The Eleventh Victim (32 page)

“Y
OU SON OF A BITCH
.”

C.C. winced at the shrill volume and held the telephone receiver away from his ear. “Baby, what’s wrong?” he asked, and dared to hope Tina was pissed at him for something lame…like not showing up last night at the Fuzzy or forgetting to call earlier.

C.C. was suddenly opting to keep a low profile. Very low. He hadn’t left his apartment since the incident in the men’s room.

With any luck, she’d never find out about that.

“How could you?” she shrieked in his ear, and his heart sank.

She knew.

He’d been fooling himself if he thought he could keep it from her—or anybody, for that matter.

“And with a tranny? You sick son of a bitch!”

“How did you find out?”

“Are you freaking kidding me? CNN? Headline News? How about Fox? They’re talking about you, C.C. It’s freaking
breaking news.
They even cut into my soap this afternoon, you stupid son of a bitch! You’re the crawl, C.C., the crawl at the bottom of the screen!”

He opened the nearest drawer, found his flask, and threw back a shot of bourbon as Tina screamed all kinds of accusations into his ear.

“Baby, you don’t understand what happened,” he said when she’d stopped to take a breath. “I thought you were the one who set it up. I thought it was your special surprise for me…and I…”

“What the hell? Why would I—”

“You said you had a surprise for me. I thought she—he—was it!”

“Are you out of your mind, C.C.? That’s sick. You’re sick.”

“Tina, just listen. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. You know I love you. I did it for you. You can’t—”

He never did get a chance to tell her what she couldn’t do, because there was a click in his ear, followed by a dial tone.

He reached for the remote, braced himself, and turned it on.

“W
HY THE HELL IS IT SO HOT IN HERE?” EUGENE DEMANDED
of the flushed female clerk behind the desk at the Hertz rental car office as she hunted for papers that should have been ready.

They weren’t.

“I’m sorry, sir, the air-conditioning blew out yesterday.”

“Yesterday? It happened yesterday? And what’s the explanation for it being out today?”

“Needed parts,” she said apologetically, and slid the clipboard across the counter at him.

He continued to glare at her across the counter.

“From Atlanta.” She felt he wanted more of an explanation.

Signing the papers, he decided on the spot that the stupidest people in the world weren’t in Atlanta after all. They were here on St. Simons Island. Bunch of hayseeds. No wonder he had to fly all the way down to straighten things out at Palmetto Dunes.

After an interminable wait, Eugene strode across the sun-baked parking lot to the white Caddy Escalade he demanded his secretary locate for him.

The sweat rolled down the back of his neck as he climbed up and in, switched the ignition, and cranked the AC on high. A local country station was pre-set and blared out of the radio. He jabbed at the controls to turn the thing off. Quiet. He wanted total quiet and another Jack on the rocks…wondering if he’d find anything but moonshine in these parts. Idiots.

He pulled out of the gravel driveway from the private landing strip and onto a paved surface road, the dashboard-mounted GPS instructing him to “Turn right.”

Floyd Moye turned and headed straight to the only five-star hotel in the region, the Cloister. Perched on the upper waters of St. Simons Island, it was surrounded on the other three sides by a world-class golf course in the Scottish tradition. Every evening, a single, lonely figure in full kilt regalia would wail the bagpipes out near the water for the residents.

Screw that.

All Eugene wanted was a cold drink and the AC on high in his room. He hoped to God they had him in the lodge where a private butler was assigned to each room. The butlers weren’t great, but at least they were something. And what a bar that place stacked. His mouth was dry as he put down the pedal.

After a twenty-minute drive, he was there. The Lodge at the Cloister welcomed Eugene like a long-lost son, ushered him straight up to the Presidential Suite looking past a croquet lawn and on to the trickle-back of the Atlantic. The marshes swelled up across the salty water and shimmered in the last streaks of sun pouring down onto the Georgia Gold Coast.

None of it fazed him. He called over his shoulder to the room’s private butler, “Jack on the rocks.”

“On its way now, Mr. Eugene.” Bent down slightly in a perpetual half-bow, the butler backed out of the room, shutting the door noiselessly behind him.

Eugene turned away from the balcony and came back into the AC, picked up the bedside remote, and clicked on the room’s TV. There was an immediate close-up of C.C., dressed in the long, black robe he wore on the bench. A large font across the bottom of the screen screamed out BREAKING NEWS in red letters, all caps.

Floyd Moye turned up the volume.

