The Final Victim (26 page)

    It doesn't matter why she's here. She's far more comfortable in seclusion, where she can weep and pace and worry away from the prying eyes of strangers.

    "How did the operation go?" Aimee asks.

    'The surgeon said we're lucky it didn't shatter the bone, or hit an artery…" She shudders at what might have been.

    
"Oh, God."
Tears spring to Aimee's eyes. "I've been so worried… I tried to call you when I landed but I got your voice mail. Is Daddy awake? Has he said anything?"

    "I don't know, I
haven't
seen him. The doctor said they were able to remove the bullet and repair the damage to his leg."

    Charlotte can't help but feel as though she's methodically reciting a report she's given before, and in a sense, she is. She repeated the same information to both her cousins when they were here earlier.

    It took at least two hours after she called
Phyllida
for her to show up with Gib. They both seemed shaken, and asked if there was anything else they could do.

    There are probably a lot of things they could do, if Charlotte was capable of thinking straight-and willing to ask.

    But she is neither. Not under the circumstances.

    "So Daddy will really be okay?"

    They said he will."

    Thank God." Aimee's voice is ragged; she sinks into a chair. "It must have been awful… You must have been so scared." “I was."

    Charlotte closes her eyes tightly, trying to block out the barrage of memories.

    The deafening report of what she didn't even realize was gunfire…

    The shocking sight of Royce lying at her feet, bleeding…

    Cradling her moaning husband in her lap on the wooden porch floor, pressing the open wound in his leg with her bare hand…

    It seemed as though she sat that way forever, fearing the worst, reliving the frightful moments on the beach that day as the lifeguards searched for her lost son in the surf. But that took hours; this couldn't have been very long at all.

    No, she heard sirens screaming through the night even as the 9-1-1 operator she had reached on her cell phone told her to stem the flow, keep him alert, and stay on the phone-
that
help was on its way.

    They let Charlotte ride in the back of the ambulance with him, and she watched as the paramedics stabilized him and stopped the bleeding. Royce was conscious, moaning, but unable to respond to the questions the medics were asking.

    Mostly the questions were about his pain, but one of them did ask if he had any idea who could have shot him.

    Royce could only groan in response.

    At the time, Charlotte was irked that the medics would even ask such a question at a time like that.

    Now she understands that it was necessary; that they were probably trained to do so.

    And when Aimee asks almost the same tiling now- "Did the police get whoever shot him?"-Charlotte is less irked than she is reluctant to reply.

    "I wish I could tell you they'd found him, but they haven't. They think it might have been random, a sniper attack."

    
"Oh, my God."
Aimee digs her fingertips into her scalp beneath a thick mane of flaxen hair.
"Poor, poor Daddy."

    Struck by a wave of renewed longing for Royce, Charlotte fumbles in her purse for a tissue, finding only a clump of damp used ones.

    She turns her back, hoping Aimee won't hear her sniffling, and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand.

    
Royce. I need you, Royce
.

    "Here…" Aimee is pressing a packet of Kleenex into her hand. "Take this."

    "Thank you," she manages to say, before her voice gives way to sobs.

    'Jeanne?"

    It takes her a moment to wake from a sound sleep. When she does, she opens her eyes to find Gilbert's housekeeper standing above her bed.

    
It's
late morning-she can tell by the angle of the light coming in the bull's-eye window above her bed.

    "I'm sorry to wake you, but I thought you should know."

    "Know what?" Her brain still fuzzy with sleep, she sits up, rubbing her eyes.

    "Mr. Maitland was… injured last night In Savannah."

    "What happened to him?"

    Nydia hesitates.

    "Was it a car accident? Is he all right? Was Charlotte with-"

    Jeanne closes her mouth abruptly, remembering belatedly not to appear too lucid, even in front of Nydia.

    The housekeeper seems to falter a bit-unusual for her-before admitting, "It wasn't a car accident. He was shot by a sniper."

    Jeanne gasps in horrified dismay. "No! Oh, no. Charlotte…?"

    "She was with him, but she's fine. And Mr.
Maidand
is in surgery, from what I understand."

    Jeanne nods, pressing her fist against her quivering mouth.

    "I just thought you should know." Nydia turns to leave.

    "Thank you. Will you… tell me how he is? When you know more?"

    
"Of course."

    Jeanne watches Gilbert's housekeeper make her exit
She
waits until the door closes at the foot of the stairs before slipping from beneath the covers.

    It takes a minute for her bare feet to grow accustomed to standing. Gradually, the circulation returns to her wobbly old legs beneath the cotton summer nightgown, and they feel sturdy enough to carry her across the room, careful not to let the floorboards creak.

    At the bureau, she opens the top middle drawer and reaches beneath the stack of handkerchiefs, the shawl, the journals and photo album.

    Taking out the locked wooden box, she sets it on the bureau top, and glances over her shoulder as if she's going to find somebody watching her.

    
There's nobody up here, Jeanne, don't be silly.

    Nobody but the ghosts… And they know all about this
.

    They know everything.

    Jeanne reaches into the lace-edged neckline of the nightgown and retrieves a long gold chain that once belonged to Mother. Dangling from it
are
a locket that contains a picture of Marie Remington in her youth, and a small silver key.

    With a quivering hand, Jeanne removes the chain   from her neck and inserts the key into the lock on the box.

    She opens the cover and glances down at the contents.

