Heroes are My Weakness (35 page)

Jaycie was making her way toward her apartment, and her crutches were nowhere in sight.

An icy panic paralyzed Annie. Jaycie walked with perfectly erect posture. There was nothing wrong with her foot. Nothing at all.

Annie’s ears rang from the memory of the bullet whizzing past her head. She saw Crumpet hanging from the ceiling, the bloodred warning painted on the wall. Jaycie had a motive for wanting her gone. Had Annie overlooked the obvious? Was Jaycie the one who’d vandalized the cottage? Had she fired that bullet?

Jaycie had nearly reached the door of her apartment when she stopped. She looked up, tilting her head ever so slightly, almost as if she were listening for any movement above her. And since Annie was the only person upstairs . . .

Jaycie began to move, not into her apartment but back the way she’d come. Annie cut into the dark kitchen and flattened her spine to the wall just inside the doorway. Her paralysis lost its grip. She wanted to grab Jaycie and shake the truth out of her.

Jaycie passed by the kitchen.

Annie eased out into the hallway in time to see her turn toward the front foyer. Staying well back, Annie followed her, barely avoiding one of Livia’s My Little Pony figures abandoned on the floor. She peered around the corner. Jaycie had stopped at the bottom of the staircase. As Annie watched, she slowly began mounting the steps.

Anger and betrayal burned inside her. She pressed the back of her head against the wall. She didn’t want to believe it. Didn’t want to confront the truth that was staring her in the face. It had been Jaycie all along. Her anger burned hotter. She wasn’t letting her get away with this.

She began to pull away from the wall, only to hear Scamp’s scoffing voice.
You’re going after her now? Just like the most dim-witted heroine. It’s the dead of night. There’s an arsenal in this house, and for all you know, Jaycie has a gun. She’s already murdered her husband. Have you learned nothing from your novels?

Annie gritted her teeth. No matter how much she hated it, this confrontation had to wait for daylight when she had a cooler head. And a gun of her own. She forced herself back into the kitchen, snatched her coat from the hook, and escaped from the house.

A soft whinny came from inside the stable. The spruces creaked, and a night creature scuttled through the brush. Despite the bright moonlight, the descent was treacherous. She slipped on loose rock. An owl hooted a warning. All this time she’d thought someone was after the legacy, but that hadn’t been it at all. Jaycie wanted to drive Annie away so she could have Theo to herself. It was as if Regan’s darkness had found a home inside Jaycie.

By the time Annie reached the marsh, her teeth were chattering. She looked back at the house. A light burned from a window in the turret. She shivered, imagining Jaycie staring down at her, then remembered she’d left the light on herself when she’d gone up there earlier.

As she gazed at the massive shadow of Harp House and the glowing turret window, she experienced a moment of the blackest humor. This was just like the cover of one of her old gothic paperbacks. But instead of fleeing the haunted mansion in the dark of night wearing a billowing gossamer gown, Annie was fleeing in a pair of flannel Santa pajamas.

Gooseflesh crept up her spine as she approached the dark cottage. Had Jaycie already discovered Annie had fled? Her anger resurfaced. She’d deal with her tomorrow before Theo could get back and try to take over. This was her fight alone.

Except it wasn’t. She thought of Livia. What would happen to her?

The nausea she’d been fighting ever since she’d seen Jaycie walk struck. She fumbled in her pocket for the door key and fit it into the latch. The door gave an ominous squeak. As she let herself inside, she reached for the light switch.

Nothing happened.

Booker had told her how to start the generator, but she hadn’t imagined doing it in the dark. She grabbed the flashlight she kept by the door and turned to go back outside when a soft, almost imperceptible sound stopped her cold.

Something had moved on the other side of the room.

Her toes curled in her sneakers. She stopped breathing. The pistol was in her bedroom. All she had was the flashlight. She raised her arm and shot the beam across the room.

Hannibal’s yellow eyes gazed back at her, his stuffed-mouse toy clutched between his paws.

“You stupid cat! You scared me to death!”

Hannibal stuck his nose in the air and batted the mouse across the floor.

She glowered at him as she waited for her heartbeat to return to normal. When she was reasonably certain she’d recovered enough to move, she stomped back out into the night. She was not born to be an islander.

