“If I find evidence that the mayor and his crooks have stolen the official records of our trust deed, I’ll call Val and we’ll hire lawyers. Consider this fair warning.” Beneath her mop of curls, she looked serious—not easy for someone wearing a lime green T-shirt declaringIf the earth was flat cats would have pushed everything off it by now.
“I just told you it wasn’t safe.” Jax pushed his plate away.
“And you have vested interest in telling me that. You’re not my boss.”
Damn. He should have expected that. “Fine then, but don’t expect me to come to your rescue. I’m still Loretta’s guardian and her well-being comes first. And if I discover you’re just trying to blackmail her out of her money, I’ll have you all thrown in jail. Where is Loretta? This is Sunday, not a school day.”
“We didn’t want her hanging around the pond if they’re dredging up bodies. Mavis and Aunt Felicity have taken her, my fake guardianship papers, and a note signed by me to her school to reclaim her clothes. You’ll have to settle up with the school.” She took his plate and dipped it into the dishwater.
Jax rubbed the bridge of his nose. The school was definitely not a good fit if Loretta hated it and could walk away so easily. But the witchy sisters as babysitters... Why not? “She needs security if someone killed her parents.”
“Yeah, I know.” Evie’s shoulders slumped as she rinsed and dried the plate. “We’re notifying the local school. We’ll have eyes on her every minute. We just don’t know if any of those eyes are the bad guys.”
Jax dragged out his phone and began scrolling through messages. His team reported that they’d found the desk vault but couldn’t crack it. That proved nothing. Evie or her family might have located the combination or Loretta gave it to them. But the little things were stacking up. If it was a con, it was the most convincing one he’d ever seen.
But with millions of dollars at stake, he couldn’t take chances. For all he knew, Evie’s family had dumped the Posts in the lake.
Grimacing, he gave his illegal hacker team the password to the firm’s cloud account and told them to start searching for any old files involving his father and copy them into Jax’s private account. He warned them there might be other password-protected files that he didn’t have access to. He’d already downloaded the ones on Lakeland Development. He’d not found anything suspicious so far.
Like John Post, his father’s firm wasn’t high on technology. Security was lax, and computerized files were minimal. Which meant a physical search of paper documents was also required.
“I need to go into the office archives and find nearly twenty-year-old files if I’m to look into my father’s cases.” His life was just a bed of roses these days. “I’d have to be on the board to access board minutes from that period, but I could start with his cases to see if he was into anything shady. Stephen will want to know why I want them.”
Evie’s eyes widened, and she went spacey for a moment, before returning to ground earth—thankfully with no new reports of ghosts hanging out behind his back. “How long has your firm worked with John Post? Can you say you need birth certificates or old tax returns or anything to give you an excuse for digging around in archival files? If I can help you find out about your father, I’d like to. Can we go in today?”
Damn, wherever her head went when she did that, it paid off. He wanted her to be on his team and not the enemy.
“You can talk to ghosts in files?” he asked sardonically, but he was already working through his phone, checking to see if anyone was in the office on Sunday. “I don’t like lying,” he added for good measure, because he knew the slippery slope ahead too well.
She leaped over this objection into another fantasy.
“We need a psychometrist.” She produced an old-fashioned address book from a drawer and reached for the landline.
“Wait a minute! I can’t take just anyone into the firm’s vaults.” A psychometrist? Jax walked that through his basic Latin, scowled at the result, and looked it up on his phone:the supposed ability to discover facts about an event or person by touching inanimate objects associated with them. SUPPOSED being the keyword.
“Cousin Orbis Junior is harmless. He’s a well-respected antique dealer in Charleston. You can tell your firm that you found something old and need him to verify authenticity or whatever. But first I’ll have to ask him if he can find anything on old papers.” She held the receiver, waiting.
“I haven’t even talked to Ariel yet!” And talking to Ariel didn’t happen often. He’d have to text and warn her he wanted to call. And lie to everyone he knew—the reason he hadn’t gone digging through his father’s cases before. “Lying only leads to trouble.”
She shrugged. “When people don’t believe my truth, I learn to speak theirs. We’ll just poke around, see what’s there. If you find anything, you don’t have to act on it until you’re ready. In fact, it’s usually better to wait a while after you’ve gone poking before magically producing the evidence.” She grinned. “Professional secret.”
Damn. He really was working with con artists. He ought to listen and learn, but when she started talking about a difference between her truth and others—reality became ephemeral.
* * *
As they drovetoward the interstate, they passed the pond. It was lined with police cars and vans, marked and unmarked. All Evie knew about forensics was gained from the internet, and that was enough to know she didn’t want to be there when they started finding remains.
Should she have tried harder to persuade Mr. Post to explain what had happened? But ghosts often didn’t remember the trauma and were obsessed with problems they’d left behind instead, like his stupid property. Well, maybe he was also trying to warn of thieves and protect Loretta. She shouldn’t think ill of the dead.
“I’m thinking maybe John Post hadn’t realized his grandmother didn’t own all of the pond property until after he inherited and became involved with the development company.” She sounded out her theory as Jax drove.
“Why do you say that?” He looked grim as he sped down the road a little faster than required. He’d changed into trousers and button-down shirt without a tie and looked like a lawyer again.
She preferred his earlier casual clothes. He had filled out that polo shirt nicely. She cast a glance to bulging biceps and wondered if he was a gym rat. She’d had bad luck with self-centered guys focused on body building. Somehow, she didn’t think Jax was of that ilk.
“The ghost mentionedthieves.And he led us to the actual deeds. We might never have had proof if he hadn’t done that.”
“So your scenario is that the development company wanted to buy Witch Hill. They found John or his mother’s name on a large parcel and contacted him. Then John handed the deal to his law firm, and it spiraled out of control after that?” Jax tapped his steering wheel as if pondering the improbable.