Dewitched (Witchless In Seattle Mysteries Book 3) (25 page)

I rubbed my eyes, still stinging from the water. “I’m glad she can go home.”

“Gentlemen,” Hugh said, tucking a heating blanket under my chin. “My daughter’s exhausted, as you can see. Are we through here? She needs her rest. However, I’d be happy to take selfies with you and sign autographs if that will encourage you to speak to her in the morning. You can tell all your friends how you met the famous Hugh Granite.”

Sandwich and Officer Nelson both looked at me, their brows furrowed, but I could only giggle, which then made me cough.

Officer Nelson was the first to tuck his notepad away. “I think we have everything for now, Mr. er, Granite. Stevie? You rest.” Then he crouched beside me and grinned, patting my arm. “From here on out, all bets are off now. Even-steven, Detective Cartwright? Say it out loud or I can’t leave.”

I shook my head but I grinned, holding out my hand to shake on it. “Even-steven, Officer Rigid. For now, anyway,” I agreed on a chuckle.

But I crossed the fingers on my other hand—you know, just in case (wink-wink).

* * * *

Later That Week

I dropped a kiss on each of the Bats’s heads, giving Uncle Ding an extra nuzzle. “You guys be safe on the way home, huh? And keep your sonar to yourself, mister,” I teased.

Deloris steamrolled Belfry on the kitchen table. “C’mere, my squishy face, and give your mother a kiss before she goes.”

“Ma! Quit!” But he was giggling when he protested. “Make sure you call when you get home, and you two, don’t give Mom any more trouble. We’ve had enough of that around here.”

Wom and Com chuckled before flying to the open window to prepare to take flight.

I scooped Bel up and put him on my shoulder. “Bye, guys, safe trip!”

As each of the Bats took off, soaring upward, their tiny wings but specks in the setting sun, my chest grew tight. I was actually sad to see them go.

“Phew,” Belfry said. “Can’t believe we only lost one vase and a cabinet door handle during that entire visit. I think we just set a record.”

I giggled. “We lived to tell the tale, buddy.”

“Stephania?” my mother called to me from the entryway. She was leaving, too. Not alone, mind you, but in better hands this time.

I’d done some research on this Raul, and if he was nothing else, he was incredibly charitable, philanthropic, and most of the articles we’d read on him said he was a decent enough guy—which was why I’d privately warned him about my mother. It was the least he deserved.

“You’re off, I guess?”

She smiled at me, beautiful in her flowing lavender dress and big dark sunglasses. She held out her hand, and I took it and squeezed. I was actually sad to see her go, too. We’d spent a lot of time talking this week, trying to work through our issues; we’d cried a little, but we’d laughed, too, and during that time, I’d set firm boundaries about my life and the way she treated me.

None of that erased my childhood, but we had a good starting point for my adulthood, and a solid future.

She’d promised me she’d speak to Baba Yaga about Charles, too. Yes, he’d killed Bart, but he’d end up in a human jail with human prisoners. Who knew what he was capable of? He was out of control and in desperate need of containment. If Charles really could see the future—something my mother assured me, if Bart was capable of, she hadn’t known—this poor kid was a loose cannon. A chance like that was a risk Baba wouldn’t want to take.

We’d also had a small memorial for Bart. Just Win, Bel, Mom and me. I’d said a few words and my mother had apologized to him for her deceptions. I don’t know if Bart can hear, wherever he is, but her words actually sounded quite genuine. I left it at that and we scattered his ashes over the Puget.

“I wish you could stay longer, Mom.” I never thought I’d say those words, but there they were.

“I need to tell you something, Stephania…
Stevie
,” she enunciated, finally calling me by my preferred nickname.

I cocked my head in question. “Sure, Mom. Anything.”

Mom’s fingers let go of mine as she gripped my upper arms, almost pinching my flesh. “Something changed in me that night with Adam Westfield, Stephania. I thought I knew who I was. I thought I had it all figured out. But seeing you in so much danger, hearing that bastard warlock threaten your life…” She paused, lifting her chin, her gaze faraway. “Well, I’ve never felt such rage. Such uncontrollable anguish and pure hatred…such
fear
. I wanted him dead. I wanted him to hurt the way he was hurting you. I wanted to hurt him ten thousand times
more
than he hurt you. And it frightened me to my core, but it also gave me quite the wake-up call.”

