Jax heard another text swish and set his mug down hard to hide it. “Hey, Ted, you gonna let grandma do the dirty deed again? If that gun is traceable to you, the cops will be all over you. They’re already getting close.”
Grandma scoffed. “It’s not licensed any more than the others were. I bought a case of them back in the day. I taught Teddy how to use one when he was just a pup. He’s got more of me in him than any of the rest. Gus near fainted when I threw the dynamite down the hole. The stupid-ass shit thought he’d simplythreatenyour father into dropping his suit.”
“That’s my dad you’re talking about, Grandmother. Maybe if you’d listened to him, we wouldn’t be here now.” From the other room, Teddy sounded almost reasonable.
“Tell me you’re kidding, boy.” She glanced over her shoulder. “You think we could threaten this jackass into leaving us alone? You want to buy him off, with what?”
While she was looking elsewhere, Jax flung his full mug of hot coffee at Grandma’s head and dived to the floor, twisting her pistol-packing arm in the same motion. Like most old ladies, Grandma was fragile, with poor balance, particularly on heels. Her wrist weakened as she howled, staggered, and grabbed at her scalded head. The gun hit the floor, and Jax knocked it in the direction of the desk.
He was under no illusion that Teddy had arrived unarmed.
Furious, Grandma kicked at Jax with the full force of her two-hundred-plus pounds. Instinctively, he rolled, and with the sole of his shoe, slammed her wobbly ankles. Off-balance already, she crashed on top of him.
Bullets flew over his head until Teddy realized his target was on the floor and buried under his grandmother.
“Shoot him, asshole,” the old woman shouted, attempting to right herself. “Shoot the bastard and let’s get outta here.”
“Oh, look, Jax, her aura is a black hole where the ghosts of the people she’s killed are gathering. Does this mean I should shoot her? Or Teddy?” Evie’s voice purred from beneath the desk, but the hands steadily gripping grandma’s.22 visibly protruded, aimed at the howling woman on the floor.
“Your face is coming off,” Evie added apologetically to the older woman. “Coffee melts all that waxy stuff.”
Grandma howled more, scraping at her burned face—which couldn’t be badly burned, protected as it was by layers of cosmetics. The blond wig, however, was a loss.
The howls almost hid the pounding of heavy feet retreating across the outer office.
Instead of saving his grandma, Teddy slammed the outer door in his flight.So much for looking after family, coward.
Shoving off grandma’s weight, Jax rolled from under her and placed a knee on Marilyn Swenson’s back while hanging on to one of her flailing arms. “Don’t suppose you brought the draperies and ties over, did you?”
“You’re the one plotting, not me. But Troy will have handcuffs.” Evie popped out from under the desk, dangling the pistol on one finger. “I don’t like this thing. Let me sit on her.”
The madwoman wailed and struggled some more. Unsympathetic to her age, Jax yanked her arm harder. Evie sat on her legs so she’d quit trying to roll over.
“You called Troy?”
“I’m really liking not having to shriek to bring him running. Even operatic high notes are hard to project beyond walls. That should be him now. He wasn’t far away.” Evie pried off granny’s high heel and smacked it against a thrashing hand grabbing at her. “It’s probably not right to abuse a madwoman, is it? Her aura is totally twisted.”
“Helloooo, everyone all right up there?” a high-pitched voice distinctly not Troy’s called. “Is it safe to come up?”
“Larraine, you didn’t happen to run into Teddy Swenson down there, did you?” Evie called back.
Jax thought maybe he should pound his head against something hard, but the only available object was Grandma Swenson’s head, and he’d had to shove it against the floor to keep her from beating her brains out.
“The nice sheriff has him in cuffs. Your mama’s here, and a whole bunch of others. I don’t want to lead them into a nest of nastiness.” Ward’s voice was closer now, apparently not really afraid of nests of anything.
“Remind me again why I’m staying in this madhouse?” Jax murmured to Evie.
“Because after this is all over, you can take me to Charleston for a nice dinner?” she suggested.
Oh, yeah, that was a reason he could buy into—an overnighter in the sanity of a city with creative Evie. Holding grandma in place, Jax leaned back and kissed Evie’s cheek, the only part of her he could reach from this position.
He didn’t even mind when Larraine Ward in pink feathers and heels invaded his office, trailing a posse of Malcolms, with Reuben holding cord ties bringing up the rear.
Twenty-four
“TVs are a menace to society.”Evie leaned back against the billiard table where a smorgasbord of munchies was congregating. She crunched a carrot stick coated in a decadent asparagus dip. Her cousin Pris’s catering was heading upscale. “I never wanted one in my house.”
“It’s in the cellar, not the house.” Reuben adjusted the angle of the big screen against the far wall. “If you want to admire our videos, it’s gotta be large enough to appreciate.”