Quit Your Witchin'

by Dakota Cassidy

  Trying to keep my teeth from chattering, I nodded. “Good job. So, are we going to dispense with the pleasantries and get right to the heart of the matter?”

  He tightened his hold on me, moving his arm from my waist to my neck. A neck that was just on the cusp of healing, daggone it all.

  The gunman’s hot breath rasped against my ear. “For someone who’s going to be dead in about two seconds, you sure do talk a lot.”

  “You don’t want to do that,” I threatened, trying to keep my voice steady and reasonable. “If you shoot me, that gunshot will arouse suspicion and you’ll have to run to get away. Then you’ll get all out of breath because of your asthma, won’t you?”

  “How do you know about my asthma?” he spat against my face, his cold lips sticking to my cheek.

  I didn’t bother to struggle and Win took note. “That’s right. Nice and easy, Stevie. Wait until you catch him off guard and make a break for it. The second he loosens up—”

  “I asked, how do you know about my asthma?” He began dragging me backward, so I went totally slack, making his job harder, if his grunts were any indication. It took all I had not to fight him every step of the way.

  I knew exactly where he was headed. Tito’s freshly dug grave. No one would be the wiser if he lifted some of the dirt, deposited my body in it and covered me back up.

  “I saw your inhaler, of course. I saw the pictures of you on your son’s page. You know, the one with you and Esperanza and Carlito at some amusement park? It was right in your pocket, wasn’t it Miguel Valasquez?”

  * * * *

  “Isn’t that your name?” I taunted, feeling just a little secure about poking him since I’d dialed 9-1-1 and help was likely on the way. “How could you do this to your son? He’s in jail as we speak, terrified, and you’re letting him take the rap for Tito’s murder!”

  Flinging me to the ground, Miguel shook with rage, his face red even in the dark, the hand with the gun fisting it tightly. “He’s not my son! Don’t call him that! All these years, all these years Esperanza lied to me!” he spat, the gun currently wobbling wildly in his hand. “I found a letter from her to Tito! How could she lie to me for so long? She slept with Tito! She’s dirty, a filthy woman!” he screamed, his anguish crisp, ringing out in his hoarse cry.

  So he’d been the one to open the letter. Carlito had been telling the truth.

  And then he began to pace, the gun still in erratic motion. “But it all makes sense now. Why I couldn’t understand Carlito. I tried. Ay, Dios mio, I tried! It explained why we could never get along, always butting heads. And why he was always defying me at every turn! He’s nothing like me, but he’s just like Tito!”

  Why wasn’t I hearing sirens yet?

  The only good news here: Miguel’s inhaler had fallen out of his shirt pocket and to the ground.

  Miguel’s hand snaked out so fast I was unprepared for him to grab the front of my dress, the tear of material echoing in the air, but as he did, I swept my bare foot over the inhaler and knocked it away, into the darkness.

  He hauled me upward as though I weighed nothing more than a feather, which, rest assured, isn’t what my scale tells me.

  He backed me against a tree and planted me there with a rough jerk, the coarse bark scraping my bare legs as his hand wrapped around my overly abused neck. He pressed the gun into my gut, the menace of the barrel ramping up my heart rate. Now, it was fair to say, I was a little panicked.

  So I talked. Because it’s what I do when I don’t know what else to do.

  And I really wanted to know how Miguel knew Carlito was just like the Taco Man. What was Miguel’s connection to Tito?

  “What do you mean he’s just like Tito? How do you know anything about Tito?”

  Looking up at me, his hard face full of suppressed rage, he inhaled, his wide chest heaving with the effort.

  And he wheezed. I heard him wheeze.

  “Because Tito was my best friend! Amigos for life, we used to say—until he slept with Esperanza!”

  “Well, hellfire,” Win muttered.

  Yeah. That.

  My hand went around his thick wrist, my neck, already bruised from my run-in with Jacob, now aching again with a hot throb. “Your best friend?”

  Whoa. Blindsided meet gobsmacked.

  “Si, senorita,” he snarled, his accent beginning to thicken, the memory of their friendship so visibly painful. “We went to school together. We shot cans in the desert together. We chased girls together until one day, I met Esperanza and fell in love. She was my fiancée, my intended, the one woman in the world he should have held sacred!”

