The woman muttered something that had the retriever growling. Jax had the greatest respect for animal teeth and no desire to harm a dog. He could, if he must, but now that he was out of the military, he preferred non-violent confrontation.
“I should have introduced myself. My apologies.” He reached for his jacket pocket and realized he was still in the sweat-soaked polo and camouflage pants he’d been wearing when he’d received the call about Loretta. He dug for his billfold instead. “I’m Jax Jackson of Stockton and Stockton out of Savannah.” He located a slightly mangled business card and handed it over.
“This says Damon Jackson.” The charlatan didn’t look mollified. “As indemon.”
“Named after my grandfather, which is why I prefer Jax.” He turned to give another card to the Medusa behind the counter—but she’d vanished.
Hadn’t he heard her snorting not five seconds ago?
Seeing the sway of the curtains behind the counter, Jax cursed. He’d been so focused on the woman he thought was the culprit, that Medusa had escaped—probably with his runaway ward. Propping his hands on the old-fashioned wooden counter, he vaulted over the top and raced through the storage room to the open door of the back exit.
One
One hour earlier:
Aretha Franklin’s ”Respect”bellowed from the Oldies Café. Whistling her theme song to ward off developing premonitions of trouble ahead, Evie Malcolm bounced down the post office steps, shoving a suspiciously official-looking notice into her back pocket. The April day was too lovely to succumb to paranoia.
“Gertie’s ex must be back in town,” she told the golden retriever sniffing the scrumptious odor of simmering gumbo. The café owner and her ex were from New Orleans, but Gertie never cooked Creole unless he was in town.
Observation—her means of survival.
Honey snuffled and trotted on, leading her past the café and the empty lot Mavis had been filling with azaleas for years—without permission from the absentee owner. Evie suspected her mother buried charms and talismans beneath each plant for reasons known only to her. A good witch never told.
At this hour, traffic was light. The Harley roaring down Main Street could be heard three counties over. Evie glanced up expectantly—sure enough, the mayor’s son was on his way out of town again. She glanced toward city hall—serious black cloud hovering.
The official city notice burned a hole in her pocket. The mayor had a murky aura these days, but tax notices came from the county courthouse, didn’t they?
“If Tobias is mad at his dad again, trouble is brewing.” The mayor’s son had a young soul, but he was usually one of the good guys.
Honey yipped, not because she understood, but because she had food for brains, and they were nearing home. “I could find out what’s brewing if people would simply give me a little respect,” she told the dog.
Respect wasn’t happening. Evie had lived here all her life, and people thought they knew her. They didn’t, really, but she understood their limitations.
Despite the small-town mindset, she loved her home of Afterthought, South Carolina. Once a farm town for sharecroppers, it was now the county seat and a tourist destination for city dwellers. The sun sparkling off the windows of the Victorian brick shops and the colorful pots of ivy geraniums decorating the old-fashioned lampposts depicted a fantasy of serenity that big cities didn’t offer.
But it was a fantasy, she knew. She saw the dark undercurrents others couldn’t.
Orange curls bobbing against her sunglasses, Evie danced to the tune of Aretha down the brick sidewalk. Outside her mother’s shop, Evie let the golden retriever pause to admire the Siamese cat lounging on the window sill.
The entirecountypopulation didn’t amount to more than five thousand people—a great place for growing up, a lousy place to find a job.
Correction, a great place for finding jobs like dog walking, a lousy place to apply her real talents. At a hundred pounds, Evie wasn’t cut out for more than poodle-walking. And ghost-hunting, although that wasn’t precisely a booming business. With a sigh, she tugged her mother’s retriever into the Psychic Solutions Agency and Gift Shoppe.
Honey yipped a happy greeting at the plump woman inside.
Garbed in a flowing multi-colored caftan, Mavis Malcolm glanced up from the tarot cards spread on the counter, her misty blue eyes an exact match for Evie’s. “There’s a turbulence in the air, dear,” she reported. “The Magician approaches.”
The mayor’s murky aura and Tobias’s angry departure had already warned her of approaching trouble. Evie glanced at the tarot spread on the counter to better interpret her mother’s warning. The card showing Hermes lay smack in the middle—theMagician, emblem of new adventure and bringing light out of darkness. Also a troublemaker.Notwhat she needed.
“Maybe the Magician is His Honor, the Right Royal Mayor Blockhead, and he’s sold the town for a nuclear dump.” She handed over the envelope from the post office. “If he can condemn an entire trailer park, then he’s probably declared this neighborhood a disaster zone.”
The trailer park condemnation still rankled. Mavis had to sell her double-wide and move in above the shop. The mayor and his council had been granted eminent domain for a pharmacy, which the town badly needed. Somehow, the deal had been bungled and now the homes of dozens of seniors had been reduced to a parking lot used mainly by officials at the county courthouse.
“That boy is bad, I’ll grant, but he’s a jester, not a Magician.” With her graying hair pinned up in a business-like chignon, Mavis slit open the envelope and frowned. She tucked the notice into her pocket without further edification.
“We’re not busy.” Mavis emerged from behind the counter to take Honey’s leash for her morning coffee break. “Lock up after me, and maybe the Magician will pass through without stopping.”
“Not busy” was a chronic problem for an agency marketing tarot reading along with ghost busting, animal psychiatry, clairvoyance, and a colorful array of crystals and gewgaws. The gewgaws kept them in groceries. Still, Mavis’s premonitions had to be taken seriously. She was good at what she did. Black clouds over city hall and the arrival of a dealer in change were potentially more ominous than lack of business.