The Final Victim (44 page)

    But her cousin won't see it. Nobody will.

    Not unless they stumble across it, as
Phyllida
did. And even when she saw the shocking truth, she couldn't quite process it, couldn't bring herself to believe her eyes. She just stood there, slack-jawed- Until something slammed into her, and everything went black.

    
If only I had fallen asleep that night…

    If only I had gone out into the rain to call Brian…

    If only I had decided to honor my marriage vows, and pick up the pieces instead of deciding to run away…

    None of this would have happened.

    She'd be safely at home in California, instead of waiting to be rescued from this living hell…

    Or waiting to
the at
the sadistic hands of the last person she ever would have found menacing.

    "So what you're telling me," Charlotte looks from Dorado to Williamson and back again, "is that my cousin
Gib
is a drug addict?"

    "For what it's worth, he says he's not an addict. He's a courier."

    "Reliable as Federal Express," Williamson adds with a sardonic shake of his balding head. "Only they use trucks and envelopes, instead of commercial aircraft and fake hair spray containers."

    Charlotte shakes her head, unable to believe
Gib
would actually smuggle drugs into the country from Mexico. "Why would he do something so stupid?"

    "Cash," Dorado says. "That's usually the motive for anything, including attempted murder."

    "So you don't think my cousin is the one who shot Royce?"

    "We didn't say that… only that the alibi he gave us- his real alibi, not the original one he used-checked out. He was networking with some Colombian pals that night."

    
"Networking?
What do you mean?"

    "Savannah is a prime port city on the 1-95
corridor
between Miami and Boston," Williamson informs her, as if that explains everything.

    At her blank look, Dorado jumps in. "I guess he decided that Savannah was convenient for business and decided to try and drum up some while he was here- once he realized he wasn't going to fly home to Boston an instant multimillionaire, anyway."

    Charlotte shakes her head, trying to absorb what they're telling her. "I thought he was a lawyer up North."

    Williamson is shaking his head.

    "So he's…just a drug smuggler? Did he really even go to law school?"

    "Yes. But he blew through most of his trust fund when he got it, and he's been in debt for years," Dorado tells her. "He wound up going to a loan shark at some points, figuring that if he could just get the money up front and keep himself afloat, he could eventually bail himself out the old-fashioned way."

    
"By getting a job?"
Charlotte asks, still not following.

    "By inheriting millions," Dorado counters. "We think he was banking on your
Grandaddy
to kick the bucket the whole time he was in law school, and when that didn't happen…"

    "He helped him along," Williamson supplies.

    Dorado throws him a cautious glance.
"Maybe."

    "Maybe," the other detective echoes grudgingly.

    
"And not by his own hand.
He really was in Mexico the night your grandfather died. We checked it out." 'Was he dealing drugs?" Met with twin nods, Charlotte asks, "But why?"

    
"Why not?
Fast, easy cash.
Plus, he was a fine, upstanding citizen. Who would ever suspect him?"

    "Not me," Charlotte murmurs, numb. "How did he do it?"

    "It was a nice little gig," Williamson informs her, sounding like every detective on every cop show she's ever watched.

    
Except this is real.
Chillingly, horrifyingly real.

    "He'd jet down to Mexico-he even bought a nice timeshare down there-and come back with a pricey souvenir every time." Pausing to looking at her more closely, Dorado slides over the cup of water he poured her from the cooler when she first sat down. "Why don't you drink some of that?"

    She shakes her head. "No, thanks, I'm-"

    
"Really.
You should take a sip. You don't look like you're feeling that great."

    "I'm just… I've been really tired the last few days." 'You've been through hell."

    She nods. "I guess it's catching up with me."

    "So listen to Florence Nightingale over here and drink some water," Williamson says gruffly, and ignores the dark look Dorado shoots in his direction.

    As Charlotte sips, Williamson tells her, 'We're going to look more closely into your grandfather's death, Mrs. Maitland. And your husband's shooting."

    "And your cousin is still our prime suspect," Dorado inserts.

    "I thought you said he was in Mexico when
Grandaddy
died, and when Royce was shot, I thought he-"

    "His alibis don't mean crap," Williams says, and
adds
, "pardon my French."

    "He could have had an accomplice," Dorado tells her.

    "Or hired a hit man," Williamson adds.

    Charlotte looks from one detective to the other, utterly overwhelmed.
"So what now?"

    "So now we check out the alibis of anybody else who could have had the slightest motive to hurt Maitland," Williamson says, as much to his partner as to Charlotte.

    "We've been trying to reach your ex-husband," Dorado informs her. "Do you have any idea where we can find him?"

    It's all she can do not to squeeze the water right out of the cup in her clenched hand. "He lives in Jacksonville. You should check his apartment, I would think."

    "No shit, Sherlock." That, of course, comes from the ever-eloquent Williamson.

    Dorado elaborates, "We haven't tracked him down there yet. We'll go over the contact information again with you. We also need to speak to your cousin
Phyllida
. Is she still staying with you?"

    Charlotte hesitates only briefly before shaking her head. "No, she was supposed to fly back to California Saturday night."

    "Supposed to?"

