by Molly Harper
“A friend of mine oversees the special-collections room at the local public library,” Cindy said, a little dimple winking at the corner of her mouth. “She may have let me borrow some newspaper and microfiche materials not available to the general public. Plus, there are a few interesting history books on Newport’s mansions if you know where to look.”
So the bombshell was a closet bookworm, Nina mused. She didn’t know whether that made Cindy less intimidating or more so. But since they were going to be neighbors for the foreseeable future, Nina was determined to find this unexpected aspect of Cindy’s personality charming and useful.
CYNTHIA ELLIS HAD been born to a proud family of restaurateurs. Her late father had owned one of the most famous clam shacks in Rhode Island, Jimmy’s. She’d worked there every summer and every school afternoon that her dad would allow, with his admonishment that studies always came first. She’d loved the hustle and bustle of the dining room, chatting with the regulars as she served up fresh clam fritters and lobster rolls. She’d loved the routine of it all, even if that routine was occasionally interrupted by the odd “handsy” summer renter—who would be promptly treated to either a smack of her tray or harsher justice from a nearby regular, none of whom tolerated rudeness toward the waitresses.
With the passing of her mother, Cindy had become the lady of her house at an early age. She’d learned to enjoy bringing order to the chaos, whether it was Jimmy’s dining room or the junk drawer in their house, which received a thorough weekly sorting. Although he’d known he would miss her, Jim Ellis had looked forward to the day she left for college and her chore list was reduced to classwork and turning down dates with unworthy boys.
But just as Cindy was graduating from high school, her dad had developed a cough he just couldn’t shake. When the cough turned out to be late-stage lung cancer, Cindy had deferred college so she could see her father through chemotherapy and make sure the restaurant stayed open, even if the medical bills left them far past bankrupt. By the time he passed, Cindy had been working full-time for three years. College had seemed like a moot point. While she’d loved the restaurant, it was a painful reminder of what she’d lost, and she’d been happy to sell it off to a waitress who expressed interest and had the cash. She’d used the money left over from settling her dad’s debts to start the Cinderella Cleaning Service.
She’d started cleaning inns and B&Bs, working her way up the food chain. Her big break had come when Martha Stark’s rotten teenage son threw a wild party, wrecking several luxurious rooms of her mansion on Cove Road while Martha was out of town for the weekend. Normally, Martha would have deferred to her own housekeeper for such a (regular) occurrence. But Martha was due to host her anniversary party in just a few days, and poor Esther couldn’t handle the cleanup and the party prep.
Cindy thought her father would be proud of what she’d built, her own operation, with her own staff and the pleasure of assessing each challenge as it came along to determine how she could use it as a way to grow. Even if those problems currently included a slightly eccentric boss, an annoying male coworker, and what appeared to be an enormous Scooby-Doo set just waiting to launch spooks at her.
Nina seemed to be intentionally lagging behind to put a bit more space between the men and Cindy and herself. Cindy allowed the delay. Everything about Nina Linden read nervous and fragile, and Cindy doubted it had much to do with lingering seasickness. Oh, sure, Nina was beautiful, in that earthy, natural, the only makeup I wear is ChapStick kind of way. But between the dark circles under her eyes and the way she held her arms around her middle, as if she was trying to hold herself together, the lady was clearly exhausted. She acted as if she was about to file a restraining order against her shadow. And since the two of them would be sharing space for the immediate future, Cindy just couldn’t have that.
“Was there something you wanted to ask me, sweetie?” she inquired. “Something about the dorms? They’re safe, I promise.”
“No, that’s not it,” Nina said. “I was just wondering, did you read anything about Catherine’s . . .”
Cindy made an indelicate choking noise as she mimed being strangled. Nina frowned but nodded.
