“Not much,” Ryan replied, grinning sheepishly. “I invited you out under false pretenses. I just wanted to have a drink with you.”
“Do you have drinks with all your clients?” Lauren asked, miffed at being duped.
“Only the ones I want to get to know better.” Ryan’s expression grew serious when he realized she was angry. “Look, I am sorry if I made you uncomfortable. You’re actually the first client I’ve ever seen outside the office—by design, that is. I run into my clients all the time. This is a small town.”
“It’s fine. I’m glad I came,” Lauren admitted.
“Ah, so you did want to see me again,” he said, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “Either that or you’re starting to feel lonely in that big, empty house.”
Lauren glanced away. Was it that obvious that she was lonely? Some women wore their widowhood like a shield, using it to keep out the world that refused to stop spinning despite their loss, but although she wasn’t ready to embark on a new relationship, she didn’t want to come off as someone who was wallowing in grief, giving off waves of loneliness and impenetrable sadness.
“It is a bit quiet,” she agreed. “I’ve lived in Boston all my life. I’m used to traffic, noise, and crowds.”
“I went to school in Boston, but I was glad to come home. I love it here, especially in the off-season. There are some mornings when it’s overcast and the fog still hasn’t burned off and the beach feels completely deserted, as it must have been before anyone settled here. There’s an eerie stillness that envelops you in its embrace, and the waves lap at the shore, rolling in faster and faster as the tide comes in. It’s perfect. And then Jack, my dog, spots a squirrel and it all goes to hell in a handbasket.”
Lauren took a leisurely sip of her drink and reflected on what Ryan had described. It had been foggy and silent only that morning, the mist moving stealthily between the trees and shrouding the dock in a thick blanket of white. She’d heard the blast of a foghorn somewhere in the distance and had looked away from the vast emptiness beyond, feeling uncomfortably isolated. Had the woman she’d seen that first morning felt the same when she’d looked out the window of her house on the hill?
“Surely you must know something about Holland House, having lived here all your life,” Lauren said.
“Only that it’s said to be haunted, which is nonsense, of course. Any house that’s seen several generations of people carries some footprint of their lives; it’s only natural, but that doesn’t mean their spirits are actually hanging around, spooking the current residents.”
“Tell me about Orleans, then,” Lauren invited. Learning about the town would give her a starting point in her research if she decided to pursue her idea.
“That I can do,” Ryan replied. “This area was first settled at the end of the seventeenth century by Pilgrims who left the Plymouth colony in the hope of securing arable tracts of farmland. It was sparsely populated, and its industry revolved around fishing, whaling, and farming. Most houses were very modest, which made Holland House an oddity when it was built, since it was quite sizeable. The inhabitants of the house didn’t farm the land, nor did they join the ranks of men who went out to fish, which set them apart from the community. Over time, the Holland family became one of the most prominent in Orleans.”
“That’s a French name, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Orleans was named after Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orleans, in honor of France’s support of the American colonies during the Revolutionary War, but at the time Holland House was built, this area was considered the southernmost parish of Eastham. To be honest, I never really looked into the history of the house. My interest always lay in Hog Island, which is clearly visible from Holland House.”
“Are you going to tell me what’s so special about this island, or will I have to guess?”
Ryan laughed softly. Lauren thought he might have blushed, but the lighting was too dim to tell for certain. “When I was a boy, I went through a prolonged pirate phase,” Ryan said, smiling at the memory. “My grandfather told me the story of Captain Kidd and his treasure, and it captured my imagination.”
“And who, exactly, was Captain Kidd?” Lauren asked, giggling when Ryan gave her a stare of mock horror.
“You’ve never heard of Captain Kidd?”
“Not that I can recall, no.”
“Captain Kidd was a seventeenth-century Scottish sailor who became a notorious pirate. Legend has it that he buried part of his treasure right here on Hog Island. The greater part of his loot was said to be buried on Gardiner’s Island off the coast of Long Island. He was arrested and eventually executed. The treasure he left behind was never unearthed, either here or on Long Island, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. People have been looking for it for centuries. If you row out to the island, you can still find broken shovels and dug-out pits where treasure hunters tried their luck. It’s believed that he revealed the exact location of the loot to his wife in one of his letters, but no such letter ever came to light. When I was a boy, I was convinced that I would be the one to find the treasure and become rich and famous.”
“And how did that work out for you?” Lauren asked, trying to imagine Ryan as a boy.
“Not well. Like many others before me, I failed to find any trace of the booty.”
“That’s a shame,” Lauren replied.
“Don’t I know it. When I was about ten, being a pirate seemed like the most romantic of occupations. Had someone told me I’d be neutering dogs and putting beloved pets to sleep, I would have had them walk the plank.”
“Life has its own plan, doesn’t it?”
“It certainly does.”
“And what does your daughter want to do? Would she like to follow in your footsteps and become a veterinarian?”
Ryan looked momentarily blank, then smiled and nodded as if he’d just gotten the punchline of a joke. “Merielle is not my daughter. She’s my little sister. She’ll be going to UMass in the fall, but she’s helping me in the office until then. She says I’m a great boss,” he added smugly. “Really understanding.”
“Is a lot of understanding required?” Lauren asked, curious what he meant.
“She’s an eighteen-year-old girl who likes to party. Need I say more?”
“No, I guess not. I haven’t had any dealings with teenagers since I was a teenager myself, but I can imagine.”
“So, what do you do when you’re not skulking around historic houses?” Ryan asked.
“At the moment, I work as a ghostwriter.”
“What does that entail?” he asked.
“Ghostwriters are usually hired by people who want to write a book but don’t have any writing ability to speak of, most often for the purpose of writing an autobiography. Sometimes, established fiction writers hire ghosts to increase their output. They provide the ghostwriter with an outline and have them write the story in the writer’s name, preferably copying their style of writing.”
“Isn’t that cheating?” Ryan asked.
“It’s perfectly legal. Many big-name writers use ghosts, but they usually give them credit for the work.”