Witch it Real Good

by Dakota Cassidy

  “I did,” he said quietly. Too quietly. Maybe even eerily quiet.

  I was still catching my breath, so I leaned forward at the waist, hands on my knees. “And?”

  Win’s expression was grim under the midnight blue sky. “And she said, Crispin is going to die.”

  Chapter 13

  We’d decided to take an Uber back to Hal’s and let everyone else enjoy the festivities instead of ruining their fun. After our encounter with the ghost, we were both depleted…or maybe deflated was a better word.

  Her ominous words were on repeat in my brain. Crispin is going to die.

  As we settled on the chairs in front of the kitchen fireplace, mugs of coffee courtesy of Atticus, Whiskey and Strike at my feet, I looked at Win—who was positively green—determined to turn this train wreck around.

  “Are you sure that’s what the ghost said, Win? Maybe you heard her wrong?”

  “Nay, Dove. She called me by name. By my given name. I heard correctly.”

  I fought to control the tone of my voice. I didn’t want to sound as spooked as I was. But let me tell you, I was spooked.

  “Did you recognize the voice?”

  “I didn’t. Did you recognize the ghost?”

  “I didn’t. Her image wasn’t distinct at all. Not the way they usually present themselves to me, anyway. Lately, I almost always see them in vivid color. Sometimes they shimmer before they fade out, but I can mostly make them out pretty clearly. Not this one. She was a blur, maybe staticky is a better word, but for some reason, I could tell it was a woman before you told me it was. Don’t ask why, because I don’t know. With the way she was darting from place to place, you’d think it would be hard to tell, but I knew. Or maybe I sensed she was female, is more accurate.”

  Win paused in thought, bringing the mug to his lips to take a sip before asking, “I wonder if that means something, the fact that this ghost didn’t appear whole to you.”

  I knew it meant something. I just wasn’t sure I should tell Win what it meant. Or what it used to mean when I was a witch.

  If a ghost began to fade when they appeared, in some cases it meant their time here on this plane was short and they had to make a choice soon—to cross over or remain on whatever plane they’d landed. If the ghost I saw tonight was any indication of that theory, we needed to find out what she meant.

  Instead, I leaned forward and put my hand on his. “I’m going to call Davis in the morning, Win. We need his help more than ever. He has to be able to get something out of MI6 to help us figure out if Miranda is still alive. I’m also going to call Hopeful Horizons Adoption Agency and see if I can wheedle something out of them, like your biological mother’s name.”

  But Win shook his head, his face almost hard in the firelight. “Davis was my lawyer, Stephania. That doesn’t make him privy to any and all information MI6 has about me. It simply makes him the person I designated as my trusted and secure contact. I highly doubt he’ll be able to squeeze anything out of them. However, Hopeful Horizons is certainly a smart next move to make.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. “What about some of your associates? Would they be willing to help? The people you worked with? Maybe they could sneak a peek at your files? They are spies. It’s what they do, right?”

  His lips thinned, and his free hand clenched into a fist. “I think you’ve seen what happens when an associate of mine becomes involved in my life, Dove. I end up quite dead.”

  I winced and sat back in my chair, watching the flames dance in the fireplace. “Fair point. Man, spying is a lonely gig, huh?”

  “It doesn’t inspire friendships. A spy is usually loyal only to himself and his or her syndicate. I think Miranda’s proven at least part of that statement is correct, hasn’t she?”

  “Then aren’t you glad you have us now, Winterbutt?” Bel chirped, flying into the room from his eleventy-billionth nap of the day to land on Win’s shoulder. “No more lonely nights!”

  I chuckled as he sang the Paul McCartney tune.

  Win turned his head to look at Belfry with a smile. “I’m ever so glad, my man. Ever so glad. I don’t know how I did it all those years without you.”

  Belfry scoffed with a tiny huff. “I know how you did it. The money, double-o-seven. The boatloads of money. You have an Aston Martin, for cripes’ sake, and more cash than Bill Gates.”

  “Au contraire, Belfry. I think Mr. Gates wins that round. Still, I’d trade all that money for everyone to be safe. I feel as if my past is bound to haunt me, but it surely shouldn’t haunt my loved ones.”