“About as much as you probably heard around the campfire when we were kids,” Cindy whispered. “A much-celebrated society wife flees her older husband’s palatial, recently completed summer retreat in 1900, only to be found the next morning floating in the bay not two hundred yards from her front door. She had suspicious bruises around her throat. There were a lot of whispers about the Whitneys’ marriage before the murder, and Mrs. Whitney’s spending so much time with the handsome young architect who designed their house didn’t help matters. The husband, Gerald, was immediately suspected and put through the indignity of being questioned by the police, but they either couldn’t or wouldn’t charge him with her murder. Gerald never recovered from the ordeal. The loss of his entire fortune in a series of bad investments sent him into a downward spiral, health-wise. He died in 1903, and their children, Josephine and Junior, were sent to live with relatives. With the debts, the estate was a legal mess. The house was left fully furnished, clothes in closets, objets d’art still on the shelves, everything. The family never managed to recover their reputation or fortune. The house was abandoned, fell into disrepair, and here we are.”
Nina stared at her, hazel eyes wide. “Jake was right about you.”
Cindy’s own eyes narrowed at Jake, who had been frequently checking over his shoulder to make sure the girls were keeping up. “What did Rumson say about me?”
“That you were good at organizing,” Nina said. “That summary of the Whitneys’ sordid past was succinct and factoid-packed.”
Cindy blushed. “Oh, well, I like to keep things tidy.”
“I can’t believe they never proved Gerald Whitney did it,” Nina said. “It’s so sad that a death like that went unpunished.”
Cindy had no problem believing it. Growing up as one of the “less advantaged” residents of Newport, she’d lived around the comfortably rich for as long as she could remember. From the time she was a preteen, she’d seen the seedier side of that glittering world. As a maid, she’d cleaned up unspeakable messes. She’d dodged the sons’ (and husbands’) roaming hands. Rich people had a habit of trying to get away with more than the average person, because they thought they could buy their way out of the consequences. She liked to believe that Deacon Whitney was different, from what she’d seen so far, but she reserved the right to revert to her original opinion.
“Well, it’s not like they had CSI back then,” Cindy quietly said as Deacon unlocked the massive oak door for the men’s dormitory. “No fingerprints, DNA, trace evidence, or anything like that. There were no witnesses to Catherine running away. She just—poof—disappeared one afternoon when the staff was busy dealing with a brush fire that had started on the south end of the property. There were dresses missing from her closet, and jewelry, and a skip missing from the family dock. Who would have thought she never really made it off the island?”
Nina shuddered, rubbing her hands over her arms as if she’d caught a chill. “That’s so sad.”
“Ladies?” Jake suddenly called from inside the dorm. “If you keep lollygagging, you’re going to miss the tour.”
“Sorry,” Nina said. “We were just trying to figure out where to start tomorrow.”
“We’ll begin at the beginning and figure everything else out,” Jake said, giving Cindy a lingering look before seeming to recall himself. He turned his attention to Nina, leading her through the main door, which opened into a large sitting area with a long distressed-oak table. “Now, come on. The construction crew has been able to put a little work into the dorms. So our immediate future isn’t quite as grim as you’d think.”
Several broken chairs had been moved into a corner marked with a sign, “Save for restorer?” Through the main sitting area, Cindy was pleased to see that her crew had left behind a clean kitchen, complete with a new stove
, a kitchenette set, and a refrigerator. Jake was explaining that he’d had electrical wiring installed to supply the appliances and lights, but because all of the island’s power was currently supplied by generators, they might experience occasional shortages. When the main house was wired, an electrical crew would install the equivalent of a miniature power plant to make the Crane’s Nest self-sustaining.
Cindy was grateful that she wouldn’t be reading by Coleman lantern for the next few months. As they walked down the long hall of bedrooms, Jake pointed out that the original architect, Jack Donovan, had designed a series of vents in the ceiling, allowing warm air to rise out of the room and keeping the occupants cooler in the summer months.
Each of them would have an individual room. Jake’s construction crew had done basic renovations to three of the rooms, patching up holes in the plaster, painting, and giving the floors a thorough cleaning. Deacon had taken the butler’s room, the largest in the building and the only one with a private sitting room. But in what Cindy considered a remarkable show of fairness by their employer, all of the “new” rooms were decorated with the same pale wood furniture and polished metal fixtures. Jake’s room also included a drafting table. And Cindy imagined the queen-size beds were an accommodation for the sheer length of Deacon’s six-foot-good-God-how-tall-is-this-guy? frame.
