The Final Victim (54 page)

    "Thank God." Royce's voice is ragged as he cradles her in his arms.

    
Lianna
clings to her mother's hand, sobbing in re-
lief
-and shame. "Royce, I'm so sorry, I thought you-"

    
Were trying to kill me.

    She can't say it

    How could she even have thought it?

    
Because she walked in on him and Aimee upstairs.
 
His own daughter.
He was in bed with his own daughter
,
 
kissing
her…

    At least, that was what it looked like in the
fleeting
 
glimpse
Lianna
caught before she fled, sickened.

    Now she replays the scene again, and again, trying to make sense of what she saw. Or thought she saw.

    
Because it couldn't have happened.
Royce shot Aimee to save his wife's life, so…

    So maybe I was wrong about what they were doing. He and Aimee…

    
Or maybe I imagined the whole thing. God knows I was in a crazy state of mind up there…

    Right now, the only thing that seems obvious is that Royce loves her mother. He isn't trying to harm Charlotte-or
Lianna
, for that matter.

    "
It's
okay,
Lianna
," her stepfather says simply, as if he's read her mind-and forgiven her.

    "When I heard you coming down those stairs, trying to get to me-"

    "I thought you were in some kind of trouble down there."

    "You fell. I was sure you were-"

    "My arms broke my fall. But I hurt my leg. The same leg," he adds ruefully.

    "
Lianna
…" Mom thrashes her head; her voice is weak.

    "
Shhh
, Charlotte,
it's
okay." Royce gently strokes her soaked hair. "
Lianna
is here, too. She's all right. You \ don't have to worry."

    Mom's eyelids flutter. She's trying hard to come out of it.

    
Lianna
swallows a lump of regret, hating herself for thinking that her stepfather was trying to hurt her- and her mother.

    "I thought Mom was dead when I heard the gun go off,"
Lianna
says, trembling as she attempts to grasp all that happened. "I thought Aimee shot-"

    "No," Royce interrupts, "I managed to get to the gun in time. I shot Aimee. I had no choice."

    "She's your daughter."
Lianna
shudders.

    Tears glisten in Royce's eyes. "I had to,
Lianna
. She's insane. I had no idea she was caught up in what
Gib
was doing…" His voice breaks; he buries his face in his hands, sobbing. "My God, if I hadn't gotten there when I did… I can't even think about what might have happened."

    "
Lianna
…" Mom's eyes, her voice, are ravaged.

    "
Lianna
is fine." Royce presses a kiss on Mom's forehead as,
dazed,
she looks from her daughter to her husband. "Can you see her, Charlotte? She's fine. Show her,
Lianna
. Tell her." 'Yes, I'm okay, Mom." Crying,
Lianna
bends forward to lean her cheek against her mother's shoulder.

    Royce says softly, "Everything is going to be okay, now, Charlotte. We're going to be fine: you, me, and
Lianna
."

    At last, Charlotte manages to speak coherently.
'The police-call the police.
Please… Royce…"

    "I will. The phones are down, but I'll use my cell phone.
Lianna
, stay here with your mother."

    "I will."
Lianna
watches Royce limp away in obvious agony, thinking she won't leave her mother's side again for a long, long time.

    Neither, she's certain, will her stepfather.

    His body torn and bruised, his leg shattered, it takes Joseph a long time to drag himself into the house.

    Clasping the cell phone against his ear, he presses 9-1-1 and begs for help.

    "What's going on there, sir?"

    "Please… We've been attacked. Please send someone-"

    "Calm down, sir. Tell me where you are and what happened."

    He does.
But not, of course, everything.

    Nobody will ever have to know everything.

    He learns that a tree has fallen across the highway, cutting off
Oakgate
from the rest of the island.

    It's going to be a while before the police can get up here.

    "But we're working on moving it out of there now," the voice on the telephone assures him. "We'll be there as soon as we can, Mr. Maitland. I know you've been through a lot. Just hang on."

    "We'll try."

    Joseph hangs up his cell phone, tucks it into the pocket of his soaked slacks.

    
Hang on.

    Yes.

    Later, you '11 clean your wounds, change your clothes.

    Later, you '11 take care of yourself.

    Right now, he must begin the long, painful, final journey back to Charlotte.

    Odette never saw it coming.

    Joseph's one comfort is that she never turned her head, never sensed his betrayal.

    It was over quickly. One courageous squeeze of the trigger, and Odette was gone.

    She was gone, and Charlotte was saved.

    
What if you had been too late?

    He nearly was.

    If he was too late to save Charlotte, he could have gone back to the original plan: Odette's plan. The one she assumed he was following all along.

    He was careful not to let her suspect anything.

    Odette had no idea mat in his effort to make Charlotte love
him,
Joseph had fallen in love with Charlotte as well.

    Odette couldn't know that he had no intention of murdering Charlotte.

    
No, not his beautiful, beloved Charlotte.
Just
Lianna
- along with her beautiful blond stepsister, Aimee, in a tragic accident as they tried to flee the island for help.

    Cringing in anguish as he uses his arms on the rail to pull himself down the back steps, Joseph is satisfied with the way things have turned out.

