Zach grinned as he looked at him. “What’s the matter? Scared of ghosts? I doubt it’s really haunted,” he teased.
“We’re investigators, not builders. And all old houses are supposed to have ghosts,” Aidan said, surprised that he felt so irritable about it. “And if it has a reputation for being haunted, that means we’ll have all kinds of idiots coming out of the woodwork wanting to research or whatever.”
Jeremy was still grinning at Zach. “I have to admit, I think it’s exciting, owning a piece of history. And we belong to the house as much as it belongs to us. I mean, this is Flynn Plantation, and we’re all that’s left of the Flynns.”
Aidan groaned aloud. He was already outvoted. And he didn’t know why, but when he looked at the house, he didn’t want anything to do with it.
It was nothing but a white elephant, he decided. No, not white. A peeling gray elephant.
“We don’t even know if it’s structurally sound,” he said.
As he stared up at the house, the sun blinded him for a moment. And then…
Then he saw a woman on the balcony. She was tall, with flowing dark auburn hair, and she was wearing something long and white that seemed to float out behind her, just like her hair. She was oddly beautiful—and she looked very real.
He blinked, and she was gone.
“Hey, did you just see someone?” he asked his brothers.
“No, but the woman who was helping Amelia might be here. The lawyer said something about her coming by to pick up her things.”
“I thought I saw someone in a…never mind,” Aidan said.
He searched the balcony, then the windows. There was no one there.
If his brothers had noticed his intense survey of the house, they weren’t saying anything. They were too busy arguing about their carpentry skills.
He left them behind and started walking toward the house.
“Aidan!” Zach yelled. “What are you doing?”
“Taking a closer look,” he called back.
They caught up with him a minute later, and they all walked together up the graveled drive, under parallel rows of mature oaks that offered a welcome respite from the sun. As they neared the house, Aidan saw that the paint was in even worse shape than he’d realized. The place would need some real work, he thought with an inward groan.
“We can’t possibly have any zoning problems out here,” Zach said.
“If it’s a historic landmark, we’ll still have to deal with someone,” Aidan pointed out.
Zach shook his head. “I’m sure it must have some kind of historic designation. But…historic properties are important. Aidan, I don’t know about you, but sometimes…hell, sometimes I feel like we’ve got to at least try to make a difference somehow.”
Aidan’s features tightened as he stopped walking and stared at his brother. “What are you talking about?”
Zach shrugged. “I’ve seen so much bad shit out there—hell, we all have—and I can’t help it, but I just feel that this is something important, something we’re meant to do.”
“What if the historical society wanted to buy the place?” Aidan demanded.
Zach stared at him. “I know it’s been years since the storm, but you and I both know it’s going to take a decade for real money to start flowing into the region again. I’m sure the historical society has done all they can do to fix up the properties they already own. But we could do something important by putting this place back the way it was. There could be lectures and concerts here, maybe even reenactors to remind visitors of everything it took to make a country.” Zach flushed, probably a little surprised by his own speech, but he didn’t back down.
When Jeremy added his own “Count me in,” Aidan lifted his hands in surrender. “In fact, I have an idea,” Jeremy went on.
“Oh?” Aidan said.
“Why don’t we give ourselves a real goal? Like Halloween. We could host an event to benefit Children’s House.”
Aidan looked at Jeremy. His brother was serious. And why shouldn’t he be? When his job had thrown him the worst he could imagine, he hadn’t turned bitter or given up. He’d taken up a cause, so more kids wouldn’t end up dead at the bottom of a river.
Sure, Jeremy could be a little obsessive, but so what? Maybe it was in the blood. Hadn’t he himself stood on a riverbank less than an hour ago, insisting that a single bone, which everyone else seemed happy to assume was just an aftereffect of nature’s wrath, had to be taken seriously and fully investigated?
Zachary had supported Jeremy’s cause wholeheartedly from the beginning, but what the hell had he, the oldest, done?
Nothing, that’s what. He’d let his soul die.
Well, enough of that. He owed his brother.
“An event?” he said, still careful to be the voice of logic.
“A Halloween party.” Jeremy smiled as the idea grew. “We can decorate the place, hire people to dress up and be scary.”
Aidan groaned aloud.
“Think about it, Aidan. This place was like a gift to us, so why not use it to help other people?” Zach asked, siding with Jeremy.