“It wasn’t the Gulf,” Loretta shouted. “Did you search my daddy’s desk?”
Evie’s eyebrows skyrocketed.
“The police did,” Jax said as reassuringly as he knew how, hoping to calm her down. “The firm hired people to pack up his valuables and put them in storage until you’re old enough to know what to do with them. When you’re ready, we’ll have an estate sales firm sell the furniture and larger items still in the house. I can take you there anytime you like, but it’s probably best to wait for a weekend.”
He’d been the one to insist that they not sell the house until the kid was ready to understand that her parents would never be there again. He remembered the horrible jolt when he’d learned his home had been sold after his parents died. Selling was the practical thing to do, he knew, but a kid needed time. Still, they couldn’t leave the place empty much longer.
“Did the police keep any of his effects or are they all in storage?” Evie asked quietly.
Evie, talking quietly—something serious was happening here. Jax gestured for them to go into the house where half the town couldn’t hear them.
“They turned over all they took when they concluded the investigation.” Jax let Loretta and Evie enter the Victorian first, then closed the door after they entered. The dusty, cluttered parlor got stuffy without circulation from outside, but he didn’t know what was going down here. If Evie was filling the kid’s head with ridiculous stories... But so far, she hadn’t done anything that screamed con artist—beyond acting flaky.
Looking miffed, Loretta stomped back to the kitchen.
“I tried to talk with her ghosts,” Evie whispered. “Her father told me to look in his desk for deeds. Loretta may have heard. It’s hard to say. She’s still not accepting they’re dead.”
“You got any more of those lemon bars?” Jax asked loudly, following Loretta. He didn’t want the kid thinking they were doing anything behind her back.
Not that whispered words about impossible subjects were real secrets. He had to work out why a con artist might want him to look at a desk. Evie didn’t seem real interested in the kid’s money.
“No sugar before dinner,” Evie objected. “We’re having lasagna, and you won’t be able to eat it if you pig out now. Loretta, have an apple if you’re still hungry. Wash your hands first.”
“What kind of lasagna?” Loretta asked suspiciously, reaching for an apple. “The school did nasty eggplant stuff.”
“No eggplants this time of year. Some spinach, maybe, and a touch of the Shepherd’s sausage for spice. Are you done yelling at us? If so, you need to do your homework.” Evie entered the pantry, presumably for lasagna ingredients.
“Iheardthem.” Loretta glared at both of them. “You can’t tell me I didn’t.”
“I’m not telling you that you didn’t. I heard your father. I didn’t hear your mother. I told you they were with you.” Evie reappeared with jars of canned goods and whole onions.
“They’re not ghosts!” Loretta took her apple and stomped upstairs.
“Are, too,” Evie whispered. “And your mom has moved on to the next plane.”
“Tiffany is gone?” Jax felt like an idiot in asking. Evie and Loretta’s argument was so real that they almost had him believing in things that go bump in the night.
“I don’t think she was as attached to Loretta as her dad. And I don’t know if that has anything to do with love or ability.” Evie began chopping an onion. “If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say John Post had some Malcolm ability and used it to latch onto Loretta and his wife. He’s been dragging her around with him, but Tiffany simply didn’t have his energy or talent. She was a pale shadow of him.”
“But youbothheard someone say to look for deeds in the desk?” Jax had seen Evie’s surprise when Loretta mentioned it. That didn’t mean she wasn’t using Loretta’s words to accomplish her own goals, whatever in hell they might be.
“And Mavis saw deeds in her scrying ball. I think John Post is trying to tell us something about Loretta’s property. Did you find anything in the deed books?”
The kitchen was filling with onion fumes. Jax poured more coffee just to have a better smell in his nose. “There are no good deed maps showing parcel numbers that we’ve been able to find. The number on your mother’s letter leads to a register entry with a description that seems likely to be out by the pond. It’s a really old entry. We’re scouring others in the same number pattern and they also appear to be in the same general area. We’d need a surveyor to read the boundaries and map them for us. That doesn’t mean those lots haven’t been sold off over the years.”
“We don’t generally sell our property.” Evie shrugged and flung the onion in the pan and started on a bell pepper. “The land simply passes down through the family, so if that’s recorded, there might be name changes over the years. This house was built by a Malcolm over a century ago. Great-Aunt Val’s name is currently on the deed. Val used to live here, but she gave the use of it to me after she moved to Atlanta. She’ll have to deliberately leave it to me or the entire family inherits, which happens often. The land out by the pond has most likely been in the family since the first witch moved here in the late 1600s. There may have been additional plots purchased by different families over the centuries, but the main plot with the cemetery probably belongs to all of us. The Posts might have demanded some share of it outright when they left town, but I’d look closely at those deeds. Even sharing that property might take an act of Congress.”
“The deeds I’ve found only go back to 2007 and definitely not the 1600s,” he said dryly. “So you don’t think the Posts were planning on selling the property?”
“I have no notion of what they thought they might do. I’m just thinking they may have discovered theycouldn’t. Loretta may have inherited everything her parents owned. That doesn’t mean she’s free to sell it any more than her parents were. The mayor buys and sells real estate for a living. He has been buying up cotton fields between here and the outskirts of Charleston since the beginning of time. He’s tried to persuade my family to sell. I’m guessing there’s a very good reason they haven’t.”
“My law firm specializes in deconstructing deed restrictions.” Jax hadn’t seen any restrictions on the deeds he’d uncovered so far. He just wanted to learn what he could while she was offering insights.
She wasn’t quite as flaky as she occasionally seemed—not any more than the rest of her family, anyway. Extended family ownership was an obstacle but not a dead end.
“You don’t suppose there’s a reason Afterthought doesn’t grow much?” The pepper entered the frying pan with the onion.
Jax wondered if there was a metaphor in that. “If you know something, come out and say it.”