Heroes Are My Weakness(63)

Livia nodded and took a delicate sip of milk.

The islanders had begun lining up at the dessert table, and Jaycie rose. “I’ll get you some of my chocolate pecan cake, Theo.”

Theo was undoubtedly looking for an escape from Jaycie’s cooking, but he nodded.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” Annie said. “You’re not exactly Mr. Social.”

“Somebody has to keep an eye on you.”

“I was with Jaycie in the car, and I’m in the middle of a crowd here.”

“Still . . .”

A piercing whistle cut through the room, bringing the crowd to silence. A barrel-chested man in a parka stood by the front door, lowering his fingers from his mouth. “Listen up, everybody. The Coast Guard got a distress call about twenty minutes ago from a trawler a couple miles off Jackspar Point. They’re heading out, but we can get there faster.”

He nodded toward a burly, flannel-shirted lobsterman at the next table and to Lisa’s husband, Darren. Both men rose. To Annie’s surprise, Theo got up, too. He clasped the back of her chair and leaned down. “Don’t go back to the cottage tonight,” he said. “Spend the night at Harp House with Jaycie. Promise me.”

He didn’t wait for her answer but joined the three men at the door. He said something to them. One gave him a quick slap on the back, and all four headed outside.

Annie was startled. Jaycie looked like she wanted to cry. “I don’t understand. Why is Theo going with them?”

Annie didn’t understand either. Theo was a recreational sailor. Why would he be going out on a rescue mission?

Lisa bit her bottom lip. “I hate this,” she said. “It has to be gusting forty knots out there.”

Naomi overheard and sat next to her. “Darren’s going to be fine, Lisa. Ed’s one of the best seamen on the island, and his boat’s as sound as they come.”

“But what about Theo?” Jaycie said. “He’s not used to these conditions.”

“I’ll find out.” Naomi got back up.

Barbara came over to comfort her daughter. Lisa grabbed her hand. “Darren’s just getting over the stomach flu. It’s bad out there tonight. If the Val Jane ices up . . .”

“It’s a solid boat,” Barbara said, although she looked as worried as her daughter.

Naomi came back and addressed Jaycie. “Theo’s an EMT. That’s why he’s going with them.”

An EMT? Annie couldn’t believe it. Theo’s work involved the decapitation of bodies, not patching them together. “Did you know about this?” she asked Jaycie, who shook her head.

“We haven’t had anybody on the island trained in medical care for almost two years,” Naomi said. “Not since Jenny Schaeffer left with her kids. This is the best news we’ve had here all winter.”

Jaycie grew more agitated. “Theo doesn’t have any experience going out in this kind of weather. He should have stayed here.”

Annie couldn’t have agreed more.

The islanders’ concern for their first responders and the missing boat took the pleasure out of the gathering, and everyone began packing up. Annie helped the women collect trash while Jaycie sat with Livia and Lisa’s girls. Annie was just about to enter the kitchen with a load of dirty plates when she overheard a fragment of conversation that stopped her in her tracks.

“. . . shouldn’t be surprised that Livia still isn’t talking,” one of the women inside said. “Not after what she saw.”

“She might never talk,” another commented. “And it’ll break Jaycie’s heart.”

The first woman spoke up again. “Jaycie has to be prepared for that. It isn’t every day a little girl sees her mother murder her father.”

Water splashed in the kitchen sink, and Annie could hear no more.





Chapter Fourteen


THEO STEADIED HIMSELF AS A monster wave crashed over the bow of the Val Jane. He’d grown up on sailboats and been out on more than a few lobster boats. He’d experienced summer squalls, but never anything like this. The big fiberglass hull pitched into another trough, and an exhilarating rush of adrenaline surged through him. For the first time in what seemed like forever, he felt totally alive.

The lobster boat reared up on the swell, hung there for a moment, then plunged again. Even in the boat’s heavy orange Grundens foul weather gear, he was bone-deep cold. Salt water trickled down his neck, and every exposed patch of his skin was wet and numb, but the shelter of the pilothouse didn’t tempt him. He wanted to live this. Gulp it in. Sop it up. He needed this pump of his pulses, this rip of his senses.

Another mass of water towered before them. The Coast Guard had radioed that the missing fishing trawler, the Shamrock, had lost power after its engine flooded, and that there were two men aboard. Neither would last long if they were in the water, not with these frigid ocean temperatures. Even survival suits wouldn’t protect them. Theo mentally reviewed everything he knew about treating hypothermia.

He’d backed into EMT training while he was researching The Sanitarium. The idea of being able to work in crisis situations stimulated his writer’s imagination and eased his growing sense of suffocation. He’d begun his training over Kenley’s objections.

“You need to spend your time with me!”