    This, too, belonged to her mother.

    
This small pistol with the mother-of-pearl handle that was Marie Remington's protection-and may prove to be her daughter's salvation.

    "I can't believe this is happening," Aimee says yet again, as she and Charlotte wait side by side for word about Royce.

    
Dry-eyed at last, Charlotte nods, too numb to say much.
She just wishes the nurses would come and tell her something about Royce's condition, but there's been no word for quite some time now.

    "I can't believe just a few hours ago I was happy-go-lucky, hanging out in New Orleans with my friends." Aimee pronounces it the same as Royce does, like a true native:
N'Awlins
. Her accent is even thicker than his-of course, since she still lives there.

    
With her mother.

    Charlotte wonders idly whether Karen, Royce's ex-wife, is aware of what happened. Not that it matters. They're never in contact, as far as she knows.

    But if something violent ever happened to Vincent, she would want to know. He's the father of her child.

    Surely Aimee told her mother why she was leaving town abruptly.

    "I'm just glad you found a seat on a plane," Charlotte tells Aimee. "I was worried you wouldn't be able to, on a weekend."

    "After I got your message last night, I went straight to the airport. But I missed the last flight that could have possibly connected to Savannah before this morning. I was in such a panic. I called the main line for the hospital a few times during the night, but nobody would tell me anything. It was horrible." She buries her face in her hands, sounding as though she's on the verge of breaking down in sobs.

    "I'm sorry." Charlotte wishes she felt comfortable enough to just reach out and give Aimee a reassuring hug.

    But it might not be welcome now that their initial, emotion-driven physical contact has been broken.

    For all she knows, Aimee resents her father's second wife. She wouldn't be the first stepdaughter to feel that way. And she's certainly capable of resentment, considering that she refused to speak to her father for so long after her brother's death.

    But when Aimee looks up at her again, Charlotte sees immediately that there's nothing but genuine concern in her gaze. Her eyes, Charlotte notices, are a beautiful shade of light green, not brown like Royce's. She must have inherited them from her mother.

    Charlotte rarely gives Royce's first wife much thought, but for the second time in as many minutes, she finds herself wondering about her. Wondering if she's as beautiful as Aimee, if she has the same willowy build, fair hair, and tawny complexion…

    "I need to get a hotel. Is there one near the hospital?" Aimee asks, curing into Charlotte's thoughts.

    "Not right here, no… But there's a beautiful Marriott right down on the River Walk, though. Your dad and I…"

    
Stayed there on our wedding night, before we left for Niagara Falls
.

    No, she shouldn't say that to Royce's daughter; it might be insensitive, considering the romantic, intimate honeymoon images it evokes.

    "Is it expensive?" Aimee asks a bit apprehensively, seeming not to notice Charlotte's unfinished sentence.

    "Not very," she replies, and, seeing the look on the girl's face, quickly thinks better of it. Her idea of what's expensive is probably very different from that of a girl who just graduated nursing school and doesn't have a job yet. "But of course, we'll pay for your room, Aimee. And we'll reimburse you for your plane ticket."

    "Oh, no, Charlotte, I wasn't hinting for y'all to-"

    "I know you weren't hinting. But of course we'll pay for it In fact, I can give you the money for the ticket right now," she offers somewhat awkwardly, reaching for her purse. For all she knows, Aimee spent her last dollar on the flight. "How much was it?' "It wasn't much at all, and I can't let y'all do that.
Really.
I can afford it."

    "It must have been a fortune at the last minute like that."

    "It wasn't bad.
Really.
And I'm a big girl. Y'all don't have to pay for my room.
Just…
Maybe there's a Super 8 around, or something?"

    "I'm… not sure. But we'll check."

    
I should just ask her to come back to
Oakgate
with me
, Charlotte thinks. But with her cousins occupying the other guestrooms, where would Aimee even stay?

    There's
Grandaddy's
room…

    Charlotte hasn't ventured there since he died, but Nydia has been cleaning it regularly. And it isn't as though he was the type of man who collected clutter and had personal effects scattered about.

    In fact, it's one of the few rooms in the house that remains free of framed photographs and other remnants of the past Anyone glancing through the doorway might mistake it for a guest room: all it contains are a bed, a chair, and several bureaus and a nightstand whose tops contain only table lamps. Plus, there's a private bathroom.

    But that's where
Grandaddy
died. Does it really feel right to turn it over to a stranger?

    
Not a stranger.
My husband's daughter.
My stepdaughter
.

    Unaware of Charlotte's inner turmoil, Aimee says, Thank you so much again for calling me last night."

    
"Of course!
Of course I would call you."

    "I don't know… You didn't have to."

    Before Charlotte can interject a protest, Aimee goes on, "But you did call. And I appreciate your thinking of me right away."

    Charlotte hesitates, then, because she has to say
something
, tells Aimee, "You must know that I totally respect your relationship with your dad…"

    She trails off, aware that this isn't the time or place for this conversation.

    Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine that her first meeting with Aimee would be in a hospital waiting room, with Royce lying unconscious.

    She always pictured flying with him to New Orleans; shaking hands with Aimee in the airport, or maybe even giving her a motherly, polite embrace. Then they would all go someplace for a nice dinner…

    But it wasn't meant to happen that way.

    Life is a series of accidents… some good, some bad
…

    And some, Charlotte can't help but think with trepidation, perhaps not accidents at all.