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.
Chapter 14
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.
In fact, as harsh as this sounds, I wondered if my mother even knew who my father was. But that was for another day.
Carlito began to rise, jamming his hands back into his hoodie pocket. “Well, thank you for your time, Miss Cartwright. It was a total long shot, but now that I’ve said it out loud, it sounds kinda desperate.”
But I waved him back to his seat. He looked like he could use a friend and if he wasn’t ready to confide in Liza just yet, at least he could talk to me and ease some of his troubles.
“Nah, not desperate at all. And why don’t you sit a spell with me? We can watch the sunset. Plus, I have the best ever cheesecake in the fridge. Want a slice?” I’d bet he was hungry, seeing as he was low on cash and living in that dreary hotel.
“Why don’t you let me get it for us and you rest?”
“Okay. He’s a nice bloke,” Win muttered, obviously displeased he was forced to approve of Liza’s choice, but approving nonetheless.
I smiled. “That’d be really nice, Carlito. So are you really transferring to Washington U or was that just something you made up to keep your secret?” I worried he’d up and go back to Idaho, leaving Liza heartbroken.
As he opened the fridge, Carlito turned and smiled at me. “I’m really doing it. It was time for me to leave my hometown and spread my wings, as you adults are always saying. I like it here. So I’m staying for now.”
I snorted. “As us adults say? I’ll have you know, whippersnapper, I’m only ten years older than you. I was still watching cartoons when you were born.” And making my own breakfast, and putting myself to bed.
He chuckled, balancing the cheesecake on his palm as I pointed to the stack of paper plates and plastic forks I kept on hand until we had a dishwasher in the kitchen. Or running water, for that matter. “Sorry. I keep putting my foot in my mouth today, don’t I? First it was a sledgehammer, now it’s your age.”
As we chatted, I warmed more and more to Carlito. He was a nice kid. A nice kid who just wanted to know where he came from.
As someone who wondered the same thing, I couldn’t fault him for that.
* * * *
“Interesting day, huh, Spy-In-Training?”
Yawning, I nodded, pulling the covers up under my chin. “And long. Very long. In the course of one day, I got beat up again, broke my butt, got reacquainted with Sandy McNally and her big rock, had a run-in with Bianca, and finally identified Tito’s long-lost son.”
“He wasn’t lost. He was just never claimed. Isn’t that illegitimate, Dove?”
My nose wrinkled in response as I gazed out the window at the lights on the Puget. “I hate that word. It’s so callous. How can you be less legit just because your father ran off with someone else?”
“It’s a very Dark Ages term. But I hear a tint of bitterness in your voice. Is there a reason?”
Win’s aura surrounded me, much the way it always did when he thought I was upset. But I wasn’t upset or very bitter anymore. I’d long ago given in to the idea that my mother, Dita, was never going to tell me my father’s identity simply because she was too ashamed to admit she didn’t know it.
My mother didn’t have much shame, but over the years, if she’d ever had any shame at all, it lay solely with whom my father was.
“I’m not bitter about it anymore. At least I don’t think I am. I’m finding things resurfacing these days that haven’t troubled me in a long time. Maybe it’s all the life changes.”
“You speak in riddles, Grasshopper. Explain, please.”
Tucking my fist under my chin, I rolled to my side, careful not to disturb Belfry, who slept on a heating pad next to my head. “I don’t know who my father is. I guess Carlito’s predicament just reminded me of that.”
The warmth around me increased. Win’s way of soothing me, I’d come to find. “Bloody hell, Stevie. I didn’t know. I’m sorry. But your mother…she never told you who he was?”
I closed my eyes, fighting off the feelings I’d thought I’d left behind. “Nope.”
“I take it you don’t get along with your mother?”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Belfry chimed in, his wings rustling at my ear. “If you put World War One and Two in a pot, added all of Hiroshima and a dash of The Battle of The Bulge, you might just touch the tip of not getting along.”
“It’s true. My mother and I have our differences. So I understand where Carlito’s coming from in a way. Though, it sounds like good people raised him—even if his mother didn’t tell him the man who was presented as his father wasn’t his biological parent.”
“I’ll admit, he seems quite well adjusted. I’m not a fan of admitting that, but there it is,” Win said.
“And he likes Liza, which is important. It means we don’t have to kill him,” Belfry said sleepily.
Hunkering down, I resigned myself to the fact that we weren’t going to find Tito’s killer today. “I think we have to call it a day and start over tomorrow. I don’t know where else to look or what we’ve missed, but maybe the morning will bring some fresh thoughts, and we do have Tito’s funeral to attend.”
My stomach jolted and my chest tightened almost unbearably at the thought. I didn’t want to say goodbye. I didn’t want to go to a place where I knew heartache would drench the eve
nt in visible, palatable sorrow.
But I would.
Because even if my Taco Man was a cheater, I still couldn’t help but love him, and I wanted to help his family move forward—even Bianca.
“Then I’ll leave you to your rest. Sweetest of dreams, Dove.”
I smiled into the darkness at the familiar nightly routine we’d created. “Night, Win. Stay off of Plane Disco, would you, please? No late-night Locomotion. We need you sharp tomorrow. Eyes and ears peeled. Maybe we’ll find a new suspect.”
His laughter, rather than a confirmation he’d behave, rang in my ear as I drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 15
A wet tongue lashed at my face just before I heard Win in my ear.
“Dog, no! We discussed this, did we not? When introducing yourself to your new mistress, you must do so with aplomb. Not slather her with your slobber! That’s no way to treat a lady, bloke!”
My nose twitched with the scent of wet dog and saliva.
So I kept my eyes closed because that couldn’t be right. Besides, my neck ached today, taking over the lead from my caboose.
There was another long lick and a snort. Okay, couldn’t ignore this anymore.
“Win? When I open my eyes, will there be a dog there?”
“Good morning, Dove.”
Oh, I knew that tone. It was the tone that said he’d somehow managed to talk Belfry into changing the already-hashed-out color for the parlor yet again because he’s a fickle pickle.
“Answer the question, Spy Guy.”
“Define ‘dog’.”
“Four legs, comes in many varieties, shapes and sizes, occasionally known to eat their own poop.”
“Then I reply with sort of.”
“Sort of? How can there sort of be a dog there? There either is or there isn’t. It’s not a trick question.”
“Well, I wouldn’t define this handsome, nay, dare I say, majestic beast as a dog. That’s too little. Too underqualified a word. Though, while he certainly has four legs, I’m unclear as to whether he eats his own poop.”
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