Heroes are My Weakness (36 page)

Annie’s stomach twisted. Regardless of what Jaycie had done, she loved her daughter, and Livia loved her mother. If she turned Jaycie over to the police . . .

Livia forgot about her hurt thumb and lifted her head to see if Scamp was hidden behind Annie’s back. Jaycie fingered a lock of Livia’s hair. “I hate it when she gets hurt.”

With Livia in the room, the heavy weight of the gun in Annie’s coat pocket felt more obscene than prudent. “Livia,” Annie said, “Mommy and I need to talk about some grown-up things. Will you draw a picture for me? Maybe a picture of the beach?”

Livia nodded, slid off Jaycie’s lap, and headed for the small table where she kept her crayons. Jaycie’s forehead knit with concern. “Is anything wrong?”

“We’ll talk in the kitchen.” Annie had to turn away as Jaycie reached for her crutches.

The uneven thump of Jaycie’s gait followed Annie down the hall. She thought about how men historically settled their scores in public arenas: the dueling field, the boxing ring, and the battleground. But women’s disputes tended to be played out in domestic arenas, like this kitchen.

She waited until Jaycie had come in behind her before she turned to confront her. “I’ll take those.” She pulled the crutches away so abruptly Jaycie would have fallen if she didn’t have two good feet to hold herself up.

Jaycie gave a hiss of alarm. “What are you doing?” Too many seconds passed before she remembered to balance her weight against the wall. “I need those.”

“You didn’t need them last night,” Annie said flatly.

Jaycie looked shocked. Good. Annie wanted her unbalanced. She dropped the crutches to the floor and pushed them away with her foot. “You lied to me.”

Jaycie’s face went pale. Annie finally felt as if she were seeing through the invisible veil she lived behind. “I—I didn’t want you to find out,” Jaycie said.

“Obviously.”

Jaycie moved away from the wall, walking with a limp so slight that Annie doubted she would have noticed it if she hadn’t been looking for it. Jaycie curled her fingers around the back of the chair at the end of the table, her knuckles white. “That’s why you left the house last night,” she said.

“I saw you going upstairs. What were you planning to do?”

Jaycie gripped the chair back tighter, as if she still needed support. “I was— I don’t want to tell you.”

Annie’s hurt erupted. “You deceived me. And you did it in the worst possible way.”

Misery clouded Jaycie’s features. She sank into the chair. “I—I was desperate. That’s not an excuse. I know it’s not. And I kept meaning to tell you my foot was better. But— Try to understand. I was so lonely.”

The residual rawness of being afraid Theo was dead had hardened something inside Annie. “It’s too bad Theo didn’t make himself available to keep you company.”

Instead of hostility, Jaycie displayed only a resigned acceptance. “That was never going to happen. I’m prettier than you, and for a while, I let myself believe that might be enough.” Jaycie’s words weren’t boastful, just a statement of fact. “But I’m not interesting the way you are. I’m not well educated. You always know what to say to him, and I never do. You stand up to him, and I can’t. I know all that.”

Annie hadn’t expected so much frankness, but it did nothing to lessen her sense of betrayal. “Why were you going up to my room last night?”

Jaycie dipped her head. “I don’t want to look any more spineless than I already am.”

“Not exactly the word I’d use.”

Jaycie gazed down at her hands. “I hate being alone in this house at night. It wasn’t so bad when I knew Theo was in the turret, but now . . . I can’t go to sleep until I’ve walked through all the rooms, and even then, I have to lock the door on my apartment. I’m sorry I lied to you, but if I’d told you the truth— If I’d told you my foot was healing and I could walk without crutches, that I didn’t need your help, you wouldn’t have kept coming up here. You’re used to your city girlfriends who know about books and theater. I’m just an island girl.”

Now Annie was the one feeling unbalanced. Everything Jaycie said had the ring of truth. But what about everything she wasn’t saying? Annie crossed her arms. “I left the island last night. But I’m sure you already know that.”

“Left the island?” She pretended to be alarmed, as though this was new information. “But you can’t do that? Did anybody see you? Why would you leave the island?”

A thread of doubt was beginning to weave its way through Annie’s anger. But then she’d always been gullible around accomplished liars. “Your phone call worked.”

