The Old Witcheroo (2 page)

Yep, they were definitely penetrating.

So I took a step back and blinked away the white spots floating in my vision. “How do you know who I am?”

“You were easy enough to find,” he said affably, the breeze lifting his hair and ruffling it in ripples of deep chocolate. Which I could see as my eyesight adjusted. His hair was as thick and lush as the real Winterbottom’s.

And then the sun moved. Moved so far right, I got an unobstructed view of this man who’d called himself Winterbottom.

I’m sure right at that moment, I gaped at him. Openly, awkwardly gaped.

First, let me say, I’ve only seen Win once, and that was during the mess while we were investigating my stepfather death. Somehow, he’d managed to make himself appear to me from his afterlife haven.

The incident had been brief, but I’d seen him as clear as day. Recalling that moment still makes my heart pound harder than horse hooves racing in the Kentucky Derby. It isn’t because I’ve never seen a ghost. On the contrary. I’ve seen many. But since I’d lost my witch powers, I hadn’t seen a one.

Second, I only have one picture of Win. I’ve looked at it a thousand times since he’d admitted it was, in fact, a photo of him. It’s older and faded, a shot taken with his ex-lover, Miranda. They were at the Eiffel Tower, and from the way they looked at each other, they’d been nuts in love.

Until she’d killed him. Or at least that’s what
my
Win claims she did, anyway.

So as this man audaciously entered my house and looked me square in the eye as though I owed him money, my mouth fell open. Unhinged completely.

Because I gotta say, he really did look exactly like my picture of Winterbottom in Paris.

When I was finally able to put words together, I wiped my sweaty palms on my thighs and asked, “Who did you say you were again?” Maybe I’d heard wrong, or maybe he’d been making some kind of sick joke.

A thought occurred to me then: Could this be one of Winterbottom’s spy friends, playing some elaborate hoax.

Who looks exactly like him, Stevie? What episode of the
Twilight Zone
are you reenacting?

He smiled pleasantly, a gorgeous, toothpaste-commercial-worthy smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes and repeated his words. “I said, I’m Crispin Alistair Winterbottom.”

“Stevie!” Win finally spewed in my ear. I’m not sure what took him so long to react, but by the sounds of it, he surely had a grip on the gist of things now. “That is absolutely
not
me. Do you hear me? He’s an imposter. I repeat, an imposter!”

Yeah, yeah. I heard Win. But here was a guy standing in my foyer, wanting to talk to me, claiming he was
my
Spy Guy and he was, without a doubt, the spitting image of my Spy Guy. Not a chance in the deep blue sea I was passing up this newest mystery.

“But he looks exactly like you,” I muttered under my breath.

“Say again?” Fake Winterbottom requested in a pleasant tone, his head cocked as though he were intently listening to me.

“Well, that I can’t deny, Dove. I don’t know how or why, but he does uncannily resemble me.”

“Uh-huh,” I whispered.

“Aha!” Win declared with a tone suggesting he’d figured things out. “Maybe Arkady Bagrov sent him? Though why, I can’t begin to guess. Surely that crafty wank Arkady’s long over our last little disagreement, wherein I bested him in a rousing game of Disarm the Nuclear Missile, Save Istanbul? But to go to this extreme? Bah.” Win dismissed the notion. “Arkady’s a vengeful man, but I don’t recall him ever using plastic surgery as part of his criminal portfolio—it’s too extreme even for him.”

I turned my back on Phony Win and whispered, “You knew criminals who used plastic surgery for disguises? Like, that was really a thing?”

“If you only knew how much of a thing,” Win confirmed.

Faux Winterbottom was growing impatient. I saw it in his gorgeous face when I turned back around, still astounded a spy tactic like plastic surgery, a tactic so James Bond-ish, did indeed really exist. “You were saying, Miss Cartwright?”

“Um, sorry. Nothing. I’m just…”

What was I? Stunned was too small a word. I was verklempt. Flabbergasted. Gobsmacked, as Win would say.

I lifted my shoulders in helplessness. “Um, I’m just…”

“Just in my house?” he asked, driving his hands into the pockets of his expensive suit. I knew it was expensive. I’d know Armani blind and without benefit of the gift of scent.

