Evie threw a biscuit at his over-sized nerd head as he reached in the refrigerator for the orange juice. “Bigot. Truth is, getting anyone around here to dance is a challenge. People just drink and watch. And they need to be drunk before they can be persuaded onto a dance floor. Since we’re not serving alcohol at a birthday party, we’ll leave it to the kids to work out.”
“It’s like folk dancing.” Loretta didn’t sound perturbed by the argument. “My gym teacher likes folk dancing. Do you think she can teach us line dancing?”
With his head in the refrigerator, Reuben replied, “I can teach you line dancing.”
Evie grinned and winked at Loretta. “Larraine loves dancing.”
* * *
Six months ago,Jax had been living in a high-end condo, driving a classic XKE, and working toward a partnership in an uptown Savannah law office. The woman following him out on the porch, leaving everyone else to wash the dishes, had completely flipped his life on end.
“You’re out of sorts,” Evie said, leaning into him with a hug and kiss. “Can I help?”
And there was the reason he was now living in a Victorian money pit and riding a Harley and working with farmers in the back of nowhere. Jax hugged her harder and claimed a more satisfying kiss.
“What color is my aura today?” he asked once they stepped back so he could don his helmet. He still took Evie’s so-called abilities with a cellar of salt, but she was eerily accurate too often to ignore.
“Your fifth chakra is a gray-blue, very unusual for you. Are you horribly unhappy to give up your fancy law job for us?”
He never knew what she was seeing when she studied him like that. With her carrot curls and wearing orange short shorts and a T-shirt proclaimingEveryone was thinking it, I just said it, she looked like an empty-headed teenager. No one would realize that behind the costume hid an all-knowing Sibyl.
“Protective coloration,” he decided, ruffling her hair. “You can get away with asking questions like that and people simply think you’re off-the-wall instead of damned scary.”
“Pris has the corner on scary, and you’re avoiding the question. Will you have time today to follow up the leads about the nursing home and services, or should I have Reuben take me back to Savannah where I do my thing? Does that have anything to do with what’s bothering you?”
“I’ll do some preliminary research when I have time. And I take back anything I said about buying a Miata if you plan on using it to poke around places harboring potential criminals. I’m the expert on danger, not you.”
She brightened. “Ah, there we go! You want to be out playing superhero instead of pushing papers. You can do both, you realize. Just compartmentalize and choose only cases that push your buttons. No one here is asking you to be rich or ambitious.”
“You are a dangerous female.” Jax left her grinning like a Cheshire cat. Living with Sibyl had its moments.
Choose his cases.Nice thought, except clients weren’t battering down the door to offer him the ones he wanted. He wanted the cases suing the former mayor, Arthur Block, for the assorted land frauds he’d perpetrated that had almost cost Evie’s family the property that had been theirs for centuries.
He parked his bike in the alley behind his office. In a way, not having his pricey Jag made life simpler. He didn’t need a secure garage or even a regular parking space.
After leaving his helmet in his office and checking his lackluster email, he walked over to the county courthouse—another example of his simpler life. Not having to drive half an hour in traffic to reach his office or the courthouse gave him extra time for more interesting pursuits.
Like finding out how many people wanted the former mayor’s ass in a sling and which ones hadn’t hired attorneys yet.
Admittedly, unless ex-Mayor Block had good insurance, there wasn’t much money in this case. And suing the town wouldn’t win anyone’s heart. But a lot of people like Evie’s mom had lost their homes to an eminent domain that had failed to produce the pharmacy promised. There ought to be reparations.
Suing the town to get the pharmacy seemed reasonable. So he looked up that file as well. Suing for his father’s patents was satisfying, but he didn’t know patent law. He needed fraud cases.
Once he’d satisfied his curiosity and itch for action, he returned to his office to work on Evie’s case. Reuben could probably handle this, but Jax had had a client who’d sued a nursing home recently. He’d won him a substantial settlement and learned a bit about the industry in the process.
Like Evie, he couldn’t hack computers, but he could talk to people.
She’d been calling him the Hulk and the Magician since they’d met. More recently, she’d called him a superhero. He didn’t know what she was seeing that he didn’t, but her appreciation restored a modicum of the self-confidence he’d lost in these past years of turmoil.
At his computer, Jax composed a letter to victims of the town’s eminent domain disaster, then another to the unrepresented people flattened by the former mayor’s development company fraud. He’d never had to hunt business before. If he had to do it now, it would be the kind of business that interested him.
Then he turned his attention to Savannah nursing homes. He knew most were businesses run by experienced people who meant well. And they employed hundreds of caring, skilled workers. But the baby boomer generation was providing a boom in the retirement home industry, and the more people employed, the higher the chance of hiring bad apples. Throw in the profit motive... corners got cut.
Reuben had sent him the names of the rehab home and the home nursing service working with Mrs. Decker, the lady expecting a million-dollar prize. The companies were, probably not coincidentally, the same ones a Mrs. Lopez and a Mr. Wong had used, two of Marlene Gump’s stolen—or borrowed—identities.
The rehabilitation home was a small, private one, not one of the big corporate entities he’d dealt with. Rats. That complicated life.
The home-nursing service was owned by the same people, Sunshine Healthcare—not surprising. Once a company obtained government approval for accepting Medicare, they could expand quickly—if they had financial backing. This place wasn’t publicly listed, so financial documents weren’t easily attainable.