The Final Victim (9 page)

    But as
Lianna
watches Kevin spread out a blanket, it's all she can do to keep her feet firmly rooted in the sand.

    Listening to the surf, breathing the warm salt breeze, it's all coming back.

    "Thirsty?" Kevin asks
,
looking up as he pulls something from the backpack he was toting.

    About to say No, and
Please
take me home,
Lianna
realizes what it is.

    
A bottle of wine.

    She and her friends have snuck enough tastes from their parents' liquor supplies in the past year for
Lianna
to recognize a fortuitous escape route when she sees one.

    "I'll have a sip," she hears herself say, as she sinks onto the blanket beside a smiling Kevin.

    "Did you remember to put that leftover potato salad into the bag with your sandwich?" Mimi asks as, Cam in tow, she follows Jed to the tiny kitchen with its cracked linoleum, warped cupboard doors, and scratched laminate countertops.

    "No, but I don't want it."

    "Are you sure?"

    "Positive. My stomach's a little queasy tonight."

    
"Again?"

    "Not too bad. But I can't go around eating all that potato salad anyway. I'm getting a gut, see?" Jed pats his stomach.

    
"Where?"
'There." He pinches an imaginary inch.

    She shakes her head. "I don't see a gut, but even if you had one, I'd think it's cute."

    
"Really?
Then keep making potato salad and those homemade biscuits you gave me yesterday. By Christmas I'll look like Santa." He leans in and plants a kiss on her cheek as she pours milk into a
sippy
cup for Cam.

    "Daddy, is it Christmas? Is Santa coming?" the little boy asks as his father swings him up into his arms.

    "Not for six more months, and only if you're good," Jed tells him. "
Which means no more flushing tiling!
down
the potty."

    "What about pee
pee
?"

    
"Pee
pee
, yes.
Anything else, no."

    "What about-"

    "Hey, you're about to sabotage the potty training, Jed," Mimi warns, taking Cameron from him with a laugh.

    'Just trying to prevent having the plumber here twice in one week," he says, retrieving his brown paper bag lunch from the fridge and heading for the back door. "See you all in the morning."

    "Be safe," Mimi calls after him, same as always.

    "Don't worry," he replies, same as always, before he closes the door.

    But she does worry. She can't help it. Safely sheltered in their cozy, two-bedroom canal-side home every night after dark, she doesn't like to think of him out there working on the damaged bridge under the glare of construction spotlights.

    So many things can happen. There are deadly gators and poisonous snakes in the surrounding marshland not to mention heavy equipment that can malfunction or tip and crush a person. Jed's seen that happen, and worse, in his decade as a construction worker. But he stopped telling her horror stories early
on,
realizing that what might entertain a casual girlfriend could scare off a potential wife.

    Mimi can't bear the thought of anything happening to Jed. He's her whole world-he and Cameron.

    Nor does she like to think about how close she once came to losing both of them.

    But Jed doesn't know about that, or about the weighty secret she's determined to carry to the grave.

    
If he ever found out…

    "Cookie, Mommy!"

    "Okay, okay, Cam."

    Hurrying to the cupboard for the package of store-brand chocolate-sandwich cookies, she forces away the terrible, haunting memories that are never far from flooding her thoughts.

    Charlotte helps herself to the heaping platter of hush puppies the waitress has already set before them. She breaks open a plump, warm puff and slathers it with honey-sweetened butter.

    Her husband smiles across the table at her. "I knew you had to be hungry."

    
"A little."

    "Promise to eat while I'm gone?"

    "I'll try."

    "I'll be back before you know it," he says again. "It's only for the weekend. I got that first flight out on Delta Monday morning."

    "I know. I just wish you had invited Aimee here instead. Or that I could be going with you. I'd love to meet her."

    The smile fades from Royce's eyes. "I wish the same thing. But Aimee says she isn't ready to meet you yet. I'm lucky she even wants me."

    Charlotte nods. She supposes she can't blame the young woman for resenting not just the father she blames for a multitude of sins, both real and imagined by her bitter mother, but also the new wife and family in Royce's life.

    "Well, sooner or later, I'll come with you and we'll get to meet.
Not just Aimee, but your mom, too."

    Her mother-in-law is in a New Orleans nursing home, too frail to travel. Royce usually makes an effort to see her when he goes back. Charlotte has never met her, and isn't in any hurry to, given Royce's tales of her mounting senility, near-deafness, and constant ill-temper.

    "We'll make the trip," he promises.
"Maybe for
Mardis
Gras.
That's a good time to go."