  Bel snuggled up against a tuft of Win’s hair. “We’ll figure it out. You want me to go over what we have so far?”

  “You mean a big, fat nothing?” I joked with a derisive snort.

  “Hush, Stevie,” Bel said, waving me off with an impatient wing. “Sometimes, talking it out helps. You always say that. So let’s do this, Gloomy Gloria. Let’s go all the way back to the beginning. Maybe it’ll jar Win’s memory.”

  Neither of us spoke, but we both nodded our agreement. I was willing to do whatever we had to in order to catch whoever wanted Win dead.

  “First up, before we revisit the past, there have been two attempts on your life. Or one we can verify, and one Arkady swears was an attempt. Correct?”

  “Correct,” I repeated.

  Bel looked up at the ceiling. “Arkady? Agreed?”

  “Agreed, tiny wing-ed one. That was no accident when Zero is jogging.”

  “The second attempt in Hal’s front yard was a shoddy one, so I’m guessing we don’t think it was someone with the skill level of a spy shooting at you guys. I guess we can rule out Miranda on that—and I’ll admit, it confuzzles me. Maybe we have two killers?” Then Bel groused, shaking his small head. “Forget I said that for now because that doesn’t connect to Miranda at all, and she’s really our only viable suspect, unless it’s the unidentified guy with the tattoo on his hand.”

  I sighed in frustration. “Right. Stick with what we know for sure.”

  “Right,” he agreed. “Now, as to Miranda, MI6 told Win she died in the Alps, and to back that up, Win had an encrypted message from her from…where? The Alps.”

  Win slid forward on his chair. “That’s absolutely correct. I’d forgotten all about that with the recent events. Shortly after that, I was relieved of my duties on the Von Krause case. I was so lost in my grief, I went back to the house she’d bought, thinking it might be time for me to retire, as I’d originally planned to do in Eb Falls with Miranda. With her gone, I still owned real estate. I thought to inspect the house and see what I was up against.”

  “But then when you got to the house, you found Miranda’s passports and paperwork and a bunch of money, right? So you notified MI6 something wasn’t right, and right after that, you heard her in the garden, where our back patio is, on the phone, talking to whoever she’d ratted Von Krause out to about the money and so on, yes?”

  Win’s jaw flexed and tightened, but he nodded. “She told whoever was on the other end of that call that she’d given over highly classified information about Von Krause’s location to another arms dealer, knowing full well I was undercover with Von Krause. She betrayed not only me, but our country. That is precisely as it happened.”

  “Then you confronted her and asked why she gave you up, but she didn’t say a word. Then big fight, big gun, and pain in your chest—and then you don’t remember anything after that.”

  Win’s chest expanded as he inhaled, making me reach out and grab his hand in an attempt to console him. “Also correct, Belfry, minus one small detail. The shadowy figure I saw from the corner of my eye. A figure I’m currently considering belonged to the hand with the tattoo.”

  Oh, yeah. There was that, too. Gosh, that felt like such a long time ago. I remember how hurt I was that getting Win to tell me about that night was like pulling teeth, and then I’d walked into the middle of a conversation between him and Arkady, where he was confessing everything. I’d fel
t so left out.

  Still, that was all in the past. In the present, we had someone who wanted Win dead.

  “Win?” I whispered his name. “Do you want to stop?”

  His jaw tightened. “Nay, Stephania. I want to remember all of it so that if this is truly Miranda, hunting me, I’ll be more than prepared.”

  I’m not sure what that meant, but I thought it might mean he wanted to let her have it for creating so much grief in his life—not to mention, killing him.

  Bel clucked his tongue to get our attention. “Back to business, lovebirds. So, we have a Miranda sighting, which makes complete sense if she doesn’t want blowback from Win, who could blast this wide open simply by telling MI6 she committed treason. I’m sure she’d also like to keep her freedom, which could be in serious jeopardy if she’s found by MI6 . Right again?”

  I nodded, blowing out a breath of tense air. All this talk of killing Win was starting to chip away at the objectivity I’d just preached.

