“Nah, he was probably just trying to intimidate you. You got nothing out of him?” He couldn’t believe he’d just asked that. She really had him running hot.
Jax rummaged in the computer desk and produced a bottle of bourbon and a box of cookies. He needed the bourbon to counteract his admission that she just might have sent a ghost to hell. Her insights this evening had been more than peculiar. And the electrical energy... Big Weird. But he worried more about how it affected her physically. He kept an eye on her while he poured water into his new coffee machine.
Apparently not about to faint, Evie grabbed a handful of cookies and talked through a mouthful. “All I got was pure emotion—fury, regret, a desire for revenge, jealousy. He spiraled out of control. He’s probably been out of control for a while now, especially if he killed your parents in hopes of being governor someday.”
“Where the hell did that come from?” Jax sipped his bourbon and paced, fitting that suggestion into his theories. It almost made sense.
She finished chewing and shrugged. “I’ll remind you of Clancy’s words—‘The bitch! She promised me. She said I’d be governor. Lies! He’ll be president! I should be governor.’ Then he went on to add ‘I was good enough tokillfor them but not to marry them!’”
Jax winced. He’d been more concerned about concrete facts and hadn’t taken ghostly ranting too seriously. “You’re trying to make whole cloth out of loose threads.”
Evie nibbled another cookie. “Well, yeah. That’s what I do. Clancy lived in Savannah, knew your parents, and knew the Swensons. He was ambitious. So were they. If they learned your father was going after the newly formed DVM...” She straightened abruptly. “The partners at Stockton and Stockton found out that your father was Aaron Ives and fired him! They had himinvestigated, why? For the Swensons? There you are. Clancy had buddies at the law firm, knew the Swensons—”
Jax’s gut ground as he fixed tea for Evie. It almost made sense. “And one of them promised Clancy their support in a run for office if he’d dispose of the danger to their new voting machines.”
“But he saidbitch, as if it was a woman, not the senator. The one Clancy hoped to marry? Do we know anything about Gus’s sisters beyond the fact that they married oil barons?” She looked at him warily as he handed her the cup. “You’re actually accepting that I’m not making this up?”
Jax added coffee to his bourbon. “I can’t know what you do because it’s not an area anyone knows anything about. But that office was freezing until you did whatever you did. Geoff would have stonewalled like Swenson if you hadn’t nailed him with guilt. You knew Bernice was holding back when no one else did. It all adds up. I’m just not sure how. You’d have made a great lawyer.”
She snorted again and swished her tea, dipping a cookie in it. “All we need are computer chips to implant in my brain so I can access law books without opening them.”
“Yeah, there’s that. And most generally, lawyers don’t physically tackle their opponents by jumping off roofs on them, then nearly maim them with elbows and knees, before attempting to gouge out their eyes.” Evie had done all that and more the day they’d met. “We just think about it.”
She laughed. “You do more than think about it. You blew up people before settling down to an office. You tackled a gunman just a few months ago. I’m not seeing you as a desk jockey.” She seemed to be perking up a little with tea and sugar. “Should we check on Ariel, see if she’s okay?”
“Roark will head out there. It will take time before Swenson and DVM get their corporate acts together and attack with lawsuits. I don’t think Bernice or Larraine are our guilty parties, so it may be a while before Clancy’s killer comes after us. You should probably call your family and let them know where you are, though.” Jax sipped his coffee and leaned against his desk. They needed to sort out their next steps, he supposed, as long as sex didn’t look like it was in his immediate future.
Evie was actually wearing something besides short shorts, although stretch capris and a tank top did little to disguise her curves. With her orange curls falling in her face, she still looked like a grown-up, sexy Orphan Annie. He could kiss her now that the color was starting to return to her cheeks.
She dug a phone out of her back pocket and glanced at it. “It’s almost empty. I swear, ghosts drain batteries.”
Yeah, he was starting to think that too.
She punched in a text. Before she hit send, she glanced anxiously at the door.
The outer office door had opened. He’d had arms full of Evie and hadn’t locked it behind him.
He didn’t have time to open his gun safe. Jax yanked out his phone and located his security app. His battery was nearly dead too. He heard Evie’s message swish as she sent her text. The footsteps in reception didn’t hesitate or even attempt to be quiet.
Without being told, Evie dropped out of the chair, grabbed her bag of cookies, and crawled beneath his desk. Her steaming mug still sat on the bookshelf beside the chair, should anyone bother to notice.
With his camera revealing the intruder wasn’t a masked gunman, Jax didn’t cross the room to hide her tea. He remained leaning against the desk, sipping his coffee, as his private office door flew open.
Despite having seen her on his app, he almost dropped his mug at the reality of the crazed fury framed in the doorway.
She was large, broader, and heavier than he was and almost the same height. The heels and towering blond wig added to the illusion of stature. Jax thought her peach-colored gown was probably silk, with the padded shoulders of a prior century. Grandma Swenson could take a few fashion lessons from Larraine Ward.
“Your name isn’t Jackson,” was the first accusation out of her bright red lips.
“It is on my birth certificate,” he said civilly. “And you must be Marilyn Swenson, Teddy’s grandmother. Teddy, you can come out from hiding behind your grandmother’s skirts. I saw you come in.”
Grandma Swenson didn’t budge from the doorway. “Clancy told me you existed, but I didn’t believe him. Aaron Ives was an incredible pain in the ass. Seems like you’re a chip off the old block.”
Trained in combat, Jax knew how to slow his pulse and think, but his fear for Evie added an edge he couldn’t entirely control. “And we’re hard to kill, aren’t we?”
Seeing the woman in person pulled the pieces together. He wondered if Evie could see auras from beneath the desk. If he were to hazard a guess, he’d say former real estate mogul and wannabe Hollywood starlet Marilyn Swenson was the power behind the Swenson throne.
“Ives are too damned holier-than-thou, is what they are, and don’t tell me you aren’t one of them. I could have twisted that pansy lawyer Jackson around my little finger, but your asshole father and his squaw just wouldn’t leave well enough alone. He had a damned lucky escape. He should have learned his lesson and kept his mouth shut. You’d be a rich man today instead of a dead one.” She produced a.22 from her purse.