Cindy glanced over to see Nina staring up at the wainscoting and crown molding, a frown tugging at her full pink lips. “Honey, no brow deserves that much of a furrow. What’s up?”
Nina seemed to jerk herself out of her contemplative mood, blinking owlishly at Cindy and saying, “Oh, I was just thinking, it seems so bizarre that the architect would devote those decorative touches to a utilitarian building that guests of the Crane’s Nest would never see.”
“I’m trying to think of it as living in a college dorm, so it feels a little bit less bizarre.” Cindy looped her arm through Nina’s and led her down the hall toward the sitting room. A shaft of bright afternoon light filtered through the cloudy round window set high in the far wall. “Not that I’ve ever been to college, but I’ve cleaned plenty of dorms. Ugh.” Cindy shuddered, shaking her golden curls against the sunlight. “Word to the wise, honey. Choose night-shift jobs carefully.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Nina assured her. “Of course, if any of us chose jobs carefully, I’m not sure we would be here.”
“Yep.” Cindy grinned at her. “Cooler and cooler all the time.”
They found the ladies’ dormitory, which was a mirror image of the men’s building, save for the larger bedrooms. The Crane’s Nest required more maids than footmen and valets, so the younger women slept four to a room in the same iron bedframes. The recently updated kitchen shared a door with the men’s dorm, so the mostly female cooking staff could provide for both sides during their off hours. Nina guessed that the multitude of locks on the ladies’ side of the shared door had been employed overnight to protect the servants from temptation.
As they explored their new living space, Nina announced, “I’m going to cash in on some of those cool points and ask you a blunt, intrusive question.”
“Ooh, a sudden shift in demeanor when I least expected it, you little rebel.” Cindy giggled, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “Hit me with it.”
Nina started dragging her luggage into her assigned room. “Why are you being somewhat hostile to Jake?”
Cindy tilted her head, gave Nina a long once-over, and made a mental note not to be fooled by the invisible and occasionally inaccurate “Fragile” stamp on Nina’s forehead. This was a girl who knew how to sift through bullshit. Cindy hesitated before finally muttering, “We dated a few years ago.”
Nina considered that for a moment. “Yeah, that would be awkward, being forced to live in close quarters with an ex for months at a time. Then again, my most significant relationship only lasted three months, and he ended up immediately leaving for an expedition to South America to research the potential medicinal properties of exotic monkey orchids. And I’m not sure that the continent of space between us made his assertions that I ‘wasn’t exciting enough for him’ any less awful. Seriously, I bored a research botanist, a guy who catalogued exotic plant pollen as a hobby. A continent was not enough.”
When she looked up, Cindy was grinning at her. “Well, I just learned a whole bunch about you.”
“I tend to ramble when I’m nervous. So was it a bad breakup?” Nina patted Cindy’s shoulder, making sympathetic tsking noises, but Cindy shook her head and mumbled something unintelligible. “What?”
“I said, there was no breakup.”
“Then I am confused.”
Cindy sighed. “I was at a party with a friend. My friend knew his friend, so we were left to talk while they caught up. I was all prepared to say no when he asked for my number. I mean, you know what those guys are like. Townie girls like us, it’s like open season during the summer. But he was just so sweet and cute, and before I knew it, I was agreeing to dinner. We went out on two dates. And then he just never called again.”
“So he got you into bed and then dropped you?” Nina’s opinion of Jake was rapidly declining. “That’s awful.”
“No, he never lifted the lid on the cookie jar. The cookie jar remained intact.”
“So the dates were bad?”
“No! They were practically perfect!” she exclaimed, blue eyes flashing. “He took me to a nice restaurant on the water one night. The next date was an outdoor concert. He was charming. He opened doors. He complimented my shoes. The conversation sparkled. I mean, I never use that word, but it did. I was like Audrey freaking Hepburn to his Cary freaking Grant. He gave me a cute little kiss on the nose to say good night on the first date. He pushed just a little bit more on the second but was still a gentleman. And then nothing. I never heard from him again. By the time I stopped waiting for his calls, summer was over, and it was time for him to go back to school. And I had other things going on, and it was just over before it even started.”