“What phone call? Annie, what are you talking about?”

Annie held tight to her determination. “The phone call Barbara got saying Theo was in the hospital. That phone call.”

She jumped from the chair. “Hospital? Is he all right? What happened?”

Don’t let her suck you in,
Dilly admonished.
Don’t be naive.

But . . .
Scamp interceded.
I think she’s telling the truth
.

Jaycie had to be the person behind these attacks. She’d lied, she had motive, and she was aware of all of Annie’s comings and goings.

“Annie, tell me!” Jaycie insisted.

She was so adamant, so uncharacteristically demanding that Annie felt even more unbalanced. She bought time for herself. “Barbara Rose got a phone call, supposedly from the hospital . . .” Annie told Jaycie about her trip to the mainland, about what she had—hadn’t—found. She spelled out the details coldly and factually as she watched carefully for Jaycie’s every reaction.

By the time she finished, Jaycie’s eyes were full of tears. “You think I was behind that call? You think, after everything you’ve done for me, I’d do this to you?”

Annie steeled herself. “You’re in love with Theo.”

“Theo is a fantasy! Daydreaming about him kept me from reliving everything I went through with Ned. It wasn’t real.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I’m not blind. Do you think I don’t know you’re lovers? Does it hurt? Yes. Are there times I envy you? Too many. You’re so good at everything. So competent. But you’re not good at this. You’re not good at judging people.” Jaycie turned her back on Annie and stalked from the kitchen.

Annie collapsed in a chair, sick to her stomach. How had this gone so wrong? Or maybe it hadn’t. Even now, Jaycie could be lying to her.

But she wasn’t. Annie knew that.

A
NNIE COULDN
’
T STAY AT
H
ARP
H
OUSE
, and she walked back to the cottage. Hannibal greeted her at the door and followed her into her bedroom, where she got rid of the gun. She picked him up and carried him to the couch. “I’m going to miss you, fella.”

Her eyes were scratchy from lack of sleep, and her stomach churned. As she stroked the cat for comfort, she gazed around her. Almost nothing was left for her to take when she left the island. The furniture was Theo’s, and without a kitchen of her own, she had no need for the cottage’s pots and pans. She wanted some of her mother’s scarves and the red cloak, but she’d leave the rest of Mariah’s clothes on the island. As for her memories of Theo . . . Somehow she’d have to figure out a way to leave them behind, too.

She blinked her eyes against the pain. Giving Hannibal one more scratch under his chin, she set the cat down and went over to the bookshelves, bare except for some tattered paperbacks and her old Dreambook. She felt defeated. Empty. As she picked up the scrapbook, one of the
Playbill
s she’d saved fell out, along with some magazine photos of models wearing sleek hairstyles that, in a fit of teenage delusion, she’d thought she could achieve.

The cat wrapped himself around her ankles. She flipped through the pages and found a review she’d written herself of a play in which she’d been the imaginary star. All that youthful optimism.

She crouched down to retrieve the rest of the things that had fallen out, including two manila envelopes where she’d kept various certificates she’d earned. She looked inside one and saw a heavy piece of drawing paper. She pulled it out and gazed at a pen-and-ink sketch she couldn’t remember ever having seen. She opened the second envelope and found a matching drawing. She carried them toward the front window. Each had a signature in the bottom right corner. She blinked. N. Garr.

Her heart skipped a beat. She studied the signatures more closely, took in the sketches, looked at the signatures again. There was no mistake. These sketches had been signed by Niven Garr.

She began frantically searching her memory for what she knew about him. He’d made his mark as a postmodern painter, then ventured into photorealism a few years before his death. Mariah had always been critical of his work, which was odd considering that Annie had found three books with photographs of his paintings right here at the cottage.

She laid the sketches on the table where the light was the brightest. These drawings had to be the legacy Mariah had told her about. And what a legacy!

She sank into one of the spindle-backed chairs. How had Mariah gotten these, and why all the mystery? Her mother had never mentioned knowing him, and he certainly hadn’t been part of Mariah’s social circle in the days when she’d still had one. Annie examined the details. The drawings were dated two days apart. Both sketches were realistic renderings of a nude female, but despite the boldness of the ink lines and the precision of the shading, the depth of tenderness in the woman’s expression as she gazed at the artist gave the drawings a dreamy quality. She was offering him everything.

