Free Second Glance by Jodi Picoult Page B

were thick with dirt. On the walls where patterned paper used to be there were smudged handprints and graffiti: SARI GIVES GOOD HEAD . Underneath the staircase were the remnants of a bonfire and about thirty empty beer bottles.
    Ethan glanced from the broken banister to the black hole of an adjoining room, then to the ceiling. So it was creepy, he thought. So what. He squared his thin shoulders, convinced that if he played his cards right, he could get picked for Fear Factor or one of those other reality-TV shows. He could get Uncle Ross to take him along on every case. After all, Ethan only came out at night. Maybe it took one to know one.
    He was braver than any other kid he knew . . . not that he knew many kids.
    Or so Ethan was telling himself, until a touch on the back of his neck made him jump a foot.

    Kerrigan Klieg was the New York Times reporter who did the obligatory vampire piece at Halloween, who wrote about the chemical nature of love for Valentine’s Day, who interviewed the parents of the city’s first millennium baby. In other words, he was a slacker. He didn’t have the heart or the inclination to follow up on police corruption or political stress; his pieces were human interest, although they weren’t all that interesting to Kerrigan himself. What he did like, however, was getting out and about to do the research. To Mercy Brown’s grave in Rhode Island, for example, to see the undead for himself. Or to Johns Hopkins, where researchers were measuring the melatonin levels associated with lust. Kerrigan liked being reminded that there was a world outside the island of Manhattan, one where people actually walked down the streets and looked each other in the eye, instead of pretending they were somewhere or someone else.
    You couldn’t beat the combination of elements in this particular piece: a hundred-year-old Indian, a group of frightened townspeople, a real-estate development mogul, and a purported angry ghost. And they were only at the tip of the property—the part with the house on it. Who knew what lurked in the acres of woods behind it?
    Kerrigan walked beside Az Thompson, the guy who had called the features editor in the first place, and wondered what the old man had done to stay alive this long. Did he eat yogurt, like on those Dannon commercials? Practice meditation? Inject B-12? “People have been taking our land away forever,” Thompson said. “But it sure is depressing to think that might keep happening to us, even after we’re dead.”
    Kerrigan stepped over a dog that was chewing on an old shoe. “It’s my understanding that Spencer Pike, the owner of the property, hasn’t lived here for some time.”
    “Not for twenty years.”
    “Do you think he was aware before then that this land was an alleged burial ground?”
    The old man stopped in his tracks. “I think Spencer Pike knows a hell of a lot more than what he lets on.”
    Now this was interesting. Kerrigan opened his mouth to ask another question but was distracted by a man and a kid walking inside. “Who are they?”
    “Rumor says it’s someone van Vleet hired,” Thompson said. “To make sure there are no ghosts.” He turned to the reporter. “What do you think?”
    Kerrigan was used to doing the interviewing, not to being interviewed. “That the whole thing makes for a great story,” he answered carefully.
    “You ever wake up with someone else’s dream on your tongue? Or slip on your boots to find them filled with snow, in August? You ever seen squash blossoms vine up through a sink drain overnight, Mr. Klieg?”
    “Well, no, I haven’t.”
    Thompson nodded. “Stick around,” he said.
    When Ross put his hand on his nephew’s neck, the boy nearly leaped out of his skin. “Ethan,” Ross said, “you okay with this?”
    Ethan was shaking in his shoes. “Yeah. Oh, yeah, sure, I’m totally cool.”
    “Because I can take you home. It’s not a problem.” Ross stared soberly at Ethan. “You can tell everyone