Gettin' Witched (Witchless in Seattle Mysteries Book 12) Read online

  Gettin’ Witched

  Dakota Cassidy

  Copyright

  Witch Perfect

  Published 2020 by Dakota Cassidy

  Copyright © 2020, 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.

  Acknowledgments

  Cover artist: Renee George

  Editor: Kelli Collins

  Author’s Note

  My darling, amazing, fantabulous readers,

  Thank you for joining me for book twelve of the Witchless in Seattle Mysteries! 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.

  There are some underlying mysteries still yet to be revealed. Though, I do 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 in Seattle if they’re not completely accurate or don’t actually exist.

  Next, during this unprecedented time in our world, I hope you and your family are safe and healthy.

  And on a final note, Gettin’ Witched is a smaller mystery—that aside, a necessary one, in my opinion. However, I hope you’ll find it just as satisfying as our longer adventures.

  So here we are on book twelve! Thank you for continuing to join Stevie, Win and gang on their adventures—it means the world to me!

  Dakota XXOO

  Gettin’ Witched

  Chapter 1

  First, before I share my tale of chaos and woe, before I go any further, lest you doubt me, let me say this: I love Win.

  I’ll say it again for the people in the back. I love Win.

  Nay, I adore him. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me romantically speaking, and he’s perfect for me in every way.

  Well, perfect in almost every way… I mean, we do have some differences. Of course we do. What couple doesn’t have differences?

  There’s the fact that we don’t love a lot of the same foods. As you all know, he’s foie gras and Cristal, and I’m Twinkies and a grape Fanta. Throw in a hot dog with spicy mustard and some relish and I’m a happy girl.

  He’s forever trying to upgrade my palate, and I’m always trying to talk him into hanging out in the trashy part of Food Town with me, where we’ll eat something spongey and chocolate-wrapped in a fun cellophane package

  Then, while we’re at it, we should consider coffee. I’m plain old coffee (or a fun macchiato) with some cream and sugar. Not some fancy nonsense brew made high in the hills of Guatemala by a coffee bean farmer ground with the tears of the bean farmer’s donkey.

  Just a Keurig and a coffee pod is fine for me, please and thank you, but Win calls it my sad brown water. He teases me incessantly about it.

  Yet somehow, we’ve managed to stick it out.

  Also, I’ll grant you, it’s fair to say we don’t share a lot of the same interests when it comes to our viewing pleasures, either. I love reality TV (there isn’t a Housewife franchise I won’t watch) and Win takes every advantage to poke fun at me when I’m bingeing a marathon with my Twinkies and grape Fanta.

  But if I’m to keep things really fair, he’ll have water crackers with brie and some stinky pate while he watches with me and we snuggle on the couch.

  And if we’re still making a case for differences, I love action adventure movies. Yet, the love of my life can find a hole in every Mission Impossible movie, and it’s infuriating, not to mention sheer torture to sit through two solid hours of him dissecting everything from implausible stunts to dialogue he considers unrealistic.

  On the other hand, Mr. I-Was-A-Spy-I-Know-Things likes the History Channel, and he reminds me in his snooty British accent, “Facts are facts, Stephania. Those cannot be disputed.” I’d rather face-plant into a concrete wall than watch one more documentary on World War II, but I do it because facts are facts, and the fact is, couples compromise.

  Then of course, there’s music. My Spy Guy loves classical music. I love the Backstreet Boys. I live for a vintage clothing store find. He teases me about my love of old, used clothing and insists I should simply buy new from the actual designer.

  A casual Saturday to me means sweats and an old flannel shirt with my hair in a messy bun. Casual to Mr. Mission Impossible is when he doesn’t don a suit with a crisp hankie in the jacket pocket.

  I could go on and on, but if I do, it might force a spotlight on our differences and magnify them unnecessarily when there’s no need.

  My point remains, we compromise.

  Anyway, despite those differences, which are by no stretch of the imagination enormous, we’ve made this work. Through murders, deaths, afterlife, angry warlocks, ghosts, reincarnation, sickness, we’ve made it through the rain, and now we have an amazing relationship full of respect, love and above all, honesty.

  Or I thought we did.

  Now, let me preface this by saying, I might be jumping the gun. I might be losing my mind, too. Certainly, it isn’t impossible.

  But I submit to you the occurrences of the past week, and then I’ll let you decide if I’m being ridiculous or if I have a valid case for believing Win’s investigating a crime behind my back—or at the very least, involved in something with someone from his past.

  Anyway, that’s when it all began—about a week ago—when I heard Win talking on his cell.

  That he was talking on his cell isn’t at all suspicious. I’m not typically the jealous type (okay, there was that one time earlier this year when he was checking off the “winning” category for wrestling information out of suspects, where I had a niggle of envy, but you know what I mean), not even a little.

  I’d trust Win with my life, and in fact, have trusted him with my life.

