Heroes Are My Weakness: A Novel

JAYCIE WAS TOUCHINGLY GLAD TO see her. “I can’t believe you came back,” she said as Annie hung up her backpack and pulled off her boots.

Annie put on her happiest face. “If I stayed away, I’d miss all the fun.” She glanced around the kitchen. Despite its gloom, it looked marginally better than it had yesterday, but it was still awful.

Jaycie lumbered from the stove toward the table, gnawing on her bottom lip. “Theo’s going to fire me,” she whispered. “I know he is. Since he stays in the turret all the time, he doesn’t think anybody needs to be in the house. If it weren’t for Cynthia . . .” She gripped the crutches so tightly that her knuckles turned white. “This morning he spotted Lisa McKinley here. She’s been meeting the mail boat for me. I didn’t think he knew about it, but I was wrong. He hates having people around.”

Then how does he expect to find his next murder victim? Scamp inquired. Unless it’s Jaycie . . .

I’ll take care of her, Peter trumpeted. That’s what I do. Take care of weak women.

Jaycie repositioned herself on her crutches, the pink hippopotamus head bobbing incongruously near her armpit, her forehead furrowing. “He . . . he sent me a text and told me he didn’t want Lisa up here anymore. To have them hold the mail in town until he could get to it. But Lisa’s been bringing up groceries every week, too, and what am I supposed to do about that? I can’t lose this job, Annie. It’s all I have.”

Annie tried to be encouraging. “Your foot will be better soon, and you’ll be able to drive.”

“That’s only part of it. He doesn’t like kids here. I told him how quiet Livia is and promised he wouldn’t even know she was around, but she keeps sneaking outside. I’m afraid he’ll see her.”

Annie shoved her feet into the sneakers she’d brought with her. “Let me get this straight. Because of Lord Theo, a four-year-old can’t go outside to play? That’s not right.”

“I guess he can do what he wants—it’s his house. Besides, as long as I’m on crutches, I can’t go out with her anyway, and I don’t want her out there by herself.”

Annie hated the way Jaycie kept making excuses for him. She should be smart enough to see him as he really was, but after all these years, she still seemed to have a crush on him.

Kids have crushes, Dilly whispered. Jaycie’s a grown woman. Maybe it’s more than a crush.

This is not good, Scamp said. Not good at all.

Livia came into the kitchen. She wore her corduroy pants from yesterday and carried a clear plastic shoe box–size container of broken crayons along with a dog-eared pad of drawing paper. Annie smiled at her. “Hi, Livia.”

The child ducked her head.

“She’s shy,” Jaycie said.

Livia brought her drawing supplies to the table, hoisted herself up onto one of the chairs, and set to work. Jaycie showed Annie where the cleaning supplies were stored, apologizing the whole time. “You don’t have to do this. Really. It’s my problem, not yours.”

Annie cut off her apologies. “Why don’t you see what you can do about his master’s meals? Since you let me down with the rat poison idea, maybe you could find some deadly mushrooms?”

Jaycie smiled. “He’s not that bad, Annie.”

So untrue.

As Annie carried dust rags and a broom into the main hallway, she eyed the stairs uneasily. She prayed Jaycie was right and that Theo’s appearance here four days ago had been an anomaly. If he found out Annie was doing Jaycie’s work, he really would find another housekeeper.

Most of the downstairs rooms were closed off to conserve heat, but the foyer, Elliott’s office, and the dreary sunroom all needed attending. With her limited strength, she decided to make the foyer her priority, but by the time she’d gotten rid of the cobwebs and wiped down the dusty paneled walls, she was wheezing. She returned to the kitchen and found Livia alone there, still busy at the table with her crayons.

She’d been thinking about Livia, and she went into the mudroom to find her backpack with Scamp inside. Annie made most of her puppets’ outfits, including Scamp’s rainbow tights, short pink skirt, and bright yellow T-shirt with its sparkly purple star. A headband with a floppy green poppy held her crazy orange yarn curls in place. Annie slipped the puppet over her hand and arm, then positioned her fingers on the levers that operated the puppet’s mouth and eyes. She held Scamp behind her back and returned to the table.

As Livia peeled the paper from her red crayon, Annie took a chair catty-corner to her. Instantly, Scamp poked her head up over the side of the table and peered at Livia. “La . . . La . . . LA!” Scamp sang in her most attention-getting voice. “I Scamp, otherwise known as Genevieve Adelaide Josephine Brown, declare it a beee-u-tiful day!”

