Heroes are My Weakness (7 page)

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.

A
NNIE 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.

Chapter Four

H
E LOOKED AS THOUGH HE
’
D
been blown in by a fierce nor’easter. However, the most alarming part of his sudden appearance wasn’t his thunderous expression but the terrified little girl tucked under his arm, her small mouth open in a chilling silent scream.

“Livia!” Jaycie lurched toward her daughter, lost her balance, and fell awkwardly to the stone floor, taking her crutches with her.

Annie jumped up from the table and sprang toward him, moving automatically, too horrified by what was unfolding to wait for Jaycie to recover. “What do you think you’re doing?”

His dark brows knit in outrage. “What am
I
doing? She was in the stable!”

“Give her to me!” Annie pulled Livia away from him, but the child was just as frightened of her. Jaycie had managed to push herself into a sitting position. Annie deposited Livia in Jaycie’s lap, then instinctively positioned herself between them and Theo. “Stay where you are,” she warned him.

Hey! I’m the hero,
Peter protested.
Protecting people is my job.

“She was
in my stable
!” Theo exclaimed.

His presence filled the cavernous kitchen, taking up all the air. Gulping for a thread of oxygen, Annie planted her feet. “Could you please use your inside voice?”

Jaycie gasped. Theo’s volume didn’t change. “She wasn’t just standing in the doorway. She was in the stall with Dancer. In the
stall.
That horse is skittish. Do you have any idea what could have happened to her in there? And I told you to stay away. Why are you here?”

She ordered herself not to let him browbeat her—not this time around—but she couldn’t match him in ferocity. “How did she get in the stall?”

His eyes flashed accusation. “How do I know? Maybe it wasn’t latched.”

“In other words, you forgot to latch it.” Her legs had begun to shake. “Maybe you were thinking too hard about taking your horse out in another blizzard?”

She’d managed to deflect his attention from Jaycie and Livia. Unfortunately, all his focus was now on her. He flexed his hands, as if he were getting ready to swing a punch. “What the hell are you doing here?”

The puppets saved her. “Language,” she said, using Dilly’s disapproving voice but, fortunately, remembering to move her lips as she said it.

“Why are you in my house?” He enunciated each syllable in the same unpleasant manner as Leo.

She couldn’t let him know she’d been helping Jaycie. “There’s no WiFi at the cottage, and I need it.”

“Find it somewhere else.”

If you don’t stand up to him,
Scamp said,
he’ll win all over again.

Annie lifted her chin. “I’d appreciate it if you’d give me the password.”

He stared at her as if she’d crawled out of a sewer. “I told you to stay away.”

“Did you? I don’t remember.” She had to cover up for Jaycie. “Jaycie told me I couldn’t be here,” she lied, “but I ignored her.” She needed to make sure he understood. “I’m not as nice as I used to be.”

Jaycie made a small noise instead of keeping quiet as she should have, which sent Theo’s attention back to her. “You know what our deal is, Jaycie.”

Jaycie curled Livia against her breasts. “I tried to keep Livia out of your way, but . . .”

“This isn’t going to work,” he said flatly. “We’ll have to come up with another arrangement.” And with that lofty proclamation, he turned to leave, as if there was no more to say.

Let him go!
Crumpet urged.

But Annie couldn’t, and she dashed in front of him. “What bad movie did you step out of? Look at her!” She pointed her finger toward Jaycie, hoping he wouldn’t notice that it wasn’t altogether steady. “You’re really thinking about throwing a penniless widow and her child out into the snow? Has your heart completely turned to stone? Never mind. Rhetorical question.”

He regarded her with the annoyed expression of someone being buzzed by a pesky mosquito. “What part of this is your business?”

She hated confrontation, but Scamp didn’t, so she channeled her alter ego. “The part of me that’s a compassionate human being. Stop me if ‘compassionate’ is a word you don’t understand.” His imperial blue eyes darkened. “Livia won’t be going into the stable again because you’re going to remember to lock the door. And your housekeeper has been doing a great job, despite her broken foot. You’ve been getting your meals, haven’t you? Look at this kitchen. It’s spotless.” An exaggeration, so she zeroed in on what she suspected was his weak spot. “If you fire Jaycie, Cynthia will hire someone else. Just think. Another stranger invading your privacy. Poking around Harp House. Watching you. Disturbing your work. Even trying to have a
conversation
with you. Is that what you want?”

Even as she drew a wheezy breath, she read her victory in the slight tightening of his eyelids, the vague downward tilt at the corners of his too-beautiful mouth.

He glanced toward Jaycie, who was still sitting on the floor with Livia cradled in her arms. “I’m going out for a couple of hours,” he said brusquely. “Clean up the turret while I’m gone. Leave the third floor alone.”

He stormed out the door with nearly as much force as when he’d come in.

Livia had her thumb in her mouth. Jaycie kissed both of her cheeks before setting her aside and pulling herself up with her crutches. “I can’t believe you talked to him like that.”

Annie couldn’t believe it either.

T
HE TURRET HAD TWO ENTRANCES
: one from the outside and another from the second floor of the house. Jaycie’s difficulty managing steps meant Annie was the one who had to do the job.