Annie understood this woman’s emotions as if they were her own. She knew exactly what that kind of love felt like. The model was long limbed—handsome, but not beautiful—with a strong-boned face and a mane of straight hair. She reminded Annie of old photographs she’d seen of Mariah. They had the same—

Annie’s hand flew to her mouth. This was Mariah. Why hadn’t she recognized her right away?

Because Annie had never seen her mother like this—soft, young, and vulnerable, her hard edges gone.

Hannibal jumped into Annie’s lap. Annie sat quietly, tears springing to her eyes. If only she could have known her mother back then. If only . . . Once again, she took in the date of the sketches—the year, the month. She calculated.

These were done seven months before she was born.

“Your father was a married man. It was a fling. Nothing more. I didn’t care for him at all.”

A lie. These were the drawings of a woman deeply in love with the man capturing her image. A man who, according to the dates, must have been Annie’s father.

Niven Garr.

Annie sank her fingers into Hannibal’s fur. She remembered photos she’d seen of Garr. His wildly curly hair had been his trademark—hair so unlike Mariah’s, so like Annie’s own. Annie’s conception hadn’t been the result of a fling, as her mother had said, and Niven Garr hadn’t been married at the time. His only marriage had come many years later, to his longtime male partner.

It all became clear. Mariah had loved Niven Garr. The tenderness evident in his depiction of her suggested he’d felt the same. But not enough. Ultimately he’d had to make peace with his true nature and leave Mariah behind.

Annie wondered if he knew he had a daughter. Had Mariah’s pride—or maybe her bitterness—caused her to conceal the truth from him? Mariah had been so dismissive of Annie’s childhood drawings, so disparaging of Annie’s curls and her childhood shyness. They’d been painful reminders of him. Mariah’s acrimony toward Garr’s paintings had nothing to do with his work and everything to do with the fact that she’d loved him more than he’d been able to love her.

Hannibal wiggled from Annie’s grip. These beautiful drawings of a woman in love would solve all her problems. They’d bring Annie more than enough money to pay off her debts several times over. She’d have the time and money to prepare for the next part of her life. The drawings would fix everything.

Except that she could never part with them.

The love radiating from Mariah’s face, her hand curled protectively across her belly, all of it so tender. These sketches were Annie’s true legacy. They were concrete evidence that Annie had been created in love. Maybe that’s what her mother had wanted her to see.

I
N THE LAST TWENTY-FOUR HOURS
, Annie had lost so much, but she’d also found her heritage. The cottage was no longer hers, her financial situation was as dire as ever, and she needed to find a place to live, but she had discovered the missing part of herself. She’d also betrayed a friend. The memory of Jaycie’s stricken expression wouldn’t go away. She had to go back and apologize.

Don’t be a sap,
Peter said.
You’re such a chump.

She tuned him out, and even though her body craved sleep, she made her second trek of the day to the top of the cliff. As she climbed she thought about what it meant to be both Mariah and Niven Garr’s daughter. But ultimately, the only person she knew how to be was herself.

Jaycie was in her apartment, sitting by the window, staring out into the side yard. The door was open, but Annie knocked on the frame. “Can I come in?”

Jaycie shrugged. Annie took that as permission. She shoved her hands in her coat pockets. “Jayc, I’m sorry. I truly am. There’s not anything I can do to take back what I said, but I’m asking you to forgive me. I don’t know who’s behind what’s been happening to me, but—”

“I thought we were friends!” Jaycie said, her hurt raw.

“We are.”

Jaycie pushed herself up from the chair and swept past Annie. “I have to check on Livia.”

Annie didn’t try to stop her. The damage she’d done to their relationship ran too deep for an easy repair. She returned to the kitchen, intending to stay there until Jaycie was ready to talk. Jaycie appeared almost immediately but brushed past her. Without even a glance in Annie’s direction, she opened the back door. “Livia! Livia, where are you?”

Annie was so accustomed to going after Livia herself that she made her way toward the door, but Jaycie had already stepped outside. “Livia Christine! Come back here right now!”

Annie followed Jaycie. “I’ll go around the front.”