Better Homes and Hauntings

5 The Fall of the House of Whitney

NINA WAS SO caught up in goggling at the expansive entry hall that she stumbled over the threshold. Cindy’s day crew was going to have their hands full with this place. The beautifully inlaid parquet floors were blanketed in a carpet of gray dust. The walls were heavy dark wood and dirty beige plaster, relieved occasionally by a panel of gold leaf. The pressed-relief ceilings were impossibly high, with arched entryways to every room and warren. Every step echoed as Nina moved farther into the house.

The empty fireplace at the far end of the entryway was dark and dirty. She could make out lighter places on the faded cream silk wallpaper where paintings had once hung. There were a few spots on the tables where rings of dust clung to the surface, indicating that some little objet d’art had once stood there but had been snatched years ago.

Even with Deacon’s money, how would they ever make this place feel cozy? It was more than a matter of a few throw pillows and a photo collage. How were they ever supposed to make this tomb into a home? And then, she remembered, Deacon didn’t really want a home. He wanted a showplace, and this house was definitely suited to that task.

“I know it doesn’t look like we’ve made much progress,” Cindy said. “Mr. Whitney wanted me to zero in on key areas of the house before we really got down to business.”

Nina could see it in her head, the way it used to be, shining gold leaf and gleaming dark wood. She imagined what sorts of flowers would look best in an explosive arrangement over the round marble-top table. She would use freesia, for their sweet, light perfume, and the citrusy delight of commuter daylilies.

“So the decorating style was called Le Goût Rothschild, which, as far I can tell, means ‘cram as much overpriced crap into your living space as possible,’ ” Cindy said, with the bored yet reverent air of a historical-society maven chosen to give summer tours of the Gilded Age monuments on the mainland. “Unfortunately, generations of Whitneys have been sneaking into the house over the years and picking off the most obvious valuables, whatever was left after the bank took its share from Gerald. But Mr. Whitney insists that he wants to keep the style a bit more contemporary anyway. Everything else is going to be restored and scattered around the house or shipped off to said thieving relatives.”

As Cindy led Nina toward large double doors on the left, from behind which could be heard the murmur of male voices, Nina’s attention was captured by the dark grand staircase that swept majestically from the center of the room to the next landing, splitting in two before ascending to the second floor. It was the sort of staircase that an old black-and-white movie queen might descend wearing a Charles Worth–style gown, to be swept off her feet or devastated by some heartless cad. Had Catherine Whitney ever come down those stairs to make her entrance into a room full of admirers? Her tenure as mistress of the house had been so short. And it sounded as if she’d been so unhappy while she was here. It was doubtful that Catherine had much opportunity to make good memories.

Nina could hear the music in her head, a sedate waltz to give the ladies a chance to show off their carefully practiced skills. She could hear the tinkling of crystal punch cups and murmured conversation. She could feel the warmth of wax tapers and dozens of bodies pressed into the entryway as they waited for the famed Mrs. Whitney to open the first dance. From the corner of her eye, she could see a dark shape hovering at the banister, a feminine shape, from the hips down, a series of tiered, swishing skirts. But the figure had no—

“Hey, we’re going this way,” Cindy said, making Nina jump.

“Sorry.” Nina drew a shaky breath and nodded, trying to keep her face impassive. “Just got distracted.”

“Yeah, dust bunnies the size of tumbleweeds send my OCD tendencies jangling, too. Don’t worry, my crew will get it straightened out,” Cindy said, pulling on Nina’s arm until they entered what was once the music room. The windows stretched from floor to ceiling, letting grime-filtered light tumble over the remains of moldering couches and battered musical instruments. A grand piano stood collapsed in a corner, one leg bent out from under it. Above their heads, the ceiling was pressed tin, with molded plaster cherub faces in the center of every square.

Nina stared up at the multitude of white babies, frozen with perpetual smiles. “So . . . there’s that.”

“I spent about a day trying to find an explanation for it,” Cindy said, shaking her head. “And then I realized that would only upset me more. Anthony assured me they’re coming down soon. And then they will be destroyed with fire on holy ground.”

Nina and Cindy shuddered in tandem. In the meantime, Deacon was pouring himself what looked like an enormous amount of vodka from an improvised wet bar on a defunct harpsichord.

“Dude!” Jake cried. “It’s eleven o’clock! When I said ‘have a drink,’ I meant soda or an iced tea or something.”

Nina crossed her arms over the chest of her green Demeter Designs T-shirt. “He had liquor, and he put it in here? Why not in the staff quarters?”

“Oh, there’s a bar in the staff quarters, too,” Cindy told her. “On the men’s side.”

“The boys have been holding out on us!” Nina grumbled.

