The Final Victim (11 page)

    Stirred by renewed lust, he hurries off down the hall, leaving
Lianna
to resolve her own dilemma. She'll undoubtedly be grateful he didn't rat her out to the old man. It might have been tempting if Charlotte's second husband didn't seem to have the temperament of a tree stump.

    
The kid will just have to owe me a favor
,
Gib
decides, smiling as he lets himself into his room.

    
A big favor that he has every intention of collecting at some point.
But for now there are other things on his agenda.

    Slipping into his room, he steals across the carpet to the canopy bed.

    There, instead of a slumbering beauty, he finds a note impaled on the pillow with an antique hat pin.

    He has to turn on the bedside lamp to read it, but he probably shouldn't even have bothered.

    
Gib
,

    I decided to go back to Boston.

    Sorry,

    
Cassandra.

    For a moment, he stands there staring at it.

    Then, with a smirk, he plucks the paper from the pin, wads it into a ball, and tosses it in the general direction of the wastebasket. The pin he stabs into place on the cushioned top of a dusty sewing box that rests on the nearby bureau, a forgotten relic of some bygone Remington spinster.

    
Easy come, easy go
,
Gib
thinks as he crawls into bed alone.

    
Phyllida
is awakened by Brian's prodding hand in her side, his stale, boozy breath wafting beneath her nostrils.

    She yawns, opening her eyes to darkness. "What time is it?"

    No reply, just an urgent, "Come on,
Phyll
," as he tugs at her cotton nightgown.

    "Come on, what?" She rolls away-or tries to. This isn't their California King. There's little room to escape him on a full-sized mattress that butts up against the wall on her side.

    "You know…"

    She knows. And she isn't in the mood.

    "Did you just get home now?" she asks, flinching beneath his cold touch on her bare skin.

    "No, I got home hours ago. You were asleep." He moves closer and nuzzles the back of her neck with his razor stubble.

    
Phyllida
endures it for a few moments, wondering if he might actually be able to arouse her for a change.

    
Nah.
Try as she might, she can't even pretend he's somebody else. There are occasions when that
works
, but not this time.

    "Stop, Brian. We can't," she tells him softly, nudging his probing fingers from her hip.

    "Sure we can."

    "No. The baby is right here."

    
Baby?
Wills is no more a baby than Brian is the man of her dreams.

    Yet her son is sleeping in a crib again, and right here in the room, a mere few feet from their bed, just as he was as an infant
Back
then, of course, it was with great reluctance that
Phyllida
warded off her husband's advances.

    "He's asleep," Brian protests, just like old times.

    
Unswayed
,
Phyllida
whispers, "If he wakes up, he'll be traumatized for life."

    
"Yeah, right."
He resumes his neck-nuzzling.

    She brushes him away. "Seriously, Brian, cut it out."

    "Jesus, you're no fun anymore, you know that?" 'Yeah, I know. You keep reminding me."

    He rolls onto his back, the bedsprings creaking loudly beneath his weight.

    She wonders if he really was here, asleep beside her, for hours as he claimed.

    She wouldn't know. As Brian likes to say, she sleeps like the dead.

    "What time is it?"
Phyllida
asks again.

    "Who knows?
Four?
Five?"

    She groans. "I'm going back to sleep."

    
So leave me alone
.

    The unspoken words linger in the darkness between them.

    Back in her room at last,
Lianna
goes straight to the antique dressing table, turns on the lamp, and looks into the slightly wavy looking glass that has undoubtedly reflected countless other-and much prettier-Remington females before her.

    Her nose wrinkled in distaste,
Lianna
leans into the mirror, checking her straw-colored hair for cobwebs.

    None are visible, though she swears she can feel them lingering.

    The trip back up two flights of stairs in total darkness was almost as much fun as running into her mother's creepy cousin in the upstairs hall. She shudders, as much due to dunking about
Gib
as at the memory of hearing something scamper in her wake on the return trip to her room.

    Is it really worth all this, just to be with Kevin?

    No, she concludes with little deliberation. He's kind of a jerk.
Cute, but a jerk.

    Still, it's not just about Kevin.

    It's about freedom. It's about evading her mother's constant stranglehold, about being in charge of her own life for a change.

    
Lianna
turns away from the mirror and changes swiftly into pajamas, tossing her shorts and T-shirt in a heap on the floor.

    Hearing a clattering sound, she realizes that it's the key to the back door. She forgot to return it to its hiding place in the garden.

    Oh, well. She'll do it some other time.

    She tosses it into a drawer, turns off the lamp, climbs into her bed, and wearily decides she's had enough of sneaking out into the night… for now.

    But the secret stairway will beckon again. Of that, she has no doubt.

    And it's comforting just to know it's there whenever she feels the need to escape.

    Dawn creeps gray and rainy over the Atlantic sky, washing away the remains of a strange, restless night.

    At last, the players are in place for Act Two, the first act having drawn to a satisfying close.

    Soon enough, the residents of
Oakgate
-past and present, permanent and temporary-will find them-selves playing out a drama nobody could have seen coming.

    
Nobody but me
.

