by Molly Harper
Nina peered down at the detailed sketch of a diamond ring set with sapphires. The sketch was marked “Wedding set.” Something about the ring was very familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. Maybe she had seen something like it in a movie? She asked, “The jewelry that she left behind, were they her costume pieces?”
Dotty’s eyebrows rose. “Why do you ask?”
Nina shrugged. “I just figured Gerald probably didn’t keep a lot of cash around the house. I’ve noticed rich people tend not to. And if he did, Catherine probably didn’t have access to it. So if she was about to bolt, she probably took anything she could sell for traveling money. If I’m running from a husband I resent and I have a collection of expensive, easy-to-pawn jewels, that’s what I’m selling to get away with the man I love. Said resented husband knows that not only have I escaped him, but he funded my getaway with his presents. It’s the final ‘up yours.’ ”
Dotty tilted her head as she looked Nina over. “Once you relax a little, you don’t pull any punches, do you?”
“Neither do you,” Nina retorted, her chin set in a stubborn line. It was the sort of posture that would have been natural—instinctual, even—just a few years ago. Now it felt awkward, like stretching an unused muscle. Dotty didn’t seem offended. Her friendly smile only stretched wider as she dug through her bottomless bag.
“The pieces she took were the real deal,” Dotty assured her. “Back before the family fortune went belly-up, the Whitneys were what you might call conspicuous consumers, investing in some very flashy accessories for Catherine. And a good chunk of Catherine’s jewelry collection was missing. But it wasn’t found on her body. The police believed Gerald found her as she was making her escape, probably by the boat they found stashed on the far side of the island, and he killed her in a jealous rage, then dropped her into the water, thinking that she’d be carried out to sea. Family legend held that Gerald might have stashed the jewelry somewhere on the island after he killed her.”
“Why would he have done that?”
“To conceal his involvement? To make it look like Catherine had been robbed once she reached the mainland? Because a man who strangles his own wife in a rage probably isn’t great at long-term planning and impulse control? When you consider how desperately poor some of the descendants were, it was more of a fairy tale than anything else, some small hope that they could recover a piece of their legacy.”
Cindy frowned. “The family had no problem believing that Gerald killed her?”
Dotty shook her head. “I think that’s the part that bothers me the most. That it was so easy to accept that one of our own was capable of killing someone he’d promised to love, honor, and all that. It shows an incredible lack of trust, which after all the years, you’d think I would be used to, but still . . . it just hurts. And I think it hurts Gerald, too.”
“ ‘Hurts’ in the present tense?” Nina asked, lifting an eyebrow.
“You’ve heard the stories, of course,” Dotty said. “The strange noises, the lights, the phantom voices. Unfortunately, Deacon and his parents have always refused to allow paranormal investigators onto the property to prove it, but there are several restless spirits wandering the house. Can’t you feel them?”
The fact was, both Cindy and Nina could feel the heavy energy on the island, but neither was willing to admit it openly. Desperate to steer the conversation back to more neutral territory, Nina asked, “What were you saying about the jewelry?”
Dotty held up her hands. “I hope that if I find the jewelry, it will prove that there was some other motive to Catherine’s death, some other sequence of events, or maybe even a new suspect.”
“Not to mention the small fortune they’re worth, right?” Cindy noted.
“Finding buried treasure would be nice. I mean, my relatives have been searching for those jewels ever since the ‘Whitney curse’ theory was born. My own granddad was convinced that if he found the jewelry, the curse would be broken and the family fortunes would reverse. Mostly, he just drove himself crazy and got a lot of splinters, digging up floorboards. But I think finding out that my great-great-grandfather wasn’t a murderer would be pretty valuable, too. I think it would go a long way in clearing out some of the angry, frustrated spirit energy in this place and make it a lot safer for Deacon to live here.”
“And what if you don’t?” Cindy asked. “What if all you find is evidence that the stories about Gerald Whitney are true?”
