The Final Victim (20 page)

    Then
Phyllida
hears another sound, spilling from a window somewhere overhead, on the side of the house.

    
Female voices.

    And they're arguing.

    Her own anxiety conveniently forgotten, she smiles thoughtfully.

    Sounds like Charlotte and her daughter are at it again.

    "So how's the house coming along?" asks John Hirsch, the architect who designed the
Maitlands’s
renovation, as he and Royce walk off the tennis court at the sprawling
Achoco
Island Club overlooking the shimmering blue Atlantic.

    
"Slow and steady."
Royce mops his forehead with a towel, then gulps the rest of the lukewarm water left in his bottle before saying, "Charlotte and I are heading over there today to take care of some finishing details."

    
John's mouth quirks.
"Fun stuff."

    "
She
thinks so." Royce shakes his head. "I have a feeling I'm going to spend the rest of the day comparing shades of paint." 'Trust me, you are."

    They've arrived at the white-clapboard men's locker room complex. Royce holds the door open,
then
follows John into the welcoming blast of air-conditioning.

    "You have no idea how anxious I am to get this whole renovation thing over with and move into the house," he tells John. "Especially now that-"

    
"Now that what?"

    Royce hesitates. "You know… now that this whole tiling happened with her grandfather, and we have all these people staying with us."

    They're in the locker room now; the place is bustling as always on a Saturday morning. Men linger in the dim, climate-controlled quarters, some chatting amiably in pairs and threesomes.

    "Getting a little crowded over at
Oakgate
, is
it?"John
asks as he and Royce make their way past others in various stages of undress to two lockers at the far end, where they stashed their belongings earlier.

    "It's not that…"

    "What is it?"

    Royce
shrugs,
conscious that others might be listening to their conversation.
"Nothing, really.
Nothing specific, anyway."

    "You don't sound so sure about that. Did something happen?"

    "I don't know." 'You don't know?" John echoes, glancing up at him over the door of his locker on the bottom row. "What do you mean?"

    "Just… I think somebody might have gone through my stuff," Royce says in a low voice as somebody slams a locker door in the next aisle.

    "What?"

    "I don't want to broadcast it, okay?"

    "Sorry, but I didn't hear you." Looking over both his shoulders, Royce sees several club members who are apparently absorbed in their own business.

    He repeats what he told John, and his friend's eyebrows shoot toward his sweat-dampened forehead.

    "Is something missing?" he asks Royce.

    "I don't know. I couldn't tell. But everything in my bedroom drawers and closet was moved around, just slightly. Just enough so that I could tell somebody had gone through it like they were looking for something."

    
"Cash?"

    "Who knows? I leave money in my pockets all the time. I wouldn't know if any was missing."

    "What about Charlotte? Did somebody go through her drawers, too?"

    "I have no idea. I didn't mention it to her," Royce confesses.

    "Don't you think you should?
What if one of her relatives is a kleptomaniac?"

    "It doesn't have to be her relatives," Royce is quick to point out. "There's a housekeeper, and a nurse who comes in to take care of her aunt, and then there's her daughter-"

    "You don't think her kid is snooping around your room?"

    "No, but she has friends. Maybe one of them-"

    
Noticing a surreptitious glance from the towel-clad stranger standing a few lockers down, Royce breaks off.

    He shakes his head slightly at John, to let him know that they're being overheard.

    "Sounds like you'd better get moving, my friend," John advises, shaking his head as he strips off his tennis whites. "The sooner y'all get that house finished and get the hell back to Savannah, the better."

    Royce nods.
"My thoughts exactly.
Just-don't tell Charlotte about any of this if you see her. Okay? She's got enough going on with losing her grandfather and- well, you know how it is. She's really stressed. I don't want to worry her about something like this."

    "I don't blame you. But watch your step. I wouldn't leave anything valuable lying around that house. And I absolutely wouldn't trust anybody around there, including your wife's kid."

    "Don't worry," Royce says with conviction. "I absolutely don't."

    "I wasn't sure you were going to show up,"
Gib
remarks lazily from beneath dark sunglasses, as Mimi hurries toward the shady bench in Reynolds Square, their designated meeting place. "I've been waiting more than twenty minutes and it's hot as blazes out here."

    "Sorry I'm late. It took me longer than I thought to get out of the house."

    "You mean
,
to sneak out of the house without your husband figuring out what you were up to."

    She chooses to ignore that comment, as well as the tall plastic cup of sweet tea he offers as she sits down.

    "I don't have germs, you know," he persists, prodding with the straw beneath his lips.

    She pushes it away. "I'm not thirsty."

    "Suit yourself." He shrugs and sips the tea, watching her. "You look tired, Mimi."

    "I am tired."

    "Not sleeping well these days?"

    She shakes her head.

    He shrugs. "Who is?"

    "I don't know… You look pretty well rested."

    She can't help but resent him, sitting there casually in his Tommy
Bahama
sport shirt and pressed khaki shorts, his shaggy blond locks carefully, stylishly tousled. Of course she can't see his eyes, but she'd be willing to bet there are no dark circles beneath them.

    "Looks can be deceiving," he points out.

    
Don't I know
it.

