“Ronan, you and I are going to find out what we can about Endora’s personal and professional life, although I don’t know what kind of information we’ll be able to find about the carnival she worked for. I want a copy of her autopsy for a start and we need to find out if she or anyone else in that family has died a suspicious death. Also, we need to look into this Debunked group. Who are they? Why are they looking to expose fraud in the psychic community? Who’s paying them?”
“Sure thing,” Ronan agreed.
“As for the two of you.” Fitz’s eyes bounced back and forth between Cope and Tennyson. “Try to reach out to Endora and Amity Wellington. Look into any public information you can find about both women. There’s always a spike in crime when the carnival comes to town. Let’s find out if Endora had a hand in it.”
“We’ll start first thing,” Cope said, picking up his cheeseburger. Now that they had a plan, his stomach felt a bit more settled.
Cope had never been a braggart or a show-off where his gift was concerned. He’d mostly kept his skills under his hat and only revealed himself to people he trusted. In the seven years he’d spent in Salem, people had come to him for all kinds of issues, was their husband cheating? Or where a relative hid the silver before they passed.
What Cope had done at the theater with Alistair Hooke was the complete opposite of who he was and what he stood for. Part of him had been pissed that he was using fraudulent means to trickpeople. The other part wanted to stand up and prove his gifts were real, even though no one had ever questioned him.
Cope knew his friends were going to do what they could to help him out of the hole he’d found himself standing in, but the first thing he needed to do was stop digging himself deeper.
7
Jude
Jude hadn’t been this excited in a long time. He was on his way back to work at long last. If he were being honest, Jude would admit that he’d needed most of the time off to recover not only physically, but mentally as well. A lot of what happened to him the morning of the accident was a blank, but what he did remember was the fearful voices he’d heard when he was in his coma.
Nothing had scared Jude more than Wolf’s tears and Lizzie’s pleas for him to wake up. If he lived to be a hundred, Jude would never forget the pain and fear in their voices. Over the years, Jude had done a lot of stupid and reckless things, but after hearing first hand how his dumbassery affected others, he promised himself that he would use more common sense and less spontaneity.
“Hey, Jude!” Cole said when he walked into West Side Magick. “Welcome back!”
“It’s good to be back.” Jude felt like he was home again. He’d missed the day to day goings on at the shop. Missed Cassie’s baked goods and sandwiches. Most of all, he’d missed being part of the team. He hustled up the stairs and found Greeley sitting at the conference table. “Hi, man.”
“Good morning, Jude.” Greeley got out of his seat and hugged Jude. “I’m so excited to start working with you. Fitz explained everything that’s gone on over the last few days. I can’t believe I missed all the action at the theater because I had a therapy appointment.”
“I didn’t know you were in therapy.” Hearing that Greeley was in therapy might just be the boost Jude needed to schedule an appointment for himself.
Greeley nodded. “What happened with Rock really fucked me up. Walking into our bedroom and finding him screwing my training partner, sent me into a rage. I started hitting and punching both of them, screaming like I was insane. Christ, I’m damn lucky neither of them, or my neighbors, called the cops.” Greeley paused and took a sip from his coffee.
Jude knew the young man was trying to regain his composure.
“You know how I grew up on the streets, selling myself to survive. I never had a lot of self-confidence until Fitz adopted me. That confidence grew when I entered the academy and started dating Rock. Everything I worked so hard to build over the years came crashing down that night when I walked in on my worst nightmare. I felt like I’d hit rock bottom again, no pun intended.” Greeley chuckled.
“You’re an incredible guy, Greeley. Now that you’re here in Salem with us where you belong, you’re going to shine. I’ll deny it if you ever tell Ronan or your father I said it, but the two of them saved me. I was drowning in men and bad decisions. Coming to Salem and working with them turned my life around. I was able to deal with my own demons, and thanks to Everly, I learned how to love unconditionally, which allowed me to open my heart to Cope and to be a father to Wolf. I think the same thing is going to happen here for you too. You’ll be over Rock before you know it.”
“I hope so.” Greeley offered a weak smile.
“And if not, we’ll just take a drive into the city and kick his ass!” Jude cracked his knuckles. After initially hearing what Rock had done to Greeley, he’d wanted to beat the shit out of that no good, lying, cheating, horse’s ass. Yet another example of Jude being hot-headed and reckless. Thankfully, Fitz and Ronan had calmed him down and kept him from doing something stupid.
Greeley shook his head. “Let’s figure out what the hell the story is with Alistair Hooke first. The last thing I need to do today is bail your ass out of jail. Besides, if Hooke comes for Cope, you’re going to need to be here to keep your family safe.”
Greeley’s words were like a bucket of cold water in Jude’s face. “You think that’s possible?”
“Yeah, I do,” Greeley said. “Hooke is a worldwide celebrity. He’s got the morning talk show, his podcast, plus the multi-city tour he’s in the middle of. According to what I read last night, he’s worth ten million dollars and the sky is the limit. If the ceiling caves in on his gift, then he loses everything. The talk show and podcast are gone, along with the advertisers. His fans will turn on him and we all know how vicious people can be online. Then the lawsuits will start. The network will sue him forfraud, breach of contract and God knows what else, same with the advertisers, last will be the clients who are suffering from emotional distress over Hooke’s bullshit readings.”
“Shit,” Jude muttered under his breath. “If Hooke loses everything because of what Cope started…” He didn’t want to finish the sentence. Greeley was right. Hooke would come for Cope and everything his husband held dear. Fear roiled in Jude’s gut, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him. “Okay, let’s get to it. I’ll work on the stage name Alistair Hooke and you can research Simon Jones, his real name, and we’ll meet in the middle.”
“You got it, Jude.” Greeley slapped Jude’s back and headed for his office.
Jude grabbed a cup of coffee and took a minute to enjoy the quiet. With Ronan and Fitz out of the office, you could hear a pin drop. Jude turned on his computer. His first step was to gather as much information about Simon Jones as he could from the internet. With such a common name, Jude wanted to make sure he had the right man.
When he Googled “Who is Alistair Hooke?” a ton of articles appeared. Scanning through the results, Jude saw several fluff pieces published by local journalists when Alistair came to town. The articles had praised his gift and let readers know tickets were still available for an upcoming show. None of those stories offered what Jude was looking for.
Next up was Wikipedia. Jude knew the entries were written by ordinary people and there wasn’t a lot of fact checking going on. If Jude wanted, he could edit Abraham Lincoln’s page to say that Ronan assassinated him and couldn’t help but wonder how long it would take for people to notice and change it back to John Wilkes Booth.
According to the search results, Alistair Hooke, aka Simon Jones, was born in Nashua, New Hampshire to parents, Joseph and Elena, both deceased. Jude jotted their names on his legal pad along with their dates of birth and death. With the allegation that he’d killed Endora, Elena’s sister, Jude needed to know if Hooke’s parents had died under mysterious circumstances. According to Google, his parents had been killed in a tragic car accident when he was just a kid.
