Witch Slapped (Witchless In Seattle Mysteries Book 1)

by Dakota Cassidy

  Sal was suddenly eerily calm. He yanked my chair back up, bringing me with it, driving me back into the hard seat with rough hands without even noticing I’d managed to almost free myself from the rope. “You know what I think the bigger question is here, Stevie? How do you know who I am?”

  Rolling my eyes even as my head swam in dizzy circles and my face throbbed, I stated the obvious. “Duh. I just told you—your cousin. Though, one quick question. How did you get past Sally at the B&B with that accent? She never mentioned it.”

  Sal’s grin was sly, a total pat on his own back. “Lots and lots of American television as a child. Smart, right?” he asked in what was definitely a very good American accent.

  “Was it you I saw going into Madam Z’s store in the Burberry trench coat?”

  “Stevie! This isn’t show and tell time,” Win griped, his tone urgent.

  Sal grinned, his gorgeous eyes shiny and bright. “You can never go wrong with a Burberry. Was it you poking around in her store the other day?”

  “Well, seeing as we’re sharing confessions. Yeah. I managed to squeeze out of that tiny window in her bathroom. Imagine that, huh?”

  Sal cocked an eyebrow. “Imagine that.”

  “You planted Madam Z’s Senior Alert necklace here then tipped the cops off anonymously with that awesomely done American accent, didn’t you?”

  “I did indeed.” And then he wiped the smile from his face. “Now, I repeat, how do you know who I am?”

  “Because of Win.”

  “Who’s Win?”

  “Oh, wait. Maybe you don’t call him Win? I mean Crispin. Your cousin the spy? You know him, right? Evasive, shady, kinda snippy and sometimes even snobby. Golly, him and his food requirements alone qualify him as a snob. Anyway, he’s here right now. He told me all about how he’d left this house and all his money to you. He was very upset by what he thought you’d do to this house, Sal. He wants to restore it, but he said you’d turn it into a monster of steel and chrome.”

  “I did say that, didn’t I?” Win chuckled, the deep sound settling in my left ear.

  I looked to my left and nodded, fighting another wince of pain. “Yep. You sure did, Win. So he had Madam Zoltar change his will. He did it from the afterlife, too. Crazy, right?”

  Sal leaned forward, gripping the top of either side of the chair and leering at me. “Are you mad?”

  I paused in thought. “Define ‘mad’. Do you mean as in appointments-with-psychiatrists-and-meds mad? Or like angry mad? You British have different meanings for stuff than we do. For instance, we call—”

  “Who are you talking to? Crispin’s dead!” he screamed at me, the veins in his forehead popping out.

  I hitched my jaw at his face, fighting fear with a glib approach. “You have a little something in the corner of your mouth.”

  He gave the chair a hard shake to let me know he meant business. Man, he was strong. It was as if I only weighed fifty pounds soaking wet—which is awesome if he’s your boyfriend, because believe me, I weigh at least a hundred pounds more. But not so awesome if he’s your killer.

  “How do you know him? I’ve never heard of you before.”

  “That’s because I’d never heard of Win before he popped into my life just after you killed Madam Zoltar.”

  “Is Win his super-secret spy name—a code name for Mr. Bigshot?” Sal sneered, his handsome face twisting into a mask of hatred.

  “It’s what he told me to call him—”

  “You lie!” he bellowed, those thick veins of his popping back out again—all along the column of his neck and his forehead.

  Win whistled in my ear. “Stevie! Stop taunting him right now. He’s not right in the head. I’m ordering you to stop this instant! You’re only provoking him.”

  But the heck I was going to die before I had some answers. “Swear it on a blueberry Pop-Tart, Sal. Those are my favorite, BTW. I’m a medium. Sort of like Madam Zoltar was. You know, the nice old lady you killed? What I can’t figure out is why you killed her. What did she have that you wanted?”

  Why wasn’t I able to put this all together? I was struggling to figure out what Madam Z had to do with Sal, and how he’d come to kill a woman he didn’t even know.

  Reaching behind him, Sal yanked something from his waistband. Something I knew couldn’t be good. When he held up his hand, I saw the gun, viciously gleaming silver.

  Perfect.