  But…

  But, but, but. I’m officially having an attack of the uneasies (if that’s even a word), or maybe a better word for it is an attack of I-don’t-know-what-the-heck-is-going-on, but my inner antennae says something’s amuck.

  As I said, it started with a phone call Win took about a week ago.

  I remember it distinctly, because the name Marsden had stuck with me when Win mentioned it many moons ago.

  Well, it felt like many moons ago anyway. It was probably only a couple of years, but in all the tales Win’s told me about his spy adventures, I’ve lost track. Either way, it’s an unusual name, and one I’ve only attributed to the actor James Marsden from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

  Regardless, I know he once mentioned the name Marsden, and I’m certain he said he was a handler at MI6. So, I ask you, why would Win be on the phone, at the other end of the house, behind some hydrangea bushes of all places, talking in hushed tones to a Marsden when he’s supposed to be out of the spy game due to his untimely death?

  How many Marsdens can a person know?

  Now that, in and of itself, didn’t make me overly suspicious. Not at first, anyway. I don’t know any people named Marsden, but in Win’s favor, I don’t know many people named Ark
ady Bagrov, either. Yet, I now have a ghost with that very unusual name in my life.

  I mean, there’s likely more than one Marsden on planet Earth, right?

  My point is, the name has come up rather out of the blue. Though, that wasn’t what bothered me as much as the fact that when Win realized I was in close proximity—pretending to check on the condition of our hydrangeas, which, if you’ve all paid even a little attention, you know I don’t know the first thing about the flowers—he cut the call short.

  As in, my Man of Mystery clicked that phone off as though it were on fire, stuffed it in his pocket, and slapped one of his charming, I-would-do-anything-for-you smiles on his devastatingly handsome face, dropped a kiss on my forehead and went about his day.

  I didn’t say anything, and of course, neither did he. But I’m telling you, something is amiss.

  Something…

  There have been a couple more instances where I’ve questioned whether it’s just me being me and the need for a good mystery to solve (we haven’t had one since the late winter), or if Win is really up to something.

  Nothing major, mind you. He’s just been on his phone in covert corners of the house, as though he doesn’t want me to hear who he’s talking with, and he’s been doing an awful lot of errands as of late.

  Anyway, that brings me to today, where I’ve been mulling over the phone call from last week, most especially trying to remember the name Marsden and who it was linked to, and pondering if I’m making a mountain out of a molehill and if I should simply ask Win who he’d been talking to.

  But then he’d know I was eavesdropping, and I’d feel stupid because there was likely a really good explanation, right?

  I wondered that as I sat out on our back patio with Whiskey, Strike, and Belfry in my pajamas and enjoyed a cup of my sad brown water as I watched the water roll by and the colorful sails of the boats flap in the wind on this late-summer day.

  The breeze was beautiful for late August, not too warm, not too cool. Just right, and I tried to enjoy that versus harping on my misgivings.

  But I think you all know I’m not only bad with plants, I’m really bad at letting things go once I sink my teeth into them. Especially if I’m feeling that niggle I always get when I know something is up.

  And I was niggling from head to toe.

  “Boss?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Why so glum, chum?”

  I reached upward toward the blue sky with its white mashed-potato-filled clouds and cocked my head. “Glum? I’m not glum at all, Bel.”

  He buzzed to the table and plunked down on my napkin. “Maybe glum isn’t the right word. Maybe the word is melancholy?”

  Bel knew me so well. He was right that there was something troubling me, but it was an unsettled feeling, far and away from melancholy.

  I reached down, scratching Whiskey’s velvety ears and forcing a smile. “The weather is beautiful, the skies are blue, it’s Friday, I’m having a cup of coffee on my beautiful patio with a zoo full of pets I love, and I don’t have any appointments today at Madame Z’s—which means I’m free as a bird. How could I be glum or melancholy?”

  He flapped his wings at me. “Just a feeling, I guess. My job is to pay attention to your feelings. So that’s what I’m doing, and I detect a kerfuffle in the force.”

  I chucked him under the chin before taking a sip of my coffee. “Nope. I’m happy as a clam.” Then I yawned to show him exactly how un-glum I was.

  He looked at me for a moment, his eyes boring holes into mine, before I think he decided to believe me. “Good to know.”

  That was when I decided to ask him about the name Marsden. “Hey, Bel? Do you ever remember Win talking about someone named Marsden?”

  He paused a minute and clucked his tongue. “Um…wasn’t he a spy juggler? Or wait, the word is handler, right? Or something… Or was that Madsen, which is like Marsden, but not. Or maybe it was Mike?” He shook his head. “Heck. I dunno, Boss. Sounds familiar, but I can’t remember for sure. Winterbutt talks about a lot of things. Why do you ask, Ghost Watcher?”

  I shrugged, attempting to keep my response light. “I was just thinking about what an unusual name it was, is all.”

  “What an unusual thing to think about,” Bel retorted.

  I made a face at him, fighting the impulse to press him for details on the name, but I wasn’t ready to confess my troubling thoughts yet.

  “Are you really saying that about me and my thoughts?”

