“Right, that.” Fitz shook his head. “Anyway, I took these pictures to show Jude today what a dickhead he was being last night. Can you tell me if this is the man you saw?” Fitz passed his phone to Everly.
The little girl pinched out the picture, filling the entire screen with Jerry’s face. “That’s him, but-” Everly’s eyes slipped shut. Cope could see them moving back and forth, as if she were inREM sleep. “He’s a puppet on a string.” Everly’s voice had taken on a dreamlike tone. “There’s someone else. Hidden. Laughing. Loving every moment of Uncle Jude’s pain. Wanting more.” Everly’s bright blue eyes popped open. “He’s on a hospital bed, but not in a hospital. That doesn’t make any sense.”
Cope was about to ask a follow up question, when Ten shook his head, indicating Cope should stay silent. He obeyed.
“There’s so much anger. Rage. At Uncle Jude and Dad.” Everly’s voice was barely above a whisper, her detached tone chilled Cope to the bone.
“Me?” Ronan asked.
Everly nodded. “I don’t know why. I smell earth.”
“What do you mean,earth?” Ronan asked, looking as confused as his daughter.
“Like last spring when we dug up the yard to plant my garden. It smelled like dirt and rotten leaves.”
“Maybe he’s underground,” Fitz said. “An old bomb shelter or a basement. An abandoned railway tunnel, or something.”
“I don’t know, Uncle Fitz. Everything in my head is a jumble, like when you dump a puzzle out of the box.” Everly angrily brushed back tears that had started to fall. “I’ll keep working, Woofie. I promise.”
Wolf climbed off Cope and hugged Everly. Aurora joined in. Soon after Ezra and Lizbet all had their arms wrapped around the little girl.
“I need to go check on dinner.” Ten angled his head toward the kitchen and the adults followed him.
“Is she going to be okay?” Cope asked, when they were out of the kids hearing.
“Yeah,” Ten said. “She’s angry and frustrated that she’s not seeing this in linear fashion. Like she said, it’s all jumbled and she’s not sure how to put the pieces together.”
“To keep with the puzzle analogy, I imagine it’s even harder for her when she doesn’t know what the picture is supposed to look like.” Ronan’s hands were fisted at his sides.
Cope could feel the frustration and anger building in Ronan. He and Jude were closer than brothers and it was killing him that there was nothing he could do at the moment to bring Jude home to his family.
“What do we know about this Jerry guy?” Fitz asked.
“His name is Jerry Dunkirk,” Cope said. A bolt of nausea hit him hard just saying the man’s name. “He and Jude had hooked up on several occasions before he met me and he didn’t like it when Jude didn’t want to see him again.”
“Was that the last time Jude saw him before last night?” Fitz asked gently.
“According to Jude, yes, and I have no reason to doubt him.” Cope might have been angry last night at the way Jerry had been hanging all over his husband, but he knew for a fact Jude would never cheat on him and wouldn’t lie about a past lover. He’d always been more open about his past exploits than Cope wanted him to be.
“Fuck me blue,” Ronan muttered. “According to Google, Jerry Dunkirk is a physician’s assistant at Salem Mercy hospital.”
“Salem Mercy?” Fitz’s eyebrows shot up. “Where the killer angel worked?”
Ronan nodded. “Yeah, and believe it or not, that’s not the worst part of the story.”
Shaken to his core, Cope was afraid to ask what Ronan thought was worse than this jackhole working in the place where Jude had nearly been killed two years ago. “What is it?”
“Jerry is Courtney Wilcox’s half-brother.”
Cope’s mouth dropped open. “He’s related to the woman we left our kids with the night of the policeman’s ball?” If this was a bad dream, Cope wanted to wake up now. How the hell was this possible? He’d never been a big believer in coincidences. “There’s no way this wasn’t a coordinated attack.”
“I was going to say the same thing.” Ronan got up from the table and paced around the kitchen. “Everly said there were two people involved in the kidnapping, Jerry and the person working his strings. Do we think it’s this babysitter?”
“I don’t know,” Fitz admitted, looking defeated. “But there might be a way to find out.” He angled his head toward the living room.
Wordlessly, Ronan nodded and walked into the living room. He returned seconds later with Everly holding his hand.
“I told you I didn’t know anything else about Jerry, Dad,” Everly said, her eyes glued to the floor.
