Dewitched (Witchless In Seattle Mysteries Book 3) (24 page)

But I just couldn’t move. My arms would not connect with the signal my brain was sending. So I kept talking, attempting to distract. “Are you
sure
Bart fathered a son?” I sputtered, my words gurgling as water began to rush its way out of my mouth and I was racked with a coughing spell, the rattle of my labored attempts strong in my ears.

I don’t know why I was repeating myself, but I just couldn’t fully wrap my head around this information.

“Yeah, he fathered a son, if that’s what you want to call it!” he sneered, his eyes wild and glazed, his teeth clenched. “Me! He fathered
me
, and then he abandoned me just like he did that sorry excuse for a mother I have. But I made him pay! I spent years trying to figure out who he was.
Years!
But I found him, didn’t I? And then I tracked him here. I got a job as a mime at your shallow party just so I could get up close and personal with him and then I confronted him—and he wouldn’t even acknowledge me! Refused to call me his son. But I showed him what denying my existence is all about! I’m sick of being denied like I’m some piece of garbage! All I wanted was for him to confirm it. To acknowledge I was his son!”

There it was. A small rush of heat in my left leg. And if one leg was enough to take out this twisted sister, I’d be in good stead, but he was strong. So darn strong.

“You went to the prison?”

“I called the prison. I called and tried to see the scumbag my father used to turn tricks with. But he wouldn’t see me! I sent him letters and they were sent back. I know my father must have told him who I am! But
you
saw him, didn’t you? He told you about me, and now you have to die, too!”

“Stevie! Move,
please
, do something! If you don’t move, I can’t help you!” Win’s warning held desperation, but I couldn’t even blink at this point, let alone fight this madman off.

“Belfry,” I whispered finally. “Find Belfry…”

“
Who?
” the man screeched as rain beat down on us.

Win’s voice was getting smaller. “I can’t find him, Stevie! I can’t take time to leave you to find him.
You
have to do this. You must move. I will not allow you to die! You will not die while I watch! You will not leave me!”

“He didn’t tell me,” I sputtered and wheezed on another cough, my chest heaving and sore from the fight for air. It was the only thing I could think of to say. But I wanted him to know—this was all for naught. Ralph had never said a word about Bart having a son.

Pulling me closer, he looked me right in the eye and I was convinced, evil truly did walk this plane. His lips twisted in disgust. “I don’t care. I don’t care about
anything
anymore. You know now. I have to kill you,” he said with eerie calm, just before he slammed my head against the ground.

“Stevie! Bloody hell! Get your hands up in the air and hit him where it hurts! Push your thumbs into his eyes, drive them to the back of his skull if you must, but do it!”

As my vision blurred, my hearing didn’t. I heard Win, I even saw him in my mind’s eye. A rush of images of the things we’d done these past months flooded my brain. Laughing, talking, sharing meals together, performing séances, him saving my hide on more than one occasion.

Us sitting in the parlor…

The parlor!

I don’t know what happened. If it was divine intervention, Win’s will for me to live, or just an adrenaline rush at the right time, but as Bart’s son lifted me once more by the lapel of my bathrobe, preparing to smash my head into the ground, my fingers sprang into action

Reaching into the pocket of my robe, I almost cheered in relief when my hands touched the letter opener I remembered stuffing into my pocket before I went to answer the door.

With a scream of terror, I plunged it into his shoulder with the hardest jab I could summon, pushing it deep into his flesh.

“That’s my girl, Dove!” Win cheered.

The man’s roar of anger reverberated through the night but it was enough to make him let go of me. I slammed back to the rocky ground, prepared to try to roll over and get on my feet, when I heard Dana Nelson call out, “Stop! Police! Hands in the air!”

“Thank God!” Win said in a gasping breath.

I heard Whiskey’s familiar bark and the rush of several pairs of feet as they thundered past me, but one pair stopped right beside my head. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw they were shiny and perfect.

“Daughter!” my father cried, his voice full of horror. He kneeled beside me and gathered me in his arms, hauling me up into his warm embrace. He smelled of the ocean and his signature spicy cologne. And he was warm. So warm. “Answer me, Stevie! Tell me you’re all right!”