You’re doing a pretty good job of it,
Leo said.

Your cheerleader routine is creeping me out,
she told him.

You’re reprimanding a puppet,
Dilly reminded her.

A puppet who had stopped acting like himself.

She made it to the generator and tried to remember what Booker had told her. As she began to go through the steps, she heard the faintest sound of an engine approaching from the main road. Who would be coming out here now? It might be someone with a medical emergency looking for Theo, except everyone would know by now that he’d left the island. And that Annie was here alone . . .

She abandoned the generator and raced inside to get the pistol from her nightstand. She wasn’t absolutely sure she could shoot anyone, but she wasn’t sure she couldn’t either.

When she returned to the darkened living room, she had the gun in hand. She stood off to the side of the front window and listened to pings of loose gravel. Headlights swept across the marsh. Whoever was driving didn’t seem to be making any effort to approach quietly. Maybe Theo had somehow managed to catch a middle-of-the-night ride from the mainland.

Keeping a firm grip on the pistol, she peered around the edge of the window and saw a pickup pull in front of the cottage and stop. A truck she recognized.

By the time she’d opened the front door, Barbara Rose was getting out, leaving the engine running. In the glow coming from the open driver’s door, Annie saw the hem of her pink pastel nightgown hanging from under her coat.

Barbara rushed toward her. Annie couldn’t see her expression, but she sensed her urgency. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, Annie . . .” Barbara pressed her hand to her mouth. “It’s Theo . . .”

A spigot seemed to open in the front of Annie’s chest, draining her body of blood.

Barbara clutched Annie’s arm. “He was in an accident.”

Her grasp was the only thing holding Annie up.

“He’s in surgery,” Barbara said.

Not dead. Still alive.

“How—how do you know?”

“Someone from the hospital called. The reception was terrible. I don’t know if they tried to reach you first. I understood only half the message.” Barbara was as breathless as if she’d just run a long distance.

“But . . . He’s alive?”

“Yes. I got that much. But it’s serious.”

“Oh, God . . .” The words came from high in her throat. A prayer.

“I phoned Naomi.” Barbara was fighting tears. “She’ll take you over on the
Ladyslipper.
”

Barbara didn’t ask if Annie wanted to go to him, and Annie didn’t hesitate. There was no decision to make. She grabbed the first clothes she could find, and within minutes, they were barreling into town. Annie could live without the cottage, but the thought of the world without Theo was unbearable. He was everything a man should be. He had a brilliant mind and a sterling character. He was a man of conscience: trustworthy, intelligent, and caring. So caring he took on the demons of others as his own.

And she loved him for it.

She loved him. There it was. The thing she’d vowed would never happen. She loved Theo Harp. Not just his body or his face. Not just for sex or companionship. Definitely not for his money. She loved him for who he was. For his beautiful, tortured, kind soul. If he lived, she would stand by him. It made no difference if he were scarred, paralyzed, or brain damaged. She would be there for him.

Just let him live. Please, God, let him live.

The wharf lights were on when they reached the dock. Annie rushed toward Naomi, who was waiting next to the skiff that would take them out to the
Ladyslipper.
She was as grim-faced as Barbara. Wild, awful thoughts swirled through Annie’s head. They knew Theo was dying, and neither of them wanted to tell her.

Annie jumped in the skiff. Soon they were racing out of the harbor. Annie turned her back to the retreating shoreline.

Chapter Twenty

M
Y HUSBAND IS IN SURGERY
.” The word tasted all wrong on Annie’s lips, but if she didn’t identify herself as family, the doctors wouldn’t talk to her. “Theo Harp.”

The woman behind the desk turned her attention to her computer. Annie squeezed the keys to the Honda Civic Naomi kept on the mainland, a much better car than the clunker she drove on the island. The woman looked up from her computer. “How do you spell the last name?”

“
H-A-R-P
. Like the instrument.”

“We don’t have anyone here by that name.”

“You do!” Annie cried. “He was in a serious accident. The hospital called. He’s in surgery.”

“Let me double-check.” The woman picked up her phone and turned her chair away.

Annie waited, her sense of dread growing by the second. Maybe he wasn’t in the computer records because he was already—

The woman set down the phone. “We have no record of him, ma’am. He’s not here.”

