Heroes Are My Weakness(55)

Annie sat on the ledge stone and pulled out Scamp. “Buon giorno, Livia. It is I, Scamperino. I’m practicing my Italiano. That means ‘Italian.’ Do you speak any foreign languages?”

Livia shook her head.

“A pity,” Scamp said. “Italian is the language of pizza, which I simply adore. And gelato. That’s like ice cream. And badly built towers. Alas . . .” She dropped her head. “Neither pizza nor gelato is available on Peregrine Island.”

Livia looked sorry about that.

“I have a brilliant idea!” Scamp exclaimed. “Maybe you and Annie could make fake pizzas this afternoon with English muffins.”

Annie expected Livia to object, but instead, she nodded. Scamp shook her head to fluff her orange curls. “The drawing you left for me last night was eccellente. That’s Italian for ‘excellent.’?”

Livia dipped her head and gazed at her feet, but Scamp wasn’t deterred. “I am exceptionally clever, and I have deduced—that means I’ve figured out—I have deduced . . .” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “. . . that the drawing is your free secret.”

Livia’s small face tightened with apprehension.

Scamp cocked her head and said softly, “Don’t worry. I’m not mad at you.”

Livia finally looked at her.

“That’s you in the picture, isn’t it? But I’m not sure who the others are . . .” She hesitated. “Maybe your mother?”

Livia gave a tiny, almost indecipherable nod.

Annie felt as though she were wandering through a dark room with her arms outstretched trying not to bump into anything. “It looks like she’s wearing something pretty. Is it a flower or maybe a valentine? Did you give it to her?”

Livia shook her head violently. Tears sprang to her eyes, as if the puppet had betrayed her. With a hiccuping sob, she ran toward the house.

Annie winced as the kitchen door banged shut. A couple of college psychology classes hadn’t equipped her to meddle in something like this. She wasn’t a child psychologist. She wasn’t a mother . . .

But she might be.

Her chest started to hurt. She put Scamp away and went back into the kitchen, but she couldn’t face another hour inside Harp House.

The bright winter sunlight mocked the darkness of her mood as she left again. Shoulders hunched, she walked around to the front of the house and stood at the top of the cliff. The front porch stretched behind her. Below, the granite steps carved into the rock face led to the beach. She began her descent.

The steps were slippery and shallow, and she held on to the rope rail. How had her life gotten to be such a mess? For now, the cottage was the only home she had, but once she got back on her feet . . . If she got back on her feet . . . Once she found a steady job, she wouldn’t be able to leave for two months to come here. Sooner or later, the cottage would fall back into Harp hands.

But not yet, Dilly said. Right now, you’re here, and you have a job to do. No more whining. Nose to the grindstone. Stay positive.

Shut up, Dilly, Leo sneered. For all your supposed sensibility, you don’t have a clue how messy life can be.

Annie blinked. Had that really been Leo? The voices were getting mixed up in her head. Peter was her support. Leo only attacked.

She shoved her hands into her pockets. The wind plastered her coat against her and whipped the ends of her hair from beneath her knit hat. She faced the water, imagining herself in command of the waves, the currents, the rise and fall of the tides. Imagining power when she’d never felt more powerless.

Finally, she made herself turn around.

A rockslide had covered the mouth, but Annie knew exactly where it was. In her mind the cave would always be a secret hideaway issuing its siren’s call to everyone who passed. Come inside. Bring your picnics and your playthings, your daydreams and your fantasies. Reflect . . . Explore . . . Make love . . . Die.

A gust of wind tugged at her hat. She grabbed it before it could sail into the sea and shoved it in her pocket. She wasn’t going back up to the house today, not with this emotional tornado spinning inside her. She scrambled over the rocks and made her way to the cottage.

Neither the Range Rover nor Theo was there. She made a cup of tea to warm up and sat at the table in the window, petting Hannibal and thinking about the possibility of being pregnant. If she were in the city, she could run to the closest drugstore and pick up an EPT. Now she’d have to order one and wait for the ferry to arrive.

Except as she remembered the crates of open grocery bags being passed from one islander to the next, she knew she couldn’t do that. She’d spotted Tampax, liquor, adult incontinence diapers. Did she really want everyone on the island to know she’d ordered an EPT? She yearned for the anonymity of the big city.

After she finished her tea, she gathered up her inventory notebook and headed to the studio. She’d needed to go through the boxes more methodically. She turned the corner and froze just inside the studio door.

Crumpet hung by a noose from the ceiling.

Crumpet. Her silly, vain, spoiled little puppet princess . . . Her head hung at a macabre angle, yellow yarn sausage curls flopping to the side. Her small cloth legs dangled helplessly, and one of her tiny, raspberry-pink patent leather shoes lay on the floor.

With a sob, Annie rushed across the room and grabbed a chair to get her down from the rope that had been nailed to the ceiling.