Quit Your Witchin' (16 page)

“And you’re sure he was the one you saw so upset that day?”

I pointed to the newspaper again. “He looks like the same kid.”

Win’s sigh in my ear rasped. “That bothers me. There’s a reason he was so distraught, and I can’t believe it was over tacos.”

Looking out the window, I watched as the clouds began to move in. Maybe our spate of good weather was on the decline. “Well, if Tito is his father, I feel sorry for him.”

“Why?”

“Because that means Bianca’s his half-sister.”

“You were every bit a lady with Bianca today, Stevie.”

“I was every bit ready to face-plant her on the sidewalk.”

Win laughed. “I saw. You launched that donut like a grenade. But you didn’t come to blows. You’re to be commended.”

Tapping my finger on my cheek, I wondered, “Is Ebenezer Falls suddenly the place to live? Why is everyone from Idaho defecting here?”

“You don’t know whoever was in the car actually picked it up in Idaho. Car rental agencies have plates from all over.”

Groaning, I readjusted my donut. I felt like we were right back at square one again. “Point. Just seems too out of the norm to be coincidental. You know, I hate to think it, but maybe Bianca did kill Tito. She has some temper. Did you see how rigid and edgy she was today? Something’s up.”

“You should have pressed Carlito harder, Stevie. Maybe he just doesn’t want anyone to know Tito was his father because without question, it would turn him into a murder suspect.”

“Press harder with what? My jumper cables? C’mon, Win. You don’t really think he killed Tito, do you? Did you get that vibe at all?”

“I’ve gotten less from far worse.”

I stuck a fork into what was left of my reheated baked ziti, courtesy of Carmella, who was none too pleased with me at this point for up and disobeying her orders. “You’re just crabby because Liza’s sweet on a cute guy. Let them be. Let
her
be. She’s happy.”

“Happy schmappy. Psychopaths are incredibly good actors, in case you weren’t aware.”

I thought back to Adam Westfield, the warlock responsible for stealing my powers. “I’m very aware. I know psychopath, believe me. It’s neither here nor there now. What I really want to know is, why is Bianca so intent on keeping me out of the loop about her family? It seems everyone knows about Tito’s affair or affairs. So what does she gain by waving her finger at me? To actually come to the store and threaten me—that means something.”

“I’d agree.”

The doorbell rang, interrupting our conversation. I forgot about my butt and hopped up too quickly, sending a shooting pain down my left cheek and along the back of my thigh. I was holding off on the pain meds until bed. I needed my senses sharp if I was going to keep digging around the Internet.

Dragging myself out of the kitchen, I yelled, “Hold on! Injured butt walking!” Then I giggled to myself at how ironic it was that of all the things to bruise, I managed to bruise my butt.

I couldn’t tell who was at the door due to the stained glass distorting shapes, and I guess I should have stopped to think how odd it was for someone to show up at our doorstep this late in the day. It was almost seven, but thanks to growing up with a small-town mentality and totally forgetting I’d been faked out once before, I didn’t think twice before opening the door.

And there stood Carlito Valasquez.

With a sledgehammer in his hand.

You know, if this were any other day, I might be able to handle being wrong about Carlito and his killin’, and be grateful to have figured out who was responsible.

But daggone it, today my butt hurt and everything was just plain crappy—even if we
had
found Tito’s murderer.

So what does one do when confronted with a cold-blooded killer holding a sledgehammer?

One runs.

Fast.

Or in my case, hobble/limp/stumble-run toward the kitchen in my ridiculously impractical bear slippers to get an equally impractical weapon to fight back.

As I skidded into the kitchen, my eyes searching for the knives in the woodblock we’d bought from some fancy chef site online, I heard Carlito yell for me.

“Miss Cartwright? Are you okay?” His footsteps followed his question, thumping ever closer.

“
Am I okay?
” I shrieked, grabbing the knife and holding it to my chest. “Are you crazy? I will not be taken out in my own house! Hear me? I’ve been to this rodeo and I’m prepared to defend myself! I warn you, Carlito—I’m skilled with a knife! I’ll slice you up like a lobster on a hibachi chef’s grill! Drop the sledgehammer and I’ll let you live long enough to tell the tale!”

