Free Second Glance by Jodi Picoult Page A

sketchy things, like skydiving and ice climbing. Ethan wanted to be just like him, if he ever got the chance to grow up. But he couldn’t fathom how the man he idolized most in the world would not just want to live on the edge, but to die there. “How come you did it?”
    Ross reached across Ethan’s body to rap hard on the glass. Then, with a flick of a finger on a console button, the window automatically rolled down; Ethan could smell the bitter fireweed that grew along the road in brilliant regiments. “To get to the other side,” his uncle explained.
    “Oh my God,” Shelby cried, and then she was running down the driveway to yank Ethan out of the car. Ross watched them hold this moment between them, the small grain of calamity now reforming itself into a pearl of relief. They tottered back toward the house, Shelby folded around her son, as if he were still an extension of her own body.
    Ross leaned against the hood, thanking God he’d had the hunch to look for Ethan where he had. He didn’t want to think about what might have happened, had he come home alone, or if Ethan had stayed outside too long.
    He started for the front door and realized that a stranger was standing on the porch beside his sister. “This is Rod van Vleet,” she said, in a tone that let Ross know their argument was far from resolved. “He stopped by to speak to you.”
    Ross shot his sister the blackest glance he could, given the circumstances. The man was shorter than Ross, his balding head the unfortunate shape of a peanut. He wore a fancy suit, a starched shirt, a banker’s tie. “Mr. Wakeman,” he said, with a hesitant smile. “I hear you hunt ghosts.”

THREE
    J ust this once, it was cool that everyone was staring. .
    Ethan was carrying the video camera, which was heavy, but he wasn’t about to complain to his uncle. Anyway, Ross was hauling everything else—from the sleeping bags to the junk food (a stakeout, his uncle said, was a stakeout, even if the people you were trying to catch in the act were already dead). They walked from the car past the drummers and the bulldozer and the construction crew, and Ethan noticed that each person they passed seemed to freeze in the middle of whatever they were doing. One old Indian guy stared so hard at Ethan he thought it might leave a mark on the back of his head. But he wasn’t staring at Ethan because he was a freak— just because he was curious about the man and the kid who walked across the property like they owned it.
    Ethan stopped for a moment, arrested by the sight of a college kid sifting sand. The boy was stripped down to his shorts, his shoulders and back butternut brown. Ethan looked down at his own long sleeves and thick pants. He sucked in the mesh of the facemask his mother made him wear when he went out while the sun was still in the sky.
    “Hey, move it,” Ross called over his shoulder, and Ethan scrambled to catch up.
    The developer, Mr. van Vleet, hurried over as soon as he saw them. He wore fancy businessman shoes and kept slipping on the ice that had spread over the land like frosting on a cake. “Mr. Wakeman,” he greeted quietly. “You remember what I said about keeping this . . . discreet?”
    “You remember what I said about letting me run my own investigation?” Ross answered, turning his back on the man. He trudged up the steps of the old house; one of which broke right in the middle while his foot was on it. “Be careful,” he warned Ethan.
    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