“…is just the latest high-profile politician to become embroiled in a sex scandal,” the reporter was saying. “Having recently achieved notoriety after a stunning vote to reverse the conviction of serial killer Clint Burrell Cruise, the judge was formerly considered to be a strict law-and-order advocate. Shortly after that decision, he launched his campaign for governor…a campaign now scuttled
by a spectacular fall from grace. CNN has managed to locate the young man
allegedly
photographed in the men’s room of a local club, the Pink Fuzzy, with Justice Carter. He promises to reveal
in detail
about his life and his night with the judge in his upcoming book…”

Eugene turned off the television and stepped back out onto the balcony. The sun was just dipping down into the horizon, sending millions of shimmering bursts of light dancing onto the dark water.

He silently did the math: How much would people pay for a view like this over on the formerly protected sands at St. Simons?

Millions.

Millions were in the balance.

Everything was in place now for the condos to rise up directly on the sand.

Floyd Moye felt the chilled air from inside pouring out through the open doors onto his balcony and he turned around. The drink he had requested was sitting on a napkin there on the coffee table, no sign of the butler who had come and gone. Eugene walked over and drained it, setting the glass back down as he turned again toward the water.

To hell with it. Enough was enough.

Time was money, and every day of delay cost him thousands in potential profit. If Eugene couldn’t pull off Palmetto Dunes, he’d lose the deal in Hawaii…at the very least. His “friends” in Vegas backing the deals were not the understanding sort.

He had trusted others to handle the problem. They failed miserably.

He’d drive out to the construction site on the Island right after dinner, find out exactly what the problem was, and solve it. Himself.

Tonight.

O
F ALL THE PLACES C.C. HAD IMAGINED HIMSELF LIVING, OR
even visiting, Dooley County was not among them.

An upscale Atlanta penthouse, yes. Tina’s place minus the voodoo roommate, yes. The Governor’s Mansion, definitely. The White House, a distinct possibility.

But never did he imagine the rambling former farmhouse that had been in Betty’s family for over a century would be his permanent abode. Her family barely tolerated him, practically holding their noses at him just to get through a single dinner. He could feel it emanating from the walls of the front room when he walked in. And the feeling was mutual.

“Betty? I’m home!” C.C. called out after he opened the screen door, flipped on the wall switch, and dumped his bags in the floor. He’d just have to make the best of it…for now.

True, he’d lost his reputation, Tina, the bench, the governorship…but he still had Betty.

And more important, he had Betty’s money.

After the dust settled, he could regroup and get his campaign back up and running again. Show ’em C.C. was still in the race.

“Sugar Pie?” he called, leaving his bags lying there in the hall and making his way through the house. Betty usually unpacked them for him.

Speaking of pie…

She usually welcomed him home with a homemade peach pie, hot from the oven.

Sniffing the air, he smelled only a hint of Lysol and all the musty antiques Betty’s family was so hung up on. He briefly remembered when he’d placed a glass of ice tea on her grandmother’s
antique buffet without a coaster. It was as if a possum got in the house and climbed on the dinner table, the way they’d all rushed around.

Walking room to room, he noted she’d changed things around a bit. Bought some new furniture, gotten rid of some of the old—including his favorite recliner, he noted, as he glanced into the living room. He loved that thing!

She’d probably just sent it out to be re-upholstered. It had seen better days. Or better yet…she’d ordered him a brand new one! To surprise him now that he’d be spending more time here with her.

And he would—in the immediate future, anyway.

“Betty?” he called, making his way to the kitchen in the back of the house and opening the screen door out into the backyard.

The house was silent.

And not just the house. It had been so long since C.C. had been back home to Dooley County for any extended period of time, he had actually forgotten how quiet it was. Even with the kitchen door wide open, he couldn’t hear a sound.

Finally a dog barked in the distance…and that was it.

What the hell would C.C. do with himself, stuck here with Betty for who-knows-how-long, and nothing to do?

Turning back and heading into the kitchen, he went directly for the high cupboard where he kept his stash of bourbon…he stopped in his tracks.

There, squarely in the center of the table, sat a big, yellow manila envelope, his name scrawled on the front in black Sharpie, Betty’s handwriting.

Something told C.C., even before he opened the flap, this was not a love note.

He was right.

In fact, it was quite the opposite.

Divorce papers…along with all the newspaper clippings about the trouble he’d gotten himself into at the Pink Fuzzy.

There was a note from Betty, too.

