Heroes Are My Weakness(103)

Annie gritted her teeth. No matter how much she hated it, this confrontation had to wait for daylight when she had a cooler head. And a gun of her own. She forced herself back into the kitchen, snatched her coat from the hook, and escaped from the house.

A soft whinny came from inside the stable. The spruces creaked, and a night creature scuttled through the brush. Despite the bright moonlight, the descent was treacherous. She slipped on loose rock. An owl hooted a warning. All this time she’d thought someone was after the legacy, but that hadn’t been it at all. Jaycie wanted to drive Annie away so she could have Theo to herself. It was as if Regan’s darkness had found a home inside Jaycie.

By the time Annie reached the marsh, her teeth were chattering. She looked back at the house. A light burned from a window in the turret. She shivered, imagining Jaycie staring down at her, then remembered she’d left the light on herself when she’d gone up there earlier.

As she gazed at the massive shadow of Harp House and the glowing turret window, she experienced a moment of the blackest humor. This was just like the cover of one of her old gothic paperbacks. But instead of fleeing the haunted mansion in the dark of night wearing a billowing gossamer gown, Annie was fleeing in a pair of flannel Santa pajamas.

Gooseflesh crept up her spine as she approached the dark cottage. Had Jaycie already discovered Annie had fled? Her anger resurfaced. She’d deal with her tomorrow before Theo could get back and try to take over. This was her fight alone.

Except it wasn’t. She thought of Livia. What would happen to her?

The nausea she’d been fighting ever since she’d seen Jaycie walk struck. She fumbled in her pocket for the door key and fit it into the latch. The door gave an ominous squeak. As she let herself inside, she reached for the light switch.

Nothing happened.

Booker had told her how to start the generator, but she hadn’t imagined doing it in the dark. She grabbed the flashlight she kept by the door and turned to go back outside when a soft, almost imperceptible sound stopped her cold.

Something had moved on the other side of the room.

Her toes curled in her sneakers. She stopped breathing. The pistol was in her bedroom. All she had was the flashlight. She raised her arm and shot the beam across the room.

Hannibal’s yellow eyes gazed back at her, his stuffed-mouse toy clutched between his paws.

“You stupid cat! You scared me to death!”

Hannibal stuck his nose in the air and batted the mouse across the floor.

She glowered at him as she waited for her heartbeat to return to normal. When she was reasonably certain she’d recovered enough to move, she stomped back out into the night. She was not born to be an islander.

You’re doing a pretty good job of it, Leo said.

Your cheerleader routine is creeping me out, she told him.

You’re reprimanding a puppet, Dilly reminded her.

A puppet who had stopped acting like himself.

She made it to the generator and tried to remember what Booker had told her. As she began to go through the steps, she heard the faintest sound of an engine approaching from the main road. Who would be coming out here now? It might be someone with a medical emergency looking for Theo, except everyone would know by now that he’d left the island. And that Annie was here alone . . .

She abandoned the generator and raced inside to get the pistol from her nightstand. She wasn’t absolutely sure she could shoot anyone, but she wasn’t sure she couldn’t either.

When she returned to the darkened living room, she had the gun in hand. She stood off to the side of the front window and listened to pings of loose gravel. Headlights swept across the marsh. Whoever was driving didn’t seem to be making any effort to approach quietly. Maybe Theo had somehow managed to catch a middle-of-the-night ride from the mainland.

Keeping a firm grip on the pistol, she peered around the edge of the window and saw a pickup pull in front of the cottage and stop. A truck she recognized.

By the time she’d opened the front door, Barbara Rose was getting out, leaving the engine running. In the glow coming from the open driver’s door, Annie saw the hem of her pink pastel nightgown hanging from under her coat.

Barbara rushed toward her. Annie couldn’t see her expression, but she sensed her urgency. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, Annie . . .” Barbara pressed her hand to her mouth. “It’s Theo . . .”

A spigot seemed to open in the front of Annie’s chest, draining her body of blood.

Barbara clutched Annie’s arm. “He was in an accident.”

Her grasp was the only thing holding Annie up.

“He’s in surgery,” Barbara said.

Not dead. Still alive.

“How—how do you know?”