I only remember blips of getting to the house. There was a lot of shouting, and of course, Bart’s son screaming his hatred at the police as they cuffed him and led him away while Whiskey tugged viciously at the hem of his pants.

But there is one thing I remember clearly as they hauled Bart’s son away. His chilling last words to me. “He’s coming for you!
I saw him!
” he’d screamed, his face a twisted mask of agony.
“He’s coming for you, Stevie, and he’s going to make your death a living hell!”

Then I remember my father carried me back, all the way down the beach and all the way up our long driveway.

I remember my mother’s face. Just a quick glimpse of shock and fear as she ran to my dad and met him halfway across the lawn. I remember her peeling my soaking-wet pajamas off, wrapping heated towels around me, sitting me in front of the fire.

Now, almost two hours later, as Sandwich sat on the opposite couch, he explained who Bart’s son was. “You went to that prison, didn’t you, Stevie.”

“Guilty. You itchin’ to use those cuffs on me for it?” I responded wearily as my father handed me a cup of steaming coffee.

Sandwich’s sigh was ragged, but still, his lips lifted upward. “Stevie, when are you gonna learn to let
us
do the police work? This is the third time, it almost got you killed.”

“You want the truth, or a pretty lie?”

He shook his head and made a face. “That’s what I thought. Listen, that Ralph up in the Penn? The guards there say he got suspicious after he got a slew of anonymous mail from who we found out tonight is your stepfather’s son. His name is Charles Rawlings, by the way.”

I almost sat up, but I could only manage to stir in my surprise. “
Clara Rawlings?
That’s his mother, isn’t it?”

“Yep. And I’m not even gonna ask how you knew that.”

“I know how she knew that,” my favorite Officer Unicorns and Rainbows said. “She was sticking her nose in it again, that’s how.” Only this time, he didn’t glare at me. He winked.

“Hardy told me about her,” I said with a perverse sense of superiority. “He said he told
you
, too. I can’t help it if I just ask all the right questions, but I’d be happy to impart the tricks of my nosiness if you’d like.”

Sandwich shook a finger at me, but still he smiled. “Anyway, Charles found out about Ralph probably the same way you did, by digging up pictures of him online. He tried to get in to see ol’ Ralph, but was denied. Guards say Ralph tried to get in touch with your stepfather, Bart, or whatever his real name is, when he got the letters, to tell him someone was poking around about Clara, but never heard back from him. So he sent all but the one letter he’d already opened back, thinking maybe the sender was just some prison groupie who’d looked up his history online.”

“So you’re basically telling me that con artist saved my hide? The irony,” I said on a laugh.

Sandwich popped his lips. “In a way, yep. When you paid Ralph a visit earlier today, asking all those questions and told him Bart was dead, the con artist managed to put two and two together. After you left, Ralph reread the letter he’d kept, where this kid Charles asked if Bart knew Clara, and then he notified the prison officials, who contacted
us
. The prison officials said Ralph thought it might be Clara who’d killed Bart. We got in touch with Clara Rawlings, who admitted her involvement with Bart all those years ago and their subsequent child. But when asked, she also admitted she hadn’t seen her son in days.”

I almost felt sorry for Charles. Likely, Clara hadn’t even known he was missing from her life at all, and worse, she probably had no idea the kind of power he possessed.

“So Ralph knew Bart had gotten someone pregnant?”

“He didn’t know for sure who the kid was because the Rawlingses took great pains to keep him hidden, claimed he’s mentally unstable and they’ve had problems with him from the start. It’s almost like Charles didn’t exist. But he said Bart had grumbled about something to that effect a long time ago, and then he never mentioned it again.”

That explained what Charles meant about all those boarding schools and being hidden away. How sad for him. How different his life could have turned out, had someone just given him the attention he so clearly needed.

How different it could have been if he’d been taught to use his visions properly. How different it could have been if his mother had taken the time to listen to Charles, to try to understand what she considered mental instability.

When Baba got wind of this, Bart would probably be glad he was dead.

“So the Rawlingses didn’t want anyone to know about him because he was born out of wedlock. I think I get the rest,” I said in disgust. “But why did he come after
me
? I had no clue it was him. I didn’t even know he existed until he had me on the beach and I really saw him. He looks just like Bart.”

