The Ice Cradle Read Online Free PDF

cable, but most of my friends do—and I’d read a lot about it. The ghost detectives never let a little matter like the truth get in the way of a gripping episode.
    “They asked if they could do a show on us,” Lauren went on. “We saw it as free publicity and thought it might be a way to lay all the old rumors to rest. Prove that there
aren’t
any ghosts at the Grand View.”
    “Have you ever seen the show?”
    “I have now. We should have done a little more research before we said yes.”
    “Can’t you cancel?”
    “We tried. They won’t let us out of it.”
    “When are they coming?”
    “Saturday.”
    “Saturday?
This coming Saturday?”
    “Mark has to go into Boston for some meetings. They’re going to meet him there and come back with him Saturday morning. And if they find anything—”
    “—which they always do,” I interrupted. The show was completely formulaic. Not finding ghosts would be like the couples on
Wife Swap
getting along or Supernanny visiting a family with well-behaved children.
    “I know, I know,” said Lauren. “And they’ll blast it all over the cable universe. Nobody will stay here but crackpots and kooks.”
    “It could be really great for business.”
    Lauren didn’t smile. “Yeah, or it could scare it away.” Her eyes looked tired and sad. She seemed like a different person than the one I had met yesterday.
    “Maybe I can help you,” I said.
    “Thanks, but what can
you
do?”
    “You might be surprised.”

Chapter Four
MONDAY
    T HE BLOCK ISLAND school, a jaunty new brick and shingle edifice, served all the young scholars on the island, from age five to age eighteen. As Henry and I approached the building early on Monday morning, dozens of kids, some still small enough to be wearing OshKosh overalls and others sporting Goth-style makeup and downy upper lips, could be seen making their way to the island’s only school—ambling in clumps of three or four, speeding on bikes, hopping out of the cars and trucks their parents had pulled in to the school’s circular drop-off area.
    The morning had gone smoothly enough, eased along by Henry’s elation at the fact that he didn’t to have to wear his school uniform: chinos, blue oxford shirt, navy blue clip-on tie.
    “What?” I said, laughing. “You thought you’d have to wear your
uniform
?”
    “You said it was school!”
    “No, honey, I said it was
at
a school. You think I’d make you go to
school
on your vacation? Come on! It’s more like—camp! It’ll be really fun!”
    “It will?” His hair was all cowlicky. He beamed up at me, prepared to believe just about anything I said.
    I squashed the impulse to get all breathless and enthusiastic. I hoped he’d have more fun than I would have had doing this at his age, but things could go either way. I would have hated walking into a huge, strange school filled with as many big loud kids as with kindergarteners, having to be on my own all day long without a pal to eat lunch with, not daring to ask where the bathrooms were. I didn’t want to promise Henry that he’d have fun, because he very well might not, not today at least, and maybe not at all. Fun, sadly, was not the primary purpose of this arrangement.
    I could feel his apprehension kicking in as we approached the school. He started to lag behind me, eyeing the chummy clusters of kids, and beginning to bite his lower lip, a sure sign that he was getting the jitters. I paused on the steps, then took him by the hand and led him over to a bench at the edge of the playground.
    I adjusted his scarf and attempted to subdue a stubborn cowlick.
    “I don’t want to go,” he said.
    “You have to, sweetie. Because I have to go to work.”
    “I can come with you,” he announced, as though alerting me to this possibility for the very first time.
    I shook my head.
    “Listen,” I said. “All these kids hang around together
all
the time. Every day, summer and winter. They are going to be
so
excited to meet somebody