The Old Witcheroo (Witchless In Seattle Mysteries Book 4) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Excerpt

  The Old Witcheroo

  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

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  Note from Dakota

  eBooks by Dakota Cassidy

  Dakota recommends … Renee George

  Excerpt

  “Fire in the hole!” Win shouted, startling me out of my half-elated, half-bewildered state. “Get the fire extinguisher, Stevie, before this whole place is a bonfire!”

  I made a run for the back room, where we had our kitchenette and coffeepot, and grabbed the extinguisher off the wall, racing back out to locate the candle that had managed to fall out of its holder and set the edge of the bamboo rug on fire. Spraying it until it was extinguished, I stomped on the rug as I went, while Whiskey ran in circles, barking excitedly.

  When I’d finally stamped out the flames, and the smoke was the only thing lingering in the air, I looked to where Merrily had been standing—to find she’d flown the coop.

  Letting my head drop to my chest, I noted some drops of blood splash onto the floor. My fingers went to my aching nose, swelling beneath my fingertips.

  “Boss? Pinch the bridge of your nose and let’s get you something to ice that honker of yours. If it gets any bigger, we’re gonna have to get it its own license and register it with the DMV,” Bel twittered, buzzing in the air before landing on my neck.

  I nodded, still too dazed to respond as I made my way to our back room and went to the fridge to see what I could dig out to put on my nose. I’d forgotten to pick up ice, so a box of corn dogs would have to do. Grabbing one still in the wrapper, I held it to my tender nose and winced when I caught a reflection of myself in our toaster oven.

  Rinsing a paper towel under the faucet, I dabbed at the drying blood, my nose almost twice the size it had been when I’d hastily thrown on some mascara and lip gloss this morning.

  “Stevie, that doesn’t look good. It might be wise to take yourself off to the doctor. It could be broken.”

  I flapped a hand at Win and shook my head, resituating the corn dog on my nose. “It’s not broken. That’s not even a blip on my radar compared to what just happened. I saw, Sophia, Win. Saw her! I’d jump up and down, maybe even twerk, but my head hurts too much. What’s happening to me, Win?”

  “If you don’t know, I surely don’t. I have to believe your will is far stronger than Adam Westfield could ever hope to be. But I’m pleased as the vicar with a full congregation on a Sunday morning for you, Dove. It tickles me no end you might be having a breakthrough. You miss your powers far more than you let on. I know it pains you, despite your brave front.”

  What Win said was the truth. I did miss my powers. I missed them so much sometimes my teeth ached from the missing. But I’d found out I didn’t need them to fulfill me the way I’d once thought. The deep void in my life was full of other things that made me happy. Like Win, and Bel, and Whiskey, and being Madam Zoltar 2.0.

  The Old Witcheroo

  Witchless In Seattle Mysteries, Book 4

  Dakota Cassidy

  Published 2016 by Book Boutiques.

  ISBN: 978-1-944003-69-2

  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

  Just when you think you know your one-time International Man of Mystery turned ghostly confidant…

  When last we met, dear friends, a man had come calling, claiming to be Crispin Alistair Winterbottom, my dead British ex-spy. A notion I’d find ludicrous, if the handsome imposter didn’t, in fact, look exactly like my dead British ex-spy. But there’s no time for that mystery when a quiet walk on our private stretch of beach turns up something far more pressing—another tragedy in my beloved small Washington town.

  That’s right. I, Stevie Cartwright, ex-witch turned amateur sleuth, have stumbled upon another murder. But this time it’s closer to home, more personal, a victim who’d touched the hearts of so many in Ebenezer Falls, young and old. In fact, there’s only thing more surprising than the victim…

  The good man who’s become the number one suspect.

  Along with my Spy Guy Win, my bat familiar Belfry, our rescue dog Whiskey, and even an unexpected new friend or two, I’m jumping back into my Sherlock shoes to catch the cleverest killer yet!

  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 completely 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 series is truly best read in order, to understand the full backstory and the history of each character as they develop with every connecting book. Especially in the case of the mystery surrounding Winterbottom. 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…

  That said, I hope you’ll join me for How the Witch Stole Christmas, Book 5 in the series, releasing in November, and Witch, Please in 2017!

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

  Acknowledgements

  Cover Art: Valerie Tibbs, Tibbs Design

  Chapter 1

  I remember the moment like it was yesterday. The day I met the man who claimed to be Crispin Alistair Winterbottom, my dead British spy gone ghost. Which was impossible, because Win wasn’t just dead; my British spy specter had been right in my ear, calling this handsome man a liar.

  We’d just wrapped up a particularly crazy week in our unconventional lives. I use the word “unconventional” because, hello, how many people do you know who have a ghost always yapping in their ear with a sexy British accent? (Truth. Swear it on my secondhand Carolina Herrera pantsuit.)