    The stage must be set for the next act

    And life must go on normally.

    Rather, as close to normally as possible after a death.
Even when that death claimed an old man who had long overstayed his welcome.

    Interesting, how many ways there are to make death seem accidental.

    The right poisons, administered in the right doses, can approximate any number of fatal illnesses without leaving a readily discernable trace.

    Or, an electrical device thrown into a tub of water can result in fatal cardiac arrhythmia that leaves no outward signs, giving the appearance of a heart attack.

    All you have to do is remove the device from the water, and nobody will be the wiser.

    But it has to be the right kind of device. These days, household appliances have ground-fault circuit interrupters that turn off the power instantly in the case of immersion.

    Years ago, there were no such precautions.
Toasters, lamps - and yes,
radios
- lacked breakers that would prevent accidental electrocution.

    
Oakgate's
closets, attic storage room, and cellar are as cluttered with antique appliances as they are with family secrets.

    But the weapon of choice was right out in the open, and carefully, deliberately, chosen.

    After it served its purpose, Gilbert Remington
II's
prized radio was carefully replaced on the mantel, right out in the open where it has always been.

    
Such a shame, in a way, that the delicious irony was lost on the victim.
The old man never knew what hit him.

    Neither, should the time come, will anyone else who dares to get in the way.

    "It's just that I missed you while you were gone, and you've only been back twenty-four hours," Charlotte wistfully tells Royce, opening the top drawer of her bureau. "I wish you could come with me today,
that's
all."

    "I wish I could, too." He vigorously rubs a towel over his shower-dampened hair. "We could play
footsie
under Tyler's conference table while the will is being read."

    She can't help but smile at that. "Yes, and I wouldn't feel so uncomfortable around my cousins if you were there."

    The weekend, her first without
Grandaddy
, was a difficult one-especially with Royce gone, her cousins here, and
Lianna
more remote than ever. Charlotte did her best to keep it together, even spending two full days at the beach with
Phyllida
and her son while Brian and
Gib
were out golfing.

    But it was nerve-wracking for her in the end. Every time the lifeguard blasted a whistle, or little Wills tried to squirm out of his mother's arms in the surf, Charlotte endured a stab of uneasiness.

    And it isn't as though she and her cousin have much in common.
Phyllida's
world seems to revolve around die gym, shopping, filling out preschool applications for Wills-reportedly a complicated, competitive process- and occasionally going to an audition.

    Several times, Charlotte welled up with tears over their grandfather, but she kept her grief hidden behind her sunglasses, knowing its intensity isn't shared.

    It isn't that
Phyllida
and
Gib
didn't love
Grandaddy
. Of course they did, despite their apparent indifference. Although disconcerted, Charlotte has repeatedly assured herself of that. They just aren't as emotional as she is, that's all. They haven't lost all that she has.

    She was relieved when Royce got home early Monday morning, his flight right on time, as he had promised. He even took the day off, and they spent most of it at their new home in Savannah, checking on the progress of the renovation. The contractor and Royce seem satisfied that they're on track again, but the job isn't going quickly enough for Charlotte.

    And she doesn't want to go without him today.

    She removes a new package of pantyhose from her drawer. Ordinarily she doesn't wear stockings; she hates the constricting feel on her legs. Now, she's forced to don them for the second time in a week. The funeral, of course, was the other occasion.

    
Oh,
Grandaddy
.

    "I'm sure it'll be fine. Your cousins seem nice enough," Royce points out, oblivious to the tears welling in her eyes as he stands before the full-length mirror to expertly knot his tie.

    She swallows the lump in her throat. '’They might seem nice, but I keep feeling like they resent me-and
Lianna
, and you, for that matter."

    "Me?" he echoes incredulously.

    "I think so." She sits on the edge of their bed and gingerly pulls the dark stockings up her legs.

    "Why would they resent me?"

    "Who knows?
Because you get to sleep in the nicest guest bedroom?
Or because you've spent more time with
Grandaddy
than they have these past few years?"

    "Oh, come on. It isn't as if your grandfather and I ever went palling around together, Charlotte. In fact, I'm not all that convinced he even liked me."

    "He did," she assures him, standing and smoothing her tailored navy blue skirt over her legs. "He's gruff with everybody, even me. I mean, he was."

    She pauses to regain her composure. There are those tears again, ever ready to spring to her eyes and spill down her cheeks. She probably shouldn't have worn mascara today. "But if he didn't like you, Royce," she goes on, "he'd have let me know about it."

    "I wouldn't be so certain about that."

    She shakes her head. "Are you sure you can't cancel your meeting and come with me?"

    "I wish I could, but this could be a major new corporate client for me."

    "Yes, but after today…" She trails off, but he must know what she's dunking. After today, they'll be millions of dollars richer. The income from his computer-consulting business will be even less necessary than it is now.

    "It isn't about the money for me, Charlotte," he reminds her. "I love what I do, and I'm good at it."

    "Of course you are. I didn't mean-"

    "I know you didn't." He smiles as if to show her that his pride isn't wounded.

    "Nothing is going to change, Royce.
After today.
I remember what we said about tucking it away and going on. So don't worry."