Molly Harper - Better Homes and Hauntings

“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 tsk ing 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.”