The turret was built on a higher foundation than the rest of Harp House, so its first floor was on the same level as Harp House’s second floor, and the door at the end of the house’s upstairs hallway opened directly into the turret’s main living area. Nothing seemed to have changed since the days when the twins’ grandmother had stayed here. The angular, beige walls served as a backdrop for overstuffed furnishings from the 1980s, pieces that were worn in places and sun-faded from the row of windows facing the ocean.

A worn Persian rug covered most of the wooden parquet floor, and a beige couch with big rolled arms and fringed pillows sat beneath a pair of amateur landscape oil paintings. A set of big wooden floor candlesticks holding tall, chunky white candles with unlit wicks and dusty tops stood beneath a pendulum clock whose hands had stopped at eleven and four. This was the only part of Harp House that didn’t seem to have regressed two hundred years, but it was just as gloomy.

She made her way into the small galley kitchen where the dumbwaiter occupied the end wall. Instead of a pile of dirty dishes, the crockery that had been sent up from the main kitchen with Theo’s meals was clean and sitting in a blue plastic dish drainer. She pulled a bottle of spray cleaner from under the sink, but she didn’t immediately use it. Jaycie only cooked dinner for him. What did the Lord of the Underworld eat the rest of the time? She set down the bottle and opened the closest cupboards.

No eye of newt or toe of frog. No sautéed eyeballs or French-fried fingernails. Instead she found boxes of shredded wheat, Cheerios, and Wheaties. Nothing overly sweet. Nothing fun. But then again, no preserved human body parts.

This might be her only chance to explore, so she continued her snooping. Some uninteresting canned goods. A six-pack of high-end carbonated mineral water, a large bag of premium coffee beans, and a bottle of good Scotch. A few pieces of fruit sat out on the counter, and as she gazed at them, her Wicked Queen voice cackled in her head.
Have an apple, my pretty . . .

She turned away and went to the refrigerator, where she found bloodred tomato juice, a block of hard cheese, oily black olives, and unopened containers of some disgusting pâté. She shuddered. Not surprising that he liked organ meats.

The freezer was virtually empty, and the hydrator drawer held only carrots and radishes. She gazed around the kitchen. Where was the junk food? The bags of tortilla chips and tubs of Ben & Jerry’s? Where was the stockpile of potato chips, the stash of peanut butter cups? No salty, crunchy things. No sweet indulgences. In its own way, this kitchen was as creepy as the other one.

She picked up the spray cleaner, then hesitated. Hadn’t she read somewhere that you were supposed to clean from the top down?

Nobody likes a snoop,
Crumpet said in her superior voice
.

Like you don’t have any faults,
Annie retorted.

Vanity isn’t a fault,
Crumpet retorted.
It’s a calling.

Yes, Annie wanted to snoop, and she was going to do it now. While Theo was safely out of the house, she could see exactly what he kept in his lair.

Her sore calf muscles protested as she climbed the steps to the second floor. If she craned her neck, she could see the closed door that led to the third-floor attic, where he was supposed to be writing his next, sadistic novel. Or maybe chopping up dead bodies.

The bedroom door was open. She peered inside. With the exception of jeans and a sweatshirt tossed across the bottom of the badly made bed, it looked as though an old lady still lived here. Off-white walls, drapes printed with cabbage roses, a raspberry slipper chair with a tufted round ottoman, and a double bed covered in a beige spread. He certainly hadn’t done anything to make himself feel at home.

She went back out into the tiny hallway and hesitated for only a moment before making her way up the remaining six steps to the forbidden third floor. She pushed open the door.

The pentagonal room had an exposed wooden ceiling and five bare, narrow windows with pointed arches. The human touches that were missing everywhere else were visible here. An L-shaped desk jutted out from one wall, its top cluttered with papers, empty CD cases, a couple of notebooks, a desktop computer, and headphones. Across the room, black metal industrial shelving held various electronics including a sound system and a small flat-screen television. Stacks of books sat on the floor beneath some of the windows, and a laptop computer lay next to a slouchy easy chair.

The door squeaked open.

She gave a hiss of alarm and spun around.

Theo came inside, a black knit scarf in his hands.

He tried to kill you once,
Leo sneered.
He can do it again.

She swallowed. Pulled her eyes away from the small white scar at the corner of his eyebrow, the scar she’d given him.

He came toward her, no longer simply holding the black scarf, but passing it through his hands like a garrote . . . or a gag . . . or maybe a chloroform-soaked rag. How long would he have to hold it over her face before she was unconscious?

“This floor is off-limits,” he said. “But then you know that. Yet here you are.”

He looped the scarf around his neck, holding the ends in his fists. Her tongue was frozen. Once again, she had to call on Scamp for courage. “You’re the one who’s not supposed to be here.” She hoped he didn’t hear the squeak in her normally reliable voice. “How am I supposed to snoop if you don’t leave when you say you’re going to?”

“You’re kidding, right?” He pulled on the ends of the scarf.

“It’s— It’s really your fault.” She needed to come up with something quickly. “I wouldn’t have come in here if you’d given me your password when I asked.”

“Fortunately, I’m not following you.”

“A lot of people tape it to their computers.” She gripped her hands behind her back.

“I don’t.”

Hold your ground,
Scamp ordered.
Make him understand he’s dealing with a woman now, not a grossly insecure fifteen-year-old.