“I’m in
your what
?” I spit the words out, frowning.

“Oh, tell this numpty to move along, Dove! He’s handing you a load of bollocks,” Win groused, totally dismissing the man who looked exactly like him.

Leaning in, Phony Win kept that irritating smile on his face as he dropped the bomb. “I said, you’re in my house, Miss Cartwright. I purchased this house, and somehow,
you’ve
managed to end up the one living in it. How did that happen, do you suppose? Are you an identity thief?”

Now I was getting impatient. Who the heck was this guy and how dare he claim our house was
his
house? If this was some sort of convoluted joke—though again, I stress, plastic surgery just to prank someone is far and away well beyond elaborate—someone was going to have to pay for stirring me up like this.

So I crossed my arms over my chest and looked this crackpot right in the eye with my best stern face. “Look, I don’t know who you are or what kind of sick game you’re playing, but Crispin Alistair Winterbottom is dead, and this is
my
house. It’s easy enough to look up at the Department of Land Records right here in town. So why don’t you go do that and get back to me when you have some solid proof of alleged ownership?”

He sucked in his cheeks, and oddly, when he did, it was exactly how I imagined my Win would look when he grew impatient with me. “Oh, I assure you, this is no game, Stevie Cartwright. I
am
Crispin Alistair Winterbottom, and this is
my
home, and I fully intend to prove such. Until then, take notice, I don’t know how you got your hands on
my
house,
my
money, but prepare to pay back every dime you’ve stolen from me—including the cost of these borderline garish renovations you’ve perpetrated!”

“Garish?” Win squealed with indignant outrage. “Box this nutter’s ears, Stevie! Box ’em but good then send him on his way!”

I waved a hand at Win, trying to get him out of my ear, but I didn’t need to bother shooing him away. Phony Winterbottom pivoted on his heel, barreled back down the steps and made a graceful exit to his car.

An Aston Martin, I might add—a black one with yellow rims.

“That’s my car! Did that son of a backside scratcher steal my
car
?” Win yelped in utter outrage.

There was lots of very inappropriate language at that point. Words I didn’t even consider my cultured Spy Guy knew. But he used them, and he continued to use them in the ensuing days.

But since that day, we hadn’t heard from Fakebottom, as I’d begun to call him. Not a peep. And I was glad. I had no explanation for his existence. I almost think his uncanny resemblance to my Win was too creepy for my head to wrap around.

Nothing about his showing up out of the blue made sense. Nor did his claim he could prove he was Winterbottom. Even if something as outlandish as plastic surgery was involved to make himself look exactly like Win (and let’s be realistic here, folks. That kind of plastic surgery only exists on soap operas), there was DNA and fingerprints to consider.

So while it lingered heavily in the backs of our minds, we went right on living, and from time to time discussed the absurdity of it all—neither of us able to come up with a feasible explanation as to why he looked so much like Win. We speculated that Fakebottom had likely gone away because he really couldn’t prove he
was
Win. Doing that would mean he’d have to come up with some DNA, and that was simply ludicrous, given Win’s background at MI6.

He assured me MI6 had not only his fingerprints but plenty of DNA to spare, should push come to shove. So we filed it in our Impossible folder and moved right along.

Though I admit, I’ve secretly stared at that picture of Miranda and Win in the privacy of my bedroom a hundred times since Fakebottom showed up, and it freaks me to the ends of the earth and back how identical he is to my Spy Guy.

But we were in the midst of enjoying a lovely summer, with plenty of tourism at Madam Zoltar’s, picnics on the water every weekend, nights spent with a bottle of wine on the back patio, now totally renovated and sparkling with Chinese lanterns, Bel buzzing about in the evening sky and Whiskey at my feet.

Life was really good and I was pretty content. Probably more so than I had been my entire life—even as a witch.

Which brings us to today—two months later.

When life got very, very ugly-complicated, and there was plenty of discontent to spare…

I
t was a sweltering August day in Eb Falls. We were experiencing the beginning of a reported weeklong heat wave, something we’re not used to here in the Pacific Northwest. Even the breeze from the Puget was sluggish today. Still, boats dotted the horizon with colorful sails, windsurfers dipped in and out of the fairly calm waters, and with the mountain as its backdrop, even the heat didn’t deter from the water’s beauty.