“Well, I stole their tequila yesterday morning, so I think that makes us even. We’re making margaritas this weekend, lady.”

Jake took the bottle out of Deacon’s hand when their fearless leader began pouring himself a second shot. “Seriously, man, it’s not that bad! You love Dotty. I love Dotty. I don’t see why you’re upset. It will be just like old times, having her around.”

“Just like old times?” Deacon scoffed, snagging the vodka bottle out of his friend’s hand. “Oh, you mean like the time Dotty convinced us that the polo ponies at the club were being mistreated, so we should set them all free? I got grounded for two months!”

“We were eight!” Jake exclaimed.

“I missed space camp!” Deacon shot back. “Or how about our junior year, when Dotty got it into her head that you and Genevieve Malloy were some sort of star-crossed supercouple, so she set up some John Hughes machination to make sure you ended up together on prom night?”

“That one wasn’t that bad, actually.” Jake shook his head.

“Yeah, until Genevieve’s Cro-Magnon gorilla of a boyfriend saw you and tried to kick your ass. I jumped in, like an idiot, to defend you and ended up with fourteen stitches in my scalp. Or how about when we were in college, and Dotty decided I needed a tattoo, got me drunk, and took me to ‘her’ tattoo guy?”

“OK, OK, I get the point,” Jake said, snagging the bottle out of Deacon’s hands.

“Misspelled!” Deacon exclaimed, gesturing at his shoulder blade. “In two places!”

“In her defense, it’s binary code, so no one knows that it’s misspelled. And technically, it’s not misspelled; some of the numbers are just out of order. So it’s misnumbered.”

“I know it’s misnumbered!” Deacon groused. “It’s not that I don’t love my cousin. You know that I do. It’s just that she sows destruction and chaos wherever she goes. She’s like a chipper, chirpy goddess Kali.”

“Try saying that three times fast,” Jake muttered.

“Deacon, what is your problem with me being here?” Dotty demanded from the doorway, hands on hips. She’d removed the colorful scarves, revealing a wild shoulder-length mane of dark chestnut hair streaked with purple and red. The eyes that had been hidden by oversized sunglasses were so blue they were practically Liz Taylor violet. She looked like a delicate, whimsical—and at the moment, very pissed-off—creature from the Irish fairy tales that Nina’s nana used to tell her. All puckish good humor until you crossed her, and then she salted your farmland and turned your milk cows sour.

Jake stood behind Dotty, arms crossed and leaning against the doorframe, surveying the scene with a shell-shocked expression as Dotty stood toe-to-toe with her cousin and poked him in the chest.

“You know how seriously I’m taking this book project. You know how important it is to me to finish it before you toss our family history into the Dumpster.”

“First, that family-history crack was uncalled for,” Deacon told her, poking his finger at her forehead. He did it without much force, but it seemed to annoy Dotty thoroughly. “And second, pardon me if I don’t take your commitment to this project very seriously. Oh, I know, it’s very important to you. Just like it was very important to you to spend eight months documenting the deterioration of cave paintings in Australia, which became less important when you decided to do a coffee-table book on the annual migration of red crabs across Christmas Island, which became less important when you decided to do a book on modern-day prospectors in Alaska. And then you decided to take off to Mexico to do sunrise studies of ancient Mayan ruins, which somehow ended up becoming a two-month-long trip down to Brazil because you met a guy who owned an emerald mine. Look, I love you, but writing this book you’ve planned is going to be another thing that turns out to be less important than whatever comes up next. And in the meantime, you’re distracting my staff, interfering with my progress, and generally being a pain in my ass. And frankly, I’m getting a little tired of being the guy who cleans up your messes, bails you out of jail, or ends up with a misspelled tattoo!”

“He bailed you out of jail?” Nina asked, frowning.

“It was just a little protest on my college campus,” Dotty assured her. “No big deal. The campus security guards had no sense of humor.”

“She was naked,” Deacon told Nina.

“I was a little naked,” Dotty admitted. “But it was for a good cause.”

“You were protesting the use of hormone-injected chicken in the campus cafeteria. How did that cause require you to be naked?” Jake asked, giving in to the need for a large drink.

“I think we’re going to like her,” Cindy told Nina.

Nina raised her hand. “I have a question. You’re going to write a book about the house?”

Dotty beamed at Nina and practically skipped across the music room to throw her arms around her. She gave her a tight hug and then moved on to give Cindy similar treatment. Jake immediately poured Nina and Cindy their own drinks. “Yes! Well, it’s not so much a book about the house as it is about our family. I’m a writer and photographer—”

This declaration was met by weary groans from Jake and Deacon.

Dotty glared at both of them. “Shut it, you two.”

