Ghost Falls (Haunted Souls #22)

6

The buffet smelled absolutely heavenly. Jude clutched his plate like his life depended on it. He’d wanted to grab two, but Cope had cautioned him about slowing down. The last thing Cope wanted was to spend the night taking care of a sick Jude instead of getting his rest. If they were at home, Jude would have pressed his luck, but being that Cope was here to work, he’d do his absolute best to control himself.

Jude assumed they were only going to spend twenty minutes or so at the press conference, but they’d stayed through the whole thing. It reminded Jude a bit of boxing matches where the fighters got weighed in and made a lot of predictions about how they were going to smoke the competition. Unfortunately for Cannonball, his only competition was his dead father.

While they’d walked from the elevator to the ballroom hosting the buffet, Cope had filled Jude in on his and Ten’s conversation with Heidi Jackson. After listening to everything that was said, Jude didn’t hold out a lot of hope that the daredevil would listen to Ten, Cope, or Everly.

“How many lobster tails are you grabbing?”

Ronan asked from behind Jude.

“Just one,”

Jude said, sounding like he’d lost his best friend.

“What? Are you sick or something? Usually you can knock back five or six of them.”

Ronan wore a dubious look. “Oh, wait, you’re shitting me, right? The joke’s on me.”

Jude shook his head. “Not shitting you and there is no joke. Cope asked me to take it easy so I didn’t keep him or the kids up all night getting sick. I know how much this convention means to him and I’ll do whatever it takes for Cope to be successful, even if it mean leaving the lobster tails to you.”

Using the tongs, Jude placed the biggest one he could find on his plate

Ronan looked taken aback but Jude’s words. “That’s a good point. It’s different when we’re at home and I can go lay down on the couch if I’m not feeling well. Here, the four of us are in the same room.”

Ronan took only one piece of lobster as well.

Moving on to the roast beef, Jude took a piece much smaller than was his usual. “What did you think of the press conference?”

“It was definitely filled with testosterone, that was for sure,”

Ronan said, adding a barbecue chicken leg to his plate. “Ten said there’s no change in Cannonball’s fate.”

“Cope said the same thing. Heidi believes what Everly told her, but I don’t think that’s going to make a difference to Cannonball.”

Jude didn’t need to be psychic to know that. If he were in Cannonball’s shoes, he wouldn’t have believed Everly, Ten, or Cope either. He would have had his sights set on the task at hand and nothing short of Armageddon could have altered his course. If they were going to save the daredevil, they’d have to come at it another way.

With his plate full, Jude headed back to the table, where the others were already eating. Aurora was losing her mind over the cocktail shrimp and spicy sauce, while Wolf was slurping down spaghetti and Everly poked her fork around her mac and cheese. Fitzgibbon sat with two plates in front of him. One was filled with seafood, while the other had different cuts of beef.

“Damn Fitz, if you eat all of that, we’ll need a forklift to get you back to your room.”

“Bring it on,”

Fitz said, before stuffing his mouth full of fish. “What’s our next move with Cannonball?”

Before Jude had a chance to answer, his attention was caught by a group of people coming into the ballroom. He instantly recognized Roger Denbart, Cannonball’s manager. He’d also worked with Rooster, prior to his death. Walking a few paces behind him, was the man himself, who headed directly for the front of the room where a podium and microphone were set up for the president of PsychicFest to deliver her opening remarks. It looked as if that speech was about to be pre-empted.

“Hello, psychics!”

Cannonball shouted, sounding as if he was addressing an arena full of wrestling fans. “My name is Carl ‘Cannonball’ Jackson. For those of you who don’t know me or haven’t accosted my wife tonight,”

Cannonball paused, somehow finding their table in the crowded room, “I’m a daredevil, like my father before me. I’ll be going over Niagara Falls in my custom built barrel on Sunday.”

There were gasps from around the room. Jude had no doubt the psychics were all seeing what Everly had seen, Cannonball’s tragic death.

“It seems that several of your rank think I’m going to die while attempting this stunt. I call bullshit!”

Cannonball’s eyes never left Jude’s table. He could see the angry man looking back and forth between Ten and Cope. It wasn’t until his eyes landed on Everly, that Jude felt his temper start to rise.

“It’s one thing to tell my wife that I’m going to die, but to use a psycho child to deliver the message is one low blow.”

Cannonball fisted his hands and looked as if he were going to come after Everly.

With those words, Jude, Ronan, and Fitz all stood up and surrounded their tiny psychic. Everly’s fork clanked loudly against her plate. She moved around the men to a vacant chair at the next table and quickly climbed to stand on it. “We love you, Mr. Cannonball,”

Everly shouted through the roar of voices.

“Ah, there’s our little fraud now.”

Cannonball leered at Everly, looking at her like she was his enemy, rather than someone trying to save his life.

“I saw what I saw,”

Everly said, sounding defiant. “I won’t take it back.”

“You won’t take it back,”

Cannonball mocked. “Since we’re in a room full of psychos, let’s take a poll. How many of you think I’m going to die?”

