Jude was all business now. He hadn’t heard from Cope since he’d dropped him off at home. He hoped that meant his husband was sleeping, but knowing him, he was trying to coax Brooks Stanhope into chatting with him. “Cope isn’t sleeping.” Jude wasn’t telling his friends to be a gossip. He knew they might be able to help.
Ronan cleared his throat. “I didn’t want to say anything, but he looked terrible this morning.”
“I thought the same thing,” Kevin chimed in. “What’s going on with him?”
“It’s this ghost writer. He hasn’t been himself since we brought the typewriter home.” Jude mentally kicked himself for bringing the wretched thing into their lives.
“Can you blame him?” Kevin shivered. “It would freak me the fuck out if my laptop started typing without me.”
“That makes me think of Everly,” Ronan said absently. His index finger tapped against the Mustang’s steering wheel.
“Everly is using a typewriter?” Kevin asked. “What the hell is she writing, her memoir?”
“No.” Ronan shook his head. “She was wailing the word ‘no’ the day Jude gave Cope the typewriter at the party, but here’s the thing.” Ronan followed the banged-up Honda into a beat down trailer park. He hung back by the entrance so Marc and Miranda wouldn’t see the Mustang. Putting the car in park, he turned to face Fitzgibbon.
“What thing?” Kevin’s joking manner was gone.
“Jude left the typewriter at our house nearly a week before the party. That was when Everly’s attitude started to change. She stopped wanting to cuddle with me and answered every question with a ‘NO!’ Christ, do you think it’s possible she could see this thing?”
Nodding, Jude felt sick to his stomach. He’d brought this spirit into their lives and Everly had been its first victim. “Jesus, Ronan, I’m so sorry.”
“We don’t have time for that now. Answer my question, do you think she could see one of the spirits you told us about?” Fear had crept into Ronan’s usually steady voice.
“Either that or it was trying to communicate with her.” Jude took a shaky breath. “Her only weapon was telling the spirit no.”
Ronan’s blue eyes narrowed on Jude. “Are you sure? Tennyson had Dempsey over and he put extra wards on the house. How could anything get through all that magick?”
“I don’t know, but if I had to guess it was because I brought it in.” Cope mentioned something before about the spirits being somehow connected to the typewriter. Where it went, they went.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Disbelief turned to concern on Ronan’s face.
“If the spirits in the typewriter had tried to get into your house by themselves, the charms would have kept them out. They needed a carrier to get them through the front door.”
“You were the carrier,” Kevin said, putting the pieces together.
“Twice. Once at Ronan’s house and then in my own.” Jude felt his stomach roil. “It’s like when you invite a vampire inside. He couldn’t get in otherwise. If you believe Bram Stoker.” Jude did. Everly was the sweetest little girl. It was much more likely something or someone was affecting her attitude rather than the little girl running out of love for Ronan. “How has she been since we took the typewriter home?”
“On edge. If you can call a sixteen-month-old baby edgy.” Ronan rubbed a hand over his two-day stubble. “She’s not as angry, but my cuddle bug is gone.”
“Sounds like she’s on alert for that thing to return.” Kevin looked as if he didn’t like the sound of that. “What about Aurora? Do you think she was affected? That thing was sitting near Cope when he held her.”
“I didn’t notice any change in my little cupcake’s behavior that day.” From what Jude remembered, Aurora was her usual happy self. “Did that change over time?”
Kevin shook his head no. Jude had a feeling that baby was due for an appointment with her namesake, Madam Aurora, just to make sure she was safe.
“When it comes to Everly, she could be sensing the spirits, but it’s more likely she’s picking up on the psychic residue this thing left behind. Cope and Ten would be the ones to talk to about residue.” Jude squirmed in his seat. These people were his friends, his family. He was the one who’d brought this evil into their lives. “I don’t think your cuddle bug is gone, Ronan. I think she has bigger fish to fry.”
Ronan shot Jude a dubious look. “A bigger fish than giving her raggedy-assed father some sugar?”
Jude snorted. He