The cabinets were white and the countertop was battered green Formica, an oasis of sanity in her Day-Glo world, but not one his granite-and-stainless-steel upbringing could relate to. He checked the pantry and found no suspects crouched amid the canning jars—shecanned?
Refusing to be distracted from his purpose, he looked for another door.
“She’s gone,” Evangeline said, swinging lithely from the counter and following. “You won’t find her unless she wants to be found.”
Given the size of this old house and the number of stairways the kid could run up and down, Jax was afraid that was true. Still, he wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t call her bluff and check. Besides, against his will, he was starting to enjoy himself. Out of his element, his inquiring mind demanded he explore the genie’s jeweled cave.
He tried to concentrate on hiding places in the high-ceilinged back bedroom, but his attention was drawn to stacks of books, tarot card layouts, scattered CDs—“Puff the Magic Dragon”?—pillows in colors even Crayola didn’t know about. The bedroom screamed sixties.
The genie smirked. He wanted to bottle her.
“Here’s a rag, catch a few dust bunnies while you’re down there. My aunt hasn’t been home to clean her room in a while.” She dropped a shirt in front of his nose as he checked under the old-fashioned tester bed. The wood floors creaked beneath his weight.
“You ought to nail these planks to get rid of the squeaks.” Ignoring the tie-dyed rag, he stood and searched the wardrobe. The house was so old, it had no closets.
“What, and let thieves sneak up on me?” she mocked. “Next time we play hide and seek, I’ll know where you are with every step you take.”
Jax rubbed his nose and wondered if this was what it was like to have a headache—a nagging pain that wouldn’t go away. “Look, the kid isn’t even eleven. She’s taking the death of her parents hard. She hates school. And she’s playing you for a chump. Just tell me where she’s at, and I’ll address her concerns.”
Provided the Malcolms weren’t playinghimfor a chump. He’d know more about their business when Roark got back to him. For now, Jax erred on the side of reason. Or heeded the brain in his pants. Hard to tell after having his bones jumped and lovely ripe melons squashed against his chest. He would take this job more seriously if he was facing real danger.
Obviously, he didn’t get out of the office often enough.
“Judging by your aura, I doubt you’ll listen to her concerns.” She threw open the door to a bathroom smaller than his walk-in closet.
Aura?Crossing his arms in exasperation, Jax propped his shoulder on the door jamb and scanned the pint-sized tub designed for his pint-sized tormentor. Or her missing aunt.
“If you’re from Stockton and Stockton, Loretta thinks you’re trying to kill her,” she continued while his mind slid to naked genies in that tub.
The tub was aqua. As in, blue-green. The shower curtain was in both blue and green, starsandstripes. “Has your aunt ever considered a career in interior decorating?”
“Now that was just plain mean, not to mention an extremely poor diversionary tactic.” She swung on her sneakered heel—she woreKedsfor pity’s sake—and stalked down the dark hall in what should have been an angry huff, except she was too cute to take seriously.
“What do people normally say when accused of being a killer?” he called after her. He’d be damned if he’d share that cluttered living room with her. He’d end up listening to Peter, Paul, and Mary and having his palm read.
Which reminded him—he hadn’t searched the shop down the street. He suspected if he checked his text messages, Roark would have provided the family connection between the gray-haired eccentric at the shop and the ginger genie in here.
He removed his shoulder from the frame and debated between aiming for the front door or the upper story.
“She’s not at the agency,” his nemesis said calmly as he eyed the door she’d left open to the yard.
“Who, Loretta or the brilliant mind-reader who called me a magician?”
“That’s my mother. She judged you rightly, didn’t she? You stir trouble. Even I’m not likely to find Loretta if you continue turning the town inside out.”
“And I should believe you, why?” Although, amazingly, he did. Jax studied that realization instead of walking out. Normally, he had good people instincts. He’d been jumped on, pummeled, kicked, nearly arrested, and otherwise made a fool of by this miniature Barbie. So why in all that was holy would he listen to the flake?
“Because Loretta trusts me and fears you,” his tormentor responded without a hint of inflection, answering his internal question as well as his stated one.
Jax itched to push her buttons in the way he knew best, but he’d learned to resist temptation. Instead, he watched her flip a tarot card on the coffee table and tried to get a grip on who she was and what she was hiding. It was his job to understand people, and he was damned good at it.
She grimaced and shuffled the deck. She wasn’t even looking at him.That’swhat was bothering him—she wasn’t the least bit worried. Sheknewhe wouldn’t find the kid, even if he tore the house apart.
Despite all the hysterical melodrama, the sarcasm, the cleavage exposure, the seemingly bubble-brained Evangeline Malcolm haddeliberatelyplotted every single solitary step to give the devil child a chance to escape. She hadn’t even objected to his searching the house, because it gave Loretta more time to get far, far away.Damn.
“You’re a witch, you know that?” Jax shut the front door, threw a stack of Neil Diamond tapes out of a papa-san chair, and gingerly perched on the circular bamboo edge, praying the rickety basket wouldn’t tilt and dump him on the floor. If the kid was upstairs, she’d have to come down sometime.
“So I’ve been told.” Evangeline shrugged and settled cross-legged on a battered shag rug as if she had all the time in the world. “What’s your excuse?”