Except for one thing…

I’d just received a summons to appear with legal representation at the law offices of Keck, Flittenbaum and Morrow, on behalf of Crispin Alistair Winterbottom.

So much for the impossible.

As Whiskey, Bel, Win and I wandered along our private stretch of beach on the Puget, I forced myself to focus on this latest disaster and not relive my last nightmare, where I was sinking to the depths of the Sound in my car while a madman tried to kill me. I fought this battle every time we took walks along the shore. So far, I was winning.

In indignation, I shook the letter I’d grabbed at the mailbox before our walk under the hot midday sun. Whiskey splashed after the tennis ball I’d tossed, caught it, and took off at breakneck speed down the shoreline with Bel clinging to his back, while I ranted.

“It’s been two months with no word from this Fakebottom! What’s he been doing all this time?” I yelled, grateful for our privacy. “We got complacent, my friend. We should have popped the lid on that can of worms and started investigating him the moment he showed up in his designer duds. Just who does he think he is?”

“Well, Dove, he thinks he’s me.”

I flapped the letter in the woefully small yet frightfully muggy breeze. “You know what I mean. Still, we haven’t spent a lot of time discussing the fact that he looks exactly like you, Win. Plastic surgery and Russian revenge aside.”

In fact, Win hadn’t even truly acknowledged that fake Win and real Win were identical. Nor had he asked if I believed anything this man claimed. Which, I’ll admit, I found pretty wonky.

We have a great deal of trust between us, Win and me. He’s saved my life three times to date with his spy moves and ghostly secret agent man instructions. That alone instills a bond. But his trust in
me
is based on my having shared all my darkest secrets—almost everything of note in my past—including the worst nightmare of my life, when I’d lost my witch powers to a vengeful ghost.

But I knew little about Win’s life prior to his death. Still, I kept a tally of facts I’d collected in my head. He was British, in his thirties, and ungodly rich. I guess the spy business pays well. In life, he’d been a spy for MI6 and he’d worked under deep cover. He had one lunatic cousin named Sal who was now dead, courtesy of me.

His parents were both deceased, with no other living relatives to speak of. He’s had some seriously crazy-cool spy adventures he often uses as examples in order to help me when I’m in a bind—the kind of bind where a killer holds me hostage or chases me with a gun.

He knows all manner of torture and escape—some too hideous to repeat. He’s been to almost every country known to man. He was once wildly and, according to him, foolishly in love with another spy named Miranda, whom he claims owned the house we now live in until it was put back on the market after she was declared dead, and Win bought it, in all its dilapidation. The purchase occurred just before his death, which is why the renovations were handed down to me.

Oh, and he speaks seven languages fluently. I think that’s everything.

It troubled me something fierce, the details he wouldn’t share with me. For instance, why he believed Miranda was the one who’d killed him. What purpose had it served for her to take him out? Had she been in some kind of deep-cover mission, where she was supposed to trick the British spy into falling in love with her then whack him?

Questions—I had a million, believe that.

But I didn’t rock the boat much. I’m a firm believer in time. Whatever happened to Win with Miranda, it was clearly painful for him. Sometimes painful memories aren’t easily shared—especially from a man who’d spent a good portion of his adult life keeping secrets.

My hope was, in time, he’d reveal all—or I’d pry it out of him. It could go either way. But there again was the trust between us. I trusted he’d eventually tell me, and as crazy as this sounds, I didn’t at all doubt Fakebottom was, indeed, a fake.

“Garish renovations. I have every mind to hunt this imposter down in his dreams and turn them into nightmares!” Win raged, interrupting my thoughts.

“Stop getting your boxers in a twist. He said
borderline
garish. Which means almost, but not quite.”

“Really, Stephania, is that any less of a slight?”

“You know, I can’t believe that’s what bugs you the most, Spy Guy. He’s not on board with your decorating but it’s no skin off your nose that he wants to steal your house?” I made scales out of my hands to demonstrate the imbalance of his priorities. “I say stealing your house outweighs insults about what color your curtains are, any given day of the week.”

“It’s
our
house, Stevie. And lest ye forget, he has my Aston Martin!” Win ranted, endlessly insulted by his precious car in the hands of an imposter.