  For that matter, how many people do you know whom, after losing their witch powers (that’s me. Little Lost Ex-Witch) and being shunned from their coven, end up broke and a little battered in their old hometown of Ebenezer Falls, WA, with a saucy and eternally hungry bat familiar to feed?

  To make things really outlandish, how many broke ex-witch’s do you know who not only stumble onto a dead body, but make contact with a dead British Spy who has a house straight out of an episode of The Munster’s and a zillion dollars he wants to give you, if you’ll help him solve the murder of his beloved medium (the dead body), Madam Zoltar?

  That’s what I mean by unconventional.

  Add in the fact that I’ve taken over Win’s favorite medium’s business and reinvented myself as Madam Zoltar 2.0, and we now basically live together in this monstrosity turned majestic mini-mansion with my bat familiar, Belfry, and our rescue dog, Whiskey, in a town made up entirely of humans—a town where you’d think murder was the least likely event to occur yet seems to happen every month or so—and you have my unconventional life in a nutshell.

  Anyway, we’d just finished up a grueling week when this imposter, as Win calls him, shows up at our door. We’d hosted a housewarming party earlier that week because my uppity British Man of Mystery thought I needed to make more friends and reconnect with my old and new fellow Ebenezers. And in the midst of this amazing party with mimes and Cirque Du Soleil acrobats, my stepfather, Bart Hathaway, was murdered.

  Also in the middle of this big, fancy party chock full of the most disgusting goat-cheese-and-fig appetizers I’ve ever tasted, the father I didn’t know about, international star of stage, screen and film in Japan, Hugh Granite, showed up and announced, well, that he was my father.

  Crazy, right? After almost thirty-three years of a fatherless existence, I have this man—handsome, incredibly egotistical, yet still charming and as charismatic as one of those TV preachers—show up and claim ownership of parental duties like he’d always been my dad.

  Now, dig if you will the picture (Prince forever!), the other half of my gene pool—my mother, Dita. As vain as my father, but not quite (read: not even close) as charming in her own brand of vanity, with dead husband number five on her hands. I think he was number five. I’v
e lost count (apologies).

  Mom’s husband is dead, right? Murdered at the height of our housewarming party. To be precise, he was strangled with one of the acrobats’ silky sheet thingies. Outwardly, she does all the right things. Cries, wails, grieves when prying eyes are upon her. But behind my back, while I’m still digesting the death of my stepfather, a man I didn’t even know, she’s scoping out the lay of the land for her next husband.

  During all this upheaval, my familiar Belfry’s family arrived and wreaked havoc on our beautiful new home, while Win and I attempted to catch a killer amidst complete chaos.

  So one more surprise on the very day we’d cleared the house of any and all manner of bananapants after solving said murder—wherein I almost drowned in Puget Sound in my cute little Fiat (currently swimming with the fishes. Sad panda)—this guy claiming to be the man I’ve been solving mysteries with shows up.

  He says he’s the man I’ve had inhabiting my ear for since February. The man I still know very little about…

  Anyway, on this day, I was in the middle of making jokes about how awful some of the appetizers at the party were, and Win was bashing my ill-refined palate. That was when the gong of the doorbell thwarted him reading me the riot act about my taste buds…

  My finger shot up in the air. “Save the foodie sermon, Iron Chef Winterbottom, just a minute more. I don’t know who this could be.” Then I laughed. “Maybe Mom forgot something. Like the spare husband she had stashed away in the closet.”

  Win’s laughter rang in my ear as I grabbed the door handle and looked out the stained-glass window at the warped figure.

  I’ve had really bad luck when answering my door in the recent past, but I was pretty sure it was Sandwich, who’d said he’d drop off my stepfather Bart’s personal effects around this time. So I wasn’t at all prepared for what—or rather who—greeted me.

  Popping the door open, I felt a warm breeze blow in, but Sandwich wasn’t on my doorstep. A very handsome gentleman in a crisp suit, probably in his early thirties, with dark hair and even darker eyes, looked back at me. Or at least I think he did. The sun was a blazing hot ball of flames, glaring me in the eye, so it was hard to tell.

  Either way, he definitely wasn’t Sandwich. Sandwich smelled of old school Old Spice and peanut butter. This man didn’t smell like peanut butter.

  “Stevie Cartwright?” he asked in a cultured British accent.

  I smiled and nodded, still unable to clearly see his face in detail. I squinted. “In the flesh. You are?”

  He paused for only a minute, his eyes scanning mine. Again, I couldn’t see his eyes, per se. Rather, I felt them on me—felt their intensity, felt their scrutiny.

  Then he moved in closer, smelling of subtly expensive cologne, before he said, “My name is Winterbottom. Crispin Alistair Winterbottom.”

  I frowned at this stranger, cupping my hand over my eyes to block the sharp rays. “Say again?”

  “I said, I’m Crispin Alistair Winterbottom. You are Stevie Cartwright, correct?”