Jude watched as nearly every hand in the room was raised. He had a feeling the hands that weren’t raised belonged to the psychics’ plus ones, like himself, Ronan, and Fitz.

“Come have dinner with us, Mr. Cannonball and we can talk. I don’t want you to die. Neither does my family.”

Everly stood tall under Cannonball’s withering stare.

“Come have dinner with you? What so you can warp my mind and extort money from me? No thanks. I’m here to tell your family to stay away from mine. Do you hear me, little girl?”

Everly didn’t back down. “Miss Heidi is going to lose your home. She and CJ will have to live with her parents who are real assholes. They’ll tell CJ what a loser you were and how you deserved to die the way you did. They’ll threaten to kick Heidi out of the house almost every day. She’ll be scared all the time. Same for CJ. He’ll need to take pills. One day he’ll take too many-”

“How dare you!”

Cannonball thundered. “Don’t talk about my son that way.”

Cope pushed past Jude to stand beside Everly. “She’s right, Cannonball and you know it. You and Heidi lived with your in-laws for the first two months you were married. You saw first-hand how they treated you, and a pregnant Heidi. It will be worse this time because they’ll be able to tell your wife, ‘I told you so.’ Please let us help you. Help your family. Maybe there’s a way to avert the tragedy. We know how it’s going to unfold. I don’t know anything about the Niagara River or the currents or going over the falls, but there has to be something we can to do to save you. Please give us a chance.”

Jude reached for Cope’s hand, giving it a squeeze. He would bet the house that there was no way in hell Cannonball would do what Cope and Everly were asking of him.

After a brief conversation with his manager, Cannonball turned his attention back to Everly. “You’ve got five minutes.”

“I can work with five minutes,”

Everly said. She hopped off the chair and hurried back to her place at the table.

A minute later, Cannonball joined them, taking the empty seat between Fitzgibbon and Ronan. Jude was glad he was across the table because he wouldn’t hesitate to pop the cocky man in the mouth if he said one wrong word about Everly. Ronan cracked his knuckles menacingly.

“You expect me to believe that you’re some sort of baby psychic?”

Cannonball said to Everly.

“I am.”

Everly insisted. “I help my Dad solve cold cases for the Salem Police Department,”

she said sounding proud of herself. Cannonball opened his mouth, but Everly raised her hands to him, stopping him in his tracks. “You gave me five minutes and I’m gonna use them all.”

Cannonball nodded and stayed silent.

“The barrel is going to get caught in whirlpool, like the ones I make in my kiddie pool. Instead of going over the falls end first,”

Everly grabbed the salt shaker and held in vertically, making a motion like it was going done the falls. “The barrel is going to turn and you’ll go over sideways.”

Everly turned the salt shaker sideways, spilling grains onto the table. She picked several up and tossed them over her shoulder. “Instead of popping up out of the water, the pounding falls will hold you under. Just like what happened to Rooster. You’re going to drown with your wife and son watching.”

Everly set the salt shaker on the table and crossed her arms in front of her.

Cannonball was quiet for a few seconds, seeming to be taking in Everly’s words. “You’ve all seen this?”

he asked Cope.

“No, only Everly has. I know that you’re not going to survive, but only my niece knows how it will happen,”

Cope said.

“You should listen to Everly, Cannonball,”

Wolf said. “She’s my best friend in the whole world and she’s never wrong, unless it’s in math class.”

Wolf snorted, but Everly kept a straight face.

“What do you gain if I don’t do the stunt?”

Cannonball asked.

“Me?”

Everly said. “Nothing. I just want to save you so that you can be there for CJ’s important moments.”

Everly looked at Ronan. “My Dad and Uncle Jude got hurt a while back when he was trying to catch a very bad man. We almost lost Uncle Jude. I saw what that would have done to Wolfie and Uncle Cope. It was awful.”

Everly paused for a moment to wipe her watery eyes. “Your family won’t recover from watching you plunge over the falls.”

She hopped off her chair and ran to Tennyson for a hug.

“Is that how you people operate? Using kids to make adults bend to your will?”

Jude stood up, looking as if he was going to let his fists do the talking. Instead, he pulled out his wallet and grabbed something from inside it. “This is my business card. My cell number is on it. Google me, my husband, Fitz, Tennyson, and Ronan. You’ll see the kind of work we’ve done. The people we’ve helped. We promise to do everything in our power to save your life. If you’ll let us.”

Snatching the card out of Jude’s hand, Cannonball stomped away. Jude watched as Roger motioned him forward. He hurried toward the manager.

“Is what the little girl said true?”

Roger asked when Jude reached his side. He wrung his hands together. Jude could feel the nervous energy pouring off the man.

“Yes,”

Jude agreed. “Unless we do something to change his destiny.”

He offered Roger one of his cards. “Call us if we can do anything to help. My family and I are in room 1054. Come see us anytime.”

With a curt nod, Roger hurried after Cannonball.

Jude watched as the two exchanged terse words. He turned away from the angry stunt man and headed back to his family. They’d done all they could to save Cannonball from himself. The rest would be up to him.

God help him.