I knew I had to ask that question in order to keep suspicion to a minimum. I’m famous for snooping. If I failed to wonder out loud something as basic as why Charles had come for me, Officer Astute would wonder why I hadn’t. I couldn’t very well tell them Charles had a vision of me.

I had a vision of my own just then. The one where I tell the police Charles hunted me down because he saw me go into the prison in the future. Office Nelson would laugh and laugh.

“He’s a crafty one, that kid. He tracked your stepfather to Greece and then to Seattle, got himself a job at your party, confronted Bart…and you know the story.”

“Right. But that still doesn’t explain why he’d come after me.”

I knew I was pushing, but I was curious to know how Charles explained what he knew without making everyone think he was a tenth-level nutter.

But Sandwich threw up a finger. Uh-oh. I felt a sermon coming on, about how I should keep my nose out of police investigations.

“He had himself a hot police scanner and heard we put out an APB on him tonight. He knew we were looking for him. But what gave
you
away was his mother and your trip to the prison, Stevie. He says he
saw
you go into the prison. We figure Charles must have been staking the place out. Once he’d killed Bart, he was especially worried your mother might pay Ralph a visit, and find out about that letter. What cinched the idea Ralph might have told
you
about him was the phone call he got from Clara.”

I nodded in total understanding, as though I was letting everything fall into place. “She called him and wanted to know why he was sending letters to Ralph, didn’t she? Because she just wanted to keep sweeping this all under the carpet. So, I’m guessing she also told him you’d been in touch with her and were looking for him?”

“She did. And then he got really antsy. Especially after we put the APB out on him. Said he couldn’t take the chance Ralph had told you something. He swears up and down he didn’t mean to kill Bart. He said things just got out of hand when Bart told him to go to hell. He gave us all kinds of heat-of-the-moment stuff, but in the end…”

My mother shuddered, but I smiled and grabbed her hand, tucking it next to me.

“So that’s why Bart had the number for the prison I found in his money clip? Because Ralph tried to reach out to him?” I asked.

“So when you told me about the evidence you saw in the parlor that we’d missed, you already knew what it was, didn’t you?” he asked with that look that said he obviously already knew the answer.

I gave him a guilty look. “Yes. I knew what it was, but I didn’t touch it, I swear. So did Ralph call Bart?”

Sandwich pursed his lips. “That’s the best we can figure. Maybe Ralph left him a message and he jotted down the number for later use. We’re still checking phone records from the prison. Could be Ralph got a hot phone from some unknown source and it won’t show up anyway. Gotta tell ya, though. I feel sorry for the kid. He’s been spouting some of the craziest stuff I think I’ve ever heard after almost ten years on the force. He’s sure messed up.”

I felt sorry for him, too. I had a hunch Bart did know about Charles. I also had a hunch he knew about his son’s attempt to contact Ralph, and he knew because he’d used his magic to find out. Though, I’d probably never be able to prove it. Maybe Bart could see the future, too. Right now, I was too tired to delve deeper into that particular mystery.

“I hope he gets the help he needs. All I can say is, thank goodness you all showed up when you did,” I said. “Thank you for saving me once again.”

Officer Nelson pointed at my father. “That was all because of your father. He’s the one who saw your car take a dive into the Sound. He’s the one who called 9-1-1.”

“I had no idea it was you, Daughter, but when I saw your car missing, someone from above—Er, something inside me told me I had to get to the beach. Thank God you’re all right.” He pressed a kiss to my hand and squeezed it before he rose.

I shivered, still chilled to the bone despite the blankets. “So are you guys releasing CC? What about the fibers of her bathing suit on Bart’s jacket?”

“Yep. She’s free as a bird. Not that it matters much, now that Charles confessed and we all heard it, but we have two theories. Either Bart
did
get frisky with her…” Sandwich stopped for a moment out of respect for my mother, but she waved a hand to signal he could continue. “Or when she hugged Charles that night—or he hugged her—when she showed him how to tie his bow tie, fibers transferred to
him
. Could have rubbed off on Bart’s suit when Charles… Well, you know the rest.”