Dotty shrugged and popped a soy crisp into her mouth from a container in her bag. “At least I’ll know, and I can stop feeling indignant about the books and the ghost stories and the fact that a theme park offered to buy this place ten years ago to stage murder-mystery dinner reenactments during the summer.”
“That would sting,” Nina said, tsking sympathetically. “I can’t imagine how I would feel if people trotted out my family’s dysfunctional holiday dramas as entertainment. No one’s been killed or anything, but we did have a wishbone-related stabbing once.” Cindy and Dotty stared at her. “I mean, someone was stabbed over a wishbone, not with a wishbone. That would be weird.”
Dotty—ignoring social convention and personal-space bubbles—wrapped her long, elegant fingers around Nina’s wrist, pulling her hand away from her lips. “Sweetie, I bet you’ve got a great laugh. Stop covering it up.”
“Even if you are a snorter,” Cindy told her. “It’s still a good laugh. Besides, in the next couple of months, I bet we’re going to find out all sorts of embarrassing things about one another. Snort-laughs will be the least of our worries.”
Since her ordeal with Rick, Nina had shrunk in on herself, trying not to laugh too loudly, smile too brightly, or do anything that would draw too much attention to herself. One of the things Rick had criticized most about her was her “Pollyanna” tendencies. She was too chirpy, too cheerful, too much to deal with first thing in the morning. She had become more subdued, more “mature,” so she would be more presentable.
Nina let herself giggle a bit. Cindy rolled her eyes and dug her fingers into Nina’s ribs, making her howl. She didn’t hold back the half-joyful, half-anguished noise. She ducked away, holding her hands up in a defensive posture. “OK, OK. I’m ticklish. Cut it out.”
Cindy shook her head and continued her assault on Nina’s sides. “Not until—”
Nina sidestepped and pranced out of range but not before she let loose a loud, distinct snort. Dotty doubled over laughing, propping herself against her knees while Cindy dissolved into guffaws.
“You two . . . suck,” Nina groused, although a genuine smile stretched her mouth so wide it nearly hurt.
“Watch the language there, Red, there are ladies present.” Cindy gasped, her hand clapped to her mouth.
“Well, when I spot them, I’ll be sure to censor myself,” Nina retorted.
Dotty wiped at her eyes, while Cindy chuckled. The room fell silent in that special, awkward way that follows shared humor between near-strangers. Dotty had already decided she was going to like these women, come hell, high water, or snort-laughing. She had a feeling they would be key players in helping her nudge the ghosts from the Crane’s Nest.
THE MAN CROUCHING just a hundred yards from the Crane’s Nest was tall, dark, and handsome. But he was also hunched in the dry, tangled undergrowth between the untamed woods and the lawn proper, watching the staff quarters through binoculars, which didn’t say much for his character.
Through the windows, he could see the women sitting around the ladies’ kitchen area, drinking iced tea and eating cookies. The hippie girl with the wild hair was sitting cross-legged on the long kitchen table, telling some story that involved puffing out her cheeks and waving her hands like an idiot. The blonde burst out laughing, writhing and jiggling as she damn near fell over. Nina, as always, was slow to respond. She sat there like a bump on a log, practically asking for permission before working up the nerve to smile at the hippie girl’s antics.
The hippie rolled her eyes, jostlin
g Nina’s arm and topping off her tea. Nina ducked her head, but he could make out the curve of her lips through the binoculars.
The man sniffed, his handsome face twisted into a mocking sneer as he watched the girls raise their glasses together. Well, wasn’t that just precious? He was sitting out here in the heat, sweating his sack off, and Miss Priss was joining her Girl Scout troop for tea and cookies in the nice, cool house. She was rubbing elbows with the rich and famous, and he was hiding in the bushes like some nobody.
It wasn’t fair. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to turn out. Nina thought she could just walk away? She thought she could steal jobs from him and show him up? Not in this lifetime.
Make her pay, a voice whispered in his ear.
