXOO

  Acknowledgments

  Cover artist: Renee George

  * * *

  Editor: Kelli Collins

  Blurb

  It’s me again, Stevie Cartwright. Powerless ex-witch, pseudo medium, and amateur sleuth, reporting to you live from the case of the missing ex-British spy turned ghost/quite possibly one of the most important people to ever become a part of my life.

  You read that right. As Win and I and all the gang were busy planning our big Thanksgiving bash, he suddenly disappeared (right in the middle of telling me what a Philistine I am for even suggesting Cheez Whiz and crackers), and it’s as if he never existed.

  Poof—he’s just gone! No one can find him, not even Arkady, our ghostly pal and confidant on Plane Limbo.

  If I ever needed to make good use of everything my British spy ever taught me about sleuthing, it’s right now. But I run into roadblock after roadblock until I’m almost sure all hope is lost, and I’ll never hear his voice again.

  Worse, how will I ever live with myself if I never get the chance to tell him how I feel?

  Chapter 1

  My friends, this is probably the most difficult account of my time with Win (or maybe in my entire life) that I’ll ever relay to you. Let me just begin by saying that day, and the awful, horrible, terrible days after everything fell apart, began like any other.

  Well, almost any other day.

  We don’t plan an enormous Thanksgiving feast at Mayhem Manor for half of Eb Falls every day, but the arguing over my deader-than-dead palate and Win’s refined, snobbish one were par for the course.

  That was just like any other day or week or even year. We always playfully argued over my crude twelve-year-old’s taste buds. I like Twinkies and Cheese Doodles—so sue me.

  But how it all ended? That was definitely not like any other day we’d had—ever. Not in all the time we’d known one another.

  Because it ended with me begging Baba Yaga to help me find Win. Me, begging my nemesis—the woman who’d banned me from my coven for life—to use whatever connection, whatever magic spell she had up her sleeve, good or bad, in order to help me find out where, why, Win had quite abruptly disappeared.

  And I’m here to tell you, there was a lot of ugly crying, a lot of scraping, a lot of laying my guts, naked and vulnerable, out on a metaphoric table for her to pick through at her leisure like a starving vulture.

  I’m also here to tell you, I don’t care how that sounds or how it looked or that I lost every shred of pride I ever possessed in the begging.

  I did it, and I’d do it again. I’d do it a million times over if it led me to Win and his safety. Desperation didn’t even begin to describe my state of being, but I can tell you, this was the biggest mystery I’d ever solve.

  Anyway, begin at the beginning, right? Like I said, we were in the throes of prepping for a Thanksgiving Day feast fit for a king—or at least that’s how Win planned a dinner party, as though some sophisticated, worldly king were coming to dine with us here in Eb Falls.

  Which is a lovely touch, don’t get me wrong. I’m sure as a guest, arriving to neatly dressed waiters and waitresses holding luscious delights like shrimp-wrapped bacon and mini-quiches is far more appealing than being greeted by me with a plastic platter of peanut butter and jelly rollups on flour tortillas.

  But it was nothing if it wasn’t a production where Win was concerned, and probably, if truth be told, one of the things I truly loved about him. I don’t like admitting it, but there you have it.

  He’s detail-oriented, and he knows how to make everything perfect, from the moistest, plumpest turkey, golden brown and roasted to juicy heaven (sorry, Strike!), right down to the little triangular fold he’d insisted upon at the beginning of the roll of guest bathroom toilet paper.

  I tried to tell him no one would even notice how the TP was folded, but he said it was a subliminal element meant to add to the feeling of being pampered via a pile on. When you added up all the small-ish details, they became one big treat you remembered fondly, and they made you feel important and well loved.

  Still again, I tried to remind him we were talking Sandwich here—a guy who, on a bet way back in middle school, had eaten a pickle and sardine hoagie with mayo. I honestly didn’t think he was even going to notice where the toilet paper was, let alone that the ends were folded in a triangular shape. But Win said everyone deserves to be treated like royalty, even men who eat sardine/pickle and mayo sandwiches.

  Then I figured I’d better pick my battles with Win, or I’d end up eating caviar (fish eggs—ick) and foie gras (goose liver—double ick). That’s a big gak from me, thank you very much.

  So yes, he was being a stickler for the details and driving me straight up a wall, but if I’d known…

  Wait. Isn’t that what everyone says? If I’d only known, I would have [fill in the blank]. Don’t we all say that after the passing of a loved one or when something horrible happens? If only…

  Argh! It’s woefully cliché, an
d trite in the saying.

