Dewitched (Witchless In Seattle Mysteries Book 3) by Dakota Cassidy Read Free Book Online Page A

here. The only thing I can tell you is, he’s one tough nut to crack. Like walnut-tough to crack. Wheedling information out of him about a crime and any hints or clues is about as easy as getting a hand mirror away from my mother.
    Speaking of my mother, I promised Win I’d find her and warn her about Hugh. Where was Hugh, anyway? It was like he’d disappeared.
    I grinned at Sandwich. “You don’t rack up points if you forget, Sandwich,” I teased.
    Officer Nelson held up a shrimp and saluted me. “I, for one, never forget, Miss Cartwright.”
    As I chuckled along with them, Chester waved to me, pushing his stout body through the crowd.
    “There’s my girl!” Chester, Forrest’s grandfather, surrounded me in a warm embrace, wrapping his arm around my waist and chucking me under the chin. “Pretty as a picture, you are. Saw your mother with that guy Bart. Still looks just like she did the day she left Ebenezer. It’s uncanny. Handsome couple, the two of them, huh?”
    “Not nearly as handsome as you, buddy. Who’d you buy all that good looking from?” I joked, straightening his white and red polka dot bow tie and letting my hands rest on his chest.
    He looked up at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners, his balding white head shiny. “Aw, you stop, young lady. I’m just the gardener.”
    “Bah. I’d have never made it without you, Chester. You’re the flower whisperer, as far as I’m concerned.” When his face turned appropriately red, I asked, “Did you get something to eat? I made sure they had pickled herring and crackers just for you.”
    “I’m fine, toots. You go enjoy your company. But save an old man a dance, would ya? Forrest ain’t the only one who’s got twinkle toes.”
    I barked a laugh and pressed a kiss to his round cheek. “I love you, Chester. You’re one of a kind.”
    Letting go of him, I turned and scanned the crowd, hoping to locate my mother and Bart, or even Hugh at this point, but to no avail. They were somewhere swallowed up in the crowd of partiers.
    So I strolled through the people who’d gone off and formed their own groups, waving, smiling, thanking everyone for coming, reintroducing myself, passing the time and avoiding the inevitable questions about my sudden wealth and my day job as Madam Zoltar 2.0.
    There was some kind of commotion over by the big champagne glass of water, but I couldn’t quite catch what was going on before someone grabbed my arm.
    “Stevie Cartwright!”
    I was caught off guard for a moment until I looked a bit closer to the man calling my name and recognized him. “Elias Little?”
    “Yeah!” he said on a grin. Sticking out his hand, he grabbed mine and pumped it. “Good to see you after all these years!”
    I’m pretty sure Elias knew little to nothing about me—at least not from high school. We’d traveled in very different circles then, but he hadn’t changed much. Still wearing those horn-rimmed glasses, still sporting a crew cut and kind brown eyes.
    “You look great, Elias. It’s good to see you, too.”
    He leaned in as though he were going to share a secret (also, he still smelled like band practice—resin and a hint of sweaty, secondhand band uniform, to be precise). “So, wanna give a guy a scoop?”
    “Scoop?”
    “Yeah. All this.” He spread his arm, covered in a brown tweed jacket, and waved it at the house. “Didn’t just happen, did it? I mean, you had to get the money from somewhere, right? So I was hoping to do a feature on you in the Herald . You know, hometown girl makes good while she reads your mind or something? There’s gotta be a story there, Stevie—there always is.”
    I snickered. “I don’t read minds, Elias. I speak to the dead on behalf of the living.”
    He gave me the skeptical look everyone gives me, the dimples on either side of his mouth fading. “Riiight. A medium. Either way, I’d love to feature you in my column. Whaddya say?”
    Just as I was about to politely decline, I heard a