The professor nodded. “With water, if you don’t have ice. I’m supposed to be cutting back.”
Jax cracked ice out of his mini-fridge. It wasn’t possible to survive a summer surrounded by cotton fields without ice. “Stacey nag you into seeing a physician or just practical policy?”
“The power of suggestion should never be underestimated. I had a little episode last night and went to urgent care. They made a few recommendations and urged me to see a cardiologist. I want to know how Miss Carstairs recognized the symptoms.”
Power of suggestion... Evie could very well have the ability to instigate heart attacks, but she wouldn’t. She’d simply been reading Gump’schakras. Anything else was on Gump.
“That’s not why you’re here.” Jax handed Marlene’s son a tumbler and settled behind his desk with water. “Evie gave you free advice. It was your choice to take it.”
Gump glowered and sipped his drink. “I’ve been looking at the material your crew compiled.”
“Evie’s crew,” Jax corrected. “I’m just their attorney.”
“You were once their military officer. You can’t tell me they operate without your direction.”
Jax laughed. “I can and I will. R&Rneverfollowed my orders. They’re tech geniuses who think all the world is a video game with codes they can crack. What is it you want from them?”
“They’ve already done more than enough. None of their evidence is permissible in court. It will take us months to compile a legal case. If you want to save them a lot of grief, divert them elsewhere. It’s extremely dangerous for private citizens to poke around in the criminal underworld—as my mother discovered, to our great loss.”
Ah, so the man was definitely a fed. Jax sat back in his chair and shrugged. Terror might twist his gut at this warning, but Evie and R&R would never stop unless they saw justice done. And he wouldn’t stand in their way, no matter how much he wanted to. “We’ve already been warned.”
“And yet Ms. Carstairs is poking around Sunshine offices as we speak. Hacking computers and using illegal research bases is one thing, personally stepping into a viper’s nest is another.”
She was doingwhat? Jax controlled his shiver and wished he’d poured bourbon for himself. Instead, he stoically defended her. “As you’ve seen, only Evie can do what Evie does. Without her, we would never have known what your mother was investigating or that she’d been murdered.”
“If she isn’t part of the solution, then she’s part of the problem. I’m not buying ghosts. You need to pull her out of Savannah and leave the investigation to professionals.”
“The same professionals who ignored Marlene’s warnings and allowed her to die? Why would anyone trust you?” Jax hadn’t believed in ghosts either, but whatever Evie did, it worked, however weirdly.
Gump drained his glass and stood up. “If we take up this investigation and any of you interfere, I’ll have you arrested for obstructing justice. The bar won’t look lightly on a federal charge. I’ll see myself out.”
Well, so much for hoping Gump might help.
* * *
Sittingon the hood of Evie’s shiny black Subaru in Ariel’s driveway, Roark bit into his sub sandwich. He grimaced when Reuben held up a digital notebook and shouted in excitement at the info downloading from a flash drive.
“Holy craptastic, look at this dirt Evie dug! How did a retired old lady federal agent end up in a nest of gangsters?” Reuben’s scarred black face was transfixed in awe.
If anyone dug dirt, it should have been R&R, not an amateur.
But as long as he was stuck here... He had some weird notion that if Ariel got used to all of them hanging around, she might join them. Proved his stupidity.
“Oh, c’mon now, Reuben,” Evie called from Ariel’s porch, where she was feeding Mitch Isa Turtle bits from her dinner. Evie had no compunction about disturbing their hostess. “You know Granny suspected they were rotten before she moved in there. She wasn’t ready to retire.”
Roark appreciated that Evie and Reuben kept him clued in on the team’s work, even though he’d been pursuing his own goals. But he suspected Jax had been the instigation for this particular visit. The lawyer was wrapped in a black cloud even he could see.
“Get over heah were we don’ have to shout and bother our hostess,” Roark ordered.
Evie grabbed his sleeping bag from the porch and dragged it over to the car so she had a place to sit. “Ariel knows how to turn off cameras. You just don’t want her to hear.”
“Not if I gotta fight wit’ her brother. He’s got his official face on.” Roark bit into his sandwich and waited expectantly.
They’d all arrived in Evie’s new car so as not to connect Roark’s van with Ariel’s hideaway. Roark took that as a good sign that they were still a team. He wanted a team to keep Ariel safe.
“What have you done that requires fighting?” Jax had a way of sounding unperturbed even when he was in a rage.
“What color is he right now?” Roark asked Evie.