I backed up against the fridge, eyeballing my phone on the table. If I wasn’t so beat up, I might be able to make a dash for it (because I’m sure 9-1-1 would be thrilled to hear from me twice in one day). But Carlito was young and probably much quicker than I am.

And then he came around the corner.

With the sledgehammer.

I held up the knife, and I openly acknowledge I looked like a madwoman, if my reflection in the window was any indication. My hair was sticking up from the donut I’d had around my neck earlier, rubbing against it and leaving it full of static, my wide eyes were wild and hyper-aware, and my neck was a mottled mess of black and blue.

I’d taken my shoes off when I got home and put on my big fuzzy bear slippers—because I’d heard they were all the rage with newb spies and made outrunning a killer a total breeze.

A mistake in hindsight, I guess. But I didn’t care. No way was he taking me down. So when he made a move toward me and dropped the sledgehammer, I swung the knife in the air like it was a light saber and I had the Force.

My pulse raced with adrenaline and my hands shook. This would not happen again. I was going to have the upper hand this round of How Can We Kill Stevie, if it was the last thing I did.

“Don’t you come any closer, you hear me? I’ll cut you to ribbons if you—”

“Stevie?” Win said in my ear.

“Hmm?” I murmured, my breathing uneven.

“He dropped the sledgehammer. I think he comes in peace. Ease up there, Stevie-San.”

I looked at the sledgehammer on the floor. Oh.

“Miss Cartwright? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I found the sledgehammer on the steps and I didn’t want anyone to trip on it and get hurt.” Carlito stepped forward, regret mingled with hesitation in his eyes.

My heart rate slowed in increments before I let out a sigh of relief. “So you’re not here to kill me. What a relief.” I set the knife on the table and winced.

“
Kill you?
I’m really confused, Miss Cartwright. Are you sure you’re okay? I heard about your brush with that food truck fish guy. Did he hit your head?”

I chuckled in irony. “No, but you’d think he did after the way I just behaved. It’s just that—”

“Oh, I get it,” he said on a nod, then smiled that lovely smile that didn’t resemble a single Bustamante’s, not even Tito’s. Though, he sure looked like his mother. “Liza told me what happened last month, and about the guy who killed her grandmother. I should have thought the sledgehammer through more thoroughly. Sorry.”

I let my shoulders relax and chuckled nervously. “It’s okay, Carlito. Liza’s right. I’m just edgy now is all. That whole mess is still a bit of a fresh wound. So what brings you here? What can I do for you?”

“I’m not even sure what you call this—would it be ghost help? I mean, what should I do if I want to talk to someone who died?”

I motioned him to sit down at the table and took my seat with the donut once more, my ears perked. “I’m technically called a medium. I communicate with the dead. So yes, I’m the person to come to. Are you looking to communicate with someone who died?”

His dark eyes held a faraway look. “I think so. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t even know if I believe in this stuff. My mom’s all over it—total believer. Watched the
Ghost
Whisperer
like it was her religion, but me? I’m not sure, no offense intended. But Liza says you’re really good at what you do. She said it might all be fake, but people always seem to leave your shop happy.”

Well, most people. I held my breath. Dare I go any further? “Who do you want to communicate with, Carlito?”

His deep brown eyes grew guarded when he leaned in toward me. “Can you keep a secret? This isn’t even something I’ve told Liza about. I’ve been hanging around Ebenezer falls for days, trying to decide what to do. I can’t…I mean, I don’t want anyone to know until I know for sure.”

“Until you know what for sure?”

“If Tito Bustamante is my biological father.”

“Boom,” Win whispered in my ear.

I
fought a gasp and pretended I knew nothing. Which, by the by, is awful, but I had the Bustamantes and their confidences to consider. This new information wasn’t something I hadn’t necessarily already guessed, but hearing it out loud made it all very real.

“What makes you think Tito’s your biological father?”

Carlito’s hands went immediately to his hoodie’s kangaroo pocket. He drove them inside, fidgeting with his fingers.

“Letters from my mother to him. I found them one day when I was helping my parents clean out an old storage unit.”

Oh, Taco Man, you philandering Casanova, what have you done?

“What did they say?”