  “Next, we don’t know if Miranda even knows about Balthazar, so probably, she thinks this is really Win here in Marshmallow Hollow, and that means she has loose ends she can’t afford to leave dangling. Why else would she be here of all places?”

  “Also correct,” Win agreed.

  I was in total agreement, and I said as much. “I’m in total agreement. But how does this tie into the shooter from last night? If Miranda’s here to be sure Win doesn’t tell anyone what she did—which makes total sense—then who the heck’s shooting at him? I think we all agree it wasn’t Miranda. Does that mean we have two people looking for your head on a platter?”

  Win grimaced. “It’s very likely. I know Miranda’s level of skill, and what happened last night wasn’t a hit from a skilled spy. Yet, I don’t know that I can bring myself to consider there’s someone else involved with this.”

  “Ghost intrusion. You know what Arkady Bagrov cannot stop chuckling about?”

  “What’s that, good man?”

  “How afraid Miranda must be to think you rise from dead.” He followed that up with a hearty chuckle, which made me laugh, too.

  “I thought just that earlier myself. Her head must be spinning right ’round on her neck at this point. Because she was there when Win died, and now he’s wandering around still breathing,” I commented. “If I didn’t know what I know about the afterlife, I’d be pretty freaked out. I don’t care how tough a spy you are, a zombie’s a zombie.”

  Win burst out laughing, scaring poor Whiskey. “I’m sorry, chap,” he said, reaching down to stroke Whiskey’s fur. “But that’s bloody brilliant. All I can imagine is the conversation carrying on in her head about how Crispin Alistair Winterbottom has risen from his grave and simply refuses to stay dead.”

  Belfry stuck his tiny hands out in front of him and walked across Win’s shoulder, mimicking a zombie, giving us all a much needed laugh.

  “Okay, okay,” he chirped, stifling a snort. “We need to quit fooling around.” Straightening his tiny body, he sat back on Win’s shoulder. “So, all we have left is the woman in the vision our girl Hal had, this new ghost Stevie saw at the ice carnival, and the picture of the Win-a-like. Stevie’s theory is she’s your biological mother because of some jewelry she was wearing with your birthstone and her accent. I don’t know if I’m buying it because it’s too horrible to think about, but I’ll address it because apparently, she’s in this mess, like it or not. You have no memory of her, or even the face attached to the tattooed hand. But it doesn’t mean she wasn’t there ’cause, again, you didn’t remember the guy with the tattoo.”

  I stuck my tongue out at Bel even as my blood ran cold at the mere thought. “I don’t care what you say, Belfry, my theory is valid. I’d hate it if it were true, too, but it’s totally possible Win’s mother was at the scene of his death.”

  Bel rolled his tiny eyes. “Moving on. Lastly, we have the picture of Win—or someone that looks exactly like him that Miranda’s been passing around. Super Spy says it’s not him because he’d never wear those shoes or gold chains, and Stevie, you think that could be because there’s a third brother, making Win and Balthazar part of a set of triplets.”

  I bounced my head. “Yep. I sure do. The man in the picture doesn’t look old enough to be Win’s biological father. Also, those shoes he’s wearing? They’re current—as in on sale within the last year. I know they are. If the guy in the picture is Win’s birth father, he’d look much older, wouldn’t he?”

  Now Win agreed with me. “Most likely, but let me remind you, the picture isn’t the clearest.”

  “So then we have the cousin or close relative theory,” Bel reminded. “I mean, maybe your birth mother had a much younger brother? Or even your birth father, and that’s who’s in the picture? But one thing’s for sure, I bet Miranda thinks that’s you. Which made me wonder, where did Miranda get that pic, anyway? Thoughts, Win?”

  Win steepled his hands over his mouth for a moment before he said, “Naturally, as spies, we’d prefer not to have our pictures taken. Yet, in the age of technology, that’s virtually impossible to avoid. It’s possible she got it from a hundred different places. But I tell you, Belfry, as much as that photo looks like me, and I admit it does, I don’t remember it being taken at all.”

  Well, wasn’t that a lovely circle from Hell?

  “And all that leaves us where?” I asked with a heavy sigh.