Shooing Jake away from the bar, Cindy poured Dotty a large drink of her own.

Dotty continued, “I’m a writer and a photographer, an art form I happen to take very seriously. I plan on documenting the entire renovation process, showing the house in its present decayed state and then whatever Deacon decides to do with it. I want to publish the pictures in a book explaining the house’s history and how its construction affected our family.”

“Air out our family laundry, you mean?” Deacon flopped into a nearby wingback chair, which buckled even under his slight weight.

“Deacon, it’s been a hundred years. Trust me, that laundry’s flapped in the breeze for quite a while. If anything, a book like this might clear up some of the more salacious rumors. And once I get my hands on Great-great-grandmother Catherine’s diary—”

“Which has never been found,” Deacon interjected.

Dotty glared at him. “And sorted through the family photos and documents—”

“Which have been ransacked and scattered all over the house by our dear relatives.”

“I’m sure I’ll be able to put together a more accurate picture of Catherine and Gerald,” Dotty finished huffily. “And I’m sure I’ll be able to explain the Whitney curse and why you seem to have been able to break it.”

“There’s no Whitney curse!” Deacon scowled.

“Oh, and there are no ghosts roaming the halls of the Crane’s Nest, right?” Dotty shot back. “Despite the fact that almost every person who has visited this house in the last hundred years has had some sort of unsettling experience here. And I’m sorry, but what do you call it when—with the exception of you—no Whitneys have been able to make anything of themselves since Gerald Whitney? Any time a Whitney descendant starts a business venture or marries into a prominent family, that venture or that family is bankrupt within a year. The Whitney curse. Pretty soon, not even the pedigree was enough to tempt rich suitors or investors. The only thing the family has left is the island, this house, and what’s left of its contents. And the only reason the family was able to hold on to it was that it was a land trust from the governor. Deacon here somehow broke the chain. I’m hoping that researching the book will help me figure out why.”

Deacon drained his glass. “You are aware that there have already been three books published about Catherine and Gerald.”

Dotty huffed out an irritated breath. A series of nasty pulp tell-all paperbacks had “reimagined” their great-great-grandmother’s bitter end every twenty years or so. The first, in the 1940s, was the least offensive, postulating that Gerald had killed Catherine in a fit of jealous rage over her star-crossed love affair with Jack Donovan, the architect of the Crane’s Nest and a former childhood friend of Mrs. Whitney’s, and then used the fire in the south wing to distract the staff long enough to dump her body offshore. In the early 1960s, another book insisted that mounting debts and the sheer, overwhelming expense of building the house had sent Gerald into a resentful, murderous tailspin. Hollywood attempted to adapt that version into a thinly veiled feature film, which was slated to star Marilyn Monroe until her death shut down production. And in the late 1970s, the last, most vicious author to rewrite Whitney history accused Gerald of murdering Catherine in an opium-fueled rage after he found her in flagrante with her lady’s maid.

For the first time since her arrival, Dotty frowned, muttering into her tumbler of vodka. “Yeah, and personally, I find it depressing, not just that the slander was so thorough but that investigators refused to deviate from the idea that Gerald killed his wife. No other suspect would do. It’s closed-minded, which isn’t tolerable. But it’s also unimaginative, which is downright unforgivable. And none of those books was written with a family perspective. Face it, Deacon, I have just as much right to be here as you do. I don’t resent you getting the house. Your dad was the oldest, and it was right that it passed to him, then you. But you know that you don’t have it in that logical, mathematical heart of yours to shut me out. You need me here. Jake and I keep you human.”

“You and Jake keep my insurance adjusters busy.” Deacon snorted.

Jake made an indignant sound. “That’s not—Wait, OK, that’s fair.”

“Fourth of July party?” Dotty guessed, giggling as Jake nodded. Realizing that Deacon was glaring at her, she stifled it, pulling a more penitent face. She may or may not have pouted her lips the slightest bit. When Deacon failed to respond, she made the pout more pronounced. Deacon grimaced. She ratcheted up the pout even more. Deacon groaned. For the others, it was like watching a ping-pong match consisting solely of facial expressions.

“The first time you mess up the construction schedule, you’re out of here,” Deacon warned her.

“You won’t even know I’m here.” Dotty giggled, hopping into Deacon’s lap and giving him a world-class noogie. Deacon’s eyes rolled toward the creepy cherubs, who remained unhelpful and silent on the subject of his cousin.

NINA WASN’T SURE what to make of Dotty Whitney. This was a woman who clearly had old blue blood flowing through her veins. She carried herself with that innate grace and assurance that old-money girls seemed to learn in their first days at prep school. Even the bohemian mishmash of tights, clashing scarves, and a loose man’s shirt looked magazine-shoot-ready for some feature titled “Yard Sale Chic.” But instead of turning her nose up at the accommodations in the staff quarters, she’d immediately starting adjusting the feng shui of her dorm bedroom.

