Heroes Are My Weakness: A Novel

ANNIE HAD BEEN BLACKMAILED, BUT she’d also gotten something out of it. Not only did she now have reliable transportation, but she also wouldn’t have to worry about bumping into Theo during the day. She wondered if he’d discovered the handprint she’d left on the bathroom mirror. If only she could hear him scream.

Maybe tonight she’d scratch claw marks into the turret door. Let him figure that one out.

When Annie got inside, Jaycie was sitting at the table, sorting a pile of clean laundry. Livia looked up from a big jigsaw puzzle on the floor, her attention on Annie for the first time. Annie smiled and vowed to bring Scamp out again before the day was over.

She made her way to the table to help with the laundry. “I talked to Theo. You don’t have to worry.”

Jaycie’s debutante eyes brightened. “Really? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” Annie picked up a bath towel and began to fold it. “I’ll run the errands into town from now on, so let me know what I need to do.”

“I should have had more faith in him.” She sounded almost breathless. “He’s been so nice to me.”

Annie bit her tongue. Hard.

They worked in silence for a while. Annie dealt with the sheets and towels so she wouldn’t have to handle his personal items. Jaycie took her time folding a pile of silky boxer briefs, fingering the material. “I’ll bet these cost a lot.”

“Amazing that such delicate fabric can hold up against all those clawing female hands.” Not to mention a large body part . . .

Jaycie took Annie’s comment seriously. “I don’t think so. His wife died just a year ago, and the only females around here are you, me, and Livia.”

Annie gazed toward the four-year-old. Livia’s forehead was knit in concentration as she pressed the giant jigsaw pieces into their proper places. There was nothing wrong with her intelligence, and Annie had heard her humming softly to herself, so her vocal cords were working. Why wouldn’t she talk? Was it shyness or something more complicated? Whatever the cause, her muteness made her more vulnerable than the average four-year-old.

Livia finished her puzzle and left the kitchen. Annie was here too much to be kept in the dark about the little girl. “I saw Livia writing her numbers. She’s really smart.”

“She gets some of them backward,” Jaycie said, but she was clearly proud.

Annie couldn’t think of any way to handle this other than to be direct. “I haven’t heard her talk. Maybe she talks to you when I’m not around?”

Jaycie lips tightened. “I was a late talker.”

She spoke with a finality that didn’t encourage more questions, but Annie wasn’t ready to give up. “I don’t mean to be intrusive, but I feel like I need to know more.”

“She’ll be fine.” Jaycie hauled herself up on her crutches. “Do you think I should make sloppy joes for Theo’s dinner?”

Annie didn’t want to imagine what Theo would think of Jaycie’s sloppy joes. “Sure.” She steadied herself to broach a more difficult topic. “Jaycie, I think you need to make sure Theo doesn’t get too near Livia again.”

“I know. He was really mad about the stable.”

“Not just the stable. He’s . . . unpredictable.”

“What do you mean?”

She couldn’t outright accuse him of intending to harm Livia when she didn’t know if that was true, but she also couldn’t ignore the possibility. “He’s . . . not good with kids. And Harp House isn’t the safest place for a child.”

“You’re not an islander, Annie, so you don’t know how it is here.” Jaycie sounded almost condescending. “Island kids aren’t pampered. I was hauling traps when I was eight, and I don’t think there’s a kid here who can’t drive a car by their tenth birthday. It’s not like on the mainland. Peregrine kids learn to be independent. That’s why keeping her inside is so awful.”

Annie doubted whether any of those independent island kids were mute. Still, for all she knew Livia talked to Jaycie when Annie wasn’t around. And maybe Annie’s concern was for nothing. Theo had seemed genuinely upset about the possibility of Livia getting hurt in the stable.

She separated out the dish towels. “Theo wants to use the cottage during the day.”

“He worked there a lot until you came back.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought you knew.”

She started to say that Theo had a fully equipped office in the turret, then remembered Jaycie didn’t know Annie had been up there. The only way she could stomach the idea of working for him was by reminding herself she wasn’t working for him. She was paying off her debt to Jaycie.

When she was done stacking the folded laundry in the basket ready to be put away the next time Theo left the house, she carried her laptop into what had once been a pleasant sunroom but now, with its dark-paneled walls and thick wine carpet, looked more like a man cave for Dracula. At least it had a view of the ocean, unlike Elliott’s office. She chose a deep leather armchair that looked out across the big front porch to the water, which was slate gray today with angry whitecaps.

She opened the inventory file she’d created and set to work, hoping this time not to hit so many dead ends. She’d been able to track down most of the artists whose work hung on the cottage walls. The artist who’d painted the studio mural was a part-time college professor whose work had never caught on, so she wouldn’t have to deal with trying to sell off a wall. The black-and-white lithographs in the kitchen should bring her a few hundred dollars. R. Connor, the painter of the upside-down tree, sold his paintings at summer art fairs for modest prices, and considering the commission she’d have to pay a dealer, she would barely put a dent in her bills.

She let herself Google Theo’s name. It wasn’t as though she’d never Googled him, but now she added another word to her search. Wife.

She found only one clear photo. It had been taken a year and a half ago at a black-tie benefit for the Philadelphia Orchestra. Theo looked as though he’d been born to wear a tuxedo, and his wife—the photo identified her as Kenley Adler Harp—was his perfect match—a patrician beauty with finely carved features and long dark hair. There was something familiar about her, but Annie couldn’t put her finger on what.

A little more digging pulled up her obituary. She’d died last February, just as Jaycie had said. She’d been three years older than Theo. She had an undergraduate degree from Bryn Mawr and an MBA from Dartmouth, so she was both beautiful and smart. She’d worked in finance and was survived by her husband, her mother, and a couple of aunts. Not exactly a fertile family. The cause of death wasn’t listed.

Why did she look so familiar? The dark hair, perfectly symmetrical features . . . It finally hit her. Regan Harp might have looked like this if she’d lived to her thirties.

The uneven tap of crutches interrupted that creepy thought. Jaycie appeared in the door of the sunroom. “Livia’s gone. She’s gotten out again.”

Annie set her laptop aside. “I’ll get her.”

Jaycie braced herself against the doorframe. “She wouldn’t do this if I could take her out myself once in a while. I know it’s wrong to keep her cooped up like this. God, I’m a terrible mother.”

“You’re a great mother, and I need some fresh air anyway.”

Fresh air was the last thing Annie needed. She was sick of fresh air. Sick of the wind cutting her face and of her muscles aching from crawling after cats and climbing up the cliff drive to Harp House twice in one day. But at least her strength was beginning to return.

She gave Jaycie a reassuring smile and went to the kitchen to bundle up. She gazed at her backpack for a few moments, then decided it was finally time to pull out Scamp.

Livia was crouched under the branches of her favorite tree. The snow had melted away from the trunk, and she sat cross-legged on the bare ground dancing a pair of pinecones around as if they were play figures.