The girl nodded and clung tighter.
“It’s you and me, then. We’ll have to turn Jax upside-down.” She tried to stand, but Loretta wouldn’t let her go. It was then that she realized the child was holding something that rattled down her back.
La Chusa circled them, then flew off, squawking. Jax didn’t appear to even be breathing hard as he halted to tower over them.
“What’s that?” Zeroing in on whatever was bouncing against Evie’s shoulder blades, he reached down to pull it from Loretta’s clenched fist.
Evie was pretty certain she heard Loretta whisper, “Mom’s.”
A chill settled over her. With a sigh, she opened her inner eye to see John Post hovering anxiously, and very transparently, behind Loretta.
“Let her go,” Evie murmured to the apparition. “I’ve got her, honest. Just let her go. We’ll find you. We know you’re there. Join Tiffany and rest in peace.”
Sorrow swept over her. The apparition raised a ghostly hand and brushed at the wisps of hair on Loretta’s brow. Loretta glanced up, as if she’d felt it, and looked directly at what she shouldn’t be able to see.
“He’s there, isn’t he? I feel him. He’s dead.” She rubbed at her eye, then abruptly pushed away. “He wants me to find who killed him!”
Oh dear.
Evie glanced up at Jax, who was cleaning off a pendant and scowling.
“Where did you find this, kid?”
Loretta pointed back the way she’d come. “La Chusa found it. It’s my mom’s. Daddy gave it to her for her birthday, right before they took me to school and came here.”
“Show me.” He sounded angry.
“Not now.” Evie stood up and took Loretta’s hands. “We’ll be covered in mosquito bites and Loretta needs to eat. Whatever is back there has been there long enough.”
“No, too long. I’ll call my team. You take her back to the house.” Jax already had his phone out of his pocket. He glared at Evie. “You and your family need to stay out of this. I’m calling in the state cops.”
“Sheriff Troy is an honest man. Call him before you call in anyone over his head. He won’t tell you that we’re nuts. The state cops will listen to him.” Evie tugged a reluctant Loretta toward the road. “Come along. Jax will be labeling all of us murderers and demand the police take you away. So let’s just leave him to learn otherwise, okay?”
She knew if she looked, Jax’s aura would have shriveled back to angry red. He had issues, she understood now. She could help, but he had to ask.
A subdued Loretta clung to her hand and followed her back to town. Evie’s heart ached for the bright-eyed kid who’d first confronted her so bravely at the shop. She was no child psychologist. How did she bring out that sparkling Indigo again?
Evie’s front room was filled with family noshing on Aunt Felicia’s fried chicken and some kind of spinach-cheese thing Priscilla had whipped up. Her cousin catered fancy city functions.
Everyone was arguing as only her family knew how to do—books levitated, birds scattered feathers, crystals glowed, and they’d break out brooms shortly and start whacking each other.
“Psy broke the tea pitcher,” Iddy announced when Evie and Loretta entered. “He’s acting out. I had to tie Honey outside before she tried to lick up the glass.”
“Is the tea still on the floor?” Evie dodged a flying tarot deck and calmly proceeded down the hall toward the kitchen, dragging Loretta.
“We picked up the glass,” her sister Gracie called after her. “Didn’t think bringing out mops a good idea.” Especially since Gracie could levitate them and whack without getting involved.
Entering the kitchen, Evie drew the pocket door from the wall and closed it, shutting out her family. “I am not Val. I cannot take a cane to all their heads.” Muttering more or less to herself, she took down the mop from the cellar wall and applied it to the spilled tea.
“They’re upset?” Loretta finally spoke while she studied the mess of the kitchen.
“Putting it mildly. Let me finish up here, and we’ll rescue the rest of that chicken and take it outside. I’ll grab some biscuits and slap tomatoes on them and call them a vegetable.”
Given a task, Loretta tip-toed around the spilled tea, found plates, and filled them with chicken from the skillet while Evie cleaned up.
Evie met her on the back porch with glasses of milk, napkins, and biscuit sandwiches. “I can’t say I know how you feel, because I don’t. So you’ll have to tell me in any way that makes sense to you.” She petted her mother’s retriever and fed him a piece of breast meat she pulled off the bone.
Loretta sat in an ancient lawn chair and kicked her feet against a post. Silently, she nibbled her chicken.