The Final Victim (6 page)

    What a far cry from Charlotte's rich,
purply
-indigo irises fringed by lush, dark lashes.

    "Where is Ms. Remington?" Nydia inquires, as if she's read his mind.

    He suppresses the urge to remind her that it's Mrs. Maitland now, not Ms. Remington, and has been for over a year.

    "She's upstairs changing. We're going out to dinner."

    "I was about to heat some soup for Mrs. Harper and the little boy."

    And she's none too pleased about that, judging by her tone.

    "What about you?" he asks, determined to be civil. "Did you eat?"

    She shakes her head. "I'm fine."

    "Can we bring something back for you from town?
",
he offers generously.
"Pizza?
Some pecan fried chicken?"
Sugar for that lemon you appear to have swallowed?

    "No, thank you."

    
Not only doesn't she trust me
, Royce notes uneasily
, taken aback by her utter lack of warmth, but she doesn't like me.
Not at all.

    Well, that's fine. The sentiment is definitely mutual.

    He can feel her gaze following him as he leaves the room, and finds himself wondering if he should mention her to Charlotte later. Hired help, after all, is dispensable-especially now that the master of the house is gone. There's no reason in the world that Nydia should stay on at
Oakgate
. He and Charlotte and
Lianna
are capable of taking care of themselves for the remaining time they're here, and Jeanne has her visiting nurse…

    Well, he won't bring up the idea of firing Nydia yet to his wife. It's too soon, her grief too raw. The last thing he wants is to upset her by suggesting any sort of change at
Oakgate
.

    He'll take her out for a nice dinner, just the two of them, and do his best to get her mind off her sorrow.

    That, Royce concludes, is all a loving husband can possibly do at a time like this.

    As she walks up the curving staircase and crosses the wide balcony toward the second-floor guest bedroom wing, Charlotte considers what will become of
Oakgate
- and Great-Aunt Jeanne-now that her grandfather is gone. Obviously, the place will have to be sold. She certainly has no desire to go on living here, and she doubts her cousins would want to-or that Aunt Jeanne would expect to.

    The plantation and the paper mill were strictly Gran-daddy's, inherited from her great-grandfather, the first Gilbert Xavier Remington. Aunt Jeanne, the product of Great-Great-Grandmother Marie's shameful liaison with another man, received nothing.

    Jeanne never married, and barely made a living as a bookkeeper in Savannah. She used to live in an apartment located, ironically, in one of the grand historic district mansions the
Remingtons
used to frequent. It, like Jeanne Remington herself, had discreetly fallen from grace over the years.

    
Grandaddy
took her in years ago when her mental health began to fail just as their mother's had. He personally hired the finest visiting nurses available to care for her and made sure that her substantial medical and financial needs were met.

    Charlotte assumes he would have expected his grandchildren to do the same after his death. She has' no problem with that, though as the lone heir still living in Georgia, she can't possibly have Aunt Jeanne living under her own roof once
Oakgate
is sold. It's really time for her to have full-time care, and be surrounded by people her own age.

    There are plenty of nice nursing homes in Savannah. Charlotte and her cousins will just set up her aunt in one of them, and she'll be sure to visit her often.

    
She's family. I have to keep her in my life, no matter what
, she tells herself.
No matter how challenging it is, or
how
 
much
time she has left.

    It's impossible to tell how long poor Aunt Jeanne will outlive her half brother. She's suffered from dementia for years, though she still has startlingly lucid moments!

    Charlotte uneasily recalls the most recent of them.

    This morning, Aunt Jeanne was transported by the creaky old elevator to the first floor where the rest of the family was assembled for the memorial service. It was an unusual occurrence, as the elderly woman rarely leaves her third-floor quarters.

    But today, she seemed to know precisely where she was and who was around her. She even called several of the visiting
Remingtons
by name. The wrong names, in some cases, but at least she wasn't staring vacantly into space or hurtling angry accusations.

    When Reverend
Snowdon
arrived he bent over Jeanne's wheelchair, clasped her gnarled hand, and said, "I'm so sorry, Miss Remington, about your brother's death. I know how difficult this loss is for y'all."

  
"Not
all
of us," Aunt Jeanne said darkly.

  
 
Taken aback, Charlotte laid a hand on her aunt's black crepe-covered shoulder and said gently, "We're all upset over
Grandaddy's
death, Aunt Jeanne. What are you talking about?"

    The old woman seemed as though she was about to elaborate. Then, glancing around the room at those nearest, albeit not necessarily dearest, to her late brother, she shrugged.
"Never mind."

    Now, Charlotte hesitates slightly at the base of the stairway that leads to the third floor.

    Maybe she should go on up for a few minutes, just to see how Aunt Jeanne is.
And perhaps, to have her decipher that cryptic remark.

    But Royce is waiting downstairs. And she might be a bit hungry after all. She hasn't eaten since she picked at her dinner last night Charlotte continues along the hallway with its painted white wainscot, toward the remodeled master suite
Grandaddy
insisted she and Royce occupy during their stay. He said he preferred the smaller guest suite down the hall, anyway. That bathroom, he pointed out, had a bigger, deeper tub.

    
Grandaddy
always did enjoy his nightly baths. He said they were a reprieve from daily stress, the one place he could ever truly relax in preparation for the ever-elusive full-night's sleep.

    How ironic, Charlotte can't help thinking, that he had his fatal heart attack in the midst of an evening soak. If he had been anywhere else, somebody might have found him and helped him before it was too late.