He started, looking around for whoever had whispered in his ear. He waved his hand, as if an errant mosquito were buzzing nearby in the fading light of afternoon. He focused his binoculars on the window, watching Nina sip her tea and delicately dab at her lips with a napkin.
Always so polite. He sneered. Always so prim and proper. She wouldn’t say “shit” if she stepped in it. She was too good for that. It was what made her so easy to push around, her refusal to make a fuss even when she got trampled. Then again, the Virgin Mary act was also what had made her such a convincing little victim when she finally went to the cops to file her bullshit complaints against him. Conniving bitch.
Make her pay.
It wasn’t a bad idea, he mused.
Nina should pay. She’d used her big doe eyes and her poor-orphan-victim routine to fool Deacon Whitney into hiring her, when she knew he was bidding for this job. The lack of loyalty shocked him, pissed him off. The minute she saw his name on the list of bidders, she should have stepped aside. He thought he’d made that clear with all the trouble he’d caused her, but she obviously hadn’t understood the message, because here she was, on Whitney Island, where she had no business being.
Make her pay.
Yes, he would do that. He could show her, once and for all, who was in charge. He’d let her have her little moment now. He’d let her relax and think that maybe her stupid little business might make a go of it. But then he would crush her, just like he had at all the other job sites. He would fix it so that Nina was too much trouble to keep around. He would make Deacon Whitney feel unsafe having her on his staff. And who would be ready to step in and take over the mediocre work she’d done? He would.
Make her pay. The dark, seductive voice seemed to slither through his mind, worming its way into the cells and making them its own. Show her who’s in charge.
He nodded slowly. It had been easy enough to sneak onto the island, even with the motion detectors and security cameras Whitney’s people had arranged around the perimeter of the property. He’d simply followed the charter boat rented by the hippie girl and then veered south before they reached the shore. As he crept along the shoreline, he’d managed to spot every hidden piece of surveillance equipment. It was if he were being led along a safe path, allowing him to spy on the Whitney Island team undisturbed. The island, the house, wanted him here, he could feel it. A sly, rasping voice from the recesses of his brain told him so.
You’re doing the right thing. You’re putting her in her place. It wouldn’t be so easy if you weren’t doing the right thing. Whitney will probably thank you later.
He smiled, raising the binoculars to his eyes. Nina would be sorry that she ever crossed him. She would pay.
Sending Ghostly Tantrum Throwers to Time-Out
CINDY HADN’T BEEN entirely honest when she told Nina that she hadn’t felt anything out of the ordinary at the Crane’s Nest. Since her initial walk-through, she’d felt eyes sliding over her skin like eels. She was used to people looking at her. You didn’t spend your middle-school years in a D-cup without developing a sort of sixth sense for skeeviness. But in the Crane’s Nest, she felt as if she was being studied, examined like prey from every alcove and cubby in the house. She sensed shadowy blurs at the corners of her eyes, but when she turned her head, they were gone. She tried blaming the unnatural chill of the rooms for the goose bumps and the feeling that someone was standing behind her, but her stubborn fight-or-flight response wasn’t buying it.
Despite her fairy-tale face, Cindy Ellis wasn’t one for flights of fancy. Growing up, she hadn’t had the time to waste. And now she didn’t have the patience for anything that stood in the way of her goals. She’d purposefully ignored the Crow’s Nest’s unsavory reputation while composing her bid, because it didn’t fit her overall agenda to shy away from such a potential career boost. Like every skeptical Newport local, she’d scoffed at the ghost stories connected to the house. Rich people and their nonsense, her father had called it, a waste of a perfectly good house, sitting out in the middle of nowhere, rotting away because of greed and ego. John Ellis had never had time for either. His girl was too smart to let something like “bad vibes” get in the way of doing a job right. An Ellis didn’t back down from a challenge, even when the challenge was accompanied by goose bumps and foreboding. She could get over both with a stiff drink and a mushy Sandra Bullock movie.
