Page 9 of The Aura Answer
“My battery is about to run out. Why don’t you put on a Christmas cartoon movie for Aster and the twins and ask if you can run over and buy some candy canes for the tree? I’ll be there as soon as I can. We can play Christmas music and finish the decorating.”
Loretta’s late parents had not been a frivolous, kid-friendly couple. Evie wanted to give her ward the Christmas Loretta never had as a rich kid, the kind with sleigh bells ringing and ho-ho-ho in every corner. This was not a good start to the season.
As she put her phone away, Jax greeted the forensic team ascending the stairs. Her lawyer man had an uncanny ability to know everyone in officialdom, even though he’d lived here for less than a year.
She didn’t have much time before they kicked her out.
Steeling herself, Evie concentrated on what little she could see of Toby’s dad. She owed her old boyfriend that much.
Ghosts didn’t usually manifest immediately after death. Bertie had apparently been deceased for a few days, Block, only a few hours. But the former mayor’s spirit lingered. He hadn’t moved on. She could see an unhealthy brown and a bit of yellow and green, not his usual colors. But she couldn’t associate them with any chakra since she couldn’t see much more than his feet.
Spirits normally lingered because they’d left something undone. After her last experience with one who clung to her...
She really didn’t want Block’s disagreeable personality focusing on her. Before the sheriff could throw her out, she crossed back to Jax. “Let’s go home.”
Four
Avoiding family chaos,Jax had dropped Evie at home earlier and gone back to his office to verify the mayor and the judges had escaped safely. He’d grown accustomed to thinking of Evie’s old Victorian as home, except these days, it had become some kind of mad boarding house. But he had to go in sometime. He parked his Harley beside the carriage house and let himself in the back door.
Entering the warm kitchen, he savored the aroma of fresh-baked cookies. Evie’s cousin Priscilla removed a baking sheet from the oven while instructing his cousin Dante’s twins in decorating with icing. They were only five. The results were predictably disastrous.
But after the day he’d spent, children, cookies, and baking were a welcome relief. Snatching an undecorated ginger snap, avoiding Pris’s towel swat, Jax aimed for the stairs, hoping to make himself presentable before dinner.
He couldn’t slip past the eagle eye of his ward. Loretta flew out of the front parlor dangling a particularly disreputable tin angel.
“This needs to go on top and we can’t reach it!” she cried. At eleven, she was practicing for her adolescent drama years.
Childish laughter, women’s voices, and a professional chorus warbling “We Three Kings”—probably from the aging tape deck—spilled into the hall from the parlor. Jax had wanted to wash up and remove his bloody bandages first, but he couldn’t deny Loretta’s plea.
She was so not the pig-tailed, uniformed, boarding school nerd she once was. Today, she wore a hokey red Christmas sweater with a blinking Rudolph on front, probably purchased in a thrift store. Her purple glasses frames were practically falling off her nose, and artificial snow adorned her messy, shoulder-length, brown hair.
He took the dented angel with a bent halo. Evie was teaching him to show affection, so he squeezed Loretta’s shoulder as they entered the parlor. His adoptive parents hadn’t been much on hugs, so he was rusty but learning.
Evie teetered precariously on a battered stepstool, trying to replace a dead bulb in a string of old-fashioned Christmas lights. In bright green leggings and an equally ridiculous red sweater that clashed with her sunset hair, she looked like a sexy elf.
Crossing the room, lifting her off the steps, and relishing soft curves, he asked, “Is there nothing in this house under a half-century old?”
“Me,” she replied chirpily. “Ilikethese old bulbs. They’re traditional.”
“So are candles, but I don’t see you hanging those.” Kissing her cheek, he set her down and climbed the precarious stool to shove the treetop up the angel’s... gown. Angels probably didn’t have asses. “Is this pathetic creature the Malcolm version of the Nature Goddess or are you trying to prove to your neighbors that you’re good normal Christians who believe angels come with broken wings and tattered gowns?”
“We are not arguing what makes a Christian tonight.” Evie handed up the replacement bulb. “Tell us what happened to Mayor Block before gossip balloons into conspiracy theory.”
At her question, the music snapped off mid-alleluia. No longer focused on his assigned task, Jax noted the entire family had gathered—Evie’s mother, aunts, cousins, and even her sister Gracie with her daughter. This was serious business.
They’d all been marching in the streets earlier. They looked like an innocent collection of homemakers gathered around the tree now. There was nothing innocent about them—except maybe Gracie and her daughter. The schoolteacher did not often participate in the rest of the family’s mischief.
He should be wary that none of these women had husbands or fathers in their lives. They were strong women who forged on without men, not dainty Southern belles who needed to be protected. He wasn’t entirely certain how he fit in except as occasional muscle.
“Aster, honey, why don’t you help the twins decorate cookies?” Catching his expression, Gracie ushered her daughter out of the room.
Evie kissed his scruffy jaw, handed him a candy cane, and brought him back to the question. “Someone shot Block from the attic, didn’t they?”
Shaking off his weird thoughts, Jax hugged her and leaned against the mullion window frame to study the decidedly lopsided evergreen. Sometimes, the world looked better through blinking lights.
“Yeah,” he admitted. “Weird angle, lucky shot, but it definitely came from the attic. Your homeless Bertie made too much of a mess up there to distinguish footprints. Sheriff is testing for fingerprints.”
“In guano?” Evie made a face.