Don’t bother looking for me. I’m on a Carnival Cruise to the Bahamas with John David. P.S. don’t bother going to the bank. And remember, the house belongs to my aunt Fruttie.

So.

That’s how it was.

His wife had run off with the farm overseer, leaving him high and dry.

C.C. found a bottle of bourbon and took it out onto the back steps.

There he sat in the hot, still darkness, slapping at mosquitoes and blowing upward through his bottom lip to keep the gnats off his nose and eyes. He couldn’t stay here—glancing at the papers in the folder, he saw that even the lawyers said so.

He wondered what Tina was doing tonight. She’d gotten over the tranny, but she’d told C.C. how “the trust was gone” between them.

God, he missed that girl. For the rest of his life, he’d go to sleep remembering the routine to “Freebird” she’d finally worked up. It was a doozy.

C.C. sat in the silence awhile longer, looking out the screen door into the backyard. Hell, he could make a comeback. He still had a law license.

He could always practice law.

T
HE MOON RODE HIGH AGAINST A BLACK VELVET SKY. VIRGINIA
parked her Jeep and got out just at the point before sandy grass turns to pure beach. She reached back in to cut the lights so as not to scare the sea turtles.

It was that time of year, the magical few months when, only under the cover of darkness, the loggerhead sea turtles swim ashore, find their way across the sand, dig their secret nests, and lay tiny eggs. Endangered, according to the feds, they searched the world and chose the Golden Coast to raise their young. A safe haven…until now.

Inside the Jeep, the wieners, the whole yapping bunch of them, made it vociferously clear they wanted out.

“
Sshh!
I promised a ride, not a walk.”

They didn’t care what she’d promised and continued yelping frantically like all their little lives depended on getting out the one window.

The turtles would not appreciate the wieners’ sincere attention, so Virginia pressed the button to automatically lower the window on the driver’s side, just enough to give them some air, but not escape.

“Don’t even think about it, or it’s no treats forever,” she told Sidney, turning to find his watchful gaze on her, both ears standing straight up in the dark of the Jeep’s cab.

Just to be on the safe side, she raised the window another quarter inch.

“I’ll be right back.”

The salty air whipped Virginia’s hair when she stepped away. She had eased up, hoping her engine wouldn’t disturb the turtles.

They were here first, after all, inhabiting the beach long before the Indians roamed the coast, before the Spanish came searching for gold, before slaves were finally set free, before German subs trolled this very shore, spying on the Rockefellers and Gettys who summered here.

Now Palmetto Dunes was set to do what even the German subs didn’t…destroy their habitat.

Walking out halfway to the water, she sank down on the damp sand, sitting Indian-style, her body still aching from the beating.

What next?

How long could her band of misfits, amateurs all, thwart the multimillion-dollar plans of powerful developers and local politicians in league with God-knows-who.

Speaking of God, it had been a long time since Virginia had had any contact with Him/Her.

Now was as good a time as any to break the ice.

“God, it’s me, Virginia. I don’t blame You if You don’t accept this call. I know You only hear from me when I need something.” She hesitated. No other way to say it, so she tried the direct approach. “But guess what? I need something. I need help to stop this.”

She nodded her head backward toward the construction site in the distance. She knew He’d know what she meant by “this.”

“This is Your creation I’m trying to save. This beautiful beach, and all Your creatures that call it home. I’ve kind of run out of ideas. Show me what to do. Help me, please. Amen.”

She fell silent—and so, it seemed, did the world around her. The water lapped ever so gently; even the breeze seemed to ebb.

Gazing out at the dark sky, she wondered if God had heard her prayer, and whether He had a plan, because she certainly did not.

Suddenly, coming out of the dark behind her, a car motor, the gas gunning. Virginia jerked around, twisting from the waist up to look backward.

She spotted headlights just a few yards away, barreling toward her on the beach.

Scrambling frantically out of the way, she had no time to move…it was too fast and too close…a huge Escalade with the brights on, plowing across the sand, straight at her.

“No, no!! God, no!”

Face down, she braced herself, throwing her arms over her head in what she knew would be a futile effort to protect herself from the SUV’s crushing tires. For just a second, she heard nothing but her own panicked breathing and music blaring from the car’s stereo, and…

A miracle. The tires on the white metal behemoth ground to a halt, wedging down into deep, wet sand just feet from where she lay, arms still over her head.

She had been so sure it was gunning for her, but maybe she was wrong. Maybe—

The driver’s side door flung open, and a man stumbled out. The Escalade’s stereo continued pumping out Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman.”

