Better Homes and Hauntings

2 Orientation for Residents of Spooky Island

EACH OF THEM handled the stress of officially landing on Whitney Island in a different way. Cindy was organizing the pile of luggage and boxes stacked near the defunct fountain just short of the sparsely graveled drive. Nina sat on a stone bench with her head between her knees. Jake was wandering around the lawn, trying to find cell-phone reception, although Nina suspected he was just trying to distract himself from staring up at the house. Every time he looked up at the huge structure, a What have I gotten myself into/I want my mommy expression fell across his boyishly handsome face.

Nina had no desire to look at the house, either. Had she imagined the dark figure on the roof? Had the atmosphere, combined with the house’s reputation, created some sort of surreal illusion? She wasn’t one for flights of fancy . . . but it had seemed so real. Mr. Whitney said that they would be the only people present on the island full-time, but maybe he’d hired cooking staff or had his own administrative staff from his office there to make way for the renovators. Did administrative personnel wear old-fashioned gowns with tiny wasp waists?

Every local knew the story of the Crane’s Nest and the tragic death of its mistress. Nina had grown up on the outskirts of Newport, and it was an urban legend among the local kids. Townies like Nina, who spent summers on the less picturesque stretches of beach trying to avoid summer people, grew up hearing tales of the wailing ghost of Catherine Whitney wandering the halls of the Crane’s Nest, searching for her killer, her lost treasure, a hidden illegitimate baby . . . the details tended to change depending on who was telling the story. It was a common dare among the high school set to sail to Whitney Island and spend the night at the house. Very few kids managed to make it as far as the island’s dock without getting spooked and speeding back to the mainland. This led to a rumor that the island was cursed, that no boat would moor on it. Nina had lived in Newport for most of her life, and this was the first time she’d ever laid eyes on the place.

So it was only natural that her fertile imagination, after she’d grown up on these stories, would bring the tortured ghost of Catherine Whitney to life. Right?

Nina rubbed her hands over her face. She had to get a grip. The Crane’s Nest job would be the crown jewel of her portfolio. Impressing Deacon Whitney would help her gain entrée into the eastern seaboard’s most exclusive circles and the rich potential clients therein. She would build her business. She would rebuild her life and her credit rating from the ground up. She would stop imagining scary shadow people on the roof.

“Feeling better now that you’re on solid ground?” Jake asked, pressing a cold soda can into her hand.

She accepted it gratefully and guzzled the better part of the bubbly elixir before answering. “Much, thanks,” she said, glancing over shoulder again toward the still-uninhabited roof. “I swear, I’m not this high-maintenance on dry land.”

“Hey, you’re the first girl to throw up on that boat for reasons unrelated to alcohol. That sets you in a class all your own,” Jake assured her.

“That’s not particularly flattering,” she mused. “Jake, you said we were the only people on the island. Surely, Mr. Whitney sent a prep team ahead of us to clean the staff quarters or stock the kitchen.”

Jake shrugged. “Cindy’s crew came out to clean up the dorms for us. And the catering staff from Whit’s office stocked the kitchen. But they haven’t been here since yesterday. Why do you ask?”

Nina chuckled weakly, sorry now that she’d said anything. “It’s just silly. I thought I saw someone on the roof, right before I got sick.”

Jake smiled at her, but there was a hitch to the expression, a hesitation that made Nina curious. “We’re the only ones here, I promise. There’s nobody else. What you saw? It was probably just a trick of light.”

Nina observed that tricks of light rarely wore hoopskirts, but she thought better of saying that out loud. Before she could come up with a more suitable response, a chopping noise in the distance caught their attention. A tiny black dot in the sky grew closer and closer, the sound of propeller blades beating a regular rhythm against the wind. The unmarked helicopter landed about forty yards to their left, flattening a patch of perfectly nice purple gypsy flowers into the dirt. Nina winced at the sight. She doubted the delicate stems would recover from that.

Oblivious to Nina’s botanical distress, Jake helped her to her feet. “That’s Whit!” he shouted over the noise, that happy grin brightening his face again.

The helicopter landed nimbly on the shaggy, but level, patch of grass. A slim, long-legged man in jeans and a blue Oxford shirt emerged from the helicopter. He slapped the helicopter door twice, prompting the pilot to take off. As the wind whipped his Oxford aside, Nina caught a glimpse of Captain America’s shield underneath.