  Sal waved it at me before jamming it in my face. “Does any of it matter? You’re going to die, Stevie Cartwright. Just like Madam Zoltar.”

  Chapter 16

  “Waitwaitwaaait!” I screamed in panic as he took a step backward. “I thought we had a killing-courtesy thing here? All I want to know is why you killed Madam Z! Also, maybe if you told me why you want me dead, I’d rest much more peacefully. So c’mon. It’s like a last-wish thing. Please? Pretty please?” I fought the tremble in my voice with every word I spoke.

  Sal made a pouty face at me. Now he had a secret and it appeared as though he was rather enjoying this turn of events. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? She did something. Something very bad. She changed Crispin’s will and put your name in it.”

  Ice coursed through my veins, icy talons of fear. “How do you know that?” Both Win and I asked simultaneously.

  Sal looked like he’d decided to play my game when he smiled and said, “A woman called me. Quite out of the blue, in fact. According to her, the change had already been made. Imagine my surprise when I realized he’d originally left everything to me, and I had to make it here to quaint little Ebenezer Falls before the will was opened and read if I hoped to change it back. Getting here all the way from across the pond in enough time proved stressful. I was dreadfully late.”

  My heart crashed against my ribs hard, but I kept pushing for more answers. “What woman?”

  Sal waved the gun in the air in a dismissive gesture. “Bah. I don’t know. She called anonymously. Isn’t that always the way? But she certainly knew a lot about yooou,” he drawled, then threw his dark head back and laughed at himself. “She told me, under Cris’s instruction, this Madam Zoltar had changed the sole beneficiary from my name to yours. I didn’t know anything about his will or a house, but still, I couldn’t figure out why Cris would do such a thing. I was so hurt. Devastated, in fact. Why leave all of his possessions to a complete stranger? We’re family! So who are you to him, Stevie Cartwright?”

  I ignored his question and shook my head, tears stinging the corners of my eyes. “But you killed her a day after Win’s will was read. Why would you do that when there was nothing you or she could have done to change it anyway?” This was all so senseless. Madam Z never had to die at all.

  He used the butt of the gun to scratch his forehead. “Oh, she carried on about that. She told me the will had already been changed and there was nothing I could do. That made me mad. So mad. The caller did say someone despicable was going to get their hands on his money if I didn’t change the will back. To think, if my flight hadn’t been delayed, I’d have arrived on time and I could have changed it back and no one would have had to die.”

  Who? Who had called Sal to warn him? Who could have possibly known? Win was already dead by the time he’d asked MZ to change his will. Would one of my coven do something so awful? Had someone else been communicating with the afterlife in my stead?

  And then it hit me in a sick wave of understanding, but Sal was still droning on and I had to focus.

  “Mr. Bigshot, always wandering around like he was James Bond reincarnated while I worked a menial nine-to-five, slogging back and forth on the tube day in, day out. Everything was some important secret with Cris. My nana used to gush all the time about him to her friends and I was sick of it! Even when we were young blokes, he always thought he was better than all of us—me especially!”

  Win sighed in my ear, grating and long. “Still slagging me off even in death. Sal is a jealous Nancy. Always whining about something. Surely you can see why I
didn’t want to foist him upon the good people of Ebenezer Falls?”

  I shook my head as though it would extract Win. “I still don’t understand why you killed her, Sal? She was a harmless old lady who’d never hurt anyone.” The thought tore at my heart.

  Liza’s face flashed in front of my eyes, her sorrow, her raw pain. And that made me angry. So angry.

  Sal became agitated again. In fact, every time I mentioned him killing Madam Z, he became edgier. Now he paced back and forth in front of me. “Because she wouldn’t tell me whom he’d given all this to! That’s why!” He spread his arms wide to encompass the basement. “You got all his money and this shambles of a house and I got nothing! I was going to force her to change the will back until I found out the deed was already done and there was nothing I could do about it. That made me furious, Stevie. So furious. If not for you, she’d still be alive. It’s all your fault. You have no one to blame but yourself!”

  I swallowed hard. “So you made her call the Senior Alert line to keep help from coming and then strangled her to death?”