    "I'm assuming she did. But when I talked to her nanny yesterday, she hadn't come home yet. They said she wasn't on the flight."

    Again, {he detectives exchange a glance. Dorado asks for the flight information.

    "How was their marriage?" Williamson wants to know.

    "Not great, I don't think."

    "Would you be surprised if your cousin
Phyllida
lied to her husband, or you, about where she was going?"

    Charlotte contemplates that and finds herself relieved at the possible explanation for
Phyllida's
whereabouts. Maybe she's having an affair or something. "I wouldn't be surprised at all."

    "Would you be surprised if she was a conspirator with her brother to harm you, your husband, or your grandfather?"

    "Not really, no." Nothing would surprise her at this point.

    Not even if she was to find out that
Grandaddy
had discovered what they were up to, and so wrote them out of the will because of it.

    What doesn't make sense, if that was true, is his failure to confront
Gib
and
Phyllida
about it.

    
Unless he did.

    But why wouldn't he go to the authorities?

    Williamson is moving on brusquely, as if he's ticking off a mental checklist. "I understand your husband also has an ex-wife in New Orleans?"

    She nods, her thoughts tumbling over each other like shells in an incoming tide. "But I don't know her address or her number off the top of my head."

    "We'll get it. What about his daughter?" Dorado asks
,
hand poised on his notepad.

    "She'd know it, but-"

    "No, I realize that she'd know where to reach her mother. What I'm asking is whether she would have had any reason to hurt her father."

    
"None at all.
And anyway, she was in New Orleans when he was shot."

    "How do you know that?"

    "Because I called her there several times after it happened to-"

    "Land line or cell phone?"

    She frowns.
"Cell phone."

    "She could have been anywhere, Mrs. Maitland."

    "No, she flew in."

    
"After it happened?"

    "Yes, the next morning."

    "Did you pick her up from the airport?"

    "No, she took a cab, but I saw her luggage," she adds knowing they're about to tell her the cab doesn't prove Aimee even came from the airport.

    She closes her eyes, then triumphantly tells them, "I remember, she had checked the suitcase. There was a white baggage claim tag folded around the handle. I remember because I asked her about checking it."

    "Did you notice the date on it?"

    "No, but it did say ATL-SAV. My husband's luggage always says the same thing when he gets back."

    "It could have been an old tag of his, then."

    She vacillates for a troubled moment, wondering if Aimee could have possibly- "Wait!" she says, remembering. "I'm positive she was in the airport, in New Orleans. I heard the announcement for her flight boarding that morning while I was talking to her."

    The detectives look at each other. "Do you remember which flight it was?"

    She nods, pleased with
herself
.
"Delta.
Connecting through Atlanta.
That's why I remember the announcement, because my husband has taken that same flight when he comes back from visiting her."

    "So he visits her a lot?" Williamson asks, while Dorado jots down the flight information.

    "He does now."

    Too late, she realizes what she said.

    "I mean, he
does
." She nods vehemently. "They get along very well."

    "But there was trouble between them in the past?"

    "Detective, my husband lost his son, Aimee's little brother, a few years ago. It just about ripped his family apart. He and his wife and daughter-well, they had to blame somebody. I know what that's like. Royce blamed himself. So did Aimee and Karen."

    It's Williamson who breaks the uncomfortable silence.

    "We'll need to check out your stepdaughter's alibi, Mrs. Maitland."

    "It'll be our first priority," Dorado promises. "We'll make sure she really was on that flight. If she was, then you have nothing to worry about."

    "She was," Charlotte tells him, lifting her chin resolutely.

    But God knows she has everything to worry about.

    Aimee… Karen… Vince…

    They're going to put everyone who has anything to do with the Remington family under a microscope.

    And God only knows what they're going to find.

    An unbroken line of crawling traffic stretches from the
Achoco
Island Causeway all the way to the interstate. There's been no order to evacuate yet, not a mandatory one, anyway. But the storm system took another slight shift in the last few hours, according to the radio meteorologist. They're saying to expect flooding in low-lying areas, and you can't get much lower than the
Johnstons's
home on the canal.

    
I'll be back within the hour
, she silently promises herself-and her family, who has no idea where she is.

    She just couldn't go straight home after leaving
Oakgate
. Not without some answers. And she's going to try to find them in the local archives at the library's main branch on Bull Street in Savannah.

    As she picks up speed, pulling onto the northbound ramp of 1-95, the rain seems to come down harder. She increases the wipers' speed, leaning forward over the wheel to see through the windshield, careful to keep a safe distance from the taillights of the eighteen-wheeler that got on in front of her.

    Okay, this isn't the best weather for a road trip.

    But she has no choice.

    If what Dr. Von Cave suggested is actually true, then she might be on to something.

    It would be so much easier if she could just have spoken to Charlotte directly.

    When she ran into the young, vaguely familiar blond woman in the hallway as she was about to let herself out, she almost spilled the whole sad story in response to a simple, "Can I help you with something?"

    Mimi fleetingly confided that she lives on the island and needs to speak with Charlotte about an urgent personal matter.

    "She isn't here. Is it something I can help you with, maybe?"

    "I don't think so," Mimi
said."It's
… a medical issue."