Heroes Are My Weakness: A Novel

Chapter Sixteen

SOMETHING WAS VERY WRONG. THE cottage’s front door hung open, and Hannibal crouched on the stoop not far from the old wooden lobster traps left partially exposed by the melting snow. Annie shot out of the Suburban and stomped across the yard to the open door. She was too angry to be cautious. She wanted someone to be inside so she could tear them apart.

Paintings hung crookedly on the walls and books were strewn on the floor. Most chilling, the intruder had scrawled a message across the wall in bright red paint.


I’m coming for u

“Like hell you are!” Annie stormed through the cottage. The kitchen and studio looked the same as when she’d last been here. Her puppets were unharmed, Theo’s things untouched, but the drawers had been pulled out of her bedroom dresser, their contents flung on the floor.

The violation of her privacy infuriated her, the outrage of knowing someone felt free to break in whenever they wanted, to go through her things, to paint a cheesy message on her wall. It was too much. Either someone in the Harp family wanted to scare her away, or one of the islanders knew about Mariah’s legacy and wanted Annie out of here so they could tear the place apart until they found what they wanted.

Although Elliott had bad taste in wives, she’d never regarded him as unethical. But Cynthia Harp was more problematic. She had money, motive, and local connections. Just because she was living in the South of France didn’t mean she couldn’t be orchestrating all this. But would she really go to so much trouble for a tiny cottage when she already had Harp House at her disposal? As for Mariah’s legacy . . . With Annie out of the cottage, the intruder could spend as much time as he or she wanted searching for it with no worries of Annie walking in on them.

But Annie had had all the time in the world, and she still hadn’t found what she was looking for. Still, she hadn’t pried up floorboards or poked holes in walls, and maybe that was what the intruder wanted time to do. Whoever was behind this couldn’t have found out about the legacy until after Annie had arrived, or they’d have already searched for it. As Hannibal hid under her bed, she skirted the sheets that had been torn from her mattress and marched back into the living room.


I’m coming for u

The red paint was still tacky. Someone wanted to frighten her, and if she wasn’t so furious, it might have worked.

There was another possibility, one she was reluctant to consider but could no longer avoid, not as long as she kept hearing the sound of that bullet whizzing past her head. What if this wasn’t about the legacy at all? What if someone simply hated her?


SHE FOUND A CAN OF leftover paint in the storage closet and painted over the hateful message, then headed for Harp House in the Suburban. She almost missed walking. Three weeks ago, the climb to the house had been like ascending Mount Everest, but her coughing had finally disappeared, and the exertion had started to feel good.

As Annie got out, Livia dashed outside in her socks and ran toward her, a big smile on her face. “Livia! You don’t have your shoes on!” Jaycie called after her. “Come back here, you dickens.”

Annie brushed Livia’s cheek with her fingertips and followed her inside. Jaycie moved awkwardly toward the sink. “Lisa called. She saw you and Theo driving through town this morning.”

Annie dodged Jaycie’s implied question. “A woman stopped him and asked him to check on her father. Jessie somebody. Apparently the news has spread that Theo’s an EMT.”

Jaycie turned on the water in the sink and gave Livia a drink. “Jessie Childers. We haven’t had medical help on the island since Jenny Schaeffer moved.”

“That’s what I heard.”

Annie went off to Elliott’s office to check her e-mail. She received an invitation to an old roommate’s baby shower, a message from another friend, and a one-line response from Jeff Koons’s dealer.


This is not his piece.

She wanted to cry. She’d told herself not to get her hopes up, but she had been certain the mermaid chair was a Koons. Instead, she’d hit another dead end.

A thud came from the kitchen, and she made herself get up to investigate. She found Jaycie trying to right one of the straight-backed chairs. “No more running, Livie. You’re going to break something.”

Livia kicked the corner of the chair with her sneaker. Jaycie leaned against the table with a defeated sigh. “It’s not her fault. She has no place to work off her energy.”

“I’ll take her out,” Annie said. “How ’bout it, Liv? Want to go for a walk?”

Livia nodded so vigorously that her lavender plastic headband slipped over her eyes.

Annie decided to take her down to the beach. The sun had emerged and the tide was out. Livia was an island kid. She needed to be near the water.

Annie held tightly to her hand as they descended the stone steps. Livia tried to pull away, anxious to get to the bottom, but Annie held on to her. As they cleared the last step, however, Livia stalled, taking it all in, almost as if she couldn’t believe she had so much space to run free.

Annie pointed down the beach. “See if you can catch those gulls.”

Livia didn’t need encouragement. She started to run, her short legs churning, hair flying from beneath her pink pom-pom hat. She darted through the rocks toward the sand, but stayed away from the breaking waves.

Annie found a flat-top boulder far from the old cave entrance. Dropping her backpack, she watched Livia climb rocks, chase the shorebirds, and dig in the sand. When the four-year-old finally got tired, she came to sit next to Annie and her backpack. Annie smiled, removed Scamp, and slipped the puppet onto her arm.

Scamp wasted no time. “Free secret?”

Livia nodded.

“I’m scared.” And then, more dramatically, “Terrified.”

Livia’s forehead knit.

“The ocean is so big,” Scamp whispered, “and I can’t swim. That’s scary.”

Livia shook her head.

“You don’t think the water is scary?” Scamp said.

Livia didn’t.

“I s’pose different things are scary to different people.” Scamp tapped her cheek. “Like some things are good to be scared of—going in the ocean if there aren’t any grown-ups around. And some things aren’t good to be scared of because they’re not real, like monsters.”

Livia seemed to agree.

As Annie had watched Livia play, she’d thought over what she now knew about Livia’s trauma. She wasn’t sure whether this was a good idea or not, but she was going to try. “Like watching your dad try to hurt your mom,” Scamp said. “That was really, really scary.”

Livia poked her finger into a tiny hole in her jeans.

Annie wasn’t a child psychologist, and the only thing she knew about treating childhood trauma was what she’d picked up on the Internet. This situation was too complicated, and she needed to stop right here. But . . .

Jaycie couldn’t talk to Livia about what had happened. Maybe Scamp could make the topic less forbidden. “A lot scarier than the ocean,” Scamp said. “If I saw my mommy have to shoot my dad with a gun, I would be so scared I might not want to talk either.”

Eyes wide, Livia abandoned the hole in her jeans and turned all her attention to the puppet.

Annie backed off and let Scamp speak in her most cheerful voice. “But then, after a while, I’d get bored not talking. Especially if I had something important to say. Or if I wanted to sing. Did I ever tell you that I’m a magnificent singer?”

Livia nodded vigorously.

A wild idea occurred to Annie. An idea she had no business pursuing. But, what if . . .

Scamp began to sing, bobbing her curly yarn hair to the rhythm of the makeshift tune Annie improvised on the spot.