The Final Victim (35 page)

    "You're not still feeling dizzy?" Charlotte asks, resting a hand on Royce's cheek.

    Aimee warned her they'd better keep an eye on him for possible fever and infection, but he doesn't feel unusually warm. The doctor wouldn't have let him leave without making sure he was fine, and it hasn't even been an hour since he left the hospital to return to
Oakgate
.

    "No, I'm fine now.
Really.
Walking all that way just took a lot out of me, that's all." He sighs. "Maybe I can sleep down here tonight."

    Charlotte looks dubiously at the nineteenth-century couch, with its low arms and
back,
and wood moldings bordering the cushions. It wouldn't make the most comfortable bed in the world.

    Aimee speaks up as if she's read Charlotte's thoughts, "I bet we can arrange to rent one of those hospital beds for a few days, Daddy.
Until you can make it upstairs to your bedroom again."

    Sensing Royce is about to protest, Charlotte quickly agrees, "That's a great idea-and I can sleep right here on the couch in case you need anything."

    "No way am I making you sleep on this thing," Royce tells her. "We'll both sleep in our own bed. I'm sure the stairs will be no problem."

    Aimee shakes her head, looking at Charlotte as if to say,
He's too stubborn for his own good
.

    Charlotte, who wishes Royce hadn't repeatedly pushed aside the elevator issue in his eagerness to spring himself from hospital care, nevertheless isn't particularly anxious to spend another night in bed without her husband beside her.

    "Is it good to be home?" she asks, plumping a throw pillow behind his neck as he settles back with a sigh of relief.

    "I'm not home," he reminds her with a faint smile. "Not yet."

    It takes her a perplexed moment to figure out what he means.

    Oh.
Of course.
He's referring to
their
house: the one on Oglethorpe Avenue.

    
The house where he was gunned down.

    She murmurs her agreement and turns her back to flip on a table lamp so he won't see her expression.

    How can he even want to go back there after what happened?

    It's like the beach all over again…

    
Except Royce lived.

    And Adam's death was an accident.

    What happened to Royce was not.

    Now
Gib
is in jail, thus far unable to raise the sizeable bail. Apparently, he doesn't have a penny to his name. His bank accounts are all but empty, and he had liquidated all his investments a few years ago.

    He turned to his family for help, but
Phyllida
claims to be incapable of coming up with the money and their mother doesn't have it, either.

    Charlotte knows because she overheard
Phyllida's
end of a long-distance conversation with Aunt Susan.

    It started out in a fairly composed manner, with
Phyllida
saying,
"No, my house is already mortgaged up to the hilt, and even if it weren't, I wouldn't risk losing it…1 know he's my brother… I know… No, we can't do that… Because I don't trust him not to take off and leave the country, that's why."

    Knowing how Aunt Susan always doted on her son, Charlotte wasn't surprised by the obvious argument that ensued. It wound up with
Phyllida
tearfully saying, more than once,
"I know, Mommy, but I can't"
and
"We just don't have that kind of money."

    Whether
Phyllida
was telling the truth and whether her regret was real remained unclear to Charlotte until the call ended with a slammed receiver.
Phyllida's
quiet sobs were barely audible, which convinced Charlotte that for once, her cousin's emotional display was real.

    But Charlotte didn't go in to comfort her. The two have kept a cordial distance all week, ever since
Gib
was taken out of here in handcuffs.

    
Phyllida
cried then, too. But when her brother turned to beg her to help him, she literally turned her back as he was led out the door.

    
"Do you honestly believe
Gib
could have done something like this,
Charlotte?"
she
asked afterward, more than once, in disbelief.
"Do you honestly think he's guilty?"

    Charlotte's answer is always the same.

    Yes.

    What else is there to think? What other conclusion can be drawn from the evidence that was found in his room?

    He admitted that the shoes were his, but denied wearing them on the night in question.

    He also vehemently denied ever having removed the cufflinks from his grandfather's jewelry box, much less having worn them. No, he had no idea how one landed in the cemetery and the other on a shirt that was, indeed, his own. But he didn't know how any of that stuff got into his box spring.

    The detectives don't believe him, and neither does Charlotte.

    She's certain now that
Grandaddy's
reason for disinheriting
Gib
, and
Phyllida
, too, stemmed from something he must have found out about them. And she's going to find out what it is.

    Now, however, she's just trying to focus on Royce, on getting him settled here at
Oakgate
so he can heal.

    
As for
Phyllida
…

    Charlotte couldn't bring herself to ask her lingering cousin to leave, though that's what she wanted.

    But
Phyllida
is going anyway. She announced tins morning that she's booked a flight out for tomorrow night.

    "I wanted to get out over the weekend," she told Charlotte. They're saying there's a tropical storm coming tins way early in the week, and it could turn into a hurricane."

    Charlotte was cordial, hoping to mask her relief with a pleasant, 'That's a good idea. You'll be home safe and sound before the storm hits."

    Right, and-well, I wanted you to know I've realized there's no point now in contesting the will. So I might as well go."

    
Good. Just leave me alone
, Charlotte thought when she said it.

    She wants nothing further to do with either of her cousins, regardless of
Grandaddy's
reasons for disinheriting them. Charlotte is more than ready to move on… if not, necessarily, out.

