“Ariel and I are communicating. You owe your team lobster. They’re patiently sitting out there waiting for orders while starving.” Belatedly, she recalled they were probably listening to every word. Oh well. “I brought clothes.” She dropped the bag in his lap before he could complain.
“I think I need a shower before I work this out.” He grabbed the clothes and abandoned her to the patient while he closed the door on the bathroom.
Intense, single-minded, ruthless when needed... She really didn’t need a man like Jax around.
He may have lost his job because of her.
She studied Stephen Stockton’s aura, but it was weak and as muddy as ever. He wasn’t a person she would ever like. But Jax had respected him for a reason. She supposed she ought to learn why.
She pressed the button that raised the head of his bed. “I can tell you’re awake, you know. I’m weird like that.”
Stockton scowled beneath the plastic.
“When you go to jail for aiding and abetting a murderer, you need to promote Jax to partner so he can cover your financial tracks.” Evie sat down on the end of the bed and smiled as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
Only she could see the black cloud of denial and guilt rotting Stockton’s soul.
* * *
When Jax emergedfrom the shower, Evie was sitting beside the bed, offering a spoonful of gruel to his father while a nurse kept an eye on them. The oxygen mask had been removed, and his father looked as if he’d chew nails if offered.
Jax didn’t aim for the door but glared at the ridiculous scenario. “Good to know I’m not needed. I’ll just head out for some of that lobster I assume the guys are chowing down on.”
The nurse took one look and scuttled out.
“I want lobster, too. I’ve never had it. But it would be rude to eat in front of your father, so sit down and the two of you start talking,now.” Evie scraped up the last of the clumpy broth and shoved it at Stephen’s mouth—opened to protest.
“Or what, you’ll scream?” Jax took the bowl from her, set it on the tray, then bodily removed her from the bedside chair to deposit her in the recliner. As he well knew, Evie weighed nothing. And for a change, she didn’t fight.
“Or I’ll kick you out of the house and sue for guardianship because a jackass shouldn’t be allowed near a bright child like Loretta. Your father has information that will put a lot of people behind bars, but you have to get him out of his predicament before he’ll talk.”
Jax rubbed his head. He needed a haircut. He tried to process what she wasn’t saying. “What in hell did the two of you talk about while I was taking a damned shower?”
Instead of answering him, Evie turned to his father. “We have evidence, Mr. Stockton. Jax and Ariel are just like their real father, very focused, do-it-by-the-book sorts. They have enough paperwork to keep the district attorney busy for a lifetime. Do you really want it all aired in court?” Looking like a cherubic pixie in damp jeans, she curled her legs up in the recliner, leaned back, and waited.
“Can’t you put a lid on her?” Stephen asked petulantly. “I can make this all go away without involving anyone.”
Ah, now Jax was starting to see the light. He turned the bedside chair around and straddled it. “Nope, not happening. I’m finishing up what my father started. Evie’s right. Ariel and I have sorted it all out, how you paid off your debts and bought your partnership with the proceeds from that first big lawsuit you won. When the client came after you for the money, you used the escrow from the next case to pay him off. It’s been going on for decades with no one the wiser, until recently, right? The cases aren’t coming as frequently these days and demands are piling up. You have clients threatening to sue for non-payment, don’t you? All you needed was a little extra cash from this development deal to buy some time.You think I’ll sit on that?”
“There’s no reason for you to get involved.” Stephen winced as he shifted in bed.
Jax knew he was supposed to feel sympathy, but his adoptive father had only been grazed by the bullet. It was the mild heart attack and emphysema that had landed him in this bed—all brought on by his incessant smoking. “You have the information to lock up a killer for life. You’ll probably go to jail as an accessory. And you don’t want me to getinvolved? Loretta’s parents died because of you and your shady partners!”
Stephen looked gray and old in his wrinkled hospital gown, with his thinning hair disheveled instead of in its usual hair-sprayed glory. His tobacco-stained hand reached for a pocket that wasn’t there. “When John Post first came to me, he said his mother owned all that land and wanted to know what it was worth. I had no reason to doubt him. I made a few phone calls, learned the town wanted it for development.”
He took a sip of water and stalled. Jax waited him out, not helping.
Grimacing, Stephen continued. “It was a simple business deal, bringing the right people together. I figured I could make Post and a lot of other people a bundle. My loudest debtors are contractors, easily held off with a dangling carrot. They were all gung-ho. I called in a few more and helped them put together Lakeland. They quit yelling for my head and started planning the development.”
“And then Post discovered he didn’t own the land after all,” Jax added when Stephen didn’t continue.
He nodded wearily. “I’m not sure what set him off, but he got spooked.”
Jax was starting to believespookedmight be the reality and not a euphemism. If he believed Evie, her great-grandmother probably came back as a ghost to haunt him for selling the family land.
Stephen continued shakily. “John got his hands on some deed and asked Titan to tell him what it covered. The others had put up considerable stakes to buy the property on his promise to sell. We had cash in hand. But John wouldn’t formalize the sale until he knew what he was selling.”
“He visited Afterthought as a child.” Evie spoke up quietly. “He recognized Witch Hill.”