Heroes Are My Weakness(13)

Annie smiled at the child. “How old are you, Livia?”

“Four.” Jaycie answered for her daughter. “Livia, the floor is cold. Get your slippers.”

The child disappeared again, still without saying a word.

Annie wanted to ask about Livia, but it felt like prying, so she asked about the kitchen instead. “What happened here? Everything has changed so much.”

“Isn’t it awful? Elliott’s wife, Cynthia, is obsessed with everything British, even though she was born in North Dakota. She got it into her head to turn the place into a nineteenth-century manor house and somehow convinced Elliott to spend a fortune on the renovations, including this kitchen. All that money for something this ugly. And they weren’t even here last summer.”

“It does seem crazy.” Annie propped her heels on the chair rung to get them off the stone floor.

“My friend Lisa— You don’t know her. She was off island that summer. Lisa loves what Cynthia did, but then she doesn’t have to work here.” Jaycie gazed down at her bitten fingernails. “I was so excited when Lisa recommended me to Cynthia for the housekeeper’s job after Will left. Work’s impossible to find here in the winter.” The chair creaked as she tried to find a more comfortable position. “But now that I’ve broken my foot, Theo’s going to fire me.”

Annie set her jaw. “Typical of Theo Harp to kick somebody when she’s helpless.”

“He seems different now. I don’t know.” Her wistful expression reminded Annie of something she’d nearly forgotten—the way Jaycie had watched Theo that summer, as if he were her entire world. “I guess I hoped we’d see each other more. Talk or something.”

So Jaycie still had feelings for him. Annie remembered being jealous of Jaycie’s soft blond prettiness, even though Theo hadn’t paid much attention to her. Annie tried to be tactful. “Maybe you should consider yourself lucky. Theo isn’t exactly a solid romantic prospect.”

“I guess. He’s gotten kind of strange. Nobody comes here, and he hardly ever goes into town. He roams around the house all night, and during the day, he’s either out riding or up in the turret writing. That’s where he stays, not in the main house. Maybe all writers are strange. I go for days without seeing him.”

“I was here two days ago, and I ran into him right away.”

“You did? That must have been when Livia and I were sick, or I would have seen you. We slept most of the day.”

Annie recalled the small face in the second-floor window. Maybe Jaycie had slept, but Livia had roamed. “Theo’s living in the turret where his grandmother used to stay?”

Jaycie nodded and adjusted her foot on the chair. “It has its own kitchen. Before I broke my foot, I kept it stocked. Now I can’t maneuver the steps so I have to send everything up in the dumbwaiter.”

Annie remembered that dumbwaiter all too well. Theo had stuffed her inside it one day and stuck her between the floors. She glanced at the round face of the old clock on the wall. How much longer before she could leave?

Jaycie pulled a cell from her pocket—another high-tech smartphone—and set it on the table. “He texts me when he needs something, but since I broke my foot, I can’t do much. He didn’t want me here in the first place, but Cynthia insisted. Now I’ve given him an excuse to get rid of me.”

Annie would have liked to say something hopeful, but Jaycie had to know enough about Theo to realize he’d do exactly what he wanted.

Jaycie picked at a glittery My Little Pony sticker that had adhered to the rough-hewn servant’s table. “Livia is everything to me. All I have left.” She didn’t say it in a self-pitying way, more as a statement of fact. “If I lose this job, there aren’t any others.” She rose awkwardly from the table. “Sorry to dump on you. I spend too much time with only a four-year-old to talk to.”

A four-year-old who didn’t seem to speak.

Jaycie hobbled toward a very large, old-fashioned icebox. “I need to get dinner started.”

Annie rose. “Let me help.” Despite her fatigue, it would feel good to do something for someone else.

“No, it’s okay.” She pulled at the latch on the icebox and opened the door, revealing the interior of a very modern refrigerator. She stared at the contents. “While I was growing up, all I wanted to do was get away. Then I married a lobsterman and got stuck here.”

“Anybody I knew?”

“He was older, so probably not. Ned Grayson. The best-looking man on the island. For a while, that made me forget about how much I hated it here.” She snatched a bowl covered in plastic wrap from the refrigerator. “He died last summer.”