Dewitched (Witchless In Seattle Mysteries Book 3) Read online

  “Lots and lots of practice behind your back. But here’s something to chew on. You saw me, Dove. You, the ex-witch with no powers, saw me. And that isn’t all you’ve had happen over the last couple of months. I firmly believe we can find a way to get your powers back.”

  I couldn’t think about that right now. The notion was too fleeting. Too based in hope rather than reality. There was more to focus on anyway. Like Win and the chance he took trying to save me.

  “Listen. I know being a big bad spy, you don’t want to talk about this, but I need you to promise me something, Win. If Adam comes for you again, find the light. Just go into the light. Please. I’m begging you. If he steals your soul…” I had to swallow back my tears before I could finish. Gripping the steering wheel, I bit the inside of my cheek before I said, “If Adam can get his hands on your soul, it will be the worst hell you’ve ever known. Please, don’t do that for me. I’d have to live with that, and I don’t think I can.”

  “You won’t have to, Dove. I won’t allow it. Now, Beethoven, please.”

  I started the car and put on Beethoven, letting it flood my ears as the sun pierced my eyes, making them sting. I was pretty sure the golden rays weren’t the only thing responsible, but I couldn’t dwell on what could happen.

  Not yet.

  * * * *

  “It’s good to be home, huh, Spy Guy?”

  “Indeed, Mini-Spy. There really is no place like home.”

  I sank down in the chair in the parlor. Apparently, while we’d made the trip to the Penn, the police had cleared the room and we could now use it as a living space again.

  My father had taken great pains to clean it up and rearrange the furniture so I could hopefully forget it had been a crime scene. He said so in the note he’d left me with a box of blueberry Pop-Tarts on the counter, for which he left strict instructions they were to be eaten after my dinner.

  Now, Win and I sat by the hearth, a small fire glowing. Me tucked into my jammies after a long hot shower, and Win in my ear as we looked over the list of wait staff in order to tackle questioning them first thing tomorrow morning.

  “Do any of the names ring a bell, Dove?”

  “Nope. Not one. I say we just tackle them alphabetically tomorrow. Sound good?”

  “First thing,” Win agreed.

  Looking to the end table next to the chair, I grabbed the box I’d previously forgotten about Hardy dropping off and slit it free of tape with my letter opener.

  That was odd. It was addressed to me in a lovely script scrawl, the lines of each letter billowy and precise. “No return address. Huh.”

  “Maybe you have a secret admirer, Dove. A gallant young man on a white steed who’s sending you gifts to express his love.”

  I snorted sarcastically. “Or it’s my stuff from Woot.”

  “Stuff?”

  “I might have ordered Whiskey a little something…”

  Win’s chuckle was indulgent. He loved Whiskey as much as I did, and I’d caught him instructing Bel to order things online for him on more than one occasion. “More tennis balls, perchance? Honestly, I don’t know where he hides them all.”

  “I’ll tell you where he hides them all. In the backyard, where all the holes that are deep enough for bodies are.” I stuffed the letter opener in the pocket of my bathrobe next to my phone and flipped open the box.

  My hands stopped all motion as I recognized the vinyl blue squares in the box.

  Passports?

  There had to be a dozen or so at least. My first thought was they were Bart’s. Maybe the aliases he’d traveled under, because there were a bunch of them. Possibly the man who’d leased the villa to him had gathered his things and sent them?

  I looked at the postmark, but it wasn’t from Greece. It was from Paris…

  With shaking hands, I pulled one blue vinyl square from the box and flipped it open, fully expecting to see Bart’s handsome face staring back at me.

  But that’s not what I saw. That’s not what I saw at all.

  No. I’ll tell you what I saw.

  I saw Win’s.

  Chapter 17

  I gasped, the echo harsh in my ears as it reached the raised ceiling. I dug into the box again and pulled out yet another passport and flipped it open.

  And there was Win’s face again.

  And not one of them said Crispin Alistair Winterbottom. In fact, they had all sorts of names: Franz Henry, Marco Desalva, Leopold Arnold.

