Page 7 of The Aura Answer
The state cops had all gone inside to drive out the invaders with bullhorns and weapons. The firemen were busy controlling the hose as they inundated what remained of the mob on the front stairs. They didn’t have anyone to spare to stop Evie as she swung up on the truck and onto the extended ladder. They’d moved it back from the second story window but hadn’t considered the rusted fire escape.
It was like swinging from her childhood bedroom window to the pine tree, she told herself as she reached for the ancient iron rungs. Jax would kill her, but he was busy risking his own life fighting off rioters. She knew her man well. She loved him with all her heart and soul, but like any man, he had flaws. Well, so did she.
As a kid, she’d climbed around the courthouse roof any number of times. It was practically a high school tradition to sneak up here to smoke or neck. She’d never tried the rusty fire escape, but it held her just fine.
Up on the housetop reindeer pause... Climbing over the parapet onto the roof, she couldn’t pry the stupid song out of her head that the kids had been singing.
Once there, though, she started having second thoughts about crime scenes. The news snippets she’d seen from the courthouse had sounded ominous. Bodies did not fall through ceilings without reason.
She visually searched the roof but saw nothing dangerous. Good thing she was wearing overalls. She was going to be filthy. Decades of crud littered the rubber sealant over the flat portion of the roof, with scuffs and footprints everywhere. She’d just have to add hers as she crossed to the door in the cupola. A lot of the disturbance looked fresh, and she assumed Bertie had moved in for the winter.
Down through the chimney goes good St.Nick. Stupid earworm. She’d have to wear earplugs at the Christmas concert.
The dust on the metal steps into the attic was trampled. Not daring to disturb evidence, she stuck to the edge, just in case. Someone had left the attic stairs lowered, and she continued down to the second floor to peer around the door into the storage room. Seeing only brooms, she pulled off her felt hat and stuffed it into one of the many pockets of her flannel-lined vest, then opened the closet door into the second-floor rotunda to peer out.
Even her multi-tasking brain had trouble processing the chaos on the other side. An unholy din echoed from all corners and two floors. Shouts, screams, a few gunshots, which raised her pulse rate to heart attack city. From this angle, she watched in horror as Jax stood on a heavy bench, swinging a wicked baton. Without hesitation, he walloped a guy carrying a machete, toppling him backward down the stairs into a crowd of people pushing up. He appeared to be bleeding from a cut on hishand and another near his temple, and she swallowed hard. At least he was still upright and fighting.
Grabbing a fire extinguisher from the back wall, she edged the door open a little more. In the middle of the hall, a circle of yellow tape flapped around what appeared to be a dust-and-plaster covered sleeping bag with legs and partial heads. They weren’t moving. Dang, so very not good. Did that shaggy blond mane belong to Bertie?
She didn’t have time for sorrow. Inching out at a shout from behind the door, she brandished her fire extinguisher weapon. Near the sleeping bag, Reuben wielded a metal chair and bashed a couple of skinheads. They had knives. That made them villains in her book.
Singing “Ho, ho, you didn’t go,” she aimed, pointed, and sprayed their bald heads.
The thugs shrieked and stupidly scrubbed at their eyes. Whooping, Reuben took advantage of their temporary distraction. The computer nerd was tall and lean but packed a lot of muscle. He grabbed the back of his opponents’ shirts, knocked their heads together, and heaved them headfirst over the barricade at the back stairs. They landed squarely on top of a few of their comrades who were trying to clamber upward.
“Up on the courthouse, click, click, click.” he shouted, adapting her refrain. Jumping on a bench blocking the stairs like Jax, he swung his chair in time to the beat, knocking back a few laggards attempting to climb past their fallen comrades.
Bullhorns below warned the state cops had taken over the first floor.
Looking gray and weary, Sheriff Troy gave Reuben and Evie a look that probably ought to kill, but he merely confiscated the fire extinguisher and handed it to a deputy.
Evie shrugged and dashed into the closet for a first-aid kit. When she returned, Jax was sitting on his bench, wiping hisbloody head with a handkerchief. The intruders had vanished from the stairs, crawling back into the woodwork like the cockroaches they were.
“Up on the housetop, yeah, yeah, yeah,” she sang, settling beside him and opening her kit. “How many bullets did your skull stop?”
He let her dab antiseptic around the wounds but didn’t answer. Her heart quit freaking out once she decided the cut was bloody but not mortal.
The sheriff was on his phone and radio at the same time. Evie kept a wary eye over Jax’s shoulder, but the state cops were hauling away any remaining pests on the stairs. The dangerous obstacle course of yellow tape fluttered in a breeze from below.
“Bertie smells less fresh than usual,” she commented. Given her weird gift for ghosts, she really didn’t want to look back at the pile circled with police tape. She fixed a bandage to Jax’s head, then reached for his bleeding hand.
“Bertie?” He held her fingers rather than reveal his palm.
“Albert Walker. I wonder if he’d have turned out differently if he’d been called Al. How can anyone demand respect when called Bertie?” Evie knew all about longing for respect, but she’d had better resources than poor Bert.
“You know him?” Jax finally opened his hand so she could staunch the nearly dried cut. She didn’t think it would need stitches, but she’d like to knife the jerkwad who’d done this.
“Everyone knows Bertie. He’s a good guy, really, with a good family. But he has... had?... learning problems. I remember kids taunting him, because they did that to me a lot.”
“Which is why you learned martial arts?” Jax closed his hand around hers again.
“Well, it was that or ask for a flaming broom.” She grinned and dabbed at the cut. “Bertie... wasn’t a fighter. He was an artist.”
The sheriff put down his phone and crossed the hall to check on Jax and scowl at Evie. “What the damn hell are you doing up here, Evangeline?”
“Playing Florence Nightingale, naturally. Do you have any injuries, good sir? And what happened to Bertie?” She plastered a bandage over Jax’s hand and turned to study the sheriff she’d known most of her life.
Troy wasn’t tall but hefty and didn’t look too battered. “Jax here took the brunt of it,” he said with grudging respect. “Where’s your mother?”