  “Maybe…” I offered, my eyes trying desperately to adjust to the harsh glint of sunlight. What in sweet Pete was going on?

  “Cat’s out of the bag, Dove. You already told him who you were, Stephania,” Win chastised in my ear. “Always remember what I’ve taught you. Never reveal vital information unless forced by jumper cables or, heaven forbid, water torture.”

  “Might I come in and ask you some questions?” he inquired, almost pushing me out of the way as he stepped into our wide foyer. And yes, now I could see his eyes penetrating mine.

  Yep, they were definitely penetrating.

  So I took a step back and blinked away the white spots floating in my vision. “How do you know who I am?”

  “You were easy enough to find,” he said affably, the breeze lifting his hair and ruffling it in ripples of deep chocolate. Which I could see as my eyesight adjusted. His hair was as thick and lush as the real Winterbottom’s.

  And then the sun moved. Moved so far right, I got an unobstructed view of this man who’d called himself Winterbottom.

  I’m sure right at that moment, I gaped at him. Openly, awkwardly gaped.

  First, let me say, I’ve only seen Win once, and that was during the mess while we were investigating my stepfather death. Somehow, he’d managed to make himself appear to me from his afterlife haven.

  The incident had been brief, but I’d seen him as clear as day. Recalling that moment still makes my heart pound harder than horse hooves racing in the Kentucky Derby. It isn’t because I’ve never seen a ghost. On the contrary. I’ve seen many. But since I’d lost my witch powers, I hadn’t seen a one.

  Second, I only have one picture of Win. I’ve looked at it a thousand times since he’d admitted it was, in fact, a photo of him. It’s older and faded, a shot taken with his ex-lover, Miranda. They were at the Eiffel Tower, and from the way they looked at each other, they’d been nuts in love.

  Until she’d killed him. Or at least that’s what my Win claims she did, anyway.

  So as this man audaciously entered my house and looked me square in the eye as though I owed him money, my mouth fell open. Unhinged completely.

  Because I gotta say, he really did look exactly like my picture of Winterbottom in Paris.

  When I was finally able to put words together, I wiped my sweaty palms on my thighs and asked, “Who did you say you were again?” Maybe I’d heard wrong, or maybe he’d been making some kind of sick joke.

  A thought occurred to me then: Could this be one of Winterbottom’s spy friends, playing some elaborate hoax.

  Who looks exactly like him, Stevie? What episode of the Twilight Zone are you reenacting?

  He smiled pleasantly, a gorgeous, toothpaste-commercial-worthy smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes and repeated his words. “I said, I’m Crispin Alistair Winterbottom.”

  “Stevie!” Win finally spewed in my ear. I’m not sure what took him so long to react, but by the sounds of it, he surely had a grip on the gist of things now. “That is absolutely not me. Do you hear me? He’s an imposter. I repeat, an imposter!”

  Yeah, yeah. I heard Win. But here was a guy standing in my foyer, wanting to talk to me, claiming he was my Spy Guy and he was, without a doubt, the spitting image of my Spy Guy. Not a chance in the deep blue sea I was passing up this newest mystery.

  “But he looks exactly like you,” I muttered under my breath.

  “Say again?” Fake Winterbottom requested in a pleasant tone, his head cocked as though he were intently listening to me.

  “Well, that I can’t deny, Dove. I don’t know how or why, but he does uncannily resemble me.”

  “Uh-huh,” I whispered.

  “Aha!” Win declared with a tone suggesting he’d figured things out. “Maybe Arkady Bagrov sent him? Though why, I can’t begin to guess. Surely that crafty wank Arkady’s long over our last little disagreement, wherein I bested him in a rousing game of Disarm the Nuclear Missile, Save Istanbul? But to go to this extreme? Bah.” Win dismissed the notion. “Arkady’s a vengeful man, but I don’t recall him ever using plastic surgery as part of his criminal portfolio—it’s too extreme even for him.”

  I turned my back on Phony Win and whispered, “You knew criminals who used plastic surgery for disguises? Like, that was really a thing?”

  “If you only knew how much of a thing,” Win confirmed.

  Faux Winterbottom was growing impatient. I saw it in his gorgeous face when I turned back around, still astounded a spy tactic like plastic surgery, a tactic so James Bond-ish, did indeed really exist. “You were saying, Miss Cartwright?”

  “Um, sorry. Nothing. I’m just…”

  What was I? Stunned was too small a word. I was verklempt. Flabbergasted. Gobsmacked, as Win would say.

  I lifted my shoulders in helplessness. “Um, I’m just…”

  “Just in my house?” he asked, driving his hands into the pockets of his expensive suit. I knew it was expensive. I’d know Armani blind and without benefit of the gift of scent.

  “I’m in your what?” I spit the words out, frowning.

  “Oh, tell this numpty to move along, Dove! He’s handing you a load of bollocks,” Win groused, totally dismissing the man who looked exactly like him.