Livia jerked up her head and stared at the puppet. Scamp leaned forward, her wild curls tumbling around her face, and tried to peer at Livia’s artwork. “I love to draw, too. Can I see your picture?”

Livia, all eyes on the puppet, covered the paper with her arm.

“I suppose some things are private,” Scamp said. “But I believe in sharing my talents. Like my singing.”

Livia cocked her head curiously.

“I’m a wonderful singer,” Scamp chirped. “Not that I share my amazingly fabulous songs with just anybody. Like you and your drawing. You don’t have to share with anyone.”

Livia promptly pulled her hand away from what she’d drawn. While Scamp bent over the paper to study it, Annie had to rely on what she could see out of the corner of her eye—something approximating a human figure standing near a crudely drawn house.

“Fab-u-loso!” Scamp said. “I, too, am a great artist.” Now she was the one who cocked her head. “Would you like to hear me sing?”

Livia nodded.

Scamp threw her arms wide and began to sing a comically operatic version of “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider” that always brought squeals of laughter from the kindergarten crowd.

Livia listened carefully, but she didn’t crack a smile, not even when Scamp began changing the lyrics. “Out came the moon and drank up all the grasshopper juice . . . And the itsy-bitsy underpants went crazy all over again. Olé!”

The singing made Annie cough. She covered it up by having Scamp embark on a wild dance. At the end, Scamp threw herself down on the table. “Being fabulous is soooo exhausting.”

Livia nodded solemnly.

Annie had learned it was best when dealing with children to stop when you were ahead. Scamp picked herself up and tossed her head of curls. “It’s time for my nap. Au revoir. Until we meet again . . .” She disappeared under the table.

Livia immediately ducked her head to see where the puppet had gone, but as she leaned forward, Annie rose, tucked Scamp out of sight in front of her, and crossed the floor to return the puppet to the backpack. She didn’t look at Livia, but as she left the kitchen she could feel the child watching her.


LATER THAT DAY, WHILE THEO was out riding, Annie took advantage of his absence to carry the trash that had accumulated in the house out to the metal drums that sat behind the stables. On her way back to the house, she looked toward the empty swimming pool. An unsightly collection of frozen debris had accumulated on the bottom. Even in the heart of the summer, the water around Peregrine Island was frigid, and she and Regan had done most of their swimming in the pool while Theo preferred the ocean. If the surf was up, he’d toss his board in the back of his Jeep and head toward Gull Beach. Annie had yearned to go with him but was too afraid of rejection to ask.

A black cat crept around the corner of the stable and gazed up at her through a pair of yellow eyes. Annie froze. An alarm bell rang in her head. “Get out of here!” she hissed.

The cat stared at her.

She dashed toward it, waving her arms. “Go! Go away! And don’t come back. Not if you know what’s good for you.”

The cat scurried away.

Out of nowhere, her eyes filled with tears. She blinked them away and went back into the house.


ANNIE SLEPT ANOTHER TWELVE HOURS that night, then spent the rest of the morning working on her inventory of the cottage living room, listing the furnishings, paintings, and objects like the Thai goddess. At the house yesterday, she’d been too busy to do any research, but she’d make time today. Mariah had never depended on dealers to determine the value of what she had. She’d done her homework first, and so would Annie. In the afternoon, she tucked her laptop computer in her backpack and hiked up to Harp House. Her muscles ached from their unaccustomed exercise, but she made it to the top with only one coughing spasm.

She cleaned Elliott’s office, including the ugly dark walnut gun cabinet, and washed yesterday’s dishes while Jaycie worried about Theo’s meals. “I’m not a very good cook,” she said. “One more reason for him to fire me.”

“I can’t help you out there,” Annie said.

Annie saw the black cat again and dashed outside without her coat to shoo it away. Later she settled at the kitchen table with her laptop, but the house’s WiFi system was password protected, something she should have anticipated.

“I always use the phone Theo gave me,” Jaycie said as she sat at the table, peeling some carrots. “I’ve never had to use a password.”

Annie tried various combinations of names, birthdays, even boat names with no luck. She stretched her arms overhead to ease her shoulders, stared at the screen, then slowly typed in Regan0630, the summer day Regan Harp had drowned after her sailboat capsized in a squall off the island’s coast. She’d been twenty-two, a new college graduate, but in Annie’s mind, she’d be forever sixteen, a dark-haired angel who played the oboe and wrote poetry.

The door flew open, and Annie whipped around in her chair. Theo Harp stalked into the kitchen with Livia slung under his arm.