Whatever had happened that night with Adam, whatever it was that had unlocked something inside of Dita, it truly had changed her. It was like watching someone turn over a completely new leaf. I have no explanation for this change, and I’m not questioning it. Not now, anyway.

“Do you think maybe you have the mom gene after all? Maybe it just took time to mutate or something,” I teased, trying to keep things light because I’d never seen her like this. I’d never seen her so rattled.

Her grip lightened and she rubbed my upper arms with her hands and smiled. “I don’t know what I have. I
do
know that moment, that single second where I thought he’d kill you, shredded me, and I need to reevaluate my life, Stevie, your childhood. The things I did so wrong when you were growing up. The things I ignored in favor of my own needs. But I’ll be back, Stephania. I’ll be back often and we’ll talk more. I hope you’ll let me come back so we can do that.”

As she looked at me, her blue-gray eyes so like mine were hopeful and warm, and that was shredding
me
.

“Do you promise to clean up after yourself and keep your dead husbands under lock and key?”

She laughed then. We laughed together. Then we hugged. For a long time before she hopped into Raul’s smart Mercedes convertible and drove away, her long scarf streaming behind her, the last vestiges of the sun glinting on her beautiful chestnut hair, just like in the movies.

“Daughter?” Hugh popped in from nowhere in a cloud of emerald-green smoke, his movie-star smile in place.

“Hey!” I said on a return grin, falling into one of his hugs as if I’d done so all my life.

We’d spent a great deal of time together this week, too. I’d looked up his website, where he’d shown me all the amazing experiences he’d had over the course of his career. We looked at the list of his movies—movies I’d never heard of—but most of all, we’d bonded.

Big time. I told him everything that had happened with Adam Westfield, with Win and the house and Madam Zoltar. And I didn’t care that he talked about himself most of the conversation. When it counted, he’d been there. Rock solid.

Hugh and my mother hadn’t talked much during their stay—they didn’t hate on each other or argue, either. In fact, they didn’t often acknowledge each other one way or the other.

I guess my childhood dream of Hugh whisking her off her feet and riding off into the sunset with all three of us on his horse wasn’t ever going to come true.

Hugh was beholden to no one woman except me, he’d told me, and I was okay with that as long as he was happy.

“Are you leaving me, too?” I made a sad face at him.

“Never,” he whispered dramatically from above my head. “Not permanently, anyway. But my fans call, Stevie. I have another movie I’m shooting and I must prepare. Though, I do hate to leave you after all you’ve told me.”

A tear stung my eye, but I scrunched them shut and said against his jacket, “I hate it, too. But I understand. So you’ll poke around for me, about what Charles said?”

“I’ll do more than poke, beautiful daughter. I’ll make it my mission,” he said in his game-show announcer’s voice. “Win, I expect you’ll watch out for my daughter as though your spirit depends upon it?”

“You have my word, sir.”

My father had also heard what Charles said before he was taken away, and he’d shown genuine concern. He’d promised to contact the council about Charles, and to have the spirits he communicated with on the reg watch over me in his stead.

“Thanks…
Dad
…” The word slipped off my tongue with great ease.

Hugh set me from him then and chucked me under the chin. “You are the best gift I could have ever given myself. Well, unless the gift was me, of course,” he said on a cheesy wink. “Now, you stay safe, and if you need me, anytime, no matter where I am, just use the amulet I left you. It’s heavy with magic, Daughter. Wear it always, and I’ll always be with you.”

I held up the thin gold chain with the sapphire amulet my father had given me. He said it reminded him of the color of my eyes. “Got it. But come back soon, okay? Thanksgiving? Christmas? I’m going to miss you.”

“And I you, Daughter. Now no sad goodbyes. They create pesky wrinkles you’ll never be rid of. Aunt Imelda is keeping tabs on you from the great beyond, and if all else fails, tweet me.” With that, he dropped a kiss on my cheek and snapped his fingers, leaving as quickly as he’d come.

Rubbing my arms, I sighed a happy sigh.

“You were lovely with your mother today. You are the kindest person I know, Stephania.”

“Or the most gullible, Winterbutt.” But I paused for a moment, one long one as I reflected on my mother’s words. “Do you think she meant what she said?”

Win cleared his throat. “I do, Dove. I truly do. Your narrow escape from death was jarring, no doubt. I can’t say she didn’t deserve a good wakeup call.”