    
Big sister has been taken care of.

    In time, when all the fuss has subsided, little sister will be, too.

    
Or maybe not.

    Maybe Joseph should try to learn to live with
Lianna
after all.
For a while, at least.

    Maybe he should spare his wife the loss of another child.

    
Because he does love Charlotte.
He really does.

    And now he has it all. Everything he ever wanted
With
the exception of
Lianna
.

    Oh, well, there's always boarding school-or Vince. Let Daddy's little girl go live with him for a while.

    
I can talk Charlotte into it. I can talk her into anything.

    Outside, it's still raining steadily, but the savage gusts have subsided.

    The worst of the storm is over.

    
Isn't that the truth
, Joseph thinks wryly.

    He limps painstakingly around the clump of shrug that lead to where he left Charlotte- Only to find that she's vanished.

    A wave of panic sweeps through him.

    Then a voice commands, "Stop right there and
pu
up your hands."

    
Charlotte's voice.

    She's on her feet-and she's pointing a gun…

    
At him.

    As Charlotte watches the taillights of the police c disappear through a curtain of rain down the winding drive, she sinks onto the top slate step of the portico.

    Handcuffed in the backseat is the man she knew Royce Maitland.

    In time, she might find out exactly who he really is or was.

    Maybe she never will.

    It doesn't really matter now.

    It's over.

    Their universe shattered, she and
Lianna
are never nevertheless alive.

    That's something.

    No.

    
It's everything.

    
"Mom?"

    She looks up to see
Lianna
behind her, still pale, still quivering,
still
covered in mud.

    "Is he gone?" she asks in a little-girl voice that wrings the last bit of emotion from Charlotte's heart.

    "Yes,
Lianna
," she manages to say, "he's gone."

    "Mom… You saved my life."

    Charlotte shakes her head, remembering what happened back there in the treacherous sea.

    If it wasn't for her daughter, she would have readily joined her son.

    ‘’You saved my life,
Lianna
.
Twice."

    Her voice gives way then, and she raises her arms in mute invitation.

    Not so long ago, Charlotte had told herself that when it comes to her daughter, all she can do is hold her breath and let go.

    I was wrong
, she thinks now, as she gathers
Lianna
into her arms at last.
Dead wrong
.

    
All I can do is breathe a tremendous sigh of relief… and hold on tight.

    The beach is postcard-perfection on this, the first official weekend of summer.

    Down beyond the dunes, where sea oats sway in the warm salt breeze, bright-colored blankets and umbrellas dot powdery sand. Crisp white sails skim the horizon. The ocean air is rife with the sounds of gleeful children splashing in the surf, the incessant roar of the waves, the squawking of circling gulls, the hum of banner-toting planes
cruising
the coast.

    Charlotte sits in her blue and white canvas chair, protected from the midday sun by her cotton cover-up and the umbrella's shade. Romance novel in hand, woven
sweetgrass
hat on her head, she smiles, watching a little boy splash, shirtless, in the surf.

    On his shoulder is a telltale birthmark.

    Charlotte told him it's an angel's kiss, just as she told little Adam years ago.

    Adam would have graduated from college last month, had he lived-another unreached milestone to join the others in Charlotte's mental scrapbook. If she closes her eyes, she can see her lost son: proud teenager in cap and gown, dashing groom in a wedding boutonniere, tender new father cradling an infant.

    
Milestones…

    Next month, Charlotte will kiss her daughter goodbye and send her off to her freshman year at Princeton.

    Initially,
Lianna
didn't want to go that far from
Oakgate
. She likes to stay close to home. And Charlotte would secretly love to keep her there, safely tucked under her wing.

    Yes, it's tempting to just hang on tight, forever.

    But I can't.

    It's time to let go at last.

    
Milestones…

    The little boy in the water will be starting first grade in September at Telfair Academy, just as his mother did almost three decades ago.

    He, too, will be on a scholarship-of sorts.

    Charlotte has arranged to pay little Cameron Johnston's private school tuition. She'll send him to college, too, when the time comes.

    For his mother, Mimi, one more semester at Georgia Southern will yield that elusive degree in international studies at last. But she's already been to Europe.
Many, many times.
Not on business, or pleasure, but a mission.

    Mission accomplished.

    
"How can I ever repay you for all you’ve done for us, Charlotte?’’
Mimi
 
asks
, often.

    Charlotte simply tells her that payback isn't necessary.

    She never mentions what she figured out on a July day three years ago, the first time she joined the
Johnstons
at the beach…

    That little Cameron is family.

    Nor does she ever remove her swimsuit cover-up when Jed is around. If he ever noticed the identical angel's kiss on her shoulder, he would realize that his son has Remington blood in his veins.

    Devoted, loving Jed is Cameron's father in every way that counts.

    
Gib
Remington, sentenced to a long prison term on drug-smuggling charges, will never have to know that his long-ago one-night stand with Mimi Gaspar resulted in a pregnancy. She and Jed were married soon after she found out she was expecting, and she had opted never to tell him the truth.