Carlito’s eyes fell to the table. “All of them were in Spanish, unopened, with a return-to-sender, address-unknown kind of thing. All of them but one. I didn’t open any of the rest of them. Swear it. The first was the open one. My mother sent it to Tito Bustamante from Mexico when she initially found out she was pregnant. Even though both my parents are Mexican, I’m not totally fluent. I get the gist of things. But I guess he never answered. At least it doesn’t look like he did.”

“The scoundrel,” Win muttered.

“When were the letters dated?”

Carlito’s eyes grew cloudy. “That’s the thing…they were all dated within months of each other, with the first letter sent just after my parents were married, and the last when I was almost five.”

A fling? Had Esperanza had a fling with Tito? Where had Maggie been during all of this? Clearly, Carlito’s mother had tried to tell Tito she was pregnant with his child, but he’d turned her away by sending the letters back. That left my heart heavy.

“So you were born in Mexico then?”

“No, ma’am. I was born in Idaho. My dad got a work visa just before I was born and he and my mother moved here, became American citizens, got jobs and stuff.”

So Esperanza had been pregnant before she moved here. Did Carlito’s father know about his wife’s fling with Tito? Should I even ask?

As the sun began to set, my heart grew heavy. So many secrets had led to so much pain. “Do your mother and father know you’re here in Washington to find your biological father, Carlito? Do they know you know about him?”

He shook his head, letting it hang low. “She’d kill me. I don’t want to hurt her. And my dad’s got a pretty bad temper. He’s…we don’t always get along. But I don’t want to hurt anyone. Especially not the Bustamantes, which is why I haven’t gone to them and said anything yet.”

“Smart move on the chap’s part. Bianca would likely eat his face off right now anyway.”

I cleared my throat, signaling Win to pipe down. “Any idea if Tito had a picture of you?”

Carlito’s brow furrowed as he cocked his head. “Why would he have a picture of me?”

Yes. Why indeed had Tito had a picture of Carlito in the back of his truck in a glob of cheese? Who had given him that picture if not Carlito or Maggie?

I gazed at Carlito for a moment then asked, “So was that why you were so upset the day they found him at the food court? I saw you there in the crowd. You looked gutted, for lack of a better word.”

But Carlito gave his dark head an emphatic shake. “Oh, no, ma’am. I didn’t even know that was Mr. Bustamante…er, Tito. I mean, my biological father at the time. It was probably just my allergies acting up. I’d run out of my meds that day and was on my way to refill the prescription. I didn’t find out that was him until I saw his wife and she said his name. I feel really bad about this, Miss Cartwright. She looked pretty broken up. I didn’t want to make everything worse.”

Not only was Carlito a sweet kid, he was a cautionary, smart one. Certainly not prone to impulsiveness. Unlike my thirty-two-year-old self.

I let my forehead rest on my hands for a minute in order to process this information before I told him what I knew, even though it was something I’d suspected anyway. I wanted to weigh my words carefully and keep everyone protected.

“I think they already know about you, Carlito. I wouldn’t tell you that if not for the fact that Maggie, Tito’s wife, is a wreck right now. I don’t know if she could handle another surprise.”

“But how? Do you think Tito told her?”

No. I didn’t think that. Not after she’d told me she wanted a séance in order to tell Tito he had a son. Which was curious. If Tito didn’t know, then how did Maggie? And who had opened that letter to Tito? If Esperanza sent it, and she knew the contents…why would she bother to reopen it?

I patted his hand. “I can’t say for sure. I can only tell you that right now is a precarious time for the Bustamantes.”

“I totally get it. That’s why I came to you. I was wondering if you could maybe do whatever you do and contact him? That sounds crazy, doesn’t it?” He shook his head once more. “Forget I ever asked. Please. And if you have to tell Liza I was here, maybe you could just ask her to keep what I told you on the DL. I really don’t want to upset the Bustamantes.”

“I don’t think I could contact him anyway. I think he’s crossed already.”

“Crossed…” His smooth brow furrowed.

“Yes. It means he’s gone into the light and can no longer communicate with the living. It means he’s in a better place. Or what I’d like to think is a better place.”

Carlito’s face fell, matching my own sadness. “I didn’t even know him, so why is the idea that I’ll never get to meet him bugging me so much?”

My heart clenched in sympathy. “Because everyone wants roots, Carlito. Everyone wants to know where those roots grew. I understand that more than anyone.” Mostly because I’d never known
my
father, either.