Free Witch Slapped (Witchless In Seattle Mysteries Book 1) by Dakota Cassidy Page A

Carlo, but you’re this close.”
    “Ooo, did you have to crawl under deadly laser beams that could cut you in half if you moved a millimeter the wrong way to catch him?” I mocked.
    “Stevie!” His voice reverberated through the house, bouncing off the fifteen-foot ceilings.
    “Fine. Carry on.”
    “Please, if you’d indulge me, check your voice mail.”
    “I’m afraid.”
    “I promise not to think less of you for behaving so cowardly. Please check.”
    I clicked the app for my voice mail, noted there was a message, and put it on speaker. There was a crackle on the line and then, “Miss Cartwright? This is Davis Monroe, Esquire. I’d been instructed to contact you upon the confirmation of the death of one Crispin Alistair Winterbottom. Please return my call promptly, as we need to discuss your inheritance.”
    Forget my alleged inheritance—Winterbottom’s first name was Crispin?
    I began to laugh, my head falling back on my shoulders while I tried to catch my breath. “Crispin Alistair?” I sputtered.
    Win cleared his throat. “Ahem. Pardon me, but it’s a prestigious birthright and well respected where I come from. Certainly nothing a heathen like you would understand.”
    I snorted again, but I also realized I now had a name. A full name to research. Google, be my guide.
    “Before you warm up your fingers to Google me, do note, you’ll find nothing about my profession as a spy online. Crispin Alistair Winterbottom was a mild-tempered grade-school teacher, at least according to Google.”
    “Riiight. Got it. When you look me up? Don’t believe LinkedIn and my former job as a 9-1-1 dispatcher. I’m really a prima ballerina with the Bolshoi Ballet.”
    “For your information, I wouldn’t believe that even if I saw you in a tutu and tights, not after your blatant Peggy Fleming in Madam Zoltar’s store.”
    “That’s because you’re a super spy with an antenna for lies, right?” Then I began to laugh again, bending forward at the waist to try to catch my breath.
    “Can we please set aside the fact that you’re calling me a liar and focus on the tasks at hand? I did just make you rich, did I not?”
    I clicked on the app again and typed in my password. Yep. The money was all still there. But it didn’t mean it was staying there or that it wasn’t dirty.
    “You did. You also gave me a house that’s about to fall down around my ears. You’re a total peach.”
    “This house can be restored to its former beauty and I know just the person. But we have other things to do right now. Right now, we have to help Madam Zoltar and find her killer.”
    My shoulders sagged as I hauled my purse to the crook of my arm. I was tired. It had been a long, grueling day. I wanted to go back to my cheap hotel room with the paper-thin blankets, take a shower and sleep for a year.
    “Can we do that tomorrow?”
    “And that brings me to this…”
    “What’s ‘this’?”
    “The deal.”
    I nodded my head knowingly. “You mean the strings, right? Because no one gives someone a boatload of money and a house on the bluff, even if it’s falling to pieces, without strings. No one. What’s the deal?”
    “I propose this. You can have it all, all of it. My house, my money, my toothbrush, which is the only personal possession I own, aside from some very expensive suits, but only if you agree to work with me to help find who killed Madam Zoltar—”
    “But—”
    “I’m not done yet. You must also agree to renovate this house for me under my instruction, and you have to remain here until its completion.”
    I lifted my shoulders. “Is that all? So basically, give up my entire life to live in a drafty, dirty wreck and figure out who killed Madam Zoltar, all while everyone in town calls me a murderer?”
    “You have no life, Stevie.”
    “That’s mean.”
    “It’s true.”
    My finger shot up in the air. “First of all, we don’t even know she was killed. Maybe it was just a heart attack or a stroke or