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“It would be nice to have a grown-up to talk to for a change.”
    Her invitation sounded more like a plea. Annie owed her everything, and as much as she yearned to refuse, walking away would have been wrong. She pulled herself together, then moved quickly across the open expanse of the backyard in case Theo happened to be looking outside. As she mounted the gargoyle-guarded steps, she had to remind herself that his days of terrorizing her were over.
    Jaycie stood just inside the open back door. She saw Annie looking at the purple hippopotamus poking incongruously from beneath one of her armpits and the pink teddy bear poking from the other. “They’re my daughter’s.”
    Livia was Jaycie’s daughter, then. Not Theo’s.
    “The crutches hurt my armpits,” Jaycie explained as she stepped back to let Annie into the mudroom. “Tying these on top for cushioning helps.”
    “And makes for interesting conversation.”
    Jaycie merely nodded, her gravity at odds with the stuffed animals.
    Despite what Jaycie had done for Annie that long-ago summer, they’d never been close. During Annie’s two brief visits to the island after her mother’s divorce, she’d sought Jaycie out, but her rescuer’s reserve had made the encounters awkward.
    Annie scuffed her boots on the mat just inside the door. “How did you hurt yourself?”
    “I slipped on the ice two weeks ago. Don’t bother with your boots,” she said as Annie bent down to pull them off. “The floor is so dirty, a little snow won’t make any difference.” She moved awkwardly from the mudroom into the kitchen.
    Annie took her boots off anyway, only to regret it as the chill from the stone floor seeped through her socks. She coughed and blew her nose. The kitchen was even darker than she remembered, right down to the soot on the fireplace. More pots had piled up in the sink since she’d been here two days earlier, the trash was overflowing, and the floor needed sweeping. The whole place made her uneasy.
    Livia had disappeared, and Jaycie collapsed into a straight-back wooden chair at the long table in the center of the kitchen. “I know everything is a mess,” she said, “but since my accident, it’s been hell trying to get my work done.”
    There was a tension about her that Annie didn’t remember, not just in her chewed fingernails, but also in her quick, nervous hand movements.
    “Your foot looks painful,” Annie said.
    “It couldn’t have come at a worse time. A lot of people seem to get around on crutches just fine, but obviously I’m not one of them.” She used her hands to lift her leg and prop her foot on the neighboring chair. “Theo didn’t want me here anyway, and now that things are falling apart . . .” She lifted her hands, then seemed to forget where they were going and dropped them back in her lap. “Have a seat. I’d offer to make coffee, but it’s too much work.”
    “I don’t need anything.” As Annie sat catty-corner to Jaycie, Livia came back into the kitchen, hugging a bedraggled pink-and-white-striped kitten. Her coat and shoes were gone, and her purple corduroy slacks were wet at the cuffs. Jaycie noticed but seemed resigned.
    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