Page 75 of The Aura Answer
If she got it wrong, they’d put her in jail. Hating the idea of scatter-brained Evie raising Aster...
Her child couldn’t live in a world run by killers.
She had to do it. Concentrating, she levitated the easel closest to Judge Rhodes and flung frame and easel at the back of his head.
He stumbled and hit the floor.
Twenty-Eight
Nick watchedin astonishment as the large, framed mantel collage,plusthe easel it rested on, literallyflewat the fleeing judge. The ghost had learned to do more than wail and create wind? Because that wasn’t a wind—no actual draft blew through the hall.
Remembering the evening in Gracie’s cottage and books and shelves that had righted themselves—He glanced back at Gracie, who slid down the wall and covered her eyes.
Right. Catch a killer, Nick. Discover insanity later.While everyone else froze, he eased closer to Rhodes’s prostrate form in his fancy blue suit, now coated in dust from the dirty floor. Did he sit on him?
Before anyone could act, Mayor Larraine sailed up the front stairs in all her glory, an ermine boa at her throat and a fur-trimmed red pantsuit skimming her curves—red hot Mrs. Claus or jolly elf?
Beside her walked the timid farm woman he’d seen at the Barn—Bertie’s mother. With her hair brushed into a tight bun and wearing a loose-knit sweater too large for her and a wool skirt that brushed her shins, Mrs. Walker appeared terrified.
Rightly so. The instant Larraine pushed past Roark into the rotunda, the air turned frigid. If he believed the women... the former mayor’s ghost?
“My, my, Rhodesy, crawling on your belly where you belong?” the mayor sang cheerfully as the judge attempted to push up on one elbow. “Don’t bother getting up for little ol’ me, although you might want to show respect to Mrs. Walker here. She’s been through a lot, what with both her boys gone.”
Near the back stairs, Rhodes wobbled to his knees and reached for his coat pocket. Worried, Nick eased closer.
On the other side of the rotunda, Evie screamed, “His aura is fiery, duck!”
Closest to Larraine and Mrs. Walker, Jax and Roark pushed them to cover. Given excuse to take action, Nick reacted instinctively. He tackled the judge and toppled him again.
For his efforts, a gun exploded in his ear.
Deafened, he still recognized distant shrieks. The suited man beneath him struggled and cursed. Without considering how the law would look on assaulting an officer of the court, Nick plowed his fist into the jaw of the shooter who’d nearly taken off his ear.
Rhodes flattened. Apparently, Nick’s pub days hadn’t been wasted. Coughing on the stench of gunpowder, he rolled off and onto his back while shaking his head to clear his ringing ears. Before he could stand, Gracie fell on him, weeping. Was he dead? Maybe he was now one of Evie’s ghosts. Except Gracie felt pretty damned alive, and he was responding accordingly.
“Good job, Gladwell.” The sheriff spoke roughly as he snapped handcuffs on the unconscious judge.
Only then did Nick realize the screams and commotion had escalated. Holding one hand to his ear and the other around Gracie’s waist, he rolled her off him so he could sit up. “What happened?”
Gracie propped him up so he could observe the spectacle. She was whispering, but he couldn’t hear through the ringing.
Behind Jax and Roark against the far wall, Larraine and Mrs. Walker covered their mouths in shock. They weren’t looking at Rhodes and his gun, as they damned well ought to be. The judge was a menace to everyone here.
At least the sheriff had the sense to remove the judge’s gun while calling for backup and an ambulance. An ambulance? Nick didn’t think he’d broken any bones. He glanced at Rhodes, who’d woken and started sobbing. He looked whole.
Everyone else was looking elsewhere than at Rhodes as well. Shaking his head to clear the confusion, Nick followed their gazes to the railing where the cowboy-booted developer had been standing earlier.
Roark and Jax abandoned Larraine and ran down the stairs, which gave him a cold chill. Nick swiveled his gaze back to the railing. Evie stood there, arguing into her phone—or talking to ghosts? She didn’t appear worried about Jax, just harassed—and maybe a little shocked?
Was the railingbroken?
He could hear Reuben shouting below. Larraine’s bodyguard had arrived and wasn’t happy about something.
“My ears are ringing,” Nick told Gracie when she tried to explain whatever was happening.
Tears crawled down her cheeks and she spoke louder. “It was a big gun. You could have been killed!”
A big gun. A judge with a big gun. Right. The world kept spinning.
