Page 51 of The Aura Answer
“Toby can’t hear or see you. Only I can. He’s asking about your binder. If Turlock has it, how can Toby get it back?”
His aura grew muddier. Evie waited.
Contains will and deeds,he finally said.Belongs to family. Theft.
Evie tried to follow that train of thought. “The binder contains your personal property and if Turlock doesn’t return it to your heir, it’s theft?”
Thiefhe muttered in apparent agreement.
Evie stood up before she turned into a popsicle. “All right, we’ll try to get it back. In the meantime, do us both a favor and stay out of these chambers while the judge is in them. Otherwise, he’ll have me banned from the courthouse, and you won’t have any way of passing messages to Toby.”
Shivering, she left the rotten old goat to study on that. She’d never been able to talk to the man in real life. She should feel triumph that she was all he had now. She didn’t. It was all very sad. He’d run out of time to learn the error of his ways and would never become a better man and father.
She checked her phone—almost drained. Having learned from Jax, she attached a backup battery and went in search of Bertie. She really needed to check on Sammy’s ghost, but the Antique Barn was locked, and she didn’t want to be arrested. Troy really hadn’t liked her Subaru being parked there around the time of a murder.
She found the artist’s spirit contemplating an ancient oil painting of some dead judge on the upper story rotunda wall. Evie had a feeling he’d been spying on her and Block, but she couldn’t blame him there.
Midafternoon, the area was empty. Court wasn’t in session. She pretended to talk into her phone as she leaned against the wall. “Hey, Bertie. Whatcha doin’?”
Didn’t kill myselfhe said defensively, following his own train of thought.
“Didn’t think you did. But I’d like to find out who gave you the drugs.” Evie knew he couldn’t give her names, but she didn’t know how to ask otherwise.
Party,he said wistfully.I never got to party.
Huh. Special Ed kids were seldom invited to parties, she guessed. As an adult... well, homeless druggies weren’t exactly popular. “Someone invited you to a party? But you didn’t go?”
She thought he nodded. His aura was almost totally gray, so it was like watching wisps of smoke. He was fading fast. “I saw one of your sketches with Teddy Jr. in a Corvette and Toby and Verity and the Shepherds, so you must have been there. Was that a party?”
He brightened a little.No, later.I gave them my sketches. They said they’d have my surprise framed. They were going to take me home.
How long ago had he asked Hank at the hardware to frame his “surprise”? She doubted Bertie would remember, but she needed a timeline. If Toby had announced Bertie was doing sketches around town at this Corvette not-a-party, what had Bertie uncovered after that? “Toby and Teddy and the Shepherds framed your sketch?”
Toby and the girl, to thank me.He brightened a little more.
Apparently he remembered names if she fed them to him. “Can you remember when?”
Uncertainty slipped through the gray.He came to get me. But then... I woke up here.
The effort to work it out was apparently too much for him. He vanished.
All—or some of—those pretty young people were taking dirty, homeless old Bertie to a party? Why? Not because of the sketches she’d seen so far, right?
She’d have to interview real people instead of ghosts. Ouch.
Which was worse, interrogating real people or risk arrest looking for Sammy’s ghost?
What had Toby and Verity wanted Bertie to sketch? She texted Jax. Tobias was his close-mouthed client.
She’d usedher telekinesis again.
Restlessly, Gracie tried to block out that unwelcome thought while she waited on Nick. Currently, he was providing credentials to obtain his international driver’s license. He’d promised her thrift stores next.
She’d helped Nick save Bertie’s sketches.The adrenalin rush of using her telekinesis had almost knocked her out. It had been a significant physical strain, butshe’d done it. She hadn’t been certain she could. Fortunately, Nick hadn’t realized exactly how much extra... pull... she’d added.
She had a superpower.
She’d yanked framed artwork out of the hands of thieves!
