Page 66 of The Aura Answer
“We’ve found her the next best thing to the Popemobile.” Nick clicked his phone photos and showed them the image. “It’s in a used car lot in Savannah. Reuben has already ordered it delivered. Larraine can afford it.”
“Bullet-proof glass.” Jax pocketed his phone and began sorting through the debris file Evie had just rejected. “Satterwhite is insisting we use it if he’s to play Santa, saying it’s for his own protection. She can’t argue that, not easily, anyway.”
Evie leaned over and kissed his bristled jaw. “You are a man for all seasons, thank you.”
“She has no idea where that phrase comes from,” Gracie said grouchily. “She’s just repeating a line she’s heard.”
Evie leaned over and pinched her sister. “I went to high school. Irememberthings. Just because I didn’t read the book or play or whatever doesn’t mean I can’t hear. I am a professional human sponge.”
Gracie dumped a file folder in her lap. “Here’s all Sammy’s school work from high school. It looks about like yours. Maybe he was ADD too.”
Jax snatched the file away. “Fromhigh school? You did hear what Larraine said happened the year Sammy graduated?”
“High school kids cheat.” Evie didn’t mind having the file taken away. Reading wasn’t the same as talking and doing. Shecould, if she had to, but then she couldn’t observe everything happening around her, which she considered more important. She’d survived high school by having eyes in the back of her head. “We once had a contest to see who could cheat the most. It’s a game unworthy of blackmail.”
She might not read, but she understood what Jax was after. She continued, “Sammy said he wanted to stop Bertie’s drug dealers, and he wanted to keep his mother’s home. He suspected theturdwas involved—except I don’t know which one he meant. He didn’t go to school with either of the Turlocks, too old for Jr. and too young for Sr. And how does any of this compute with Layman stealing our town? It doesn’t.”
“Someone just tried to kill the mayor,” Gracie pointed out the obvious. “Does this mean someone is nervous?”
“Or that the mayor was the original target and not Block?” Nick suggested, flicking through invoices. “If you turn all your thinking around, that makes far more sense than shooting a man who was positioned to push through the zoning they wanted—if the current mayor were out of the picture.”
They all stopped and stared at him.
Jax whistled and pulled out his phone again.
Gracie grabbed for the high school file. As a schoolteacher, she probably understood it better than anyone else. Jax didn’t fight her for it. He was already reporting Nick’s theory to the sheriff.
“Who would want Larraine dead?” Evie asked aloud, although Layman and Block were the obvious.
Without Larraine in the way, Block’s handfed city council could have pushed through zoning changes for a mall, steamrollering right over the voters the way he had before. Layman really needed Block.
Evie had always thought that, which was why she hadn’t considered Layman a suspect. But now...
“Turd, Turlock,” she murmured. “Turlock Sr. wasn’t fond of Block, but as a lawyer, he needed his business. So he was probably invested in Layman’s mall and any new clients it brought. Teddy Jr. was at least aware of it, although I’d think it would wipe out his sporting goods store. Or maybe they offered his store a spot in the new mall. Any of them, as well as most of the town council, might want Larraine out of the picture for a shiny new mall, especially if they were offered discounted rental space.”
Nick got up and paced. “This is how my cousins ended up in jail. Money and corruption go hand in hand when the players have no ethics.”
“And we already know Block went to jail for lack of ethics.” Evie gave that some thought. “And if Judge Rhodes is a cheat, his integrity is questionable.”
“Anyone who did business with our late not-so-great mayor is questionable,” Gracie said angrily, throwing down a ledger. “So we’re right back where we started.”
Twenty-Five
“This will never work,”Gracie objected, again, that evening, as they all gathered in the man cave. “This is the reason I’ll never write your stories, Evie. They’re all absurd and too complicated.”
She watched as Jax taped a photo of Judge Rhodes on his cellar suspect wall. She’d never participated in these sessions of Evie’s ridiculous Sensible Solutions Not-a-Detective Agency because she wasn’t part of the team. But neither was Nick, and he was here now. She felt compelled to keep their madness to sensible levels, especially if they meant to involve children.
“The parade and Holiday Festival is the equivalent of bringing all the suspects into one room,” Evie crowed, passing around a plate of Pris’s assorted cookies.
Who would even imagine Pris as the sensible cousin? Even Iddy was down here studying Jax’s silly story board. Her pet raven swung on the light fixture over the pool table, muttering to itself.
“Children aren’t suspects! You’re endangering innocents.” Gracie contemplated the reaction if she made the kids stay home. It would not be pretty.
Exposing them to a sniper would be worse.
Reuben trotted down the cellar steps, and they all turned to him.
“How’s Larraine?” Gracie asked the professor in a man-bun.
