The aura nodded. “They locked door.”
But it wasn’t locked now that Granny was gone. Unable to get more comprehensive answers, Evie pocketed the ring box, opened herself to the energy, and assisted the now-relieved spirit to the next plane.
Absorbing all that foreign essence always left her drained. She leaned on Jax as he helped her out of the office.
“Text Reuben to wipe that security camera,” he muttered as he hurried her down the hall. “That looks an awful lot like theft.”
“The ring belongs to the former occupant of 552, who wants to leave it to her granddaughter. We should stop and ask the current resident if she knew who had the apartment before her.”
Evie sent the text to Reuben while Jax pondered the wisdom of her demand. Yeah, she knew it would expose them. But she was into asking questions.
Jax was more nefarious. “I’ll have Reuben see if he can find the home’s resident lists. They probably have files. Let’s not clue anyone into our activities if we can avoid it.”
“I don’t like carrying around a stolen ring,” she complained as he half-dragged her back to the elevator.
“You’d still have to carry it even after you knocked on doors. You just want to chat.”
Well, yeah. She needed a better handle on a facility that had a thief for a nurse and residents who helped themselves to anything that wasn’t nailed down.
* * *
“My grandmother’sdoctor said she called him about flu-like symptoms. He told her antibiotics wouldn’t be effective, and she should take aspirin and stay hydrated, that he could send her an electrolyte solution, if she wanted, but she refused.” Stacey sobbed into her tissue.
“Suicides don’t call for medical help.” Jax kept their client distracted as Evie slipped off to talk to Granny.
The ring escapade fretted at his thirst for justice. Evie had essentially stolen a ring—at the behest of a ghost? But it was the possibility that a nurse had stolen it first that had his gut clenching.
Stacey stopped sniffing to think about that. “You think it was accidental?”
“Unless she had dementia, not accidental.” He hated saying that, but she had to understand the danger here.
Stacey froze. “You think someonedeliberatelyput anti-freeze in her food?”
“Drink would be more likely, I’d think. Sweet stuff, like Gatorade.” Jax tried not to pace.
“She kept soft drinks and such in the refrigerator to serve her friends. How would anyone know which bottle to poison if they meant to kill her?” She didn’t seem any happier with the idea of murder.
“If the residents are in the habit of sharing bottles of drink, someone might have deliberately handed her a doctored bottle when she was visiting elsewhere. Or an alternative—there was one case where a woman murdered her husband by feeding him poisoned gelatin in the hospital when he didn’t die from the first dose.”
Stacey looked horrified. “Granny hadfruit gelatinpackages in her pantry. She knew better than to eat wasted calories, but she still made the stuff. Could someone have poisoned her salad?”
Hell, he shouldn’t have mentioned that. “Did you throw out any salad when you cleaned the fridge?”
She shook her head and wiped her eyes, but she finally seemed to be thinking again.
“If the doctor told your grandmother to drink more, the killer could have kept handing her poisoned bottles. I doubt there was anything you could have done even if you’d been here. Did the coroner’s report mention the contents of her stomach?”
Jax wondered what Evie was doing in the back bedroom with Granny’s ghost. He didn’t even know if Stacey understood what it was that Evie did. It wasn’t as if he could explain.Hestill didn’t quite believe it but walking right to that ring had raised his hackles.
Stacey shuddered. “No. The detective just barged in and asked to see the kitchen and got angry when I told him I threw out everything except the unopened cans and packages in her pantry, which I gave away.”
“What else was in the fridge?”
“Old packages of condiments and bottles of drink. I even drank some of the water! Why would any of those nice old people kill my grandmother? She was helping them!”
“You knew she was helping them?” Jax didn’t glance at the camera Roark had planted. At some point, they needed to collect the equipment before the apartment was leased to someone else.
“Gran said the staff was always pilfering small things. She had a way of tracking down the culprits and demanding them back. She never really adjusted to retirement, but her heart was bad, and she couldn’t do anything any more active. I asked the doctor if she suffered much before she died. He said the poison probably just exacerbated her condition, and that she probably died peacefully.” Stacey rubbed her face and appeared a little more relieved reminding herself of that.