  Oh, Taco Man. You really put your foot in the kitchen with this one.

  Again, I forced myself not to struggle and remain slack, fighting the instinctual desire for flight. Not just to engage him, but to keep from further damaging my neck. “But if he was your best friend, why would he do something so awful?”

  Miguel’s face grew tight with sorrow, his eyes sad, desperate, but he kept the gun pressed into my stomach. “Because we had a fight—I’ll never forget it. Just one month before our wedding. We had a lot of fights back then, Esperanza and me. But this time, we had a horrible fight. I was drunk and I yelled at her. She wanted to leave, but Tito wouldn’t let me take her home because I’d had too much tequila. I was too drunk to drive. So I let him take her home and all the while, he’d planned to steal her away from me!”

  “Stevie, he’s tiring. When the iron is hot, I’ll yell strike,” Win assured me, remarkably calm.

  From the corner of my eye, I took note of a branch, one I could grab onto and maybe swing up over if the timing presented itself. If I could just get him riled up enough to have an asthma attack…

  But I stopped my crazy escape plan. Talk about putting the cart before the horse. I was thinking like a spy without the strength and the skill of one.

  So instead, I did something else Win often accuses me of being good at. I poked. “But he didn’t steal her away, Miguel. She married you. Tito was a good man. You killed a good man!”

  Miguel’s head fell back on his shoulders as he howled his pain, his mouth opening wide when he bellowed, “Nooo! He was a liar! Esperanza knew Carlito wasn’t mine! She pretended all these years he was my blood. Even when Carlito was born, she lied! She told me he came a month early. I should have known she’d betrayed me. I should have known what they did that night! I should have killed him then, but he left—left and I never heard from him again. I didn’t understand. All these years, I mourned my friend. My brother! Until two days ago, when I found him and made him pay!”

  Shaking my head, I soothed, “But he didn’t know, Miguel! He had no idea about Carlito.”

  But Miguel was no longer listening. He was too lost in his grief, or whatever this was. He was back at the scene of the murder, reliving the horror as tears began to fall down his face.

  “I asked him why, why would he do this? How could he do this with my wife? My best friend for so many years, my brother. Do you know what he told me? What his excuse was? He told me it just happened! He took my wife to his bed and it just happened?” he screeched on a heave of stuttered breath, as though this were still too much for him to digest.

  My teeth were doing their best to chatter, so I clamped down hard, my jaw stiff. “So you drowned him in cheese?”

  I still couldn’t believe Tito had aspirated nacho cheese.

  “We were fighting, our fists up. Two old men sparring. I waved the picture of Carlito and me in his face—to show him who his son was—what he looked like. I wanted to hurt him!”

  Well, that explained the picture and whom the other person covered in cheese was.

  “I punched him and he fell into the cheese,” Mateo howled. “So I held him there as he struggled. He deserved to feel pain—to hurt the way he hurt me! But he got away. I saw him fall from the truck before I went out the passenger door!”

  Still trying not to squirm, I lifted my chin and said, “But you hu
ng around, didn’t you, Miguel? You hung around to see if your friend was okay. I saw you climb through the fence. You didn’t want to kill Tito, did you? You wanted to hurt him, but you didn’t want him dead.”

  He shook his head, his breaths raspy as his body began to wilt. “I came here tonight to tell him. To ask for his forgiveness.”

  Upon his confession, the rain started. A pounding, driving rain. But Miguel paid no mind to the fat droplets as he let my body slide slightly down the rough bark.

  He gripped my neck tight again when he whimpered, “Why? Why would he hurt me like this?”

  “I don’t know, Miguel,” I said with a soft tone. “Maybe he left because he was ashamed. Let me go and we can talk about it. You can tell me everything that happened.”

  The moment I thought he might ease up was the moment Miguel shook his dark head of thick hair, beginning to stick to his forehead as the rain picked up. “No! You have to die!” He looked upward, his eyes wild and frantic. “Do you see what you do, Tito, mi amigo? Now I have to kill her so no one will ever know what I’ve done!” he sobbed in a ragged plea. “You should have shut up! You shouldn’t have said all those things, called me all those names, told me I was no good for Esperanza! You made me so mad, Tito!”

