Huh, the two older women weren’t Mavis. He recognized the three younger ones from the séance. Next to scary Aunt Val, this bunch looked like a book club, except maybe for the tall witchy vet called Iddy.
“What’s wrong?” Loretta whispered from the backseat.
The kid had had enough trauma. She didn’t need more. Jax considered backing out and returning to Savannah. Maybe he could find Loretta a better school. He could introduce her to Ariel—
Before he could put that plan into motion, Loretta launched herself from the backseat so she could hear everything.
The women waved papers at Evie and glared at him. This did not look good.
Evie gathered all the papers in her fist and stalked back to the car. With a sigh of defeat, Jax got out so she could wave them in his face. He snatched the collection from her grip.
“They’re auctioning off our pond for back taxes! Val just told us that the trust has beenpayingthose taxes, but there’s no mention of a trust on these bills.” Beneath her mop of curls, Evie’s crystal eyes shot light beams that ought to paralyze, at the very least.
“Are you certain this is the Witch Hill property?” Jax scanned the tax notices addressed to individuals, not to any trust. “And this is my fault, how?”
One of the older women roughly resembling Mavis with her graying brown hair and plump curves held up one of his business cards. “Because you work for the same law firm handling the Lakeland Development Company that wants our land.”
And they were just realizing that? “I have nothing to do with tax notices or the development company. I’m here solely as Loretta’s guardian.”
Except he had a pretty good idea how the city had made the notices happen. Explaining this to a bunch of angry women...
“Aunt Felicia, give Jax time to—” Evie tried to intervene, but her aunt was too wound up.
Evie’s aunt shook her fist under Jax’s nose. She appeared to be holding a crystal. “Lakeland Development was partially owned by John Post, and his share is now part of Loretta’s inheritance.”
The willowy vet approached to hold back the waving arm, but she glared at him as well. “We’ll have to sue you and Loretta to stop this auction. Those taxes werepaid.”
Oh, shit. Just as he was starting to trust Evie, he recognized their ploy now. They wanted Loretta to pay their damned taxes—and that would just be the beginning.
He steered Loretta toward the car. “C’mon, kid, we’re getting out of here.”
Seventeen
Loretta ran.
She didn’t want to go with Jax. She didn’t want to be blamed for whatever was happening to Evie’s family. She just wanted to go home. But seeing the empty house in Savannah...
Nothing had been touched since she’d last been there. Her motheralwaysput her toys back on the shelf in the closet after she left. Pink Bear would never have been left on her bed. Ever. Which meant her mother hadn’t been home since they’d dropped her off at school. Gulping back sobs, she rubbed hard at her eyes, trying not to cry.
Her mom and dad were really and truly gone.Without them, the house was no more than an empty shell. She had no home.
With a runaway tear leaking down her cheek, she dodged down alleys and through backyards where Jax couldn’t follow in his car, fighting hard against the sobs trying to escape her chest.
She’d been smart enough to get herself all the way here from Savannah and to create documents even a lawyer couldn’t dispute. She was smart enough to figure out where to go next.
But if everyone in her entire family was mad at her... She hiccuped and slowed down.
Maybe they were just mad at Jax. Evie didn’t seem mad. She needed to think about that.
Thinking helped slow the sobs. Scrubbing at her wet cheek, she reached the highway and darted across, into the grassland around the pond. A path led away from the highway, so she took that. If all this was hers... Maybe the path would lead back to the little house they’d seen. That washerhouse. She could live there. She was smart and she was an Indigo, whatever that was. Maybe it meant she was extra-special smart and could live on her own.
It was starting to get dark, and she was hungry. There was no fast food place out here where she could use her credit card. It sucked to be a millionaire with no money and no food.
But she wasn’t going back until... She didn’t know what theuntilwas. Until she had time to think things through? Until she’d scared everyone into working together. Adults should work together to solve problems and not shout at each other. Even she knew shouting was stupid. She felt better having a goal. The adults had to stop shouting and listen.
A huge black bird flew over her head, cawing, or whatever one called that rackety noise. There were probably wild animals in the woods. But the woods were on top of the hill. She’d go around and into thebackyard, where her cottage was. Walking to school from all the way out here might get old. She needed a bike.
Her parents had never bought her one.