The Final Victim (23 page)

    "Sorry," she says again, trying to be patient She can't help feeling vaguely uneasy, though, and anxious to get the heck out of here, at least for tonight The house is so different by day, its tall windows flooding the place with light Now those same windows are foreboding black rectangles and the high ceilings trap eerie shadows, especially without lamps and fixtures to brighten the large rooms.

    It doesn't help that it's so darned stuffy in here, she thinks, and the whole place smells strongly of paint fumes and sawdust The house is sealed shut; the construction guys blast the central air when they're working, then turn it down before they leave.

    "Do you think I should open this?" she asks Royce, examining the latch on the newly installed window. "Just to get some ventilation while we're here?"

    He shakes his head, still counting. "Almost done," he murmurs. "Hang on. Sixty-three,
sixtyfour
…"

    
Restless, her stomach rumbling, Charlotte perches on the freshly sanded built-in seat beneath the window.
She presses her nose against the glass to shut out the glare of the room behind her so she can see out The pavement is shiny from the storm earlier, and glistening puddles pool in the street along the gutter on the far side, near Colonial Park.

    
Why the heck do toe have to live across from a creepy old cemetery?

    That was
Lianna's
first-and predictably dour- question, when they initially brought her to see the house.

    Because live neighbors are noisier and a heck of a lot more trouble, that's why
, was Royce's easy-going response.

    Now, as Charlotte peers into the night she decides
Lianna
might have had a point The cemetery might resemble a beautiful park by day-indeed, it was long ago designated one by the City of Savannah-but at night, the place is definitely creepy.

    Along the black wrought iron fence that marks the perimeter, tufted palm trees rise like towering sentinels amid leafy oaks whose boughs weep silvery Spanish moss. Within the fence lies the seemingly infinite stretch of granite slabs. Some seem to glow an eerie white in the moonlight, others lean at awkward angles, seeming to defy gravity. The whitest, most tilted stones mark the graves of Savannah's earliest-and most illustrious- residents.

    Okay, so an eighteenth-century burial ground doesn't exactly provide a picturesque view from the master bedroom.

    Throw in a little midnight mist, or creaking branches and a scary thunderstorm, and Charlotte can imagine being too spooked to go to bed in her own house, night-light or no night-light.

    
Oh, come on, don't be ridiculous
, she admonishes herself.
You 're
a grown woman, not a young-

   
Her eyes widen.

    A black-clad figure just darted behind a raised rectangular crypt in the foreground, directly in her line of vision.

    Still puttering restlessly in the kitchen, wishing the phone would ring,
Lianna
glances over the contents of the refrigerator, looking for a snack. Not much here, she thinks, pushing things around on the shelves: the ever-present cut glass pitcher of sweet tea Nydia prepares almost daily for Mom, some bottled water, condiments, salad stuff, ham…

    The boring sandwich Nydia made for her dinner was a far cry from the feast she would have had at the Sea Captain's House with Dad.

    She loves their grilled scallops, and the lobster risotto, too. Oh, and they have the best triple chocolate cake on the dessert menu-almost as good as the one Mom used to make every year for Adam's birthday…

    Yeah, and after he died, she stopped making birthday cakes altogether. Whenever
Lianna's
rolls around, she always lets her pick out whatever she wants from Baker's Pride on
DeRenne
Avenue. Their Georgia River Mud Cake is her favorite, but she'd still rather have her mother's homemade triple chocolate.

    
Yeah, like that'll ever happen again
.

    Thinking about cake is giving
Lianna
a fierce sweet tooth, but all she can find in the refrigerator that tempts her in the least is a cup of strawberry
Dannon
yogurt, the kind with the fruit on the bottom.

    Adam always liked this stuff, too, she recalls as she carries it up to her room.

    She can remember arguing with her older brother over who got to eat the blueberry kind, their mutual favorite, and who had to have the peach, their mutual least favorite.

    
Lianna
invariably got stuck with peach.

    "No fair, Adam!"

    How many times did she whine those words, growing up?

    No fair, Adam-you got the good flavor.

    No fair, Adam-you got the best seat.

    No fair, Adam…

    You left me all alone here with Mom, and Dad is gone now, too.

    Tears spring to her eyes.

    Maybe Mom knows, too.

    At least it would explain why she hates me so much
.

    
Lianna
stops short on the threshold of her room, hearing the shrill ring of the telephone from the extension down the hall, in her grandfather's study.

    
It must be Dad or Kevin
, she dunks in relief, her troubles instantly forgotten as she hurries to answer it.

    Startled, Charlotte strains to see the spot beside the cemetery crypt, telling
herself
that it's probably just kids… local teenagers, up to mischief.

    "Ready?" Royce asks, directly behind her, and she jumps.

    "Oh! You scared me!"

    "I didn't mean to… Hey, are you okay?"

    "I'm fine."
And more than ready to get out of here.
She turns away from the window. "So do you want to go eat?"

    "You bet. And you'll be glad to know that we'll have just enough marble, as long as the tile guys are careful and they don't crack any while they're installing them." 'That's great…"

    She glances again at the window.

    "Charlotte…" Royce puts his hand on her arm. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

    "I think I just did. Across the street, in the cemetery," she elaborates at his doubtful expression.

