Aidan grimaced. “Yeah, it’s quite an inheritance.”
“You never know,” Hal told him. “The place has one hell of a history. Comes with a legend, ghosts, the whole bit. It’s decaying, but does have the original stables, smokehouse—even the slave quarters. If you want to do something with it, do it fast. The local preservationists will be all over you any day now.”
“Yeah, well…I don’t know what we’re doing. That’s part of what we’re meeting up to decide,” Aidan said.
“I heard the three of you went into the private investigation business together,” Jonas said. “How’s that working out?”
“Well,” Aidan said briefly.
“Floridians. Taking on that old house,” Hal said. How he meant it, Aidan wasn’t sure. “Let’s get that beer, Jonas. Aidan, we’ll be in touch if we hear anything about that bone of yours.”
Aidan nodded, and they all trekked back through the muck. When they reached their cars, they waved. The other two men headed toward the city.
Aidan started down the river road.
Twenty minutes later, he was with his brothers.
And they stood, the three of them, staring at the house on the rise that wasn’t exactly a hill.
Then again, the building wasn’t exactly a house. Not anymore. Decades of neglect had left dangling shingles, broken columns, and paint that was flaking and peeling. The effect was of something from a horror movie set.
The promise of a storm wasn’t helping, either. In the distance, thunder was rumbling, and the sky had turned a strange color. But at least the coming weather had alleviated the heat. A cool breeze was blowing. It actually had a slight chill to it. And the darkness seemed to have taken on a life of its own, sweeping across the sky and down over the trees, crawling like a fog along the ground, a shadow-mist that smelled of violence and decay.
Aidan was the oldest of the three and, at six-three, the tallest by half an inch. His features were weathered, and he was the most physically imposing of them. A stint in the military had left him fit and wary; his reflexes were quick, and he had retained a suspicious perception of the world around him and an invisible Keep Away sign. Once, he supposed, he had been decent-looking. He had blue eyes, referred to as “icy” these days, and pitch-dark hair. Serena had found him compelling enough. It was his manner rather than his appearance, he figured, that tended to keep people at a distance. Then again, he probably hadn’t been as remote and chilly when he had been with Serena. There had been promise in the world when she was alive. Now…well, it was a good thing he had work to do. Lots of it. Keeping himself from falling into the emptiness.
His brothers, his family…them, he trusted, but others…He’d gone through Quantico, but when life had convinced him he was no longer a team player, he’d left the FBI. Given his background, he had opted for private investigation.
Maybe he should have investigated the house.
“Hmm,” Jeremy, the second in age, said. Jeremy had been the first to suggest they form a business. When Aidan had left the Bureau, Jeremy had been ready to leave his position with the Jacksonville police divers. Unlike Aidan, his hell hadn’t been a personal one; he had simply been the first to come upon a van full of abused foster children, drowned when their vehicle leapt a median and drove straight into the St. Johns River. He’d been at it a long time; he’d seen horrific sights. But that one had haunted him. Jeremy loved playing his guitar, though, and music brought him through. He’d quietly begun a charity to find homes for abused, abandoned and orphaned children, and discovered a talent for broadcasting along the way. He had come to New Orleans to work with a popular DJ on a dinner-dance to be held at the aquarium to raise funds for Children’s House, his charity, which was involved in finding homes for area children who had been orphaned by Katrina.
Jeremy liked people, and had always loved New Orleans and the Gulf region, but even he was speechless now that they were seeing their unexpected inheritance for the first time.
Plantation, Aidan thought.
The word summoned up visions of long, oak-shaded drives, rich and verdant fields, pastures—and a Greek Revival house painted pristine white, with beautiful women in long flowing dresses sitting on the porch sipping mint juleps.
If anyone were caught imbibing anything here, it would be derelicts chugging beer out of bottles hidden in brown paper bags.
Oh yeah. He definitely should have investigated.
Zachary, the youngest of the trio, who was a mixture of his eldest brother’s hard stoicism and his other’s open-mindedness, let out a breath.