  My mouth ran dry, my lips sticking together as I dug through the box with frantic fingers. It was just full of passports. Who would send these to me? Who knew of my connection to Win?

  Why would they send them to me now?

  “Shall I explain?” Win asked, his tone stiff.

  “I think I can guess what they are, Win. They’re your aliases when you were a spy, right?”

  Please, please, please say that’s what this is. For a crazy moment, I wondered if I’d been had just like all the women in Bart’s and Ralph’s lives.

  “That’s exactly what they are.”

  I let out a breath. Of course that’s what they were. “Any thoughts on who would send them to me? Why they’d send them to me? Did you call up MI6 and tell them I was your earthly friend and all your belongings could be sent here?”

  Win’s silence deafened me, making my concern grow in leaps and bounds and my stomach rumble with discontent.

  When he finally spoke, he said, “I don’t know, Stevie. No one knows you exist or have any connection to me. I made sure of that. I made sure of that for a reason.”

  Now I was quiet while I tried to form a theory. “Do you think this has to do with Adam? Do you think he could contact someone you know and give them the head’s up that I got all your money?”

  “If I find that’s the case, I’ll—”

  The doorbell rang, interrupting his words, but I knew what he was about to say anyway. I just wish he realized that even spies like him weren’t a match for powerful warlocks like Adam.

  “Hold that thought,” I said, slipping from the chair to run to the door before they rang again. Win had insisted on an obnoxious gong as the sound the doorbell made. He said it had a regal air to it.

  I said it sounded like we’d just entered the Temple Of Doom.

  It was dark by now, but this time I was ready. I’d been caught off guard twice at my front door, once by a deranged killer, and once by someone who wasn’t a deranged killer at all, but no one was catching me with my pants down this time.

  So I grabbed my car keys from the basket on the entryway table and put them between my knuckles. Win had taught me keys in the bad guy’s eyeball sockets could cause some severe damage.

  The light was bright on the front porch for the reasons I listed above, but I didn’t see anyone. If it was those kids who’d dropped by and ding-dong-ditched me because they were angry I’d stolen their super-secret hangout when I’d moved in, I was going to do some ear pulling while I called up their parents.

  Pulling the door open, I looked outside, peering into the darkness to the edge of my lawn that fell off like a cliff right down to the beach below my property. The lights on the front lawn glowed, soft and dewy in the mist of rain, the stars and moon covered by the clouds moving in.

  And nothing but crickets.

  Slamming the door, I held up my fist in rage and gave it a mighty shake. “Swear it, Win. I don’t care if those boys are just kids, I’m going to find those little wankers (I love that word. Win taught it to me. It made me feel very British) and steal their lunch money—”

  “Stevie! Look out!”

  Those were the last words I heard just as someone burst through the dining room window, the glass shattering into a million pieces all over the brand-new hardwood floors.

  I was taken so utterly by surprise, I almost couldn’t move until the person who’d crashed through the window came at me, full steam ahead. His face was filled with fury, his eyes bulging and wide.

  “Stevie, get out!
Gooo!” Win yelled.

  For the briefest of fleeting moments, I cursed my predicament. Would I never learn to wear my work boots all the ding-dong-dang time? Even when I slept? I was never taking them off again. In fact, I was going to have them waterproofed so I could bathe in them, too.

  Because my fuzzy slippers just weren’t cutting the mustard when it came to fleeing the crazies. Just once, I’d like to be caught by a madman in my sneakers.

  But upon instruction, I flung the door open and barreled down the steps, flying along the walkway as the beat of heavy footsteps followed me in close pursuit.

  “Who the heck is that?” I squeaked in my panic.

  “Forget that for now! Get to the car, Stevie! Get in the car!”

  I mentally measured the distance to the car as I ran, my legs pumping so hard I thought they’d fall off. I clung to the keys, pressing the fob to unlock it, thankful I didn’t park it in the garage tonight.

  My feet began to sink into the softened lawn, my slippers becoming more of a detriment by the second. The lights flashed on my little Fiat, signaling she was ready for entry, so I made a lunge for it, deciding all those stupid kettle exercises Win made me suffer three times a week were actually paying off.

