husband from our son. All we’re asking is for information only you can give us. We absolutely believe something happened to you with that machine. As impossible as it sounds, that spirit is still attached to that old Remington nearly thirty years later. We just want your help.”
Jamie was focused on the image of a smiling Wolf. He sighed, taking a seat on the opposite end of the sofa from Cope. “I’d just gotten divorced. The idea for that book had been in my head for years, but it wasn’t until I found out Katarina was cheating on me that I figured out how to end the story. I’d found the typewriter in that same antique store and knew it was perfect for my book. When the shop owner told me it had been one of the last models made before the Remington plant converted to making ammunition for the war effort, the deal was sealed.”
“The only information we got about the typewriter was the sales slip listing your contact information, along with a sheet of typed hymn lyrics.”
“How Great Thou Art,” Jamie muttered. His eyes lifted from the phone screen to meet Cope’s.
“Right. We didn’t know anything else about the history of the machine.” Cope could see Jamie had settled down. He felt his own guard dropping a bit as well.
“I can’t see how it much matters. What happened to me in this house is ancient history.” The look in Jamie’s eyes told Cope he was still bothered by the haunting.
“It gives us a timeline for the ghost.” Cope knew what he was saying sounded ridiculous, but knowing where and when the spirit came from would help narrow the investigation.
“The what?” Jamie looked stunned.
“There’s a spirit, who, for lack of a better term, is haunting the typewriter. If we know the machine was manufactured in 1941, then it stands to reason the spirit died sometime after that.”
“You really think what happened to me was a haunting?” Cautious hope crept into Jamie’s voice.
“We do,” Cope agreed. “I’ve been able to speak to spirits since I was thirteen years old. My psychic abilities developed after that. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that we’ve both been haunted by the same spirit.”
“No one believed me.” Jamie was out of his seat and pacing toward his desk. “My family thought it was the toll of the cheating and the divorce finally breaking me. I know what I saw. What I heard. Everyone made me feel…” He blinked back tears.
“Crazy,” Cope said softly.
Jamie nodded.
“Jude and I are ghost detectives. Usually, our clients contact us when they’re being affected by a spirit. This case is a bit different since I’m the one being haunted, so to speak.” Who did ghost hunters turn to when they were the one with the problem?
“Why do you think I can help you?”
“So far as we know, you’re the only other person who has come into contact with this spirit.” It would be interesting to know if there were any incidences with the typewriter while it sat in the antique shop, but Crenshaw hadn’t said a word.
Jamie didn’t seem to have a ready answer.
“Aside from the ghost writing, did the spirit have any other contact with you?” Jude asked. There was a hint of annoyance in his voice.
Cope knew Jude was having a hard time dealing with Jamie’s attitude. He and Jude were going to do everything they could to help the disgraced author, but Jamie didn’t know that. “Did you sense anything off in the house or in yourself when you were writing the book?”
“I don’t know.” Jamie held up a hand to stop Jude from responding. “I’m not trying to be a dick, but when I was writing, I was in a world of my own. The words seemed to pour from my fingers every time I sat down at the typewriter. There were days when I’d have to stop writing because my fingertips hurt from repeatedly striking the keys. The world could have ended while I was typing, and I never would have known.”
“I felt that exact same thing.” Making that connection caused Cope’s stomach to turn. “What if that’s part of the haunting?”
Jude was shaking his head. “You were both writing books of your own creation. If the spirit were trying to influence you, it would have been his or her words you were writing.”
Jude had a point. Cope had never once felt like the words he was writing were not his own. “Did the