Heroes Are My Weakness(14)

A gust of wind stirred up a ghostly dervish in the snow. He crossed his arms over his chest, grabbed the bottom of his sweater, and pulled it over his head. He wore nothing underneath.

She gazed at him in astonishment. He stood there bare-chested, the wind tearing at his thick dark hair as he defied the Maine winter. He didn’t move. She might have been watching one of the old television soaps famous for using any excuse to get their heroes out of their shirts. Except it was bitterly cold, Theo Harp was no hero, and the only explanation for what he’d done was insanity.

He knotted his hands into fists at his sides, lifted his chin, and gazed at the house. How could someone so beautiful be so cruel? The hard planes of his back . . . The muscularity of his broad shoulders . . . The way he stood against the sky . . . It was all so strange. He seemed less a mortal and more a part of the landscape—a primitive creature who didn’t need the simple human comforts of warmth, food . . . love.

She shivered inside her down coat and watched him disappear through the turret door, his sweater still dangling at his side.


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.