Molly Harper - Better Homes and Hauntings

“Do you use little tricks like that often?” she asked.

“You’re reducing my famous charm to parlor tricks? That’s harsh,” Jake teased, elbowing her in the ribs.

Months before, this sort of casual contact, particularly from a man she didn’t know, would have made Nina edgy and uncomfortable. She was proud that she’d progressed enough that her only response was a faint blush.

“Well, what do you know about Cindy Ellis, over there?” he asked. “She owns the Cinderella Cleaning Service.”

“Never heard of her.” Nina lifted her brow. “She’s a maid?” Whitney’s extensive service contract hadn’t mentioned anything about providing maid service.

“Not exactly. Ms. Ellis—as she insists I call her—runs a sort of maid-slash-organizational-guru service. She cleans and installs those crazy storage systems in some of the swankiest family-owned estates in Rhode Island. Families who own places like that are always circulating collections of antique furnishings, Christmas decorations, that sort of thing. Ms. Ellis can organize, store, and reset those furnishings on a seasonal system that even the dumbest millionaire could figure out.”

“Are you saying we’re working for a dumb millionaire?” Nina asked, the corners of her lush mouth tilting up.

Jake snorted, grinning at her over the rims of his aviators. “First of all, Whit’s a billionaire. And second, it wasn’t his idea to hire her. The Crane’s Nest has been virtually looted by various generations of Whitneys over the years, but there are bound to be a few valuables tucked away where the relatives’ enterprising little paws couldn’t reach. The family is demanding that Whit catalogue every item of historical or monetary value and save it so that they can do battle over them later.”

Nina frowned. “But it’s Mr. Whitney’s house.”

“House, yes. Furnishings, no. And Whit’s too decent of a guy to follow my advice, which involved letters from attorneys and a lot of four-letter words.”

Nina giggled but covered it with a cough. Despite his slick exterior, Nina believed she was going to like Jake—or at least, his ability to make her forget how miserable she was for a moment. If nothing else, he was sharing insider information about their mysterious employer, a precious commodity in this harebrained scheme she’d signed on for—living full-time on the job site for an open-ended period of time with people she barely knew.

Mr. Whitney had informed Nina during her interview that he wanted to be each contractor’s full-time first priority until the job was completed, that he wanted to reduce opportunities for the contractors to be distracted by other clients’ demands. But according to two contractors Nina had overheard in Whitney’s waiting room, his chief concern was the fact that there had already been several false starts to the renovations. He’d previously lost contractors and workers to “frayed nerves,” courtesy of angry thumping footsteps on the stairway between the second and third floors, strange shifting shadows that darted around at the corners of one’s eyes, the overwhelming sense that someone was watching. The upstairs bedrooms smelled of rose water when no one had sprayed perfume there in decades. And of course, there was the sound of weeping that came from the widow’s walk. Keeping the restorers from returning home every night was supposed to prevent them from losing their nerve to come back to the island in the morning. Not to mention that it would save them the lengthy water commute.

Nina cleared her throat, trying to find an innocuous reason for the staff to be sequestered. “Would Mr. Whitney’s shaky relationship with his extended family have anything to do with our being hidden away on the island for the summer? I know I wouldn’t want to take the chance that one of us could be persuaded to sneak stuff back to the mainland.”

“No, but that’s just one more pro for the list,” Jake said brightly, offering her his most charming grin. “Whit wants to finish the project as quickly as possible, and the best way to do that is to have your full attention and have the team stay within shouting distance in case there are problems.”

Nina arched a sleek red brow. “That sounded like a well-rehearsed statement.”

Jake’s smile stayed resolutely in place, as if he hadn’t heard her.

Nina asked, “Why do you call him ‘Whit’?”

Jake leaned against the cabin, copying her posture. “Our moms were close friends at college, so we’ve known each other since we were in diapers. Even when we were kids, you could tell he had something the rest of us didn’t, that spark of genius that meant he was either going to be a CEO or a supervillain. And in a very conservative prep school that valued conformity and had the resources to guarantee a certain ‘aesthetic standard,’ a scrawny, six-foot-three freshman who loved comics and D and D stood out. I had an easier time of it, but ‘Deke the Geek’ was bullied like it was his job. Instead of getting all bitter about it, he was still the most decent person I knew. Hell, when my parents refused to believe that a Rumson could have something as pedestrian as ADHD—despite an official diagnosis from people who actually went to medical school—it was Whit who figured out tricks to help me focus and study. I probably wouldn’t have graduated from high school, much less college, without his helping me. So I helped him avoid being tossed into Dumpsters whenever possible and came up with a nickname that didn’t remind him of the assholes we called classmates.”

Yes, Nina was going to like Jake Rumson—potentially douchey prep vibe and all.

“You OK there?” Cindy asked, sliding off her perch to fetch Nina a bottle of water from a pretty polished metal cooler. She eyed Jake suspiciously.

“Barely containing my vomit,” Nina said with a sigh.

Cindy’s brow furrowed. “Is . . . that ‘OK’ for you?”

“It’s normal for me,” Nina said, extending her hand for a shake. “Nina Linden.”

“Cindy Ellis. Nice to meet you,” she said, giving Jake one last warning look before ducking back around the corner of the cabin and into the galley.

“Somebody’s got a friend already,” Jake singsonged, wriggling his eyebrows at her.

“She just feels bad for me.”

Jake shook his head. “Nope, I have a sense for this sort of thing, Nina Linden, and you are a lady who draws people to her, like moths to a sassy but vulnerable flame. I’ll bet Deacon will fall all over himself when he sees you. I should warn you. He makes random Star Wars references when he’s nervous. So expect a lot of Lando Calrissian jokes.”

“Yes, who could resist the pasty-green girl who looks like she’s on the verge of puking?” Nina pushed her windblown mess of thick auburn hair out of her face.

“Some guys are into the Exorcist look,” he said, shrugging.

She let out an indignant grunt—half laugh, half gasp—and slapped at his shoulder.

“See? You’re feeling better already,” Jake said. “Hitting me with the force of a toddler must have required some energy—Ow!” He yelped as she whacked him again, with significantly more strength. He chuckled as a bit of color crept back into her cheeks. “You’ll be all right.” He nodded to the horizon line again. “And here is your first introduction to the lady herself.”

Once the playground where the indecently rich escaped the heat and “vapors” of the big cities each summer, Newport was now a respectable tourist destination. The upper class still retreated to their private clubs and the middle class toured monuments to excess built by families such as the Vanderbilts and the Astors. During the so-called Gilded Age, mansions like the Breakers and Miramar set new standards in architectural extravagance, while the ever-so- riche matrons fought for dominance of the social scene. At the tail end of this era, Gerald Whitney had chosen to separate himself even further by building his home on his own private island.