  Now my pulse began to race. There was no way out. No one else knew what he’d done but me. Meaning, in his mind, I had to go.

  “But what about Carlito, Miguel? Surely you love him. Surely you don’t want to see him in jail, do you? To go to prison for killing Tito?”

  He softened further then, his face melting. “Of course I love Carlito, even if he’s not my son! We’ll get him a good attorney. There’s no evidence—the charges won’t stick. I will protect the boy, but you know too much!”

  Speaking of charges, where the heck were Simone and Sipowicz, for heaven’s sake? Hadn’t it been at least five minutes since I’d dialed 9-1-1?

  Miguel began to sob openly, his rasps for air with each breath becoming shallow and harsh. “I didn’t want to do it! But he made me! He made me! You made me do this, Tito!” he cried, followed by a harsh cough.

  “Stevie, now’s the time! Strike!”

  Chapter 19

  With those words, I planted my hands on Miguel’s shoulder, unmindful of the gun he had dangling in his free hand, and I head butted him.

  That’s right. Me. Stevie Cartwright executed a spy move. I knocked noggins with him so hard, I saw stars. And colors. A bunch of colors.

  What I’d like to know is how everyone in the movies always manages to get right back up afterward? I don’t know if I’ll ever see straight again, let alone get my eyeballs back into their rightful position in my head.

  But I’d successfully knocked him backward and he let me go with a frustrated yelp. I was ready for it this time, and even though my butt felt like an actual entity on my body, I ran.

  “Go north, Stevie!” Win ordered.

  “Where is north? I’m not a compass, I’m a directionally challenged ex-witch! Left or right, Spy Guy—choose!”

  “Left, Stevie! Go left!”

  I made a sharp left down a row of tombstones, fighting the panting breaths and pacing myself. But Miguel was hot on my heels, the crash of his work boots against the ground sounding like thunder.

  Rain slashed at my thin dress and my bare feet caught all manner of loose gravel and roots as I ran as fast as my legs would carry me. Still, I was no match for him in my condition.

  Miguel was faster, coming up on me with the roar of a warrior as I encountered far too much open space at the end of the cemetery. There was nowhere to hide!

  “You’re slower, Stevie. You have to act fast. The tree branch, Dove! Just a little farther. See it? Run, Stevie, run! Grab it and swing up into the tree. Get as high as you can!”

  My frantic eyes saw the tree before it actually registered that I was supposed to literally hoist myself upward into it.

  Hah. Good luck with that.

  But I launched myself at it anyway, jumping up like I’d been possessed by Shaquille O’Neal himself and latching on to the branch.

  The problem lies in the details. Okay, sure, I could hang on the branch, but how the heck was I going to haul my carcass up onto it in order to climb a tree? No more naps during How To Escape Your Tormentor class for me.

  If I made it out of this without getting shot, I was going to really pay better attention to Win.

  “Keep the momentum going, Stevie! Swing up! Use your weight and your feet and swing like a pendulum. Up and over now! You can do it!” Win yelped.

  And I did just that, praying miracles really did exist. The moment my hands made contact with the branch, I swung my legs back and up until I was suddenly in the air, the branch at my waist.

  Believe me when I say, no one was more surprised than me. I couldn’t even jump a hurdle in gym class, let alone climb a tree

  “Woo-hoo!” I yelled. “Look, Win! I did it!”

  “Stevie, no time for victory cries now, get up this tree!”

  Miguel was right behind me, grabbing at my feet. But his breathing was so choppy, so full of rattling mucus, I knew he was suffering, so I used that to my advantage. Leaning forward and kicking back, I managed to face-plant him with the heel of my foot.

  His scream of rage chilled me to the bone, making me swing my leg up and over the limb, hoping it would hold me. My dress around my thighs, I clung to the branch, my muscles feeling like a bowl of grape jelly.

  I looked down for a brief moment, watching with sheer terror as Miguel reached for his inhaler and realized he didn’t have it.

  That’s when he went ballistic.