    "Let me guess… a filmy white figure was out there floating among the headstones?"

    "It wasn't floating, and it was wearing black, actually."

    His grin doesn't quite hide the shadow of concern in his eyes, though his tone is playful as he says, "Bad guys wear black, you know. It must have been an evil spirit."

    "Terrific."

    "I'm just teasing you."

    "I know. But I'm not kidding about seeing something out there."

    "Like what?"

    "Like a real person."

    "Real people walk through cemeteries, you know. Even at night"

    "This one wasn't just walking-it was more like, I don't know, hiding."

    Realizing how ridiculous that sounds, she forces a laugh that sounds hollow, and not just because of the echo in the room. "I guess hanging around this empty house is starting to
creep
me out"

    "Come on, then, let's go." Royce crosses the room and flicks off the wall switch.

    A reassuring wedge of light from the hall spills across the floor, not quite reaching the window where Charlotte still stands.

    She turns back to look through the glass again. With the room's overhead bulb extinguished, she can see the cemetery much more clearly.

    There's no sign of the person she spotted earlier lurking near the crypt. Whoever it was must have taken off to catch up to his friends, probably tossing beer cans or cigarette butts along the way.

    
Right.

    
A teenager, up to no good.
But not in a threatening way.
And he's long gone, for sure.

    It's just…

    
He isn't gone
.

    Charlotte has the oddest sense that somebody's still there…

    
Watching her.

    She takes a quick step back from the window, still feeling exposed.

    
Shades… and draperies.

    Yes, that's what they need, as soon as possible. She won't move in here until the windows can all be covered.

    She'll order the treatments first thing tomorrow.
Before the light fixture, before deciding on paint, before anything else…

    From the doorway, Royce asks, "Coming?"

    Her anxiety must be contagious; now he, too, seems a bit apprehensive as Charlotte hurries toward him. Clearly, she isn't the only one who's grateful to be getting out of here.

    "I hope this place seems less spooky after we move in, Royce," she comments, "because if it doesn't…"

    "I'm sure it will be fine." But he doesn't sound so sure at all.

    He flicks off two more light switches as they walk the length of the upstairs hall, plunging them into pitch blackness by the time they reach the stairs.

    Below, the first floor is completely dark as well; they had come up to the second floor well before dusk and didn't think to turn on lights.

    "Isn't there a switch up here to light the stairs?" Charlotte asks, feeling like a frightened little girl as she clutches the back of Royce's shirt "I thought there was." She can hear Royce feeling around on the wall beside them.

    "Here it is," he says finally, and she hears a clicking sound.

    But there's no reassuring burst of light.

    "There must not be a bulb in the fixture yet," Royce tells her, sounding as apprehensive as she feels, and he's not the one with an irrational fear of the dark.

    "Do you think there's a flashlight up here somewhere?"

    "I doubt it."

    "Maybe we should look."

    "Let's just get out of here," he says, sounding as antsy as she feels. "Come on, just watch your step."

    Together, they descend in utter darkness, picking their way down the unfamiliar flight of stairs to the front entrance hall.

    There, at last, she can literally see the light… beyond the pillared arch that leads to the front door.
A golden glow
from the porch light-on a timer to come on at dusk-falls through the arched transom and the narrow windows beside it.

    "Do you have your purse and everything?" Royce asks belatedly as they reach the front door.

    'Yes."

    
And if I didn't
, Charlotte thinks to herself,
there's no way I'd go back up there in the dark to get it
.

    "Okay, then, let's go." Jangling his car keys
impatiently,
or perhaps nervously, Royce opens the door.

    Sultry moonlight seeps in to meet them, tinged with the scent of blooming flowers and the dank odor of the river blocks away.

    Charlotte steps out to the small wooden porch perched six feet above street level; the house sits on a raised basement like so many others in Savannah.

    She inhales the heady perfume of blooming Confederate jasmine that twines over the trunk of an ancient oak tree beside the house, then exhales audibly, feeling better already in the comforting splash of light from the overhead fixture.

    In a few weeks, she tells herself, this place will surely feel like a safe haven, rather than a haunted house she can't wait to escape.

    Of course it will.

    Look at
Oakgate
.

    If one wasn't familiar with the old home, it, too, would seem gloomily foreboding. In fact, it does even now, sometimes. Even to her.

    Royce pauses on the doorstep, fumbling with his keys, attempting to insert first one, then another, into the unfamiliar deadbolt.

    "Do you want fried oysters?" Charlotte asks, eager to go on to the restaurant, "or should we go all out and get a pizza with extra cheese and pepperoni?"

    His reply is lost in a sudden, deafening burst of sound.

    "Lord, that scared me," Charlotte gasps, pressing a hand to her violently pounding heart A car must have backfired, so close by she swivels her head to see if it's parked right at the curb in front of the house.

    No car…

    But there's a flash of movement in the cemetery across the street.

    It's the same black-clad figure, running, fleeing into the heart of the cemetery.

    "Royce, look!" she exclaims, reaching back for her husband's arm-and encountering thin air.

    The spot where he stood just a moment before is empty.

    Or so she believes… until she looks down and sees Royce crumpled at her feet in a spreading pool of his own blood.