    "So what can I do for you this fine morning, Martha Maude?"

    
"It's Mimi."

    "You don't look like Mimi anymore.
And you sure don't act like her."

    No comment from her. There's no arguing with that.

    "Whatever happened to that girl?"
Gib
asks, reaching over to casually brush her hair back from her face.

    
She died with Theo Maitland on the beach that day.

    That's what happened.

    No…

    No, it
isn't .

   
She died in your arms,
Gib
, on the beach that night
.

    Aloud, she says merely, "She grew up," and flinches as his fingers brush her cheek.

    
"Happens to the best of us."

    
Not you, Gib. You'll never grow up
.

    He shifts his position on the bench, moving his hand away from her hair at last. "As much as I'd like to talk about the good old days, surely you didn't ask me to meet you here for that."

    "No," she admits, "I didn't."

    "And you didn't want to invite yourself along with me tonight, either… did you?"

    "Where are you going?"

    He hesitates slightly, as if still trying to make up his mind-not just about inviting her, but about where he's actually headed.

    'There's a gallery opening on River Street," he says. "Want to come?"

    "No."

    "I didn't think so." He's watching her intently. "What do you want?"

    She takes a deep breath and holds it. Once she plunges ahead with this part of the plan, there will be no turning back.

    
This is crazy. I should get out of here
, she tells herself frantically, even as she maintains her outward composure.
I should tell him to go to hell, and I should run back to my normal life as fast as I can.

    Except…

    That normal life-that precious, precious normal, everyday life-is no longer waiting for her.

    She has no choice but to muster every bit of courage she possesses and tell
Gib
Remington exactly what she wants-
needs
-from him… and why.

    "I don't care what the judge said, you are not leaving tins house this weekend… or until school starts, for that matter," Charlotte hurls at
Lianna
, who stares sullenly from the haven of her unmade bed.

    "That
so
isn't fair."

    "It so wasn't fair of you to break the rules by lying and sneaking around."

    "At least I didn't break the law, like you are. Daddy is supposed to get to see me every other weekend."

    Charlotte bites her lip to keep from retorting that Vincent has been free to see his daughter every other weekend for the past five years, per their custody agreement, and he's never bothered to uphold it.

    She swore during the divorce that no matter how bitter things got between her and Vince, she wouldn't say a bad word about him to
Lianna
.

    Charlotte's ex-husband might be a snake, but he's her daughter's father nonetheless. Someday,
Lianna
is bound to figure out on her own what kind of man he really is. Until his inevitable free-fall from the pedestal, Charlotte intends to keep her opinion to herself.

    That doesn't make it easy to see
Lianna
constantly upholding him as her hero, with Charlotte perpetually cast in the roll of shrew-and now, jailor.

    "If your father is in town and he wants to see you, he can come here to
Oakgate
," she manages to say, quite reasonably, as she stoops to pick up a rumpled pair of shorts from the floor by the hamper.

    "He doesn't want to come here."

    "How do you know? Did you ask him?"

    "I don't have to. He hates it here. He knows he isn't welcome."

    "That's not true," Charlotte protests, fighting the urge to cross her fingers against her own white lie. "He can come here anytime he wants. Nobody's stopping him."

    
"You are."

    "Lianna, I never said-"

    
"Maybe you didn't say it, but he can tell you hate him. Everyone can tell."

    Charlotte shrugs, not quite sure who "everyone" is, but not about to argue, either.

    "This room is a mess," she tells her daughter, "so you can get busy cleaning it now."

    "I'm still sleeping."
Lianna's
voice is muffled by her coverlet as she rolls over, toward the far end of the bed.

    "You sound wide-awake to me," Charlotte says, looking at her watch. It's getting late. She still has to change out of the gray jersey shorts and white Nike T-shirt she threw on this morning after her
shower,
and it would be nice if she had an extra few seconds to do something with her hair. She's had it stuck in a careless ponytail the last few days.

    Royce should be back any minute now from his tennis game at the club, and then they're planning on heading to Savannah. The contractor has been nagging them for the last few days to pick out paint shades for their new master bedroom and the trim in the walk-in pantry off the remodeled kitchen.

    "It's past noon. You need to get out of bed.
Now."
She pulls the coverlet off
Lianna
. "And be sure to make it this time."

    "Isn't that Nydia's job?"

    "No, it isn't Nydia's job. It's yours."

    "She's the housekeeper."

    "She's your grandfather's housekeeper, not yours. You can make your bed here just like you do at home. Got it?"

    "Got it,"
Lianna
grumbles, swinging her long, bare legs around to the floor. "What about Dad?"

    "I'll call him and tell him to come here."

    "He won't."

    "He
will
if I tell him that's the only way he gets to see you," Charlotte says with more conviction than she feels.

    She'd be willing to bet Vince isn't just here to see
Lianna
this weekend. He probably has some kind of real estate business in the area. He's been involved the last couple of years in flipping houses down in Florida- another of his get-rich-quick schemes, no doubt, but one that might actually have some merit "Can I call him instead?"
Lianna
asks, and adds, "Since talking to you won't put him in a good mood."

    
You just had to get in another dig, didn't you?
Charlotte thinks wearily.