    "Well, be sure to tell Aimee she's welcome to visit any time," Charlotte reminds him, reverting automatically to her inherent Southern hospitality. "Especially onc4 we're
back
home."
Oh, to be back home.
"And I hope she likes the brooch and earrings."

    "She'll love them. Thank you for picking them out." "It was fun. You know how much I love to shop." "And you know how much I love you for being open-minded about my daughter." Royce picks up her hand!
and
kisses away the crumbs that cling to her buttery fingers.

    "I love you for the same reason, especially now that mine is such an insufferable little wench," Charlotte' tells him with a grin.

    "Oh, I remember Aimee at that age, before the divorce.
Lianna
will come through this stage just fine. Next thing you know, she'll be a gracious young lady fit for the Remington family portrait." "Somehow I find that hard to believe." 'Trust me." "I do."

    And now that
Grandaddy
is gone, Royce is the only person left in Charlotte's world
whom
she does trust.

    Certainly nobody else deserves it: not the daughter who lied just last week about where she was going and with whom; not the family members who might as well be strangers now in their midst; not the general contractor who repeatedly assured them they'd be back home in Savannah by February, then May, and now August.

    Suddenly, Charlotte feels utterly consumed by exhaustion. She leans back in her seat, pressing a hand against her lips to mask a yawn. "You're tired."

    "I am. I feel like I want to crawl into bed and sleep for days," she tells Royce wearily.

    "Well, then, go ahead and do just that when we get home." "I wish."

    "What's stopping you? You need to recover from all this. You should rest. Take some time for yourself."

    She shakes her head, thinking again of
Lianna
, of the visiting cousins.

    Both
Gib
and
Phyllida
are quite a bit younger than she is, and they lived up North, so she never really knew them as well as she'd have liked to. Her father always dismissed them both as spoiled brats, but Charlotte could imagine her Uncle
Xavy
might have said the same about her. He never seemed to give his only niece the time of day.

    Then again, for all they had in common, he and Daddy weren't particularly close, either. The brothers were longtime rivals in everything from sports to acquiring fancy status symbols to garner their lone parent's meager affection.

    "Listen, don't let your obnoxious cousins get to you while I'm gone," cautions the apparently clairvoyant! Royce.

    "They're the only family I have left in the world now that
Grandaddy's
gone," she feels obligated to point out "What about me?"

    "Other than you and
Lianna
," she says hastily. "Bu you know what I meant. It's just kind of… strange, suddenly feels like the
Remingtons
are… I don't know a dying breed."

    "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be-"

    "Oh, I know." She smiles up at him. "The fact is they're my only flesh and blood in the world, beside
Lianna
, doesn't make my cousins any less obnoxious."

    Royce grins. "I just hope they're not planning hang around for too long after I'm back."

    "I doubt that I have a feeling that once the will read, they'll take their money and run."

    "I wouldn't be surprised."

    
"And what about us?"
Charlotte asks her husband.

    "What do you mean?"

    "We're about to inherit
a life
-changing amount money, remember?"

    He shrugs. "Frankly, I like our life just the way it Don't you?"

    She flashes him a grateful smile.
"Absolutely.
And
i
always said that when the time came, we'd just tuck away and go on the same as always."

    
"My thoughts exactly.
I'm assuming that's still the plan?"

    "That's still the plan," Charlotte assures him, aware, as always, how different he is from her first husband. Royce is as cautious financially as Vincent was a flashy spendthrift.

    Both
Grandaddy
and Mother tried to warn her that Vincent married her for her money-they saw it from the start.

    But Charlotte, still reeling from her father's death and her mother's cancer diagnosis, wouldn't listen- any more than she suspects her own daughter will listen to her.

    But what can she do about that?

    
Nothing
, Charlotte dunks helplessly for the second time this evening,
but hold my breath and let go.

    "Want me to pick you up again tomorrow night?" Kevin asks hopefully.

    
Lianna
pauses, her hand on the car door handle.

    "I don't know," she hedges, needing to think about what just happened between them.

    "Well I can, if you want me to. Or I can meet you somewhere, if you don't want to sneak out. You can tell your parents you're with one of your friends or something."

    "You mean my mother."

    "Huh?"

  
 
‘'You said my
parents
. My father lives in Florida-he's not the one with all the stupid rules. Royce is just my stepfather."

    "Yeah," he says in
a whatever
tone, as if it doesn't matter.

    But it does. It matters to her, a lot.