“I take it there was some pining?”
“I’m not going to pretend he was the great love of my life or anything. I didn’t hear church bells ringing when I ran into him again at Mr. Whitney’s offices. Heck, I really didn’t think about him that often in the years after. I had a lot of other stuff going on. But it did sting like hell when I introduced myself and there was not an iota of recognition on his end. I mean, how many Cindy Ellises are there out in the world? And more important, who’s going to forget all this?” She gestured to her hourglass figure.
“And so modest, too,” Nina observed dryly.
“Hey, I’ll do false modesty about a lot of things but not the cookie jar.”
“OK, so that brings me to the question, why haven’t you told him?”
“Would you want to admit that you were so attractive and fascinating that a guy completely erased you from his memory banks?”
“Good point. But I don’t know if feeding your ego a steady diet of righteous indignation is healthy.”
Cindy frowned, crossing her arms over her considerable chest. “No, but it feels a lot better than seeing him staring at me and trying to figure out what sort of dud I must have been if he can’t remember me.”
“So you’re just going to let him keep digging himself further into a hole with every conversation?”
“Yeah, that’s the plan.”
“Can we make it into a drinking game?” Nina asked, an inappropriate edge of excitement creeping into her voice. “Every time he makes a reference to not knowing you very well, we take a shot. If he asks you out on a ‘first date,’ we take two shots.”
Cindy stared at her, eyebrows quirked. “You’ve got a dark, snarky center hidden under that wounded-baby-deer vibe, don’t you, sweetie?”
“It’s coming back to me, slowly but surely.”
World Finance and the Fine Art of Cookie Bribery
CONTRARY TO POPULAR belief—meaning Cindy’s belief—Jake wasn’t a womanizer. If anything, he was
a serial monogamist. He had a long string of girlfriends whose inability to get him to settle down stretched back to his dorm days. Over the years since what Deacon’s cousin, Dotty, called his “free-for-all” dating period in college, he’d definitely developed a type. It wasn’t so much about build or hair color as a mind-set. He leaned toward driven women, women who liked to spend as much time at the office as he did. Because in general, those women were going to time their “long-term commitment goals” carefully after they built up their careers, and he didn’t feel pressured about proposing after three months.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to settle down; he just wasn’t ready yet. He liked his life. He liked trying new restaurants every night. He liked being able to drop everything and go skiing or diving for the weekend with Deacon. Or forcing Deacon to leave his office at water-gunpoint and making him go skiing or diving. Committed girlfriends, the women who were in it for the long haul, had objections to that sort of thing.
But Cindy. The minute he saw her, he felt as if he’d run out of oxygen. It wasn’t just the fact that she was outrageously, undeniably beautiful. He’d been around a lot of beautiful women, and they’d never affected him like this.
Cindy was unspoiled, unpretentious. He loved the way she didn’t try to cover up her feelings, even when it meant turning that acid tongue on him. He loved that she actually ate in front of him during the group’s shared meals. She drank beer. She cursed. She walked around in dusty shirts with smudges on her face. She wasn’t trying to impress him. She wasn’t trying to cover up any flaws. She just was. And he knew he could trust her. If she was this rude to his face, she couldn’t possibly do or say anything worse behind his back. The same couldn’t be said about some of his ex-girlfriends, who were so accomplished at masking their emotions (through finishing school or Botox) that he couldn’t guess what was going on in their heads. There was Sophie, whom he’d caught going through his banking statements when she’d asked to use his bathroom. Or Caroline, whom he’d overheard telling her mother that Jake was “boring as hell but a suitable escort for parties.” And then Elizabeth, who had done a full financial and background check on him before orchestrating a meeting at her friend’s Labor Day party—and then didn’t understand why Jake found that unsettling.