“I could do yours, too,” she offered, shoving her iron bedframe diagonally from the door in what she called the “commanding position” for energy restoration and calm.

“I’m good,” Cindy said. “Nina?”

Nina was staring through the window at the main house. While a part of her still dreaded the idea of going inside, some peculiar, compulsive part of her brain was urging her back toward the house, to find out whether the smoky figure she’d seen was real or the imaginings of a brain pushed a little too far. There were so many things she hadn’t seen in the house, so many rooms to explore. She could just walk across the lawn anytime she wanted and walk in. Why had she waited so long? She could go right now, if she wanted to, so why didn’t she—

“Nina?” Cindy touched her arm. “You OK?”

“Oh, no.” Nina put her hands up in a warding-off gesture. “Uh, I was just feng shuied last week.”

Cindy noticed a well-crafted leather journal open on Dotty’s bed. On the page there was a photo of the Eiffel Tower, shot at some distance, and another of a slim pair of feet clad in ballet flats on a cobblestone street. She crept a little closer and flipped to the next page, and the next. The book contained an extensive collection of black-and-white and color shots. A field of wheat with cypress trees spiking up from the golden waves. Black-and-white stills of the streets of Paris, a child eating an apple with an open-air market in the background.

“That is my portfolio,” Dotty said. “I have some basic skill with a camera. So I’ve taken an obnoxious number of pictures while I have traveled. But I’m no Galen Rowell.”

“You said something about a book?” Cindy asked.

“I want to document the whole renovation process, and everybody involved, so release forms are coming your way, thank you very much. And I’ll be going through the trunks and documents in the attic, looking for information about my great-great-grandparents and their marriage. I want to write about how the events of the past have affected our family over the years, how they’re still affecting us, and how Deacon is trying to go about changing that. He’ll hate every minute of being interviewed, but he’ll get over it.”

“Do you really want to dig up all that family dirt—” Nina cleared her throat. “I mean, history?”

Dotty threw a scarf decorated with multicolored skulls over the lamp on her nightstand. “Sometimes the dirt needs to be dug up.”

Cindy’s plump pink lips quirked. “Well, I can help you with the relics. I’ve already saved a few documents from an old desk of Gerald’s that you might be interested in.”

Dotty opened her shoulder bag and rummaged, muttering. “I have a whole list of items I’m looking for—diaries, housekeeping ledgers, visitor books, anything from the architect Jack Donovan’s office on the property. If he kept a journal about the building process, that would be even better.”

Cindy nodded. She’d seen plenty of old books around the house, some of them with handwritten pages. And as long as it was OK with Mr. Whitney, she didn’t mind handing them over to another “on-site” Whitney for inspection before they were catalogued.

“I know that the house has been picked over pretty thoroughly over the years, so you can’t promise much. Would you believe our parents had to actually chase some historical-society ladies off the island once because Deacon’s dad caught them trying to ‘claim’ documents for their collections of artifacts? Of course, Deacon’s dad wasn’t supposed to be out here looking for valuables, either, but that’s neither here nor there. Dang it!”

When she couldn’t find what she wanted, she sighed, dug into her jeans pocket, and fished out what looked like a Starbucks napkin. She smiled triumphantly and handed her “list” over to Cindy. “And while you’re at it, I need you to keep an eye out for these . . .” Dotty plopped onto her bed, kicking off her shoes and digging into her army duffel to pull out a sketchbook that she handed to Nina. Nina was beginning to wonder if it was like Mary Poppins’s bottomless bag, with an endless supply of gypsy travel supplies.

She flipped through the sketchbook until she found several pages on which Dotty had fixed frayed, yellowed sketches of elaborate pieces of jewelry. A chunky bracelet made from diamond daisies. A choker consisting of two ropes of pearls holding in place a large citrine in a sunburst setting. A golden peacock brooch with emeralds and sapphires set in the tail. A multipaneled Bohemian-style garnet necklace.

“This is Catherine Whitney’s fabled jewelry collection. Gerald may have been stingy with his affections, but he was a pioneer of the theory that diamonds make up for everything. Men of a certain class liked their peers to know they could afford to keep their wives and mistresses swimming in jewels. After search parties found her body and the maids were packing up her belongings, they realized the collection was missing. Catherine’s wedding-ring set was also missing from her hand when they found her, which just reinforced the notion that she’d left her husband. Like she’d ripped them off and thrown them at him in a final ‘eff you.’ ”

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, jostling 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.