Ghost Writer - Pandora Pine Page 0,51
“I love yous.”
Neither of them wanted to put the baby to bed. After the last book, Cope rested his head on Jude’s shoulder and Wolf crawled to lay on Jude’s chest. They’d stayed that way for quite some time.
In the beginning, when they’d first brought Wolf home, Cope hadn’t wanted to ever put the baby down. Jude had been the one who’d manage to pry the baby away from him with either logic or a bit of humor. Cope had always wanted to be a father, and he’d been afraid that if he let the baby go, the dream would end. Even now, six months later, Cope still couldn’t believe Wolf was his son.
Tonight was different. This wasn’t Cope not wanting to put the baby down because he wanted five more minutes of cuddle time, this had to do with Wolf having a bad reaction to Brooks’ spirit.
“He promised Wolf would be safe,” Jude muttered. His voice was filled with anger.
“Technically, Wolf is safe. No one hurt him.” Cope knew he was walking a jagged line here. The baby hadn’t been hurt, but he had been badly frightened by something.
“What do you mean no one? The only people in the room were the three of us and Brooks. Neither of us made our son cry, so that only leaves one option.” Jude’s harsh tone startled Wolf who snuggled closer to Jude.
“Maybe not.” Cope had been mulling over an idea while Jude had been reading to the baby. It was pretty far out there, but he was curious to see what Jude thought of it.
“You’ve got my attention now. Did you sense someone else in the room with us?” Jude looked down at Wolf, who’d fallen asleep.
“No, but that doesn’t mean anything. I’ve never been able to sense Brooks either.” The idea of not one, but two, spirits Cope couldn’t sense wasn’t the best news.
“What makes you think there was someone else in the room with us?” Jude sat up, cradling the sleeping baby gently against his shoulder.
“We need to go back over all the pages Brooks typed.” Cope was certain there were more clues to be found.
“You think they might also contain hidden messages?” Jude asked curiously.
“It makes me wonder.” Neither of them had actually read every line Brooks typed. It was possible they’d missed other words buried in repetitive lines of the hymns. Cope slipped out of bed and ran back to the office. He grabbed a highlighter, and not only the other pages Brooks had typed, but the page Mr. Crenshaw from Play it Again, Sam had included with the bill of sale on the typewriter.
Cope wasn’t surprised to find Jude in Wolf’s room, setting the baby in the crib. Jude saying goodnight would give him a few minutes to look over the typed pages for other messages.
Starting with the first page Brooks typed, he easily found the man’s first name hidden around the midway point. It was all in lowercase letters at the ends of words. If the page had been typed on a word processing program, the errors would have lit up with angry, red lines under each word. This little clue confirmed Cope’s earlier hypothesis that someone else had been in the house tonight.
Moving along to the second page Cope found a scattered bunch of letters spelling out, “Save me.”
He was skimming through the typed sheet from the antique store when he started seeing more stray letters. He’d been marking each out of place letter with a neon yellow highlighter. “Oh, Jesus.” Cope was jarred by the bright yellow words on the page.
“What is it?” Jude sat on Cope’s side of the bed, wrapping an arm around him.
Cope handed him the page. “The highlighted letters spell out three words.”
Frowning, Jude took the paper from Cope and started reading out loud. “T-H-E / B-E-E-C-H-E-R/ H-O-U-S-E.” Jude shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “The Beecher House. How is it possible Brooks is connected to a random haunting case you and I decided to work?”
“I have no idea.” Cope was still feeling the effects of shock. “At least now we have more information to go on. You’ve been the one doing all the research on The Beecher House. Have you come across Brooks’ name?”
“No. It’s an unusual name. I would have remembered if I’d heard it twice in the last few weeks. I’ll go back through all of my research, just in case, though.”
“Were there any unexplained deaths or tragedies at the