“Not even this one?” He pulled out a folder labeled John Post vs. Blue Construction. “Didn’t you say the clerk in the property office is called Blue?”
Returning with her water, Evie snatched the file from his hand. “Huh. I thought she made up the name to match her hair. Emma doesn’t have a drop of blue in her aura.” She didn’t skim the file the way he did but studied each piece of paper. “I didn’t know she had a brother, Emmitt. Sounds like twins. Also looks like he was in hot water a lot back then.”
Jax’s phone pinged. He glanced down and hurried to the door. “Ariel is here.”
* * *
Ariel was not quite asethereal as her name would lead one to believe, Evie discovered. Jax’s sister was thin, on the tall side, with long, straight hair an even darker hue than her brother’s, and skin several shades lighter. She seemed more brittle than waif-like.
Without a word of greeting, she entered, looked for a place to plug in her laptop, and settled at the dining room table. She didn’t give a second glance to the dusty box or the folders scattered on the surface.
“I’ll take those disks down to the guys,” Jax murmured, gathering them up. “Bring Ariel a bottle of water?”
Transcendental meditation music drifted from the speakers. Evie felt right at home. She found bottles of water and rummaged through the freezer to see if there was anything edible. Frozen pizzas, of course. She popped one in the oven.
She handed a bottle to Ariel and took a seat on the far end of the table to continue reading the Blue file. Ariel absent-mindedly helped herself to the cheese and typed on her computer. Weird, but not any weirder than Evie’s noisy family.
Eventually, Evie couldn’t resist. Settling down behind the file folders, she opened her inner eye.
Ariel was a rainbow of clear colors—except for a thin line of muddy blue probably indicating fear. Evie had no way of knowing what she feared, but an aura that transparent said Ariel could be trusted.
An aura that transparent looked crystalline. Indigo children were the harbingers of crystal peacemakers. Or maybe she was getting a little too woo-woo even for her. Still, she liked the concept.
Evie returned to reading about Blue Construction. Looked like Emmitt—why did that name ring bells?—Blue had a bad habit of borrowing money for construction jobs he never completed. He took the advance money on a job, used it to pay down on a loan from a prior job, and then moved on to another contract. When did he have time to build anything? Apparently he didn’t, since John Post had hired Jax’s father to sue for non-performance. How old could John have been twenty years ago? Barely out of college, she’d think. Interesting. Stockton and Stockton were the Post family lawyers even back then?
Evie flipped through the pages of the lawsuit. She didn’t have the legalese needed to grasp the details of the courtroom transcripts. It looked like Franklin Jackson—Jax’s biological father—of Stockton and Stockton LLC had won the case for his client, John Post, against Blue’s construction company. Maybe Loretta’s father got rich by suing little companies. The sum was hefty. The bonding company would have had to pay through the nose, then never insured Blue again. Jax’s father didn’t come off too shoddily either.
Jax’s phone began binging. He must have set it on the table when he ran downstairs with the disks. Evie ignored it while she flipped through more pages, trying to focus while the phone pinged and the music fluted.
She felt Ariel’s gaze on her and looked up. Jax’s sister hastily lowered her eyes to study the binging phone on the table between them. Remembering not to talk, Evie gestured for Ariel to take it.
Ariel grabbed the sleek phone, hit a few buttons, opened up the screen, and began hitting more buttons. Icons. Whatever. Finished, she pushed the screen at Evie.
This just got weirder and weirder. Studying the screen, she saw a bank statement in the name of John and Tiffany Post—one with an address in a place she thought might be an island in the Caribbean. Ariel leaned over and swiped the screen away, hit another button, and brought up another statement. This account was in the name of Stockton and Stockton, care of Damon Jackson, same foreign bank. The opening transaction was an amount nearly equal to the final balance transferred out of the Post statement.
She got a real bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Isn’t Jax in charge of the Post accounts? Shouldn’t the bank statement have the Post’s trust name on it and not Stockton’s?”
Ariel bobbed her head in what appeared to be a nod of agreement, then crossed her arms over her head and ears and put her cheek down against the table, retreating into her own world.
Evie grabbed the phone and raced out to meet Jax before he could disturb his sister. Men simply emitted noisy vibes with their existence.
She knew these statements made it look as if she should suspect Jax of stealing Loretta’s inheritance, but that was pure nonsense. This was a setup if she’d ever seen one, and she’d seen more than one.
She caught him just as he was pushing away from the van. She waved the phone frantically. “Wait!”
Roark saluted her from the open window and turned off the engine. Jax glowered. She shoved the phone at him. “Your sister just showed me this. I assume it’s what she wanted to send you earlier. Is she afraid your father may be picking up her messages?”
Jax scrolled back and forth, his face growing pale and grim before handing it to Roark. “The transaction date is Friday, when I didn’t return to the office as ordered.”
Roark whistled. Reuben emerged from the rear to take the passenger seat. Roark handed the phone over to his partner. “You’ve been set up, man. Bet that was done from your office computer.”
“Any chance we can transfer it back, then empty the entire account into Loretta’s investment fund? Then change all her passwords again? I’ll make her financial advisor a co-exec so it will take two signatures for a transaction.” Jax took his phone back, checked for more messages, and shoved it into his pocket.
Evie hovered, uncertain if she was allowed to say what she was thinking. This didn’t involve Loretta so much as Jax. This was his world, his sister, she had no claim. But once Jax had given his orders, she stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Your sister is terrified. She’s as open and transparent as you aren’t. The muddy blue streak in her aura is abnormal. She should have no reason to fear, but she’sscared. I don’t think she should go back to your father’s house.” There, she’d said it. She couldn’t do more than that. Persuading Jax to believe her gift simply wasn’t in her realm of authority.
Jax ran a hand over his head. “Outside a padded cell, I have nowhere else to take her. Maybe she’ll get used to the condo if I stay away.”