Heroes Are My Weakness(97)

“Not planning to.” She took off her coat and passed it to Jaycie. “Put this on.”

She surveyed the tight opening, then pulled her sweatshirt over her head and tossed it aside, leaving herself in only jeans and a bright orange camisole. The cold raised goose bumps on her skin.

Theo dug furiously at the sand, trying to give her more room. She crouched down, wincing as an icy blast of spray struck her. “Liv, it’s Annie. I’m coming in with you.” She gasped as she lay down in the cold sand. As she pushed her feet inside, she imagined getting stuck in the cave entrance like Pooh in the honey jar.

“Easy now.” Theo’s voice was unnaturally tight. “Go easy.” He did his best to help her maneuver, but at the same time, she detected an almost undetectable resistance, as if he didn’t want to let her go. “Careful. Just be careful.”

It was a word he repeated half a dozen more times as she threaded her legs through the crevice, then turned her body so that her hips were roughly parallel with the opening. Another wave sprayed her. Theo shifted his position, trying to shield her.

Her sneakers were underwater inside the cave, renewing her fears about the water’s depth. Her hips wedged between the rocks. “You’re not going to make it,” he said. “Come back out. I’ll dig deeper.”

She ignored him and sucked in her stomach. With the upper half of her body still outside, she pushed as hard as she could.

“Annie, stop!”

She didn’t. She bit her lip against the sharp edges of rock and dug her feet into the sand. With a final twist of her shoulders, she was inside.


AS ANNIE DISAPPEARED INTO THE cave, Theo felt as though he, too, had been sucked in with her. He passed the flashlight to her through the crevice. He should be the one in there. He was a stronger swimmer, although God knew, he hoped the water inside wasn’t deep enough to make that a factor.

Jaycie stood behind him making helpless sounds. He kept digging at the sand. He should be the rescuer, not Annie. He tried not to think about how this scene would play out if he’d been writing it, but the ugly scenario unwound in his head like a filmstrip. If this were a scene in one of his books, Quentin Pierce would be inside that cave waiting for an unsuspecting Annie to become the victim of his next sadistic butchering. Theo never wrote detailed descriptions of the brutal deaths of his female characters, but he planted enough clues so the readers could fill in the cruel particulars for themselves. And now he was doing that in his head with Annie.

The very reason he’d been drawn to writing horror novels mocked him. By creating his gruesome tales of twisted minds, he’d achieved a sense of control. In his books, he had the power to punish evil and make certain justice was served. In fiction, at least, he could impose order on a dangerous, chaotic world.

He mentally sent in Diggity Swift to help her. Diggity, who was small enough to slip through the crevice and resourceful enough to keep Annie safe. Diggity, the character he’d killed off two weeks ago.

He dug faster and deeper, ignoring the bleeding cuts in his hands, calling to her, “For God’s sake, be careful.”

Inside the cave, Annie heard Theo’s words, but she’d been plunged back into her old nightmare. She turned on the flashlight. Erosion had left the water level at the front of the cave deeper than it used to be, already at her calves. Her throat clogged with fear. “Liv?”

She swept the beam around the cave walls, then forced herself to shine it on the water. No torn pink jacket bobbed on the surface. No little girl with straight brown hair lay facedown. But that didn’t necessarily mean she wasn’t there . . . She choked out the words, “Livie, make a noise, sweetheart, so I know where you are.”

Only the lap of water echoed against the granite walls. She moved deeper into the cave, creating a mental image of Livia crouched out of sight in one of the nooks. “Livia, please . . . Make a sound for me. Any kind of sound.”

The continuing silence pounded in her ears. “Mommy’s right outside the cave waiting for you.” Her flashlight caught the ledge at the back that she remembered so well. She half expected to see a sodden cardboard box. The water splashed the top of her knees. Why wouldn’t Livia answer her? She wanted to scream with frustration.

And then a voice whispered, Let me.

She flicked off the flashlight.

“Turn it back on!” Scamp exclaimed in a shaky voice. “If you do not turn it back on immediately, I shall shriek, and that will be unpleasant for everyone. Let me demonstrate . . .”

“Don’t demonstrate, Scamp!” Annie fought the possibility that she was playing out a puppet show for a child who might already have drowned. “I turned it off to save the batteries.”

“Save something else,” Scamp declared. “Like Pop-Tarts boxes or red crayons. Liv and I want the flashlight on, don’t we, Liv?”

A small, choked sob drifted over the water.

Annie’s relief was so intense that she could barely manage Scamp’s voice. “You see. Livia agrees! Pay no attention to Annie, Livia. She’s in one of her moods. Now please turn the light back on.”

Annie switched on the light and waded deeper into the cave, her eyes desperately searching for any movement. “I’m not in a mood, Scamp,” she said in her own voice. “And if the battery runs down, don’t blame me.”

“Liv and I plan to be out of here long before your stupid battery runs down,” Scamp retorted.