9

Jude

Jude had spent the rest of the day working on the Webster case. He'd set up an interview for the next day with Angel Martinez, who was one of the women who'd been at the school committee meeting the night Jessi had been murdered. Ronan had also scheduled a meeting with the president of the First Salem Bank. It was a good jumping-off spot to find out if there were actually people sending Jessi death threats at work.

He'd hoped keeping his mind on the case would keep his mind off Cope and his meeting with Kit Savage. Had Cope agreed to go on the podcast? Had he turned the man down? Jude knew Cope always discussed big decisions with him but wasn't sure that would happen now.

The one thing Jude was absolutely certain about was following Cope's advice. He was going to pick up Cope's favorite dinner at Lotus Blossom. He'd bathe and put the kids to bed while Cope took a long, hot shower, and they'd share the cherry cheesecake Jude had picked up while they discussed what an idiot Jude had been for their entire marriage. And also what happened with the podcast guy.

"Babe? I'm home. I brought dinner!" Jude called from the front door. He was trying to balance the bag of food in his arms while he wrangled his shoes off. While he did so, he thought he smelled tomato sauce. Shit, had Cope made dinner too?

"Kitchen!" Cope called back.

Sure enough, tomato sauce bubbled on the stove. A pot of boiling water sat on the burner next door, waiting for pasta to be added. "I grabbed Chinese. I had no idea you were making spaghetti."

"No worries. We'll just have pasta tomorrow night." Cope shut off the burner under the sauce and water pots and grabbed paper plates.

"Are you sure? I mean, if you want pasta, we can have pasta."

"Jude. It's fine. I wanted to make your favorite meal. It looks like we had the same idea."

"Where are the kids?" Jude realized it had taken him nearly five minutes to realize they weren't here. Wolf always ran to greet him, with Lizbet toddling behind.

"They are having dinner at Ronan's. Ten is making his famous mac and cheese and invited the kids to eat with them."

"Ten and I had a long talk after you went into the reading room with Kit Savage. I assume he kept the kids so that I'd have time to tell you about it." Jude was grateful to Tennyson for helping them out. He'd make sure they kept Everly and Ezra for a sleepover soon.

"He told me." Cope grabbed the stapled, brown paper bag from Lotus Blossom and opened it up.

"Okay," Jude said, not sure where to go from there. He watched quietly while Cope unpacked the kung pao chicken, crab Rangoon, shrimp fried rice, and spring rolls.

"Ten knew you were going to talk to me tonight and wanted to help me out too. He knew I was angry and that I tend to lash out when I'm mad."

"So he gave us both something to think about." Jude reached for the rice and spooned some onto his plate.

"Exactly," Cope agreed.

"I'm sorry I didn't support you when you mentioned the idea of going on the podcast. I should have listened to what you were saying instead of thinking about how you doing this would affect me."

"I know you're worried about my safety and my reputation, Jude. Thinking like that isn't selfish at all. I just wish that sometimes you'd give me the benefit of the doubt. I wasn't about to rush into any kind of agreement with Kit Savage, regardless of him stopping by the shop today."

Cope's words felt like an icy fist squeezing his heart. He had been worried that Cope would get himself in over his head. "I'm not sure why I thought that. You're such a capable man. I guess I just felt like I was going to have to run in and rescue you."

"Rescue me from what?" Cope asked, reaching for the spring rolls. "It's an hour-long podcast. Kit wants me to try to contact Domenica Fibonacci. He also mentioned my reputation in the psychic community and thought that it would lend credence to his insistence that the voice we heard was actually Domenica."

"Was it?" Jude asked.

Cope shook his head. "I don't know. I asked Kit the same question, and he didn't really answer me. It's definitely possible that the voice was a gimmick."

"Would you call that out?" Jude asked.

"Yes. Absolutely!" Cope half shouted. "Like you said, my reputation will be on the line if I agree to do this, and there's no way in hell I would risk that for some fucking podcast that I'd never heard of until yesterday."

"I know you're an honest man, Cope. I guess I'm just wondering why you? Not because there's anyone better or more deserving, but why does he want you to be the guest?"