  But dear Heaven above, it’s true. It’s the truest truth there is.

  You’d think, dealing with the dead as often as I do, I’d have paid better attention to the notion you should never leave things—important things—unsaid. Yet, my things, the things I’ve wanted to say to Win for a very long time, aren’t things I can say without consequence—without making him feel worse than he already does about not being here on Earth with us…with me.

  Still, had I known I might never hear him call me “my dove” again, I’d have said them anyway. I’d have summoned the courage, risked our deep friendship, risked it all just to say them—and damn the consequence.

  Because in the end, when you might never again see the one person who brought life to your colorless, witchless world, who made you belly laugh, who told you stories, who gave you purpose again, who made you secretly smile to yourself, who treated you as though you were made of fine porcelain yet wrapped in steel, you’ll wish you had.

  You’ll wish it with every agonizing breath you take.

  And I do. I wish. I wish with every cell in my body—every inch of my existence.

  As long as I live, I’ll never forget the last conversation we had. I can barely manage to remember what I had for dinner yesterday, but I can remember our final conversation word for word…

  * * *

  “No Cheez Whiz?” I asked the ceiling, with a squeal of fake clutch-my-pearls outrage. Logically, I knew my ghostly Spy Guy didn’t linger up there in all his ghostliness, but I couldn’t break the habit of looking upward at the sound of his voice. “C’mon, Win!”

  “Stephania, only a Philistine would serve Cheez Whiz on crackers to their guests as a prelude to their Thanksgiving feast. It’s almost as unseemly as your weenies in a blanket. Thus, why do you even bother to test my patience this way when you know good and well what the answer will be?”

  I dropped my phone, where I’d been typing in the never-ending list of items we needed for our big Thanksgiving Day bash, onto the table.

  Everyone was coming. Dana, Sandwich, Enzo and Carmella…even Melba, who couldn’t get time off to go back east to be with her family. And Win wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d driven me crazy with the smallest of details.

  “How would you even know what’s served at a Thanksgiving feast, Mr. Snooty-McSnoot? You don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in the UK.”

  “Ah, ’tis true,” he drawled, his voice rich and resonant in my ears. “But I do know how to entertain, Stephania, and one does not do such with canned cheese and ranch-flavored crisps.”

  I popped one of those ranch-flavored crisps in my mouth and made a face. “There’s nothing wrong with a Cool Ranch Dorito. It makes a perfectly good appetizer.”

  “For a Philistine.”

  Belfry giggled, rolling across the kitchen table as we sat by the bank of windows and watched the wind howl and bend the bare trees in our backyard. “You’re so chi-chi-foo-foo, Winterbutt,” he teased in his tiny squeak.

  “Dah, Zero. You are, as little winged-man say, chi-chi-foo-foo. If we very lucky, in Russia, we have bread with butter for fancy-schmancy occasions. Why you make such fuss?”

  “Well, old friend, we’re neither in Russia nor serving Cheez Whiz, and that is my final answer.”

  I chuckled at his disagreeable tone. Win always became grumpy when we teased him about his penchant for turning everything into an event literally fit for the queen.

  I sighed and shivered when I looked out the window at the pouring rain, watching the trees and the last of their leaves scatter in the wind. It was chilly enough to hunker down with sweaters and scarves now, my favorite kind of weather.

  “Touchy-touchy.” I held up a hand. “Fine. No Cheez Whiz. Now, what was it you said about the lettuce? Radicchio or no radicchio? Which, by the way, is just plain silly. Lettuce is lettuce, Spy Guy. It’s green and crunchy and you slather it in dressing to hide the green taste.”

  I think I heard him almost gasp his British indignation, but he stifled it and said dryly, “Radicchio is not lettuce. It’s a chicory and green does not have a taste, Stephania.”

  “Then explain green Jell-O.”

  He rasped an exasperated sigh, indicating I’d gone too far. “Stephania, must you be so contrary?”

  I giggled and reached for my cup of coffee, taking a sip and smiling. I loved this time of night. We were all home, warm and safe after a long day at Madam Zoltar’s, reorganizing the store while we had downtime during this, one of our quieter months.

  We’d eaten our dinner, Whiskey was at my feet, and Strike cooed from his corner of the room, where he snoozed on his heated bed.

