Second Glance Read online

  The house looked like it had been crying, black shutters hanging off their hinges like a fringe of damp eyelashes. Ethan stood back and craned his neck, so that he could see all the way to the top. It was white, or it had been, once. Most of the windows had been broken by local kids years ago. Ivy grew up and over the doorframe, a spotty handlebar mustache.

  “Ethan!”

  Startled by his uncle’s voice, he raced up the steps. In the entry-way, he froze. Plaster rained down from the ceiling, and the floorboards were thick with dirt. On the walls where patterned paper used to be there were smudged handprints and graffiti: SARI GIVES GOOD HEAD. Underneath the staircase were the remnants of a bonfire and about thirty empty beer bottles.

  Ethan glanced from the broken banister to the black hole of an adjoining room, then to the ceiling. So it was creepy, he thought. So what. He squared his thin shoulders, convinced that if he played his cards right, he could get picked for Fear Factor or one of those other reality-TV shows. He could get Uncle Ross to take him along on every case. After all, Ethan only came out at night. Maybe it took one to know one.

  He was braver than any other kid he knew . . . not that he knew many kids.

  Or so Ethan was telling himself, until a touch on the back of his neck made him jump a foot.

  Kerrigan Klieg was the New York Times reporter who did the obligatory vampire piece at Halloween, who wrote about the chemical nature of love for Valentine’s Day, who interviewed the parents of the city’s first millennium baby. In other words, he was a slacker. He didn’t have the heart or the inclination to follow up on police corruption or political stress; his pieces were human interest, although they weren’t all that interesting to Kerrigan himself. What he did like, however, was getting out and about to do the research. To Mercy Brown’s grave in Rhode Island, for example, to see the undead for himself. Or to Johns Hopkins, where researchers were measuring the melatonin levels associated with lust. Kerrigan liked being reminded that there was a world outside the island of Manhattan, one where people actually walked down the streets and looked each other in the eye, instead of pretending they were somewhere or someone else.

  You couldn’t beat the combination of elements in this particular piece: a hundred-year-old Indian, a group of frightened townspeople, a real-estate development mogul, and a purported angry ghost. And they were only at the tip of the property—the part with the house on it. Who knew what lurked in the acres of woods behind it?

  Kerrigan walked beside Az Thompson, the guy who had called the features editor in the first place, and wondered what the old man had done to stay alive this long. Did he eat yogurt, like on those Dannon commercials? Practice meditation? Inject B-12? “People have been taking our land away forever,” Thompson said. “But it sure is depressing to think that might keep happening to us, even after we’re dead.”

  Kerrigan stepped over a dog that was chewing on an old shoe. “It’s my understanding that Spencer Pike, the owner of the property, hasn’t lived here for some time.”

  “Not for twenty years.”

  “Do you think he was aware before then that this land was an alleged burial ground?”

  The old man stopped in his tracks. “I think Spencer Pike knows a hell of a lot more than what he lets on.”

  Now this was interesting. Kerrigan opened his mouth to ask another question but was distracted by a man and a kid walking inside. “Who are they?”

  “Rumor says it’s someone van Vleet hired,” Thompson said. “To make sure there are no ghosts.” He turned to the reporter. “What do you think?”

  Kerrigan was used to doing the interviewing, not to being interviewed. “That the whole thing makes for a great story,” he answered carefully.

  “You ever wake up with someone else’s dream on your tongue? Or slip on your boots to find them filled with snow, in August? You ever seen squash blossoms vine up through a sink drain overnight, Mr. Klieg?”

  “Well, no, I haven’t.”

  Thompson nodded. “Stick around,” he said.

  When Ross put his hand on his nephew’s neck, the boy nearly leaped out of his skin. “Ethan,” Ross said, “you okay with this?”

  Ethan was shaking in his shoes. “Yeah. Oh, yeah, sure, I’m totally cool.”

  “Because I can take you home. It’s not a problem.” Ross stared soberly at Ethan. “You can tell everyone I was the one who wouldn’t let you stay.”

  In response, Ethan took hold of the splintered railing on the stairs and started to climb.

  With a sigh, Ross followed. Maybe Ethan wanted to be here, but he sure as hell didn’t. When van Vleet had asked him to investigate some of the paranormal phenomena at the Pike property, he’d refused. And then he’d seen his sister watching him, waiting.

  He’d set four conditions. First, Ross was in charge of the investigation, and would take orders from no one, including the head of the Redhook Group himself. Second, the only people allowed on the property during the investigation would be Ross and his assistant—Ethan, to the boy’s utter surprise and delight. Third, Ross wanted no information about the history of the property until he asked for it— otherwise, the impressions he got might be tainted. Fourth, he would take no money for his services—unlike the Warburtons, who would give any client a ghost, for the right amount of cash.

  In return, Ross promised to keep this investigation “quiet.” Because the Powers That Be at the Redhook Group didn’t want the entire world to know they might actually be giving credence to a belief in the supernatural.

  So now, here he was, setting up for a night observation and falling back into the familiar as if it were a featherbed. Ethan waited at the top of the stairs like a zealous puppy. “Put the camera down,” Ross instructed. “Let’s do a walkthrough and see if you get anything.”

  “Get anything? Like what?”

  Ross had to stop and think for a moment. How did you explain to a kid the sensation of splitting your mind at its seams, so that every scent and sight left an imprint? How did you describe the feeling of the air growing heavy as a blanket, settling over your ribs? “Close your eyes,” Ross said, “and tell me what you see.”

  “But—”

  “Just do it.”

  Ethan was silent at first. “Light . . . shooting out from the corners.”

  “Okay.” Ross gently turned him in a circle, like pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. Then he steadied Ethan’s shoulders. “Now . . . without peeking . . . where are the stairs?”

  “Behind me,” Ethan said, the wonder of this sixth sense shaking through his voice.

  “How do you know?”

  “It . . . well, it feels like a hole in the air back there.”

  Ross pivoted Ethan, then tapped him on the head hard enough to make his eyes fly open. “Good job, Boy Wonder. That was lesson number one.”

  “What’s lesson number two?”

  “To stop asking for lessons.”

  Ross walked through the hallway. Any furniture or family relics that had been in this home were long gone, their original placement marked only by the fading of the paint or scuff marks on the filthy floor. The upstairs held three small bedrooms and a bath. A staircase led up to a tiny servant’s alcove.

  “Uncle Ross? When will they get here?”

  “If there are ghosts, they’re already here.” Ross peeked into the bathroom. The claw-footed tub was there, cracked in the middle, and an old commode with an overhead tank. “In fact, they’re probably checking us out. If they decide they like what they see, they’ll try to get our attention a little later.”

  When Ethan turned the faucet, a brown residue leaked out. “Do they care that we’re here?”

  “They might.” Ross felt along the window, examining the seal. “Some ghosts are desperate to get someone to notice them. But some ghosts don’t know they’re dead at all. They’re gonna see us and wonder why we’re in their house. That is,” he challenged loudly, “if there are even any here.”

  Come and get me, Ross thought.