  And that’s when something really crazy happened. A bolt of lightning shot from the sky, a crackling, sizzling streak of light, landing right at Miguel’s feet and just missing him.

  “What the…?” I whispered as rain battered my face.

  “Who are you?” I heard Win shout in angry frustration.

  “Win? What’s going on?” I all but screamed, petrified some other entity was now involved and might try to take him away again.

  “It’s Maggie’s mother, Stevie!”

  Now I was beyond terrified. I didn’t just have Miguel chasing me, but Tito’s MIL, too? I fought to make my cold lips move. “Get away from her, Win!”

  “No! She wants to help. She keeps saying she had no control. She had no control!”

  No control? What was going on?

  But I looked down then when I heard a growl. Miguel, now over his surprise at the bolt of lightning, was back in motion, squinting up into the tree, waving that dang gun.

  “Stevie! Don’t look back, get up this damn tree!”

  I didn’t have time to think, I didn’t have time to consider whether I’d be able to balance myself on the branch, I hopped up on my feet like I’d just left the Olympics with a gold medal in the balance beam and ran, stumbling forward and scraping my face on the next level of branches.

  Which is when Miguel began shooting. The ping of one bullet skipping over the thick branch right in front of my nose and missing me by a mere inch.

  “Up, Stevie—go up! Go-go-go!”

  Another crack of lightning crashed against the ground, making the cemetery look as though someone had flipped a light switch. But it only last a second before it was dark again, the wind howling, leaves swirling in angry circles.

  My legs shook, my heart beat so fast I was sure it would stop ticking as I pushed my way through the sharp limbs tearing at my hair, their leaves scratching my legs.

  “Stop here! Take shelter close to the trunk so he can’t get a good angle. Get that phone out and call 9-1-1! Alba? Hit him again!”

  More booms of thunder ripped through the night, so loud the ground shook, making Miguel yelp.

  I hunkered down, my cold, aching feet digging into the branch I perched so precariously on as I dug my phone out of my dress and looked in horror to see the previous call had failed, and now I had a half bar of battery left.

  Bu
t I slid it open anyway and pressed the speed dial for 9-1-1, almost losing my grip, my hands were so icy-cold.

  Then I heard was the question. “9-1-1, what is your emergency?”

  “I’m at Swanson Park Cemetery! I’m in a big oak tree. Miguel Velasquez is shooting a gun at me. Get someone here. Please hurry!” I hissed into the phone, just as another shot rang out and whizzed past my shoulder.

  “You have to move now, Stevie—he sees you! Alba! Agaaain!”

  Forgetting the phone, forgetting everything, I climbed higher, my hands shredded and bloody from clinging to the branches. The rain picked up, howling its wet rage with a fierce wind.

  “I can’t let you go!” Miguel yelled on a rattling gasp before he fired again.

  I ducked at the sound of the bullet screaming through the air. “How many bullets does he have, for the love of Pete? What’s he got, a machine gun?”

  “Colt single-action, six bullets, but who knows if he has more ammunition. You must climb, Stevie!”

  As I tried to get to the next level of branches, I slipped on the wet bark, my hands grabbing wildly for something to latch onto.

  I landed on a branch, all right. On my chest, straddling it like I was riding a rodeo bull. The impact knocked the wind out of me, but I clung anyway, wrapping my trembling arms around it for all I was worth. The rain pelted me with frigid pinpricks and I began to lose hope. Cold, wet, exhausted, I clenched my eyes shut to keep a sting of tears at bay—and that’s when I saw it.

  Another shadow with the stealth of a cat burglar, creeping up behind Miguel, who was leaning against the base of the tree, fighting for breath.

  Officer Nelson. Oh, thank Pete in a swimsuit, Captain Crabby was on deck.

  And the strangest thing happened when I reached out a hand in warning, hoping to send a silent signal to Officer Nelson…

  My fingers tingled.

  Not the kind of tingle you feel when you’re cold, but the kind I’d once felt when I was about to use my magic.

  There was a crack and a hiss, taking me by utter surprise, but it was a familiar vibration. A welcome vibration. So I shook my hand and it crackled again, an actual spark spewing from my fingertip.