“I don’tknowanything. I’ve never been interested enough to ask. You’ll need to talk to my mother or my aunts. My grandmother died last year, which may be what triggered the notion the land only belongs to the Posts now. Can you look up wills? Great-grandmother Letitia Post may have left hershareof the land to her children, but that didn’t mean she owned it in its entirety.”
“The firm should have a copy of the will. I’ll check on it.” Jax had a hard time conceiving of such a loose relationship to reality, but after dealing with Evie’s family, he could see it happening. “If the ownership of these lots is in question, then who has been paying the taxes?”
“The Posts, one assumes, if they thought the land was theirs. Great-Aunt Val may know. She handles family finances—or her husband’s accountants do. But I’m very surprised your law firm isn’t aware of the situation.” Evie crumbled sausage into the skillet. Her tone was definitely disapproving.
Jax thought he might echo that disapproval. Knowing his adoptive father, it was very possible Stephen did know about any contingencies. That would not necessarily stop him if there was a large development in play. “I’ll have to take you to Savannah with me, introduce the partners so you can read their auras. I can’t tell when they’re lying.”
“It’s doubtful I can either. If an aura is steeped in lies, then one more hardly makes a difference. And I know you’re being facetious. I’m not. Dinner will be ready in an hour. Go away.”
Frowning, Jax returned to his vanity-sized desk and computer.
Swamp owned by a dozen heirs in the back of nowhere was essentially worthless and not worth killing over. He saw utterly no reason to believe the Posts had been killed here—yet.
Did he listen to a crazy woman and her family, dig deeper and bring down the wrath of his father—or simply accept that they were flakes and go home?
He couldn’t very well leave Loretta in the hands of conspiracy-spouting paranoids.
Of course, it was Loretta who had set them down this path of doubt.
Thirteen
“I wantto see my dad’s desk,” Loretta demanded the next morning.
Evie poured milk into her cereal bowl. “Not today, you have school.”
“You haven’t filed my papers yet. That means you’re not my guardian, and you can’t tell me what to do.” She turned her big pansy eyes to Jax, who was scanning his phone for news. “You’re my guardian. Take me to see my house.”
“Not today, you have school.” He repeated Evie’s admonition without lifting his gaze from the phone.
Huh, so he listened sometimes. “Can she go tomorrow? It’s Saturday.”
Jax shoved the phone in his pocket and grabbed his coffee cup. “If I can have peace and quiet today so I can get my work done, we’ll go to Savannah tomorrow, okay?”
Evie wanted to ask what work, but Loretta bounced up and down and cheered, and the moment was lost. He wouldn’t tell her anyway.
Besides, she needed time to find an alternate dog walker and someone to hold down the fort in the shop. Saturday was their busiest day, and Mavis had a tendency to drift off and ignore cash customers for more interesting ones.
So after sending Loretta off to school with new school supplies, Evie made her dog-walking rounds. Then, after watering Hank’s tomatoes and cleaning the hardware store windows, she pocketed his donation to her retirement fund, and stopped in the shop to give Mavis a break as usual.
“Where do we keep the deeds on this shop and Aunt Val’s place?” Evie asked. “In a lockbox? I need to find a more secure place for Loretta’s papers, even if they might be forged.” Which was why she wasn’t filing them—she really didn’t want to go to jail.
“Ask Val.” Mavis removed her apron and tucked straying gray hands back into her bun. “Now that Letitia is gone, she’s the eldest and handles everything. I don’t have a lockbox but she might.”
Pure Mavis, no material interest whatsoever. Evie got out her feather duster and started on the shelves. “I don’t want to put Loretta’s papers into anyone else’s hands. Guess I’ll need to bother Jax about an allowance so we can rent one.”
“Put her allowance in the bank, and I think they give you a free box.” Mavis bustled out, eager for her morning coffee and the gossip that was an essential element of her success.
Coffee and gossip equated marketing in Afterthought. Pity it didn’t reach beyond the county line.
Did she dare stir the dragon of Great-Aunt Val to find out about deeds? Wealthy, drama-prone, and with abilities even Evie didn’t understand, Val possessed a strong aura of power that overlay any compassion she might possess. Evie avoided her where possible.
Unable to sit still, she had the shelves dusted and rearranged and new flyers drawn up on her laptop when a disturbance of energy at the door caused her to glance up.
A stocky, nearly bald gentleman in a suit tailored to Mr. Moneybags perfection stood gazing at the shop’s eccentric contents—much as Jax had that first day. Evie’s internal alarms screamed. As if to confirm her fear, Psy leaped up on the counter and nuzzled her hand.
“May I help you?” she asked as brightly as she could while her heart stuttered, and she wished she had La Chusa to send for help. She scratched Psy’s head to reassure both of them.
If she didn’t fear ghosts, why was she afraid of this character? Reallytwistedvibrations, she decided, using Loretta’s apt terminology. She was almost afraid to open her inner eye.