  I stopped patting myself on the back when I felt a hand grab onto my hair and yank me backward, slamming me against a hard chest.

  Argh! I needed to run more and build up my speed. Either that or get some bionics. Did I have enough money in the bank for bionics?

  “Stevie! Hold on to those keys and thrust backward. Got that? Up and back. Nail him right in the eye!” Win yelled.

  And I did just that. Reaching behind my head as he grabbed me around the throat with his arm, I thrust. I thrust so hard, I also had to give Win credit for the jousting sessions he forced me to take. Because wow, whoever this particular crazy was, he squealed like a pig, so it must have hurt.

  “Jab to the ribs! Give it to him hard with your elbow. Do it!”

  Again, I did as I was instructed. I uppercut him in the ribs with my elbow with everything I had in me. And then I was free, running the rest of the way to the car and flinging the door open.

  “That’s my girl! Now shut the door! Shut it and lock it and move it. Get to the police station now!”

  I slammed the door shut, catching the edge of my bathrobe in it, to immediately find my attacker was right up against the window. His eye bleeding profusely, his face a mask of rage as he pounded on the glass over and over.

  He began to step up his game, slamming his fist against the window even harder, and what came next was my downfall.

  Getting a clear view of him as the motion sensor lights on the front of the garage flashed on, I gasped.

  Just before the glass of the window broke, smashing to smithereens and flying into my eyes, I knew exactly whom I was facing.

  There was no mistaking who he was. He looked just like him.

  In fact, other than his height, he was a carbon copy of him.

  * * * *

  “Stevie! No time to waste! Key in ignition now!”

  My hands, shaking like two leaves battered in a rainstorm, fumbled as I tried to jam the key into the ignition while he screamed at me, pulling at my hair, trying to wrench me from the car.

  “Why couldn’t you keep your nose out of it, you stupid woman?” he screamed at me as he attempted to drag me through the window.

  The glass cut into my shoulders, the force he used to yank at my hair making me dizzy.

  “Stevie! Use your free hand and grip the steering wheel. Grip it hard! Use it as leverage and get that key in the ignition!”

  I did as instructed, my cold, clammy hands slipping before I got a good grip and manage to yank myself far enough over to reach the ignition.

  But then he yanked harder, wrapping the length of my hair around his wrist and pulling with such force, some of it began to pull from my scalp. “He deserved to die! That scum deserved to die for everything he put me through!”

  Shrieking, I found myself enraged. “Let! Go!”

  I was trying to grow my hair out, for Pete’s sake! But that thought gave me the fuel I needed to jam the key in the ignition and twist. The sound of the engine turning over was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.

  But just one thing. I sort of forgot to put it in reverse. The second Win yelled, “Reverse, Stevie!” was the second I jolted forward after putting my sloppy slippered foot in the kitchen, resulting in my attacker letting go—and me crashing into the garage door.

  Wood splintered in every direction, my heart slammed against my ribs painfully, and my attacker’s roar of anguish as he ran toward me, his form flashing in my side-view mirror, almost made me freeze.

  Except for Win, who was right there in my ear again. “Reverse, Stevie! Put this baby in reverse and put your foot to the floor!”

  I put the car in reverse by feel, praying I’d done it right, grinding my foot to the floor. We zoomed backward so fast, everything around me flashed in a blur. I steamrolled down our long driveway, narrowly missing the gate to the left of it that led to the beachfront of our property.

  There was a thump, a loud thump—a loud, sickening crack of body against metal when I realized he was on the roof. Somehow, he’d launched himself onto the roof!

  “Drive, Stevie! Put the car in drive and go! Drive as fast as you can make the car go for the most impact. Don’t think. Don’t look at anything but the road ahead of you, just drive fast and then slam on the brakes and knock him off!”

  I’d gotten quite good at following Win’s directions in times of stress. He was almost like my boxing coach, directing me from an invisible sideline. So as the rains slashed at my face and the wind from the speed I was traveling froze my skin, I thought I had this one in the bag. I dug in my pocket and as I picked up speed, swerving and swaying the car to attempt to knock my attacker off, I found my phone and held it up, just about to dial 9-1-1.

