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

pals shone through. That time in my life still ached. I missed communicating with the spirits—I missed helping them.
    Win cleared his throat. “I’ve heard many things, but nothing clear. Whatever happened, everyone here is rather apprehensive to say much, I’m guessing. I sense some fear in their tones when they refer to the incident.”
    “And still you trusted me with a frillion dollars and Mayhem Manor?”
    “Is that the name you’re suggesting we put on the sign along the drive?”
    I folded my cold hands in my lap and shrugged my shoulders. “I wasn’t suggesting anything, really. It just popped into my head, considering the condition of the place. But it has a ring to it. Like, it’s sort of all encompassing, don’t you think?”
    “Um, no. No, I don’t think. Stop avoiding the issue and tell me what’s on your mind.”
    Oooo. Win was using his serious voice. Okay, house name tabled for now.
    “So no one has told you how I lost my powers.”
    I didn’t say it out loud, but I was sure it had to do with the severity of the accusation and whom the accusation had come from. Even in death, the son of a butt-scratcher wielded authority.
    “Nothing clear. Though, I’m told the longer I’m here, the clearer things will become. Time served is an asset here, apparently.”
    That was true, too. The more time Win spent undecided about his eternal fate, the more the others in the same predicament would become sharper, more defined, and above all, more trusting.
    “So what exactly did they tell you about me, Win? It had to have been enough to trust me with all your money.”
    “Truthfully? I would have given the money to the devil himself rather than hand it over to Sal. This wasn’t all an altruistic act on my part, Stevie. I want to see my dream come to fruition. The word on this plane is, you’re the one to trust. I thought, who better than a homeless woman down on her luck to help me live out my dream? You needed a place to stay, I had the place.”
    “Aw, you say the sweetest things. I’m all aglow with that special feeling only someone who’s been haphazardly chosen at random to win the booby prize can feel.”
    Somehow, I’d figured there’d been much more thought to this decision he’d roped me into. Obviously, almost anyone would have done. I cracked my knuckles and stared out into the street, but Win was all business.
    “But hold on. Now that I think back on it, I remember one woman, Marjorie Biddlesworth, I believe. Just before she walked into that annoying glare of a light, she said that you were railroaded. Does that have to do with what you’re about to tell me?”
    My memory of Margie was a fond one, making me smile. “Margie was an adorably cranky quilter who wanted to be sure Sissy-Sue Leeland didn’t get any of her originally designed quilting patterns. She was adamant Sissy-Sue would steal them and call them her own.”
    “So what did Marjorie mean when she said you were railroaded?”
    “Aside from my medium duties, I was a 9-1-1 dispatcher in my small town of Paris, Texas. One night I took a call from a very frightened little boy…” I bit the inside of my cheek to keep tears from forming in my eyes.
    “And then?” Win asked with a much gentler tone.
    “It was a domestic dispute, and when we take a call from the home of an authority figure in the coven, we’re supposed to notify a superior immediately. Which I did, but I didn’t do as I was told when handling the call.”
    My stomach began that infernal rumbling of turmoil and the wave of nausea not even a purging spell would rid me of.
    Belfry rustled a wing, his indignant tone in full swing. “Those crackpots told her to tell the poor kid help was on the way and then hang up! To this day, I still can’t believe they dismissed all the good Stevie did all those years just because she wouldn’t leave a freaked-out seven-year-old in a state of hysteria without anyone to comfort him.”
    I nodded my head. “Belfry’s