Annie wanted to yell at her, tell her that she should learn how to read. Instead she fumbled for her phone. “I’m calling the police.”

“That’s a good idea,” the woman said kindly.

But neither the local nor state police had any record of an accident involving Theo. The intensity of her relief brought her to tears. Only slowly did that relief give way to comprehension.

There had been no accident. He wasn’t hurt. Wasn’t dying. He was asleep in a hotel room somewhere.

She called his cell, but it went to voice mail. Because Theo had a habit of turning off his phone at night, even at the cottage, where there was no reception. Whoever had contacted Barbara had done it with the clear intention of getting Annie off the island.

Jaycie.

Barbara had said the call had been hard to understand. Of course it had. But not because of bad reception. Because Jaycie had made sure Barbara couldn’t identify her voice. Because Jaycie wanted to get Annie off the island before the end of March so Theo would be hers alone.

The sky had begun to lighten as Annie drove back to the dock where Naomi waited. The streets were empty, stores closed, traffic lights flashing yellow. She could fight—plead extenuating circumstances—but Cynthia wanted the cottage, Elliott was a hardheaded businessman, and the agreement was ironclad. No do-overs. The cottage would return to the Harp family, and whatever his stepmother wanted to do with it would become Theo’s problem. Annie’s problem would be getting back to the city and finding a place to live. Theo, rescuer of needy women, would likely offer her a room at Harp House, which she’d refuse. No matter how difficult her circumstances, she wouldn’t let him see her as another woman in need of rescue.

If only she’d called the hospital herself, but in her panic, that hadn’t occurred to her. All she wanted to do now was punish Jaycie for the harm she’d done.

Naomi was sitting in the stern of the
Ladyslipper,
drinking a mug of coffee, when Annie returned to the dock. Naomi’s short hair stuck up on one side, and she looked as weary as Annie felt. Annie gave her an abbreviated account of what had happened. Until now, she hadn’t spoken to any of the women—not even Barbara—about the conditions surrounding her ownership of the cottage, but it would soon become common knowledge, and there was no longer any need for secrecy. What Annie didn’t tell Naomi was that Jaycie had made the phone call. Before she shared that piece of information, she intended to deal with Jaycie herself.

T
HE
L
ADYSLIPPER
APPROACHED THE HARBOR
at dawn as the fishing boats chugged out to sea to begin their day’s work. Barbara and her pickup waited for Annie at the dock, parked not far from Theo’s Range Rover. Naomi had called Barbara from her boat, and as Barbara approached Annie, guilt oozed from every pore of her matronly body. “Annie, I’m sorry. I should have asked more questions.”

“It’s not your fault,” Annie said wearily. “I should have been suspicious.”

Barbara’s repeated apologies on the drive back to the cottage only made Annie feel worse, and she was glad when the ride ended. Even though she’d barely slept, she knew she couldn’t rest until she’d confronted Jaycie. Vandalism, attempted murder, and now this. Any hesitation Annie might have felt about involving the police had vanished. She wanted to look Jaycie right in the eye when she told her she knew what she’d done.

She made herself drink a cup of coffee and eat a few bites of toast. Her gun was where she’d left it last night. She couldn’t imagine using it, but she also wasn’t going to be stupid, not after she’d seen Jaycie climb the stairs toward Annie’s room last night. Tucking it in her coat pocket, she left the cottage.

Not even a hint of spring rode on the wind. As she made her way across the marsh, she pictured Theo’s farm at the other end of the island. The lush stretch of sheltered meadow. The distant view of the sea. The all-embracing peace of it.

The kitchen was empty. Keeping her coat on, she made her way to the housekeeper’s apartment. All this time she’d been trying to repay the debt she owed Jaycie not knowing the debt had been paid in full the first time Jaycie had broken into the cottage.

The door to the housekeeper’s apartment was closed. Annie shoved it open without knocking. Jaycie sat by the window in the old rocker, Livia in her lap curled against her mother’s breast. Jaycie’s cheek rested on her daughter’s head, and she didn’t seem indignant about Annie barging in. “Livia hurt her thumb in the door,” she told Annie. “We’re having a little cuddle. Is it better now, muffin?”