  This was the time we spent chatting or playing a board game (believe it or not, Win and Arkady use Belfry as their earthly assist and both play a strategically mean game of Monopoly, which shouldn’t surprise me. They are dead spies), or simply watching TV.

  After the last murder we’d solved together, life had been mostly quiet, especially since our new friends, Trixie and Coop, had moved on to Cobbler Cove, Oregon. In fact, we often joked they’d taken all the murderers with them, because they’d been involved in two since leaving, and we hadn’t even had a minor mystery to solve.

  Well, aside from the mystery of the tattooed hand Win claims to have seen the night he was killed, which remains a mystery, and not one I don’t poke around in when I’m by myself—because I do. I still have absolutely nothing to go on, but I haven’t forgotten about that tattoo, believe you me.

  Anyway, for the time being, we’d decided to let sleeping dogs lie and enjoy life. Our summer had been filled with helping folks cross over, and chatting via Skype to advise Trixie and Coop from time to time when they needed help with a crime they were investigating.

  We’d also spent many weekends barbecuing with Dana and Melba, now officially a couple, Enzo and Carmella, Chester, and Sandwich, who had a new lady love named Katrina. We’d even done a little bit of boating, and I took my first very rough attempt at fishing.

  As the season ended and the tourists left, naturally business slowed, and we began to focus on fall activities like Halloween and Thanksgiving.

  All was right in our worlds, and I, despite Win’s haranguing me about the perfect Thanksgiving dinner, had found genuine happiness in this little niche in life we’d created.

  “My dove?”

  I sighed, letting my shoulders sag and pouting up at the ceiling. “Sorry. Got lost in my thoughts. What was the question?”

  Belfry flew around the ceiling, his tiny wings fluttering and making Whiskey bark. I hushed Whiskey with a hand to the top of his head, scratching his ears to soothe him.

  “Winterbutt asked why you had to be so contrary,” he chirped like the parrot he was.

  I rolled my eyes and rose from the table to hunt down a Ring Ding in the cabinet by the coffeepot. “Oh, right. I’m the one being contrary because no one is going to care what kind of lettuce we have. Sandwich probably can’t even pronounce radicchio.”

  “Stephania! Shame on you. Our Sandwich has come a long way under the watchful tutelage of the lovely Katrina. He hardly ever uses his thumb to bulldoze his vegetables anymore. He’s becoming quite the refined gentleman, if I do say so.”

  I giggled, digging out my Ring Ding from the package and unwrapping it from its foil. “I really like her. She’s so lovely and warm, isn’t she?”

  “Dah, my marshmallow-covered candied yam,” Arkady agreed with his hearty chuckle. “She has pretty laugh, and she makes Sandwich turn red when he look at her and she isn’t watching. Young love is a beautiful thing.”

  Katrina Waters owned a nonprofit dog rescue. Sandwich, who’d been looking for a canine companion, happened upon her rescue by Melba’s suggestion and, as they say in the movies, it had been love at first sight.

  At least for Sandwich. For Katrina, it had taken a little more time—like three months’ time of many dates, during which Sandwich had put his best foot forward.

  Stil
l, they were adorable together. Big ol’ Sandwich and teeny-tiny slip of a thing Katrina, who could wrestle a pit bull into submission, were a sight for sore eyes with all their canoodling and cooing.

  Not to mention, she loved animals as much as we did—how could you go wrong with an animal lover?

  “She is lovely, Stephania. I’m thrilled for Sardine and his new ladylove. Now, back to our planning. Where were we?”

  Ugh. “Stop picking on Sandwich. And lettuce. We were in lettuce and the ridiculous amount of different varieties. Please, Win, I beg of you, don’t make me suffer another second of this. I’ll get whatever kind of lettuce you want. I’ll fly it in from the Land Where They Make Lettuce. Nay, I’ll buy a lettuce factory if you’ll just give me one night of peace from this list. I feel like we’ve been working on it for a hundred years.”

  “A lettuce factory?” Belfry squealed as he soared across the kitchen before landing on my shoulder, where he couldn’t stop giggling.

  “A hundred years? Isn’t that a little melodramatic? Besides, Stephania, we only have a few days until Thanksgiving. We must prepare. We must—”

  “Plan!” I interjected, taking a big bite of my Ring Ding and heading to the fridge to pour a glass of milk. “I know. Believe me, I know. I feel like we’re planning to heist Fort Knox, for cripes sake. It’s dinner, Win. Not life or death.”

  “Speaking of Fort Knox,” he drawled, winding up to tell me some story or another, I’m sure.