Jax grimaced and set aside his beer. “Get the autopsy report and assure her granddaughter she died in her sleep or whatever and give it up.”
“Stacey said her granny had a heart condition. The doc saw nothing suspicious, but they have to send her to the coroner ’cause no one was with her when she died, and the body was there a while. Happens all the time in those places.” Reuben filled a bowl with chips, covered them with salsa, and added shredded cheese.
“Stacey could probably sue the home if they were supposed to have staff checking on her,” Jax suggested.
Evie loved his intelligence and integrity, and he was a hero in bed, but he simply couldn’t lose his uptight lawyer attitude. She poked his ankle with her bare toe. “Granny’s ghost mentioned someone whose annuity check was stolen and a housekeeper she got fired. There was a Laura Evans who lived in the Azalea Apartments who complained about not receiving her pension money, and a housekeeper by the name of Carmela Jones was fired around the same time. If Granny mentioned both incidents, I’ll guess there’s a connection—and not a Nigerian one. I am not completely clueless. I can ask questions.”
“Those old ladies talk like nobody’s business,” Reuben agreed. “But they got sharp memories. Laura Evans died this past year. And there ain’t no Carmela Jones in any database anywhere. The social security number she used was a fake. Cleaning service didn’t work too hard verifying it. Half their staff are illegals. So Granny might have complained, and the cleaning service fired a Jones, but the home has no record of it.”
“And that doesn’t explain all Granny’s computers or the utility bills and bank statements of strangers. The pension annuity case might have been the reason she went over the edge and put her investigative skills to work, but how’s an eighty-year-old retired FBI agent supposed to hack hackers, if that’s what she was doing?” Evie nibbled her chip and tried to work her head around it.
“Lawfully,” Jax suggested. “What did you find when you traced the names on all the bills her granddaughter found?”
“Far’s we can tell, they’re real people,” Reuben responded. “Some died recently. Some are in Alzheimer homes. All of them got hacked or phished, and their info is floating out there on the darknet for pennies. I haven’t traced them all. Weird thing is, Granny used VPN on all those devices. That means she didn’t want anyone tracingher. How many grannies know to do that?”
“What’s VPN?” Evie hated proving she was dumber than grannies.
“Virtual Private Network,” both Reuben and Jax replied, showing off.
Jax did the explaining, keeping it simple. “You install it on your computer to keep websites and so forth from knowing where you are. It’s used a lot more in other countries where they use it to fool networks into thinking they’re in Australia instead of Asia, for instance.”
“Huh.” Evie nibbled at a chip but couldn’t think of any good reason to use such a thing. But then, she had nothing to hide.
Reuben plowed his way through his chips. “Maybe we should pay some visits to the local addresses. Why’d she need real people? Not making much sense unless she was scamming.”
Evie lit up. “There were a few Savannah addresses in there. Loretta’s birthday is coming up. We can combine shopping and ghost hunting. I can take Loretta to the stores. Stacey gave me keys to the apartment. I can go back and see if Granny’s ghost will talk some more. And we can check out some addresses while we’re there, see what kind of places they are, and do some snooping.”
Jax reached over and knuckled her head. “Google maps, Madame Psychic. Just look up the address and zoom in. An internet search will probably turn up neighborhood statistics and networks. Reuben can do that with one hand behind his back.”
Evie smacked his invading fingers away. “How do you know this stuff? Shouldn’t you be defending the innocent or something?”
“Until I met you, criminal fraud was my specialty. I kept R&R around for the hard work. I’m trying to stick to less dangerous stuff for Loretta’s sake. You might want to try the same.”
Evie grimaced. Much as she adored her macho man, she and Jax would never be on the same page. They came from different worlds, with different expectations.Securityandsafetyweren’t in her lexicon. “Not too many months ago, you thought me and my family were the frauds. If anyone can expose scammers, it ought to be me. I know how people think, and I can almost literally see right through the crooks. I want to go to Savannah.Youstay here and babysit. Or I can take Loretta with us and go shopping.”
“She’s got a point, lawyer man. You grok bankers and brokers. We grok con artists and scammers. It would be cool if we could track some phishers to their nest and let the cops loose on them. Barring legal means, if we find anything, I can use ransomware to freeze computers and hack criminal bank accounts. No danger there. I’ll go down and check out these addresses. Google don’ know everything. Have the kid ready in the morning.” Reuben unbent his lengthy frame from the porch steps and tossed his empty beer can at the recycle bin.
“You could at least wait until you have the autopsy report on the FBI agent,” Jax shouted after him. “If the old lady was murdered, the crooks might be more than scammers! And look how Roark’s fishing expedition turned out.”
“Roark was dealing with his dad. Not the same.” Reuben disappeared into the darkness. The doors to the cellar creaked and slammed after him.
Evie leaned over and patted Jax’s hand. “Would you like it if we toldyouwhat cases to take?”
He growled, finished his beer, and appeared to think about it. Tossing the can, he stood, grabbed her by the waist, and lifted her from the chair. “I’d like to think I’d not take a dangerous case if you asked it of me, but that’s theoretical. I just don’t like you going off without me. Reuben is more careful than Roark, but his standards aren’t mine.”
Evie wrapped her arms around him and leaned her head against his shoulder. “Give me credit for brains to match yours, okay? I may not have book learning, but I know things you don’t. And I’ll never take chances with Loretta.”
He squeezed her close. “I may know that intellectually, but sometimes, the gut gnaws. And I’ve seen you in action, remember? I don’t want you jumping any more bad guys!”
“I only jumped you because you were cute.” She kissed his ear, released him, and dragged him inside.
Moving Loretta to the attic left the second floor nicely unoccupied. And once Jax had moved into her bedroom, he’d bought a room air conditioner so they didn’t swelter on hot summer nights. Maybe she’d keep him a little longer.
Her life had certainly improved since he’d showed up last spring. She just worried that he’d give up on her eccentric lifestyle once he recovered from the blows the Universe had delivered recently.Shemight bounce back, but Loretta was starting to count on having parents again.
“We ought to clean out the master suite in the tower, leave your room for guests,” Jax suggested as they entered her childhood bedroom.
“What, and leave me no pine tree to climb down?” But Evie’s heart did a little dance. Apparently, he hadn’t tired of her eccentricity yet. Cleaning out Aunt Val’s old room would take an army.