The first thing Ten was going to do was hug his kids. The second would be to race Everly down the side-by-side slides. From thismoment on, he wasn’t going to allow anyone, alive or dead, to derail his family vacation.
9
Ronan
With the evening temperatures still in the 80s, Fitzgibbon and Jace invited everyone over for a late dinner and to use the pool. He’d also agreed to host that night’s sleepover, which meant Ten and Ronan would have the house to themselves. If Ezra made it through the night. Lately, their son hadn’t been a fan of sleeping somewhere other than in his own bed. Ronan thought maybe he wanted some one-on-one time with his parents. Not that Ronan could blame the little boy, but he was looking forward to a little one-on-one time with his husband.
“Who’s hungry?” Jace asked as he came out of the house and set a platter of sandwiches on the table.
“Me!” Wolf shouted from the pool. He quickly climbed out, shook off like a wet Labrador, and climbed into his seat at the table.
“Woofie’s always hungry.” Everly laughed. “Leave some for us!” She, Aurora, and Brooke made their way to the steps leading out of the pool.
After the kids were situated with their food, Jace passed the platter along to them. A bowl of potato salad soon followed.
“I can’t believe I’m still eating,” Ronan said as he added another heap of potatoes to his plate.
“Seriously, you had most of the chicken nuggets, two ice cream cones, and half of Everly’s ‘caution’ candy.” Jude held up his soda in tribute.
Ronan hadn’t understood at first what Everly was asking for when she wanted caution candy, but he figured it out when shepointed to the pink and blue bags filled with sugar floss. He didn’t have the heart to tell her it was cotton candy. He’d make sure to include that anecdote in his speech at Everly’s wedding. “The heat makes me hungry. What can I say?”
“Where are we with the Brighthouse case?” Jude asked before grabbing a sandwich for himself.
“There is no case,” Ten and Ronan said at the same time.
“There’s always a case.” Fitz eyed each of his friends suspiciously.
“The mother wanted absolutely nothing to do with us,” Ronan said. “Ten asked for the spirit to appear, and he didn’t. Bing. Bam. Boom. We’re done.”
“Oh, the mother wanted something to do withyou, alright.” Ten rolled his eyes. “That woman is a maneater.”
“She definitely landed on her feet after Kotter Brighthouse died,” Cope said. He turned his phone around and flashed a picture of a large house with a silver Mercedes and a red Maserati parked in the circular drive.
“Holy shit.” Ronan reached for Cope’s phone and shared the screen with Tennyson. “Who the hell did she marry? One of the Kennedys?”
Jace leaned over Ronan’s shoulders. “No way. The Kennedys are old money. This is new.”
“How can you tell?” Ronan asked.
“It’s in my DNA.” Jace laughed at the shocked look on Ronan’s face. “My father built that housing development in 2001. That part of Gloucester was an absolute dump. They were going for half a million each at the time, and there were a lot of peoplewho thought they’d sell at a loss. All of those people were wrong. Now, I’m guessing they’d go for ten million, more for the ones with an ocean view. I can’t imagine Mary Lou had a pot to piss in after Kotter died. They owned a big house with a horse farm in Rockport. All of the assets would have gone to pay the debts of the estate. Any life insurance he had wouldn’t have paid out because of his suicide.” Jace grabbed his sandwich and took a bite.
“Not necessarily,” Jude said.
“What do you mean?” Cope reached for the pitcher of lemonade sitting in the center of the table.
“Those policies pay out if the self-inflicted death occurs more than two years after the policy was purchased. Same goes for mortgage life insurance. It would have paid the house off in full. Unless, of course, there were other loans or liens on the property.”
“What does any of this have to do with the ghost of Kotter Brighthouse?” Ten asked. “He asked for my help today.”
“Yeah, but then he disappeared. What if his spirit is trapped in one of those loops where the ghost relives their last moment over and over?” Ronan asked.
Ten sighed. “It’s possible.”
“Did you ever consider that maybe Brighthouse didn’t appear because he didn’t want to speak with the people you were with?” Fitzgibbon offered. “I interviewed a lot of witnesses and suspects in my time that wouldn’t say a word if a parent was with them or a member of their crew. Get them alone, and they’d usually sing like canaries.”
Fitzgibbon had a point. Ronan had interviewed a lot of people like that too. “Why wouldn’t Kotter want to speak to his widow or his son?”
“Maybe they were fighting when he died. Or the wife was cheating on him or killed him?” Cope supposed.