But now that she was actually on the island, Cindy couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something very wrong with this house.
And she wasn’t alone. Cindy had lost two day-crew employees within the first three days on the job. She wasn’t about to tell Mr. Whitney. She simply replaced them with other members of her team and continued the preliminary cleanup. She couldn’t blame her employees for their sudden departure. They’d reported inexplicable cold spots, the sensation of being watched, footsteps in rooms where they were the only occupants. On the third morning, Greta and Maria, two of Cindy’s most reliable cleaners, had abandoned the entry hall and run for the dock, purses in hand, to wait for the next ferry—which wasn’t due for six hours.
Greta would only say that she wouldn’t continue working in the house, and if that meant she was fired, she would accept that. Maria was considerably more descriptive, chattering nervously as Cindy tried to coax them back into the house.
“This is a bad place, Miss Ellis,” Maria had told her, clutching the little gold crucifix around her throat. “Watching, everything is watching, waiting, for the right time to reach out. You don’t want to be reached.”
And now, as she was sorting through furniture in one of the second-floor guest rooms, she was moving around the bright, airy room, in the process of whipping a dusty storage sheet off a piece of mystery furniture, and she could clearly hear the faint echo of footsteps moving around on the third floor. And no one was supposed to be working on the third floor.
Cindy stood slowly, staring up at the plastered-medallion ceiling. Maybe it was a worker doing some sort of preliminary inspection? Or maybe it was just the house settling. She’d worked in enough old houses to know what noises they made when they shifted. She’d almost talked herself into ignoring it and continuing on with her work, when the ceiling right above her head groaned under the moving burden of some heavy wooden object. It sounded as if someone was moving furniture up there, something she had specifically instructed Anthony’s crew not to do, as she had to sort through and label everything from its original position, per the requirements of the Whitney family’s lawyer. And they were doing it in Mrs. Whitney’s bedroom, which was one of the most contentious areas of the house. Aside from the dresses, costume jewelry, and antiques, the room contained personal mementos such as a hope chest filled with Mrs. Whitney’s trousseau. Several Whitney relatives were petitioning for the right to run through that room like a Macy’s white sale. So properly cataloging the Whitney boudoir before it could be ransacked was priority one.
Cindy nervously swiped her hands along the burnished gold tendrils that had escaped from her tight French braid. She really didn’t want to go upstairs, particularly by herself, but the possibility of the furniture being moved without her approval was enough to get her feet moving toward the second-story landing. “Hey!” she called. “This is
Cindy. I don’t know who’s up there, but you’re not supposed to be moving anything.”
No response.
A cold trickle of sweat ran down her spine, soaking into her blue Cinderella Cleaning T-shirt. Over the faint reports of nail guns and the muffled conversations of the workers, she could hear a strange cyclical humming of air. It was as if the house was breathing. Cindy waited for a long moment, praying that the noise would stop so she could forget about the whole incident. But there it was again, the scraping of furniture against the floor, farther down the hall now.
“Hello?” Cindy called.
The silence seemed to stretch out forever, mocking her. She stepped onto the stairs for the third floor, the air growing heavier, pressing against her from all sides, as if she were climbing through thick syrup. Instinctively, she stepped back and was ashamed that a staircase and a few bumps and thumps had her wanting to bolt for the main floor and the safety of other people.
“Hey!” she called again, her voice pitching higher. “Answer me, damn it!”
And through her shame came a bolstering tickle of anger. She was an Ellis. An Ellis didn’t back down. Whoever was up there didn’t know who they were dealing with. Cindy placed a foot on the first stair, gripping the banister, her knuckles white.
She felt the first impact in her stomach, as if she’d been sucker punched by some unseen fist. She wheezed, barely able to brace herself against the banister and avoid tumbling down the stairs. Her head swam, and her throat closed up, sinking her in a swampy mire of pain and confusion. What was this? What was happening to her?