  Sal instantly stopped pacing, his focus solely on me, his blue eyes soft and melty. “I promised not to kill her, you know—if she called off the cops.” He smiled as though the memory were a fond one, making my stomach somersault.

  “I’ll kill him,” Win growled, harsh and angry. “Kill him.”

  But I remained silent, my mouth dry. I wasn’t sure I could keep Sal talking long enough before I vomited at his filthy feet.

  “But I gotta give it to the old bird; she wouldn’t tell me whose name was on that will, no matter what I did. Doesn’t matter. I found a copy of it just this afternoon. Took me a couple of days, but it was easy enough once the cops cleared out. Lost a nice pen in the process, too. The pen Win had his secretary send me for Christmas one year, the braggart.”

  The Montblanc. How could Win not have made the connection?

  “Before you go accusing me of not catching that clue, I have no idea what my secretary sends to anyone for Christmas,” Win defended. “And who knew this sod could mimic an American accent?”

  Running his hands through his hair, Sal shook his head, as though he regretted killing Madam Z. “I couldn’t let her live, of course. She’d have ratted me out to the authorities. Boy, but she was tough. Held out right until the very end. Right up until the bitter end, in fact. Struggled so hard, she jammed her foot against that pedal she had under the table—blew the socket right out of the wall!”

  Oh God. He truly was insane.

  But what left me feeling the absolute worst? Madam Z had been protecting me even before she knew who I was. Because of Win.

  As my stomach turned, I knew I had to figure a way out of this basement. I didn’t know how I was going to do that, but Sal couldn’t be allowed to walk free.

  Licking my lips, I swallowed hard and forced myself to ask, “So…how is killing me going to help you, Sal? You won’t be able to get your hands on Crispin’s money. It’ll go into probate forever. The legal red tape will be a nightmare.”

  He shook a finger at me, his eyes almost wild, his brow covered in a think sheen of sweat. “Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. You’re going to sign everything over to me in your brand new will, Stevie. Lock, stock and millions of Mr. Showoff’s money!”

  I shook my head. The hell I would. “I won’t do it. You can’t make me.”

  He reached down and pulled up the leg of his jeans, dragging a knife from his sock to hold it up against the light. “You will if I cut your fingers off one by one. You’ll give in exactly the way Madam Zoltar did, crying and begging for your life.”

  “Stevie, we have to do something rash and we have to do it now.” Win’s voice was calm, but I was sure he could see as well as I could, Sal was falling further down the rabbit hole.

  “Stevie? You here? Brought you some coffee to cheer you up!”

  Forrest?

  I froze, that icy course of blood streaming through my veins again as Sal’s head popped up and his eyes went wide.

  “Stevie, you must act! Listen closely. The moment Sal turns his back to find out who’s calling you, grab that chair and hit him. Hit him hard, Stevie, and make it count. Use everything you’ve got!”

  I nodded and gulped. Hit him with the chair, hit him with the chair.

  “Stevie? Where are you?”

  Sal’s eyes narrowed, his mouth turning to a thin line, and then he did just as Win suspected. “Don’t make a sound, or whoever that is will die, just like you,” he threatened.

  He turned to head for the steps—and with a whoosh of air and a silent prayer to the goddesses, I slid from the chair, grabbed it with my imprisoned hands, lifted it high and nailed him on the side of his deranged head.

  “Run, Stevie!” Win hollered. “Run and don’t look back!”

  I did as I was told, fighting the wave after wave of dizziness as I attempted to climb the steps. “Forrest! Get help!” I screamed upward, my voice raspy and tight.

  Just as I reached the top of the stairs, I saw Forrest, his face slathered in his surprise. “Stevie! Are you okay?”

  The moment the words flew from his mouth was the moment Win yelled in my ear, “Tell Forrest to duck!”

  “Forrest, duck!”

  I did as Win told me just before a shot rang out that, to my horror, took Forrest to the ground with a thud that shook the rafters of the house.

  But I didn’t have time to react before Sal was grabbing at my ankles, trying to drag me back down the stairs.

  “Roll over, Stevie! Roll over and kick his hand with the gun then uppercut with the heel of your foot to his jaw!” Win directed.