Deacon Whitney ran a billion-dollar company, and he still wore comic-book-hero T-shirts. That was sort of adorable.

As the helicopter and its hair-wrecking winds disappeared into the horizon, she did her best to straighten her mussed clothes and look presentable. She took one last breath-freshening sip of her soda and stepped forward to greet the man who would save her financial future.

Deacon Whitney was all long, lean limbs and angular lines, with high, sharp cheekbones and a jawline most matinee idols would sell their mothers for. But his hair was a shaggy, curling mess of light brown and combined with his rumpled business-casual clothes to complete the disgraced-aristocrat look. Much as he had when they’d first met at his corporate offices, Deacon gave Nina the immediate impression of being uncomfortable with his surroundings. He’d covered it quickly enough, with no-nonsense eye contact and firm handshakes all around, but Nina recognized the look of someone who was stressed and burdened. She’d seen it in the mirror every morning for months.

Despite the kindred twinge she felt for another neurotic, she was determined to stay as far away as possible from Deacon Whitney. She’d had more than her fair share of men whose money made the world go ’round. Nina had no interest in falling prey to that brand of man again, even if it came wrapped up in a yummy geek-chic package.

Jake stepped close and whispered something in Deacon’s ear. Deacon frowned and glanced at Nina. Suddenly self-conscious, she combed her fingers through her hair. “Excuse me for just a second,” Deacon said.

Leaving the ladies to their own devices, Deacon and Jake wandered down the lawn a bit, deep in discussion. Deacon seemed unhappy, glancing over at Nina and then at the house, shaking his head. Jake shrugged and, judging from the smirk on his face, had just made some completely inappropriate comment. Deacon rolled his eyes skyward, as if asking heaven why he’d been saddled with this man as his friend. Deacon’s expression of exasperation was too well-practiced. And Jake was too good at blithely ignoring it.

Jake poked Deacon’s shoulder, making Deacon roll his eyes again. So Jake nudged a second time, shoving him toward Cindy and Nina. Deacon reluctantly joined the group.

“Jake just reminded me that ‘nice, nondouchebag employers’ greet people by name and make some effort to be sociable,” Deacon said, blushing slightly. “So hello, I’m Deacon Whitney, owner of this very large pile of bricks. Please excuse the dramatic entrance, but I’ve never been fond of boats.”

Nina would have liked to have known about the nonboat option. But perhaps there was no nonboat option for nonbillionaires.

“I chose each of you, not because you’re the biggest names in your fields but because you presented the most original ideas, and I was excited to see what you would do with the place.”

“Not me,” Jake interjected cheerfully. “I was chosen because of nepotism.”

Deacon sighed and continued on as if Jake hadn’t spoken. “So, thank you for joining me here this summer and giving me your full time and attention during what I’m sure is your busy season. I promise the project will be worth your while. If you have any questions or concerns, don’t be afraid to come to me or Jake, here. And if you will follow me, we can get settled into the staff quarters.”

Nina had expected Whitney to take them toward the main house, where they would bunk in abandoned guest rooms. But he led the group down an overgrown pebbled path around the main house to a series of low-slung bungalow structures flanking the coach house and the stables.

“The original mistress of the house, Catherine Whitney, ordered the architect to build separate staff residences,” Cindy whispered as they trudged past the jagged remains of the greenhouses. “Even though the other cutthroat—but ever so elegant—Gilded Age ladies kept their servants close in case they had some urgent need for warm milk at midnight.”

“So why did Catherine have them built so far away?” Nina whispered back.

“Catherine wanted the servants to feel that they had a home with privacy and peace, to foster a neighborly camaraderie among the staff. She figured happier servants made for a happier household. She came from a family with just one servant, and in that kind of household, the servant was just like part of the family. I guess she was a bit more sympathetic to the plight of people living ‘belowstairs.’ ” Cindy lowered her voice even further. “Also, a less savory suggestion has been made that Mr. Whitney hadn’t wanted the servants to hear what he did to his wife at night.”

“I grew up around here, and this is the first time I’m hearing any of this,” Nina said quietly. She looked over her shoulder to see Deacon watching her while Jake chattered about imported tile. Just as her brain managed to communicate the Smile like a normal person! message to her face, he looked away, to the tablet Jake was shoving in his face.

“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.”