Striped space cadet. Recalling Evie’s mention of cousins, Jax rubbed the frown off his brow. “There’s a whole tribe of them. Watch out for Raven Lady. You’ll know her when you see her. Follow them, lock them in the van, whatever, until we find the girl.”
“Raven Lady just arrived,” Roark said with a distinct note of approval. “Can I keep this one?” He cut off before Jax could learn more.
Swearing to himself, Jax switched off the phone. A moment later, less-than-ethereal Evangeline Malcolm Carstairs appeared in the open doorway. Instead of entering, she leaned against the jamb, hip cocked jauntily, arms crossed. Positioned to watch him as well as the road, she appeared to be anticipating someone’s arrival. She was short and rounded in all the right ways, but he’d bet a month’s income that she’d look like her fireplug mother in twenty years or so.
That thought didn’t faze him as it should.
Said mother now waited on the bank stairs across the street. Neither of them so much as waved at each other.
A moment later, a slight figure in black glasses emerged from the bank doors, and triumph surged.Ha! At last. Looked like he’d won this round. Jax’s first instinct was to jump up and grab the kid.
His higher instincts recognized Evie’s strategic position. She’d already outplayed him once. Better to calculate her next move. He stayed in place, finishing his burger. Once he focused on why the scene struck him as a little awry, he grimaced.
Evie hadn’t said a single word since positioning herself in the doorway. She didn’t hold a cell phone and Loretta didn’t own one. She could not have communicated with Loretta. Still, he had the distinct feeling that Evie had manipulated this entire scene, that she’d known where Loretta had been hiding, and had ordered her out.
Tell Evie what we saw,Raven girl had ordered.
His skin itched, which indicated facts did not align. He knew that feeling too well.
In resignation, Jax called Roark back but got his partner, Reuben. “I don’t want to believe it, but we’ve got trouble with a capital T.”
“And it’s not rhyming with pool?” Reuben was a music aficionado and had infected all of them with inane lyrics over the years. “Is that the mark walking toward you? Should we proceed?”
Jax hadn’t wanted to call in his pair of anarchists. R&R barely acknowledged the existence of the law, and Jax’s adoptive father would crap in his Armani if he found out he had set them on the loose. Hopefully, what Stephen didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, because Jax was watching Loretta take the hand of Evie’s mother, while Evie waited in the doorway for the two of them to arrive. And not one person out there was holding a cell phone to arrange this gathering.
He was counting on R&R locating hidden cameras and microphones to disprove this pretense of psychic tomfoolery. But if he was right, the setup was too elaborate for normal kidnappers and extortionists. He couldn’t take any chances on Loretta’s life or well-being. He’d suffer his father’s scorn and another painful whack at his reputation before he’d let anything happen to a kid.
“Don’t reveal yourselves,” he told Roark. “Just stay close.”
“They’ve already ID’d us,” Roark reminded him. “We either go in or hide.”
Shit. “Hide.” He needed to get his hands on Loretta, without terrifying her. Then the guys could start tearing the town apart, if need be.
Evie watched him with all too transparent interest as Loretta entered with Mavis in tow. Jax stood up and wished he was wearing something a little more business-like than dirty camouflage as the pig-tailed, ten-year-old millionairess entered and frankly gave him a thorough once-over.
“Mavis says my lawyer is not a killer,” Loretta informed Evie, but a question lingered in her voice.
“Mr. Jackson’s aura is angry, not murderous,” Evie reassured her, although Jax heard the amusement in her voice. “And Mavis is a clairvoyant who knows things she shouldn’t. Her word is good.”
Jax wasn’t fond of being a target of humor, but at least he knew his ward was safe, for the moment. He needed to call and let the firm know, but the sudden stiffness of the genie in the sunlight warned him to wait. Instead of savoring her victory, she no longer seemed focused on this plane of existence. Her attention was riveted on an object over his shoulder. Her expression... was not quite right. It was akin to watching a bright child lose her sparkle and slump into unconsciousness.
He glanced over his shoulder, but even the waitress wasn’t in sight.
Not speaking, Mavis held a finger to her lips and shooed Loretta to the stool Raven Woman had vacated.
Exasperated by this performance, Jax waited for ghostly sounds or blobs of gel to emanate from the ceiling. Maybe the pair worked with the café and the gewgaws on the shelves were positioned to rock ominously. He hoped for a better show than Evie just standing there, frozen. Her sexy halter top, shorts, and bare feet were too mundane to establish any woo-woo credentials, although the nimbus of sunset curls added a nice touch. She’d apparently shed her tattered Keds at the shop. Any other woman her petite size would be strutting around in high heels.
Her blank expression disappeared. She frowned and rubbed her temples. A pity she looked so damned adorable or he’d laugh aloud. Rather than conveying a medium speaking with the spirit world, she looked ready to throw a temper tantrum. Her scowl was even better than one of his.
Hearing a rattle behind him, Jax spun around in time to watch a water glass fly off a shelf. He instinctively flung himself in front of Loretta. The glass bounced off him, hit the counter, and landed on the floor, smashing into shards at their feet.
Loretta leaped from her stool and fled into Mavis’s arms—which irritated Jax beyond reason. He was the obvious protector here, not a plump dumpling of a gray-haired witch. And the glass-shattering poltergeist trick was too old for words. Someone could have been hurt.
“See, he’s trying to kill me,” Loretta cried.
In two strides, Jax crossed the room, grabbed Evie by the waist, and hauled her off the floor. Caught off-guard, she didn’t even kick his crotch this time but offered a peeved huff when he set her down on a stool.
The two grizzled patrons in a back booth showed interest but no particular shock.