  Bel giggled. “Touché, my friend. It is quite a mess in your noggin.”

  “Arkady?”

  “Good morning, my malutka! How can I help you this beautiful late-summer day?”

  “Well, you’re cheery, huh?” Not that it was unusual. I mean, Arkady was almost always happy…but…

  “Who would not be happy on such a day as this? The sun, she is shining, the temperature looks just right from what I see from up here. Why would I not be happy a day so beautiful exists?”

  Smiling, I nodded. “It is a nice day. So, question for you? Do you ever remember Win talking about a Marsden? Like, from back in his spy days?”

  “Hmmm,” he murmured. “I do not. Why do you ask, my crisp apple strudel?”

  “No reason in particular. I just happened to hear it. I thought he was Win’s handler or something at one point. You know, from his spy days?”

  There was a pause, and then he cleared his throat. “Nyet. I do not recall such a name.”

  Sipping my coffee, I nodded. “No worries.”

  At that moment, Win came around to the patio on the cobblestone path from the guesthouse, where he’d been staying since he’d been back here on this plane.

  Dressed in a pair of crisp black trousers with a crease along each leg you could cut your finger on, coupled with a light blue sweater that accentuated his eyes and dark hair, and a pair of shiny shoes, he, as always, looked amazing.

  And I looked like I’d rolled around in the dumpster behind the Shop and Save, making this just another typical day at Mayhem Mansion.

  “Morning, Dove,” he called out, his handsome face smiling as he approached and dropped a brief, somewhat distracted kiss on my cheek while his eyes roamed around the backyard. “How did your night fare?”

  I looped my fingers through his and smiled. This was a typical morning ritual. Most days, he was up long before me, and if he was, he always made me coffee and breakfast. Except today. Or, come to think of it, he didn’t make me coffee two days ago, either…

  I don’t want to take for granted the ways Win shows his love for me, but it felt like a sign of some kind—that he hadn’t made me coffee or breakfast, that is. I don’t know what the sign says, I’m simply saying it resonates.

  “My Dove? How did you sleep?” he asked again.

  “I slept pretty good. How was your night?”

  He grinned at me, his eyes still roaming the yard. “Wonderful. Much better these days.”

  Win had been having fits of insomnia since he inhabited his brother’s body, but recently it had become much better, and he looked well for it. He looked rested and healthy, and his skin was tanned and glowing from the time he spent outside, working in the yard.

  I looked around, too, because I didn’t know what he was looking for. “So what are your plans for today, Spy Guy?”

  He shrugged his shoulders and looked out at the water, driving his hands into his pockets. “I have a few errands I need to run. Nothing terribly pressing. Though, my day is quite full. What about you, Dove?”

  I sighed. I was feeling a little like Win and I had lost touch with each other these last couple of weeks. He’d been busy with the garden club and we’d been crazy busy at Madam Z’s, and somehow, the twain hadn’t met for us to have much alone time, and I missed him.

  “Well, I have an appointment at the nail salon late this afternoon, and let me tell you, I need the works.” I held up my fingers to show him how ragged my manicure had become. “Readings at Madam Z’s are hard
on a manicure,” I joked.

  He grabbed my fingers and kissed the tips of each one. “Pedicure, too?”

  I smiled and wiggled my bare toes. “I just might indulge. Also, an eyebrow wax because cheese and rice, even the Family Sasquatch would disinvite me to the barbecue with these two Siberian huskies parked front and center on my forehead.”

  Win chuckled and pretended to examine my eyebrows. “I thought I heard barking that wasn’t Whiskey’s.”

  Giggling, I playfully swatted at him. “Also, I have a hair appointment to touch up my highlights. It was the only appointment I could get unless I wanted to wait three weeks. Leif sure has become popular. It’s later in the afternoon than I’d like, but if you look at my roots, you’ll know it’s a necessary evil. Anyway, aren’t you glad you asked?”

  Finally, he turned and actually looked at me, his gorgeous blue eyes—eyes I had gazed into many times—focused on my face, and he shook his head.

  “I’m always glad, Dove. I just want you to enjoy a good pampering from head to toe. It’s been a busy summer. You’ve certainly earned it. Now, don’t forget, we’re having dinner at that quaint new French place tonight. Meet me back here by eight?”

  I had forgotten all about that. That’s what I got for working myself up over what was probably nothing, but I was glad we were finally going to spend some quality time with each other.

  Smiling up at him, I cupped my hands over my eyes to thwart the sun’s glare, and said, “Oh, yeah! La Petite Croissant, right?”

  He chuckled, deep and husky, trailing a finger down along my nose. “Ah, Stephania. You are the light of my life. It’s called The French Connection, but I suspect you already knew that, Mini-Spy.”

  I grinned. “Eight it is. Are you sure you don’t want me to meet you there in case I run late? I think we all know how Leif can be when it comes to booking back-to-back clients. And then there’s my highlights. He won’t let me leave that chair until they’re perfect.”