Nina sighed. She had to get a grip. The Crane's Nest job would be the crown jewel of her portfolio. This job would gain her entrée into the Eastern Seaboard's most exclusive circles and the rich potential clients that made up those circles. 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. That could lead nowhere good.
"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, are we 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 left days ago. 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 the light."
Nina thought better of commenting that tricks of light rarely wore hoop skirts. But 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 its blades beating a regular rhythm against the wind. The unmarked helicopter landed about forty yards to their left, the displaced air beating 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 an open 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.
And of course he would show up before she was fully recovered from a siege of vomiting and possible hallucinations. 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 followed the others to greet Mr. Whitney.
Deacon 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, completing the "disgraced aristocrat" look as much as the rumpled business casual clothes. 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 easy, unaffected charm and firm handshakes all around, but Nina recognized the look of someone who was stressed and uneasy. 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 dealt with easy charm before. She'd had more than her fair share of men whose money made the world go round, who thought they were so damn smooth they could lie to your face and get away with it. Nina had no interest in falling prey to that brand of man again, even if it came wrapped 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 trio of contractors to their own devices, Deacon and Jake wandered down the lawn a bit, clearly having some discussion of details. 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 Ben, Cindy, and Nina.
"Jake just reminded me that ‘nice, nondouchebag' employers' greet people by name and make some effort to be sociable," Deacon said, his cheeks flushing 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 name in your field, 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 favoritism."
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 in 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 into the main house to bunk in an abandoned guest room. But he led the group down an overgrown pebbled path around the 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 to Nina 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."
Cindy Ellis started cleaning inns and B&Bs after her dad passed, she told Nina, working her way up the food chain. Her big break came when Martha Stark's rotten teenage son had thrown a wild party, wrecking several 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 included a slightly eccentric boss, annoying male coworkers, and what appeared to be an enormous Scooby Doo set just waiting to launch spooks at her.
Nina intentionally lagged behind to put a bit more space between them and the men. "Do you know 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 ghost story circles when we were kids," Cindy whispered. "A celebrated society wife flees her much-older husband's luxurious, 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 history of spending so much time with the architect that 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 his wife's 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. 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."