    "So let me know, okay? I have to work at the gas station all day so I can't answer my cell if it rings, but you can text message me if you want."

    "Okay. I'll let you know."

    He leans over the console and kisses her one last time. She can feel stubble on his face, a tactile reminder that he's older than she is.
Much older.

    Perhaps too old, she allows herself to consider for the first time, as she closes the car door as soundlessly as possible.

    Picking her way in the headlights' beam toward the stone-and-iron entrance to
Oakgate
, she wonders if she's in over her head.

    If the wine hadn't smelled musty and tasted bitter, who knows what might have happened?

    As it was,
Lianna
couldn't bring herself to drink more than that first tentative sip. She had tasted enough good wine pilfered from her friend Devin's parents to know that the stuff Kevin offered was either horribly cheap or horribly spoiled, perhaps both.

    In the end, much to his disappointment, she managed to maintain her sobriety-and virginity. Not that she's particularly prone to clinging to either in the grand scheme of things.

    But tonight, it wasn't meant to be.
Or perhaps, just not there, on the island beach.
Or with him.

    Having reached the lowest spot in the stone wall surrounding the gated entrance to
Oakgate
, she waves alt Kevin.

    He blinks the headlights once before driving away, leaving her alone in the dark.

    Royce reaches over to turn off the alarm a minute before it rings, not wanting to wake Charlotte.

    She's sleeping soundly at last. Between her grief and the houseguests and
Lianna's
typical teenaged strife, his wife is on the verge of becoming a physical and emotional wreck.

    And it doesn’t help that you’re having her for a few days
.

    Charlotte isn't the type to lay on a guilt trip. She really is upset to see him go.

    
Sorry, Charlotte
, he thinks, rolling over to look at her,
but it can't be helped
.

    The room is bathed in the soft glow of the night-light she insists on using. She was so embarrassed, back when they spent their first night together, to admit that she's afraid of the dark.

    "I have been ever since I was a little girl," she confessed. "I know it's stupid, but… I can't help it. Even
Lianna
sleeps in a dark room, but I can't."

    Royce lingers, watching her sleep, thinking that she really does look like a defenseless child, lying there with her beautiful face scrubbed clean, her hair tangled on the white pillowcase. The hint of vulnerability he glimpsed the first time he ever laid eyes on her is often swept behind a sophisticated facade during the day. Not so at night, especially when she's asleep.

    Tempting as it is, he can't lie here watching her a moment longer. He sits up noiselessly on the new king-sized
pillowtop
Sealy that Charlotte's grandfather purchased when they moved into his guest room.

    
Nothing but the best for his favorite granddaughter- and, by proxy, her husband.

    Royce yawns, wishing he could curl up beside Charlotte and catch some more sleep. But he can't. It's time to get moving.

    He swings his legs over the edge of the bed and his bare feet make contact with the satiny hardwood floor Walked on by countless
Remingtons
.

    Sometimes he thinks,
If
this old house could talk
…

    Good thing it can't, Royce tells himself. Some things are better kept buried in the past, where they belong.

    He bends over his wife's sleeping form and presses a gentle kiss on her exposed shoulder, just below a reddish, heart-shaped birthmark he once thought was an out-of-character tattoo.

    
"Are you kidding?"
she asked laughingly the first time he questioned her about it
. "
Grandaddy
would have shot me if I ever got a tattoo!"

    She went on to reveal that she grew up calling the distinctive birthmark an "angel's kiss," one that was shared by a couple of other
Remingtons
.
Grandaddy
, for one.

    
Her late son, Adam, for another.

    She sobbed when she told Royce how he looked when his body was pulled from the sea.

    
His face was… It was… That's how they knew it was him, Royce.
Because of the birthmark.

    
Shhh
,
shhh
, I know
, he said soothingly, and hoped she wouldn't bring up the fact that he didn't know at all- that his own son's body was never found.

    "Sleep well, darling," he whispers softly now, knowing she probably won't hear him. "I'll see you in a few days. Don't worry while I'm gone."

    But she will. He's seen the haunted expression in her eyes, however fleeting; has caught her brooding when she doesn't realize he's watching her.

    She's afraid. Of what, he doesn't know. But that comment she made earlier about running for her life…
 
He made light of it at the time, masking his uneasiness.

    But it stayed with him, nagging at him all evening. I What if…?

    What if she's having some kind of premonition?

    
Maybe I shouldn't leave right now
, Royce can't help thinking, and he hesitates beside the bed, mulling it over.
Maybe it's not a good idea
.

    
But what about Aimee?

    He has to go.