Secrets of the Lost Summer Read Online Free Page B

Knights Bridge, Massachusetts.
He dropped his feet back to the floor and tapped a few keys on his laptop, pinpointing the town on a map of Massachusetts. It was on the northern edge of what appeared to be a large lake, the largest by far in the small New England state.
He sat back.
Knights Bridge and Olivia Frost still didn’t ring any bells.
He was about to zoom in for a closer view when Noah Kendrick entered the sprawling corner office. The door was open. Noah and Dylan had been best friends since first grade in a Los Angeles suburb. Noah, the genius geek. Dylan, the C-student hockey player. Now they were business partners, except it wasn’t that simple. Dylan owed Noah his livelihood and maybe even his life. Noah said the same thing about Dylan, but it wasn’t true and they both knew it. NAK, Inc., was Noah’s brainchild, a four-year-old, highly profitable high-tech entertainment software company named for him—Noah Andrew Kendrick. Dylan had just helped put it together and keep it together. He knew how to fight. Noah didn’t.
“What’s up?” Noah asked.
Noah had on, as always, a black suit. He didn’t care that he looked like an undertaker. He thought black made him look older and tougher. He was thirty-three, but even in his suit, he looked much younger. He was fair and angular and had to be coaxed into sunlight. He was deceptively tough and fit—a fencer and a brown belt in karate.
Dylan was the opposite. He was thirty-four but looked older. He and Noah had met in first grade and graduated high school the same year, but Dylan had repeated kindergarten after his mother decided she should have held him back a year to begin with. The school didn’t disagree. Everyone said it was because of his September birthday. Maybe, but he’d never been a great student.
He’d discovered ice hockey in fifth grade. No looking back after that. After twenty years on the ice, finishing up in the NHL three years ago, he was fit, scarred and lucky to have all his teeth. He could clean up a yard in New England if he needed to, even a yard with a refrigerator in the brambles.
Unlike Noah, Dylan wore jeans and a sweater. No suit, black or otherwise, today. He only donned a suit when necessary, such as when he had to be a fly on the wall for one of Noah’s meetings and warn him that someone was a jackass who should be thrown out the nearest window.
Not that Dylan had ever thrown anyone out a window or ever would. He could give the heave-ho to most people he met. He knew how, and he had the strength. His gift, however, was his keen instinct—at least compared to Noah—for people who were looking to cause trouble.
He sighed at his friend. “I didn’t buy a farm in Massachusetts when I was drinking Guinness one night, did I?”
“Not that I recall. Have you ever been to Massachusetts?”
“Boston Garden when we played the Bruins. Since then, I’ve visited Alec Wiskovich a few times. He’s a former teammate. Otherwise…that’s it.”
Noah leaned over his shoulder. “Go to street view.”
Dylan did, and in a moment a quaint village with clapboard houses and shade trees materialized on his screen.
“No horses and buggies, at least,” Noah said. “Who’s the letter from?”
“Louisa May Alcott.” Dylan handed over the note card.
Noah gave a low, amused whistle as he read. “Do you have a great-uncle Dylan McCaffrey? Maybe Olivia Frost confused you with him.”
“No.”
Noah, of course, knew that Dylan had no family left on the McCaffrey side. His father, an only child, had died two years ago. His grandparents were gone, too.
“Maybe it’s a long-lost uncle,” Noah said, placing the note next to the photos lined up on Dylan’s desk. “I bet Miss Frost will fly out here and smack your hand with a ruler if you don’t clean up the place. What’s The Farm at Carriage Hill?”
“The what?”
“It’s on the card. See?”
Noah tapped a finger on the back of the note card, The Farm at Carriage Hill printed in dark