    But his body, like the water, was long cold by the time Nydia stumbled across him the next morning.

    Charlotte pushes away the grim memory. Passing
Lianna's
closed door, she stops briefly and calls her daughter's name. No reply.

    The television is
on,
probably tuned to MTV or one of those reality programs she's always watching. Pressings her ear against one of the door's thinner inlaid-wood panels, Charlotte can hear background hip hop music and kids' voices
whoo-hooing
. "
Lianna
?" she calls again.
Nothing.

    Shaking her head, she proceeds down the hall, telling herself it's for the best. She isn't in any frame of mind to wrangle
Lianna's
latest mood.

    As she turns down the narrower corridor that leads; to the largest of the second-floor guestrooms, the one she shares with Royce, she sees a whisper of movement out of the corner of her eye.

    Or maybe she just thought she did, because the hallway is empty.
And chilled.

    Oddly chilled, given the midsummer season and the lack of air-conditioning.

    
"
Grandaddy
?"
Charlotte calls in a whisper, standing absolutely still. No reply.
Of course not.
Her grandfather is dead.

    But she can't help wondering if Gilbert II, like other
Remingtons
before him, will continue to haunt the halls of
Oakgate
for years to come.

    
Catching a flicker of movement below, Jeanne leans closer to the window…just in time to see something dart into the shadow of a live oak at the front of the house.

    Not something.

    
Someone
.

    Jeanne watches intently as the figure makes its way from tree to tree, away from the house.

    Whoever it was seems to have just come from the house, and clearly doesn't want to be seen leaving.

    Why not?

    Does anybody know that that person was here? Or did they sneak in as furtively as they're now sneaking out?

    "Jeanne? I'm back."

    Startled by the cheerful singsong voice behind her, she realizes that Melanie, her home health care worker, has returned to the room.

    Pushing aside her curiosity, Jeanne carefully reverts to her usual blank, wandering expression, taking up the charade once again.

    Approaching the nineteenth-century ramp that leads from Bay Street, Savannah's historic wide boulevard, to tourist-crowded River Street a story below, Charlotte finds
herself
reminded of the Long Island Sound beach she visited decades ago.

    The sun was hot that day and the water still, lapping gently at the shore. She waded in barefoot to walk the length of the beach in ankle-deep water, as she often did back home. But here, there was no stretch of smooth, surf-washed sand. Beneath the water's surface lay a jumble of pebbles and rocks that made each step a precarious balancing act.

    From a distance, the ramp to River Street is similarly misleading. It looks like a regular cobblestone path from afar, but is constructed of seashells and apple-sized rocks that jut irregularly from the mortar like clenched fists bent on toppling unwary pedestrians.

    Tonight, Charlotte, in strappy high-heeled sandals, is wary of twisting an ankle as she walks down, clinging tightly to Royce's arm.

    "Watch your step," he says needlessly.

    She is, literally. Picking her way along, she keeps her) eyes focused on her feet.

    "Can you imagine having to run for your life on this surface?" she finds herself asking Royce.

    "Run for your life?" He tightens his grip on her arm. "Why would you be running for your life?"

    All right, it was an odd thing for her to say. For some!
reason
, the image just popped into her head. And now that it's there, she can't seem to make light of it.

    "I just mean, it wouldn't be easy if I had to," she tells Royce.

    "Well, you wouldn't have to. I'd scoop you up and carry you away from whoever was chasing you."

    "Who would be chasing me?"

    "I don't know… a pack of ardent male admirers?"

    She looks up to find him smiling at her-and promptly stumbles over a rock.

    
You really should have worn flats
, she chides herself ruefully, returning her gaze to her feet as she resumed picking her way along the slope.

    Yes, but these heeled sandals lengthen her bare legs, and they're a bright coral-red to match her favorite sun-J dress. Royce's favorite sundress, really-which makes
it
,in
turn, her own.

    She usually doesn't like to bare her shoulders, be cause of an unsightly birthmark on her right shoulder
But
sometimes, the oppressive summer heat allows com fort to outweigh concern about her appearance.

    She still recalls the way his eyes lit up in appreciation the first time he saw her in this particular outfit, back when they were first dating. He didn't even seem to notice the birthmark.

    "You look like a luscious lobster," he said with a low whistle, and she couldn't help but laugh.

    
"A lobster?
Is that the best you can do?" He nuzzled her neck and said, "Lobster is a well-known aphrodisiac."

    "I thought that was oysters."

    "Well, you don't look a bit like an oyster," was his response, and they shared a laugh.

    A whirlwind courtship, a year of marriage, and still madly in love-this, she thinks often, in gratitude laced with relief, is how marriage should be.

    Thank God, thank God, thank God for Royce.
Royce, who healed her in so many ways.
She emerged from her marriage to Vincent not just a bereaved mother, but a barren wife as well.

    Her first husband lost interest in her sexually the moment she told him she was pregnant with Adam. Her gynecologist, when she reluctantly turned to him in despair, assured her that it was a fairly common syndrome in men, and that once the baby was born, and she regained her figure, and life settled back to normal, Vincent would want her again. That didn't happen.
Ever.

    It wasn't until Royce came along that Charlotte discovered what it was to be truly desired, unconditionally.
Truly loved.

    Thank God, thank God, thank God for Royce. With him, her life is complete.

    
As complete as it can ever be.
Even a loving husband can't fill the hollow place left by Adam's death.
But if Royce hadn't come along…