    The prospect of preparing
Oakgate
to be sold is daunting one. In her exhaustion, she can't imagine finding the motivation to start sorting through the house packing things up, bringing realtors through, making arrangements for Aunt Jeanne…

    Anyway, there's no rush.

    The house on Oglethorpe isn't ready yet, thank goodness. The renovation has ground to a halt, with the finishing fixtures and paint as yet unselected. On Monday afternoon, Charlotte instructed the contractor to just g on to his next project, promising she would call him t finish when things settle down.

    "Are you sure you don't just want me to wrap thing up for you now, Mrs. Maitland?" Don asked, as she pulled out a pen and her checkbook. "If you just had few hours to go over the paint and the other couple o things, I could-"

    "No," she said firmly. "Right now, my time is
devote
to my husband. We'll call you when we need y'all again after he gets out of the hospital."

    The contractor left with a doubtful suit
yourself
shrug and a hefty check.

    Now that Royce is out of the hospital, the last thin Charlotte wants to think about is that house.

    Gone are her visions of cheerful, sun-splashed room and laughter; all she remembers is that awful night ' the dark, and fumes, and gunshots, and blood…

    How can that house ever be home?

    Maybe in time…

    That's what Aimee keeps telling her.

    'You know, I hate that this has robbed you of your   spirit, Charlotte," she said just last night, when Charlotte halfheartedly said she didn't care where they stopped for dinner on the way back from the hospital, or what they ate. "Don't let him do this to you."

    
"Who?"

    
"
Gib
!"
Aimee said, in a
who
else?
tone. "He hasn't won yet. Daddy is alive, and so are you. And
Gib
is in jail. He can't hurt y'all anymore, and he can't win, unless you give in and let him."

    Aimee is right.

    Charlotte has no intention of letting
Gib
ruin the life she's worked so hard to rebuild. She just needs time.

    
Time for Royce's wounded leg to heal.

    And time for Charlotte's wounded soul to do the same.

    It has become increasingly difficult for
Phyllida
to leave her room. Every time she ventures out into the house, she feels like an interloper, disgraced by association to her brother.

    Anyway, it's no longer as though she has as much a right to be here as Charlotte does.

    The
house, and everything in it, belong
to Charlotte. It's a wonder she hasn't come right out and asked
Phyllida
to leave, though the unspoken invitation has been obvious all week.

    Well, she'll be out tomorrow. With little else to occupy her, she's been watching the Weather Channel, and she has no desire to top off this horrendous visit East with a hurricane. All she wants for the next twenty-four hours is to be left alone to pack her things and gather her courage to return to the wreckage of her life.

    Now, as she rounds a corner of the upstairs hall on her way to find something to eat in the kitchen,
Phyllida
is dismayed to hear movement on the stairs below.

    She pauses to consider fleeing back to her room, but hunger gets the better of her and she continues on.

    To her relief, it's only Melanie, Aunt Jeanne's terminally cheerful nurse, starting back up the stairs carrying a tray filled with food.

    "How are you?"
Phyllida
asks, because she has to say something, conscious of the younger woman's curious gaze from the foot of the steps.

    "Fine," Melanie says, and makes a tremendous effort to adjust a steaming cup on the tray with one hand.

    
That's so she won't have to look at me
,
Phyllida
notes.

    She'd be amused at the transparent ploy, if she weren't so darned…

    Well, weary.

    Not so much physically tired, though she can't remember the last time she slept through an entire night.

    She's just… depleted.
Utterly depleted, in every way.
She has nothing left to give to anyone.

    Not even
her own
child.

    That's part of the reason she's lingered at
Oakgate
this long. How can she bring herself to fly home to her son when she can barely get through each day without falling apart?

    Brian asks countless questions and goes on and on every time he calls about how much he misses her. Translation: everything is falling apart around the house without her there to keep it together. There are bills to be paid, and calls to be returned, and appointments to be kept… It's all so overwhelming.

    Then there's Lila, who keeps telling her how happy Wills is going to be when his mommy comes home to take care of him.

    Lila. She'll have to be let go. If not immediately, then as soon as
Phyllida
can bring herself to do it. There's no money for household staff, not now. She's been scraping together the nanny's salary every two weeks as it is.

    Not to mention the way she and Brian have been living off their credit cards for a couple of years now, undaunted by the mounting interest and finance charges.

    
Phyllida
always knew that even if
Grandaddy
lived to be a hundred-and well he might-her inheritance would come along eventually to bail them out and guarantee that
Wills's
college tuition will be paid, no matter where he wants to go.

    There was never a need to worry about what they owed; never a reason to stop spending. What's a few hundred thousand dollars in debt when you're worth millions?

    
Not anymore.

    She's never going to be wealthy.

    She's never going to be an actress.

    She's never going to be anything she dreamed of.

    As she passes Melanie on the stairs, she wonders what on earth she's going to do. How are she and Brian going to pay off any of that debt now that the promise of a vast windfall has been whisked from their future? How will they survive?

    These last few days, as her anxiety escalated, she could only, assume that
Gib
, too, must have felt this… desperate. This hopelessly trapped, facing a lifestyle unfit for a Remington.