She got to her feet quickly, peering at him. She couldn’t make out his features against the headlights cutting through the dark, but his voice was slurred and angry. Did he actually try to run her down?

“Who the hell are you?” he shouted out.

“I’m Virginia Gunn, who the hell are you?”

Eugene sagged against the car. Virginia Gunn…Virginia Gunn…he knew that name

It came to him through a haze of alcohol. Here was the thorn in his side…the thorn that had already cost him hundreds of thousands and possibly millions if investors started to pull out. Obviously the two “friends” he hired to take care of Gunn didn’t finish the job. Here she was…alone…on the beach…an isolated beach.

His prayers were answered.

He quickly closed the few feet between them, pulled back, and threw a right punch straight to her face, landing just below her left eye. She went down hard, sprawled on the beach again.

The blow was blinding and the next thing Virginia knew, she was facedown on the beach with a mouthful of sand.

He aimed a hard kick straight to her right thigh…and she cried out in pain. But she scrambled with amazing tenacity, clawing at the sand to get up and run, her feet digging into the sand, slowing her down.

She took off running toward the dense undergrowth surrounding the construction site.

Enraged, Eugene gave chase and, just as she made it to the edge of the site, caught her by the shoulder of her jean jacket. Wrenching her backward, he felt the two of them tumble to the earth together.

When they landed hard on the sand, she was on her back and his hands were around her neck, clamped hard, determined to rid himself of her, for good.

Virginia could see the stars shining behind Eugene’s face, just inches from her own, and she clawed at his hands as they locked around her neck. She was too tired, she couldn’t fight him off.

The stars were going out; the world was turning dark.

She knew she was dying, there on the beach she had tried to save. Somehow, it seemed fitting…for a moment.

Then, instinctively, she doubled her legs in front of her chest and, using her knees and feet, heaved Eugene’s weight off her body.

Suddenly, she could breathe again; the stars reappeared twinkling above her. Sucking in air through burning lungs, she careened toward the trees with Eugene at her heels.

He caught up with her just as she reached the edge of the forest, grabbing her at the waist and spinning her around. A pair of brutally strong hands encircled her throat once more, closing off her windpipe.

It was at that precise moment she became aware of a rustling in the undergrowth, and then, erratic barking.

The wieners
. The wieners had managed to squeeze their little bodies through the cracks she’d left them in the windows to breathe,
escaping the cab of the Jeep and were there, beside her, beneath her, all around her.

The barking took on a fever pitch and they began yapping, gnashing the air, nearly screaming, and all the while biting every inch of Eugene’s suited body they could get their teeth into.

“What the hell?” He released Virginia’s neck and batted his arms at the fierce little dogs, blindly stumbling back to fend them off.

Sidney leapt through the air and managed to take a bite of the upper thigh, latching there and hanging on wildly, his eyes glaring straight up into Eugene’s face. Kicking and hitting at them all, Eugene stumbled back and lost his balance, landing with a dull thud.

Everything went quiet.

The wieners encircled the spot where he lay, all of them wheezing for air.

Virginia stood up, peering through the dark. What happened?

In the moonlight, she could see Eugene sprawled out on the grass at the sandy base of the tree, eyes wide open staring straight up into the night sky.

She edged closer.

Was he playing possum, trying to lure her into a trap?

Or was he really…dead?

Cautiously, she circled him a few times and then went closer. His foot was still entangled in the vine that tripped him. Surely he hadn’t hit his head hard enough on the roots to kill him…had he?

Cautiously, Virginia inched over to his side.

Blood was oozing from the back of his head into the white sand.

She crouched beside him, trying to revive him.

Placing her hand under the back of his head, just under his skull at the top of his neck, she found it…the top of a rock protruding up from the sand…the rock that tore into Eugene’s skull.

But it wasn’t just a rock; something was carved deep into the bloodied stone.

Pushing him aside, she dug away the sand with her bare hands.

It was a marker.

A slave marker dated 1843.

L
UCY
M
INERVA AND
O
VID
S
TOKES
FROM
P
ALM
P
OINT
P
LANTATION
.

P
ROPERTY OF
P
IERCE
B
UTLER
N
O
M
ORE.
IN DEATH WE ARE FREE
.
1843

Virginia looked up at the night sky and smiled. They weren’t just building high-rise condos on the beach…they were building high-rise condos on a sacred slave burial ground.

Her fight was over.

God had taken her call after all.