Sticking my hand in my pocket, I pulled out what felt like a piece of thin cardboard. “I forgot all about this,” I said, holding up Petula’s chewed business card. “Did we ever find out who wrote Bart’s name on the back?”

“Nothing concrete, but I’d bet my Aston Martin it was Charles. Why he’d do it escapes me, though.”

I shook the card in the air and laughed. “Your Aston Martin, huh? Might be worth the expense of a handwriting analysis.”

“You’ll never get your hands on that car, Stevie. Never!” Win teased, then sobered. “Also, more intel from the afterlife this morning.”

I groaned. “Do I want to know so soon after this last mess?”

“It has to do with this last mess. Remember the lovely southern spirit who contacted us while we were at the store?”

I nodded. “Oh, yeah. Did she come back?”

“She did. Her name is Beth Ann and she was referring to Bart when she said he did it, and he wasn’t what he seemed. Meaning he was a con artist. Beth Ann was one of Bart’s many conquests. We rather overlooked the picture at the shop of Bart and your mother on the shelf next to your hoard of snow globes—which was what she was referring to when she imploded it. She apologized profusely for breaking it in her attempt to share her information.”

“So I blamed my totally innocent father. That’ll teach me to make assumptions when I’m so emotionally involved in an investigation. Poor Beth Ann. But tell her I said thanks for trying to help.”

Win barked a laugh. “I wouldn’t feel sorry for Beth Ann. According to her, she finally had the chance to give Bart a piece of her mind before he crossed over. She seemed quite pleased with herself.”

Smiling, I chuckled. “Then all’s well that ends well, huh?”

Win’s tone was dark when he said, “Not all has ended well, Dove. We must discuss our plans for the words Charles spoke.”

The ominous dread those words evoked washed over me again with spidery fingers. “Like a plan of attack? I’m sort of defenseless, Win. I have no powers to fight that sort of threat.”

And that notion terrified me.

“Do you think Charles really can see into the future, Dove?”

I shrugged. “There’s no record of him anywhere in our archives, according to my dad. But that’s because his mother didn’t want anyone to know about him, and the impression I got from Charles was that his mother thought he was weird. Maybe he shared visions when he was frightened by them and Clara labeled him crazy?”

“Poor chap. To be so misunderstood all his life.”

It made my stomach turn to think of how he must have suffered. “I blame Bart for that. I can’t shake the feeling he knew about Charles, and if he knew, then he should have realized Charles was at least half warlock.”

“Do you think your mother was telling us the truth when she said she didn’t think Bart had visions? That he was just your average, every day warlock?”

“I don’t think she’d lie now. Not after everything that happened. But maybe that’s what kept Bart from getting caught by Baba all these years? He knew when she was coming because he could see it?”

Shaking my head, I felt nothing but dark and cold when I examined Charles and his life, so easily swept under the carpet by his family and their wealth. He had a rare gift and it had been stifled and misunderstood.

Charles was someone I’d keep tabs on, because I couldn’t bear that he wouldn’t at least be given a chance to understand what he was—would be.

“Either way, his words are still an issue, but I don’t believe we can’t fight fire with fire if we can just obtain your powers,” Win remarked. “In fact, I refuse to believe such.
Refuse
. Your powers have flickered. They remain somewhere inside you. We need to find out how to reactivate them.”

“It’s not like I can drink a magic potion or that I have a switch I can just turn back on, Win. It doesn’t work that way.”

“But they
have
reappeared. I won’t stop until we rediscover how to obtain them once more.”

Right. Just like he wasn’t going to stop trying to get back to this plane. For the moment, I needed some downtime from threats and the afterlife and Adam Westfield.

“Can we revisit this discussion at a later date?”

“We can.
We will
.”

Closing my eyes, I let go of the past days and cocked an ear. “Hear that?”

“What?”

“The sound of silence, my friend.” I inhaled and smiled as seagulls soared, the motorboat engines hummed, but no one was buzzing about my head—or in my nightgown. Once more, peace was restored at Mansion Mayhem and Madness.

“’Tis quite lovely indeed.”

“C’mon, International Man of Mystery, let’s go have some Cheese Whiz and Triscuits. I’ll introduce you to the culinary delights of processed, glutinous gobs of deliciousness from a spray can.”