  That is, until the bad guy reached in the broken window and wrenched the steering wheel to the left, managing to gain control of it for just enough time to have us headed straight over the low guardrail and down the rocky path leading to the beach.

  My tiny car took some licking, bucking, scraping, and rocking until I realized I hadn’t taken my foot off the accelerator, and as my attacker clung, we were headed straight for the water.

  “Stevie! Slam on the brakes!” Win roared.

  But my reaction time was too late. We plowed into the freezing cold of the Puget, plunging nose first to its frigid depths.

  The moment the water hit my skin, I lost all good sense and began to struggle not only to act, but to think.

  As I sank into the water, my pulse racing, I got as stupid as a girl sitting on the bleachers waiting for some guy to ask her to dance at prom. I froze, the icy water enveloping me until I was under its black waves.

  “Stevie! Open your eyes, Stevie! Open them, Dove!”

  But I couldn’t. I don’t know why I couldn’t, I just couldn’t. My lungs began to burn, my limbs growing light and weightless as I rose to the ceiling of the car.

  “Stevie Cartwright, you will open your eyes now!” Win bellowed, his tone angry and harsh with impatience. “Don’t you chicken out on me! Open those baby blues!”

  With everything I had in me, I forced my eyes to open, the water rushing into them, stinging, making me very aware. But I couldn’t see anything! It was pitch black and murky.

  And then Win, with calm, orderly instructions, said, “Listen to me, there’s not much time, Dove. Feel to your left. That’s it. Reach your hands out. That’s the window. It’s broken. You must swim through it, Stevie, and you must do it instantly! Don’t hesitate, listen to me. Swim, Stevie, swim!”

  I didn’t think I had it in me, my arms feeling as sluggish as they did, my chest and ears about to burst from the pressure of the water, but I jetted forward, feeling my way to the frame of the window, the ragged opening cutting my hands.

  “Use it, Stevie, use the
frame to push out and up!”

  My biceps ached and my legs threatened to seize up on me, but I pushed for all I was worth, pistoning upward.

  “Push, Stevie! Puuush! You’re almost there!” I heard Win encourage as the pounding of my heart matched the pounding in my head.

  I broke the surface with a gasp, a harsh, water-filled, desperate breath for air until I found buoyancy. The water threatened to drag me back to its depths, but Win yelled, “Kick, Stevie! See the shore, the lights of the house? You’re not that far. Kick harder. Use your arms! The water is too cold to linger!”

  Okay, so here’s the truth: I’m not the greatest swimmer, but add in the bulk of my clothing, a head rush to beat any drug-induced high, and the ice-cold temps of the water, and I was a recipe for a Titanic-like disaster. No one was ever going to invite me to join the swim team.

  But I pounded that water with my hands like I wanted to be on the swim team. The lights grew closer, but my body grew more tired by the second.

  “No, Stevie, no! Spies never give up! Push, Stevie, push!”

  My limbs burned with the ache of such laborious physical activity, and just when I didn’t think I could take another stroke, I felt the rocky bottom beneath my feet.

  “Out, Stevie! Get out. You have to get out and get back to the house! You must warm up!”

  Which was easy for Win to say, and if I lived to tell the tale, I’d bet swimming lessons were in my near future if my spy had anything to say about it.

  Gasping for air, fighting to get as much into my lungs as I could, I stumbled and tripped the rest of the way to the shore. It was so dark, I almost couldn’t see where I was going but for Win’s instructions and the vague lights of our house.

  “Get out, Stevie! Don’t stop now. Move, Dove! Move!”

  The shoreline appeared as though rising up to meet me. Either that or I was falling forward with exhaustion. As I hit the ground, the rocks scraped my face and palms, already bloody from my escape from the car.

  So I wasn’t expecting what came next. And I suspect neither was Win. Because he didn’t fire off a warning.

  A fist like iron struck me on the side of the head, knocking it back on my shoulders and leaving me seeing stars.