6 Cope
An hour later, the kids were sitting in the living room eating their burgers and chicken nuggets, while the adults were sitting around the table in the kitchen.
Jude looked as shell-shocked as Cope felt and no one was speaking, which was unheard of for their friend group.
To be honest, Cope had no idea what to say to break the ice.
“Okay, here I am,” Everly said, walking into the kitchen with her trash, which she put in the basket. Pulling out the chair beside Ronan, she took a seat. “Now the meeting can begin.”
“What do I do?” Cope asked, his voice barely above a whisper. It killed him to ask his seven-year-old niece for advice, but being scared and upset, his gift was giving him nothing. “Is there something you know that can help me? Help all of us?”
“I think so, but I’m not sure yet.” Everly folded her hands in front of herself. She wore a puzzled look.
“Why don’t you start by telling us what you saw or heard last night,” Ronan suggested.
“Great idea, Daddy.” Everly beamed up at her father.
“I could feel a buzzing energy in the theater when I got to my seat. Kind of like what it feels like on Christmas Eve, when you know Santa is going to visit and bring toys. Anticipation, I think is the right word, but I think there’s more to the weird energy than that. ”
“You think the people in the black outfits knew what was going to happen and when?” Ten asked. “I have to say I didn’t know at all.”
“Me either,” Cope agreed.
“They knew Alistair was going to pick Fake Samantha first. I’m sure of it.” Everly’s uncertainty was gone.
“Wait! What?” Cope asked. “Alistair’s excuse for what happened last night was that he knew what was happening all along, that Fake Samantha was planted in the audience on purpose so that he could prove she was trying to defraud him and you’re saying that he’s telling the truth?
” Cope was stunned. He hadn’t believed a single word that had come out of Alistair’s mouth the entire time he’d been at West Side Magick and now Everly was almost confirming that the conman had been telling the truth? It was a world gone mad.
“I don’t know what de-frog means,” Everly said with a giggle, “but if you’re saying Alistair knew she was there to hurt him, then my answer is yes.”
“Could you read Alistair, honey?” Ten asked. “I have to admit, I didn’t even try to read him or Samantha. I was just happy to have a night out that didn’t require me using my gift.”
“No.” Everly shook her head. “When I got the message that something bad was going to happen, I tried to read him, but got a blank. Then, that awful siren started to play and my entire head felt scrambled. All I could think about was helping Aurora. I knew if the sound was hurting my ears, it was doing worse to hers.”
“I appreciate that, Everly,” Fitz said. “You’re always thinking of Aurora.”
“She’s my girl bestie, Uncle Fitz. I don’t like the way it feels when Aurora’s in pain.”
“Me either,” Fitz agreed. “There’s one more thing I need to talk about.” He looked at Everly and then over to Ronan, as if to ask if it was okay to speak in front of her. Ronan nodded. “When Cope was calling out Hooke, he mentioned something about Aunt Endor’s heart attack.”
Everly giggled. “Endor is the planet the Ewok’s lived on in Return of the Jedi. The aunt is Endora, like on Bewitched.”
Fitzgibbon barked a surprised laugh. “Girl, we need to talk about Bewitched later,” Fitz said with a grin. “It was my favorite show growing up, but for now, I need to know if Alistair did something to cause Aunt Endora’s death?”
“I don’t know. Like I said I couldn’t really read Alistair, but I’ll try extra hard Friday night when we go to the show.” She sat up straight, looking proud of herself.
“Oh, no! No, no, no!” Ten said. “You’re not going anywhere near that place on Friday night. I don’t even want to go.”
“Because you have a bad feeling?” Everly asked, wearing a curious smile.
“Yeah, among other things,” Ten admitted.
“Which means you need me.” Everly waggled her eyebrows at her parents, looking as if she already knew she was going to win.
“I don’t have to be in the audience. I could be in the lobby or in the parking lot with Nana Kaye or Carson.
Daddy could wear an earpiece connected to my phone and I could talk to him that way.
” Everly looked back and forth between her fathers. “Please?”
“We need to think about that honey.” Ronan said, looking very much like his mind was already made up. “Is there anything else we need to know?”
“Look into Aunt Endora’s death. I’ll try to reach out to her.”
“We’ll try to reach out to her.” Ten pointed back and forth between himself and Cope.
“Dad, I’m on vacation. You said I could pick one thing I wanted to do during winter break and this is it. I want to be part of the investigation. If Alistair did something awful I want to be one of the people to help take him down.”
“Fuck my life,” Ronan muttered under his breath.
“I’m not even gonna collect that dollar for the swear jar, Daddy.” Everly wore a smirk that said she knew she was on the case.
“Okay, you’re in, but from a distance.” Ronan looked like he regretted the words as he said them. “Welcome to the team.”
Everly kissed Ronan’s cheek and hopped off her chair. “Damn skippy, chippy!” With a giggle she ran out of the room.
“I like the idea of Everly helping out even less than you do, Ronan. So let’s see if we can get to the bottom of this before Friday.
” Fitz pulled out his notebook. “Jude, I want you and Greeley to work on Alistair himself. Does he have a criminal record? Has he had trouble with the law under his legal name? You know what to do.”
“You got it,” Jude agreed, biting the inside of his cheeks. He didn’t want Cope to see how excited he was about going back to work a few days early.
“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 trick people.
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.