The Final Victim (4 page)

    
"Really?"

    
"Really."
Suddenly, the last thing she wants is to spend a long evening in this house with a sullen teenager, a batty old aunt, and assorted relatives who came for the memorial service and obviously feel entitled to linger.

    It's been a couple of years since Charlotte has seen
Gib
and
Phyllida
.
Gib
is presumably an attorney in Boston by now, and his sister moved to the West Coast years ago to pursue acting, before she was married. Charlotte hasn't seen
Phyllida's
husband, Brian, since their wedding, or glimpsed so much as a photo of their son, Wills.

    But they all showed up for the funeral, and this is their house as much as anyone's-or so they seem to believe.

    As the Remington homestead,
Oakgate
at times accommodated several generations of extended family. But for the better part of the last decade, only
Grandaddy
and his younger half sister, Jeanne, have remained in residence.

    They were joined several months ago by Charlotte, Royce, and
Lianna
.

    The
Maitlands
could have rented a place while their new home in Savannah was being remodeled. But
Grandaddy
invited them to stay here, Royce thought it was a good idea to save money, and Charlotte reluctantly agreed.

    Now
Grandaddy's
gone, and moving on won't be as; simple as Charlotte had anticipated.

    As she crosses the second parlor toward the large hall that runs through the center of the house, she can't help but notice that every time she thinks she's moved out of
Oakgate
, the old place sucks her back in.

    Almost like the relentless grasp of a rip current at sea.

    No, she admonishes herself, startled by the bizarre comparison.

    Not like that at all.

    
Oakgate
is just a house.

    
Just an inanimate pile of bricks and tabby and wood.
It holds no power; it isn't dangerous.

    Nor is it deadly.

    Yet an odd chill of foreboding seems to follow Charlotte as she moves through its eerily still entry hall today, along with the flinty gazes of Remington ancestors forever caged in gilt-framed portraits.

    Hearing footsteps approaching the second floor,
Phyllida
Remington Harper braces herself for yet another intrusion.

    First
came
her husband, Brian, changing from his dark suit to a pink polo and madras slacks, and gathering the golf clubs he insensitively remembered to pack for this funeral trip back East.

    "You won't mind if I hit the links, will you,
Phyll
?" he asked, and didn't wait for the reply.

    Shortly after his departure came the housekeeper's knock and the inquiry about whether
Phyllida
and her son planned to eat dinner this evening here at
Oakgate
or elsewhere.

   
Elsewhere?

    As if there are dozens of restaurants in this godforsaken place. One would have to go down to the southern end of the island to find a decent meal, or even the closest grocery store, as
Phyllida
pointed out to Nydia. With a sleepy, out-of-sorts toddler to care for and nary a nanny in the house, that's out of the question.

    Nydia conspicuously avoided the unspoken invitation to babysit Wills for the evening-not surprising, since she never did seem to have a way with children.
Phyllida
distinctly remembers being intimidated by the woman's unyielding austerity whenever she and her brother visited, and finds it hard to believe that Nydia actually had a hand in helping to raise Daddy and Uncle Norris after Grandmother
Eleanore
died.

    Soon after Nydia left the room,
Phyllida's
brother barged in to "catch up." Ah,
Gib
, with his swaggering comments, nosy questions, and barely gratuitous attention to his only nephew, who now lies sleeping in the ancient wooden crib across the room.

    All right, not ancient. Charlotte claimed to have used it whenever she visited
Oakgate
when her own children were young. But safety standards have changed. For all
Phyllida
knows, the rails are far apart enough for little Wills to get his blond head stuck.

    Being a responsible parent, unlike Brian, she doesn't dare leave the room. Not even for a moment.

    Yes, she's a prisoner here; prisoner in an over-furnished, overly fussy cell awash in cherry antiques, Waverly wallpaper, and Laura Ashley linens. The room was once part of the much larger one next door, now occupied by Charlotte's daughter, and the dividing wall is thin. She can hear every word that's said in there, and no doubt vice versa.

    
Which means she can find herself serenaded, and not just by music, at all hours.
Currently,
Lianna's
television is blasting some MTV show with a rap soundtrack. The throbbing bass grew so loud earlier that
Phyllida
tapped on the wall.

    
Lianna
did turn it down that time. But not much, and subsequent knocks have yielded no response.

    Yes, this is far from her favorite guest room in the' house.

    She and Brian spent their wedding night in the more spacious, elegant quarters down the hall.

    But Charlotte and her husband occupy that room now, and apparently have for quite some time.
Lianna's
is the second-best location, a corner room with a private bath and fireplace, still spacious despite having been divided years ago.

    
Phyllida
is hard-pressed to keep her envy at bay. Not that she wants to spend any more time in the dreary old mansion than is absolutely necessary. But it would have been nice to have seen more of
Grandaddy
in his final days.

    At least, that's what she told Charlotte this afternoon, after their grandfather was laid to rest alongside his wife,
Eleanore
, and generations of
Remingtons
in
Oakgate's
cemetery.

    "You're lucky, you know," she told her teary-eyed cousin. "I hadn't even seen
Grandaddy
in ages." Not since her wedding, in fact, three years ago. "I hope he knew how much I missed him. I think about him all the time."

    Well, not
all
the time.

    But she did, occasionally, think about her grandfather.

    More often, she'd be willing to bet, than her brother ever did.