  Again, I did as I was told, acting merely on adrenaline and British spy advice. Rolling to my back, I whacked at Sal’s hand as he dragged me down, my head banging against each tread as we went.

  I whooped a yelp of triumph when I successfully knocked the gun from his hand and followed up with the hardest kick I could manage just beneath his jaw.

  Sal howled when my heel made contact and he fell back down a few steps, giving me enough time to roll back over and scurry the rest of the way up the stairs.

  I tripped over Forrest’s big body, his arm bleeding from the gunshot, his forehead following suit with a big gash in it.

  “Don’t stop now, Stevie—he won’t trouble himself with Forrest. It’s you he wants. You have to run! Sal’s right behind you!”

  “Where?” I screeched into the kitchen, trying to break free from the duct tape on my wrists, but I couldn’t remember a dang thing Win told me about how to do it.

  “Enzo’s hammer, by the microwave. Grab it now and hide! I’ll get Bel to use Forrest’s phone to call 9-1-1. Do it now!”

  I managed to grab the hammer just in the nick of time, almost fumbling it before grasping it securely and running through the kitchen into the dining room.

  I thanked every God available to my memory Win had decided to knock down the wall between the kitchen and the dining room as I scooted around the corner, my feet plowing over discarded nails.

  As my heart pounded in my chest like the hammer I was holding, my eyes wildly searched for somewhere to run. The wind outside howled, crying out, the frigid air coming from the door Forrest must have left open.

  “Stevie!” Sal hollered, his voice echoing through the emptiness of the house. “You can’t get away from me!”

  “You can, Stevie. You will!” Win urged. “He’s hurt. You cuffed him on his head but good. He’s dizzy and stumbling. Use that to your advantage.”

  “Stevie!” Sal wailed my name again, his voice closer. “You’re going to die tonight!”

  “Where?” I whispered, looking toward the set of windows in the dining room.

  “No! Not the windows. There’s nowhere for you to run in all that mud. No neighbor nearby to help. Bel’s dialing 9-1-1 now, but you have no choice but to go up, Stevie. Hurry! Get up the stairs and we’ll catch him by surprise!”

  Sal had gone silent now,
so silent, if not for the howling wind, he’d hear me gasping for breath.

  Up. Go up. I snuck around the corner of the dining room, poking my head around it to see the stairs, trying to keep my ragged, fear-filled breathing to a minimum. My eye ached like the dickens, making everything feel off kilter.

  When I saw the coast was clear, I ran like the hounds of hell were nipping at my heels, clamping my mouth shut when I hit a jagged patch of wood on the stairs.

  I’d just made it to the top where the landing met the steps when Sal’s heavy feet touched the first tread. His roar of anger tearing through the air had me biting the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming in terror.

  I almost couldn’t make my feet move, but Win was there again. “Hide, Stevie! Choose a room, get into it and around the corner of the doorframe. If he gets to you before the police arrive, whack him again. Run, Stevie!”

  I flew down the long, dark hallway to the left, scooting into the second room and directly around the corner just as sirens pealed, piercing the night air. My eye throbbed, my vision becoming worse by the second.

  Sal’s footsteps grew closer, pounding, driving, running right past the room I was hidden in, and I almost breathed a sigh of relief, thinking Sal had gone another way, until Win bellowed, “Stevie, now!”

  I whacked at the air, not even sure what I was whacking at, it was so dark, but I got him good on some fleshy part of his body I couldn’t distinguish. Judging from Sal’s howl of discontent, it hurt. As my eyes began to adjust, I pushed my way past him, using all my strength to get out the door.

  I managed to fumble to the hallway, crashing against the wall before I took off running again, unsure where to go next.

  “Stevie! I’m going to tell you to do something crazy, but it’ll buy you time until the police get here! You can’t let him get his hands on you or he’ll strangle you before the police arrive. See that rope on the scaffolding at the edge of the broken railing to the stairs? Grab it, push off the step then make like Tarzan and swing!”

  “Are you insane? I’ll never make that! Have I mentioned I failed gym?” I cried as the rope he was talking about came into view. It was hanging from the highest point of the entryway scaffolding that went all the way across to the wall along the stairs—the entryway I’d thought would eventually be so beautiful, not where I’d leap to my death.