  “I don’t know,” Bel chirped. “I’m exhausted just thinking about it. What I do know is this—we need to find out if Miranda’s skulking around here in Marshmallow Hollow, and what she knows about Win before they try to kill him again.”

  I sat forward and reached for Bel, scooping him up in my hand to drop a kiss on his head. “This isn’t anything we didn’t already know, buddy, and while I appreciate you trying to help, we’re still right where we were ten minutes ago.”

  Win slid forward, his eyes thoughtful. “But are we, Stephania? Maybe not. All this talk of Miranda has me thinking. She’s quite fond of expensive things. There was nothing she despised more than a mission involving crude accommodations—she avoided them at all costs. Naturally, she did as a mission required, but she’d far prefer to stay in a five-star hotel.”

  I frowned at him. “Okay, and? She has thirty million dollars. I’m sure she’s staying in lots of five-star hotels. What’s your point?”

  “My point is, maybe we should find out where the nearest five-star hotel is, and see if she’s checked in?”

  Ahhh. Point for the spy.

  “Do you think there is such a thing in Marshmallow Hollow? And wouldn’t that be pretty bold? If she’s on the run from MI6, and hunting you, wouldn’t she be worried about getting caught? I mean, if she’s who I bumped into, she didn’t even bother to disguise herself at all, Win.”

  He shook his index finger in the air. “One of the very first things we learn as spies is hiding in plain sight. I’m betting two things. One, she’s contacted someone dirty in MI6 to feel out whether I’ve risen from the dead. What I think she’ll find is, they still think I’m dead, or there’d have been someone inquiring about me much sooner than now. She’ll then think I’m in hiding and fearing discovery.

  “Two, if she’s looked into you, and I’m sure she has, I’d also bet she doesn’t realize you know about my past. She’ll likely think I’ve made up some cockamamie story about my life when I met you. That is, after all, what we do. So she has absolutely no reason to hide. She’d have no way of knowing you know all about her. I’m also quite sure she made certain there was no evidence of her existence left at the house after she killed me. Why should she worry about being identified?”

  “But she did leave behind a picture, Winterbutt…” Bel reminded him with a boop of his wing to Win’s nose. “That’s how Stevie found out about her to begin with.”

  “Ah, but my good man,” Win said with a twinkle in his eye. “She had no idea about that picture. ’Twas I who hid that picture of the two of us in the jewelry box. Though,
I do wonder how she missed that. No spy worth their salt wouldn’t scavenge the entire premises inch by inch so as not to leave behind any evidence they’d been there.”

  I yawned, exhaustion from all the excitement of the day seeping into my very bones. I needed sleep and some downtime from this chaos. “So the plan for tomorrow is to look for expensive hotels, find out who your biological mother is, and hunt down Miranda. Should we add stealing a Monet to our list of impossible quests?”

  Win laughed and rose, too, smiling his warm smile at me. “Ah, Dove. Where would we be without your sense of humor to lighten our load in troubled times?”

  I rose and stretched, enjoying the warmth of the crackling fire in all its orange and blue splendor.

  “A Monet?” Bel squawked, flying around the room. “If I’m goin’ to jail, it sure ain’t gonna be for some weak pastel watercolors. We go Rembrandt or we go home!”

  Win threw his head back and laughed, and that was a nice reprieve from so much angst.

  Because it wouldn’t last. I had a sick gut feeling, it wouldn’t last.

  Chapter 14

  The next day, as the snow fell in thick clusters outside and the temperatures continued to hold steady at ten degrees, I sat in Hal’s kitchen, warm and toasty at her dining table, deeply entrenched in my research.

  Hal had been gone all day long, taking care of some last-minute things at Just Claus, which I had yet to see, and a meeting with her right-hand man, Rupert, whom I had yet to meet.

  So we’d spent the morning in Bar Harbor, talking to some of the area’s finest hotel managers, only to come up dry. If we didn’t find out anything before tomorrow, we were going to head in the other direction to Portland.

  We’d also done a crude search for the black Lincoln with the stick figures sticker on a quick skim through town, in the hopes of finding the driver, but no luck there, either.

  Rubbing my eyes, I rested my head in my hands.