Cope bit into his spring roll and seemed to be thinking over his answer. "He thinks that with my reputation, I can bring him new listeners. I guess that if I let my social media followers know that I'm going to appear on the podcast, then maybe they'll subscribe. Kit also thinks that my appearance could bring more customers to West Side Magick."

Jude had expected that would be Cope's answer.

"You don't think he's after me, do you?" Cope nibbled his lower lip.

"Is he?" Jude asked. "He seemed kind of flirty when I met him. Maybe he's one of those assholes who gets off stealing another man's husband along with his money."

"His Wikipedia page mentioned his troubles." Cope shrugged as if Kit's record didn't matter much to him.

"Troubles? The man's a convicted felon. Ronan read the police report. He could have been brought up on dozens of charges, but the feds decided the Bank of America fraud was the one with the strongest evidence."

"Jude, again, this is one podcast appearance. I'm not going to marry this guy or let him babysit our kids. I'll make sure to leave our checkbook at home if I decide to do this appearance."

Jude laughed. He couldn't help himself. The idea of Kit Savage stealing Cope was ridiculous. He'd married Jude twice already, and they had two young kids. Cope would never give that up for some asshole felon who'd spent time in the county lockup. "What is it you want to do about this podcast? Whatever that is, I will support you one hundred percent."

Cope grabbed the fried rice and took his time serving himself. "If I'm being absolutely honest with myself, the first thing I want is for you to keep asking what I want instead of assuming it's the same thing you want."

"Ouch. Duly noted. I do a lot of assuming in this relationship. I promise to do my best to get better at that." Jude didn't think Cope was going to come for him, but here they were. "What else do you want?"

"I want to help Domenica, first and foremost. She's been dead for forty years and isn't resting in peace. If that really was her voice on the podcast, then she has something to say. I want to help her say it and then do whatever I can to help her cross over. If that means solving her murder in the process, then so be it."

Jude thought back to something Cope had said about Tennyson working cold cases. "Do you want to work with us like Ten does? Speaking to murder victims and reading their friends and family to help figure out if they're the killer?" He'd always assumed that if Cope wanted to assist them, he'd say so. Of course, that was Jude assuming again.

"Maybe," Cope admitted. "I mean, if Domenica was pushed, it would have to be her husband, right?"

Jude shook his head. "Not necessarily. Vic Rothschild said he was alone with Domenica in the house that night, but we have no way of knowing if that's the truth. That house had several servants—what if one of them was home that night and had a grudge to settle with Domenica or Vic? Same goes for Vic's business rivals. People who have that kind of money are ruthless when it comes to keeping it. Vic is at the top of the list for me. Spouses always are."

"I've heard you say that a hundred times."

"I know you have. Husbands have the greatest access to their wives. Rothschild had the money to cover up what really happened to his wife, if he did indeed kill her." Jude was quiet for a few seconds. "Domenica will be lucky to have you in her corner if you decide to help."

"Do you really mean that, Jude?" Cope asked.

Jude reached across the table for his husband's hand. "I do."

"But?" Cope asked, his lips curling into a grin.

"But I'm hoping that you'll let me help you on the law enforcement side of things. We can pull the police report from the night that Domenica died and familiarize ourselves with what happened."

"I would like your help," Cope admitted. "There's something I didn't tell you about my meeting with Kit."

Jude felt a frisson of fear wrap around his spine. "I'm not going to like this, am I?"

Cope shook his head. "After we spoke about the podcast, Kit got up to leave. I asked him if he wanted a reading, and he said to save it for the podcast, but when I opened my gift to him, he was blocking me. It felt like running headlong into a brick wall."

"That almost never happens." Jude knew Cope couldn't read him, thanks to Running Eagle using an old chant over him when he was an infant, but he'd never heard his husband refer to that bit of magic as a brick wall.

"That's what scares me," Cope admitted.

"Who the fuck is this guy?" Jude asked.

"Let's find out together."

Jude nodded. "Couldn't have said it better myself." He would do everything in his power to find out what the hell Kit Savage's endgame was and what the hell he wanted with Cope.

God help the asshole if he thought he could come for Jude's family and not pay for it.