    Leave it to
Gib
to show up at
Oakgate
mere minutes before the funeral started, with a mountain of luggage in the limo, requisite blonde on his arm-he apparently still dates only blondes-and chip on his shoulder.

    Her brother never did get along with their father's side of the family. He preferred to mingle with the maternal Yankee relatives.

    Now he knows as well as
Phyllida
does that it's going to take more than what's left of their Remington trust funds to see the two of them through the remainder of their adulthood, not to mention helping to care for their mother eventually.

    Right now, Susan Remington is living in Providence with one of her sisters and working at a boutique. Someday soon, she's going to need financial help, and it will be up to her children to provide it. What else does she have? Her own family lost everything when their importing business went belly-up years ago; she'll get nothing from them.

    
Gib's
law degree is mostly for show, as far as
Phyllida
can tell. When she pressed him, he admitted he has yet to join a firm.

    "But don't tell Mother," he warned. "I let her think I accepted an offer last month-just so she won't worry about me," he added at
Phyllida's
frown.

    As for her, the mere few million she received on her twenty-first birthday barely funded her move to California, a house in Beverly Hills, acting lessons, cosmetic surgery, and her wedding.

    She chose
Oakgate
as the setting-not out of sentiment or Southern tradition, but because it was free- cost-wise and scheduling-wise. She was pregnant; the wedding had to be thrown together in a matter of months; there was no time to wait for an opening at a glitzy Beverly Hills reception hall.

    Anyway,
Oakgate
was large enough to hold, and in close proximity to, hundreds of well-heeled guests who came bearing lucrative envelopes.

    Hers was a fairy-tale wedding, the kind she'd dreamed about ever since she was a little girl, despite the fact that she was secretly well into her second trimester when she walked down the aisle.

    But it hasn't been a fairy-tale marriage.

   
Well, whose fault is that? You could have married a rich husband
, she reminds herself.

    But back then she was still crazy about Brian. With his square-jawed, swoop-haired, preppy good looks and upscale wardrobe, she thought he came from a wealthy family.

    Turned out he was probably a better actor than most of those trying to make it a profession in LA: he grew
un
in a blue-collar household in Long Beach. When
Phyllida
met him, he was a caddy at a fancy country club and M salesman in the men's department in Neiman Marcus where he made good use of his natural charisma and his employee discount.

    Infatuated,
Phyllida
was naive enough to believe
them
could indefinitely live a Beverly Hills lifestyle on his pay her trust fund, and the wedding booty. But there was always the promise of Remington millions on the horizon-not to mention her acting paychecks once she hit it big.

    So far, she hasn't, though she hasn't given up that dream. But at this point,
Phyllida
is banking on her inheritance from
Grandaddy
as optimistically as her brother is, if not as blatantly.

    So, she's certain, is Charlotte. That second husband of hers is some kind of computer technician. He can't possibly be supporting her and
Lianna
in the style to which they were accustomed.

    
Sorry,
Grandaddy
, but your death is a blessing.

   
For all of us
.

    Her palm skimming the polished wood banister as she goes upstairs, Charlotte is reminded of the time
Grandaddy
caught her sliding down it as a little girl.

    "What on earth do you think you're doing, child?" he boomed, startling her so that she nearly toppled to the marble floor below. 'That isn't a dime-store pony ride. Get down this instant! You know better."

    She did, and it was the first-and last-time she ever broke that, or any other rule of the household. For years after, she would glance longingly at the inviting slope and remember those stolen moments of childish glee, so swiftly curtailed.

    Back then, she was a mere visitor at
Oakgate
-and an occasional one, at that.
Grandaddy's
primary residence at the time was a Greek Revival mansion on Orleans Square in Savannah that had been in the family since the eighteenth century. Hardly the sentimental type, Gilbert sold it well before the revitalization of the historic district. Charlotte, who was sentimental, wistfully walked by it sometimes when she was growing up; saw it fall into disrepair, turned into tenements, and ultimately torn down.

    Thank goodness her grandfather chose to keep the immediate grounds and gardens of
Oakgate
, including the forlorn little ancestral cemetery. The brick main house was built by Charlotte's great-great-
greatgrandfather
, and its ownership has never strayed beyond the Remington family. It was constructed in typical antebellum style: symmetrical facade fronted by grand white pillars and a wide portico; hipped roof punctuated third-floor dormers; distinctive raised basement wall constructed of tabby, a regional mixture of oyster shell sand, lime, and water.

    
Oakgate
didn't become Charlotte's official residence until the summer after she graduated from Duke, when she settled here rather than return home to live Savannah with her recently widowed mother.

    Daddy had been the bond that held the two of the together; without him, she felt out of place at home She was closer to her grandfather than to her mother, and it seemed logical that she live at
Oakgate
with him.

    It wasn't natural, on the heels of free-and-easy dormitory life, to settle into an old man's household with an old man's unbending rules and rituals. But somehow, they made it work. Charlotte eventually found herself looking forward to the rigid daily schedule of domestic events at
Oakgate
, in such stark contrast to her parents' chaotic
nonroutines
.

    Every morning at precisely seven o'clock, Nydia served the same breakfast: grits, poached eggs, and slabs of thick country bacon that in the end probably contributed to
Grandaddy's
demise. The timing and menu didn't vary with the day of the week or the season; nor did it vary with the personal whims of the cook or diner.