The Final Victim (31 page)

    Charlotte still isn't so certain about it herself, but she made the offer spontaneously, and Aimee is grateful for a place to stay.

    Anyway, Nydia seemed to get over it pretty quickly, because she cooked them a hot meal. But they were too exhausted to touch it. They all went to bed early.

    'Was anybody else here?"
'Just my great-aunt up on the third floor.
She has a visiting nurse during the day, but not at night." 'What about your cousins? Were they here?"

    "Not when we went to bed, no."

    "Where were they?"

    "I don't know.
Gib's
rental car wasn't here and I'm pretty sure they were both out."

    
"Pretty sure?"
'They keep to themselves, Detective. And they don't live here; they're houseguests."

    "I realize that. I'm just trying to figure out whether they were here or out when y'all got back last night."

    
"Out.
When I asked Nydia about them, she said she hadn't seen either of them since yesterday morning."

    "What about this morning?"

    "You'll have to ask her. I
haven't
seen them.
Gib's
rental car is parked out there now, though."

    
"All right."
Dorado seems to be finished taking notes. He looks up at Williamson, who gives a slight nod, cueing his partner to say, "We've turned up a couple of interesting things in our investigation of the cemetery."

    It's Charlotte and Aimee's turn to exchange a glance.

    "We found footprints in the mud in a number of spots, which we think belonged to the shooter," Dorado announces.

    
"Men's shoes?"
Charlotte asks, and holds her breath for the answer.

    "Yes."

    
All right.
So it couldn't have been Karen.

    
Of course it wasn't Karen!

    
Right.
She knew that all along, really.

    She just couldn't help getting paranoid earlier, thinking about the people in Royce's life who might have a vendetta against him.

    But Karen isn't any more likely to have shot him than Vince is. Or so she tried to convince herself last night, when
Lianna
told her that he was supposed to have visited Saturday night, but didn't-and couldn't be reached.

    That isn't unusual. It wasn't the first time Vince had failed their daughter. Nor should it make Charlotte wonder if he really was where he claimed to be, dining on
Achoco
Island.

    But she isn't about to bring up his name or voice her suspicion, however slight, to the police.

    Not yet, anyway.

    Dorado goes on, 'The soles in the footprints we found indicate that these were men's dress shoes."

    "Dress shoes?" Charlotte echoes, frowning.

    That doesn't fit her image of an anonymous sniper at all.

    It's Aimee who asks Dorado, "What do y'all think that means?"

    "We're looking into it."

    "So you don't have a suspect in mind yet?" Charlotte asks. "That's all you have to go on?
Footprints?"

    Again, the two men exchange a glance.

    "We did find something else, a few yards away from where the shooter was standing." Williamson reaches into his pocket and takes out a small envelope.

    He opens it, removes a small object, and holds it out in the palm of his hand.

    "Do either of you recognize this?"

    Aimee, seated closer to him, leans over, then immediately shakes her head. "No."

    Williamson
swoops
his hand forward, bringing it to rest directly in front of Charlotte.
"How about you, Mrs. Maitland?"

    She gazes in disbelief at the heirloom platinum cufflink emblazoned with the initials GXR.

  
"Yes, may I please speak to a Dr. Petra Von Cave?" Mimi asks the person who's come on the line at last, after a lengthy wait while the foreign receptionist apparently scrambled to find someone who speaks English.

    "Dr. Von Cave has left for the day," the voice tells her in a thick accent, and Mimi is taken aback until she remembers that it's already
midafternoon
overseas.

    Still, you'd think a world-renowned scientist would at least stick around the office-or is it a lab?-until five or six.

    "May I ask
who's
calling?"

    "Maybe y'all can just tell me where I can reach her?" she asks, remembering to keep her voice low.

    Jed is asleep in the bedroom, and Cameron is completely absorbed in a
Bob the Builder
video-a gift from his grandmother-in the living room.

    "I'm afraid I can't do that. Who is this, please?"

    Mimi hesitates. "I'll… I'll call her back, if y'all will just tell me when I would be likely to find her at this number." 'That's hard to say. You might try her tomorrow, but Dr. Von Cave can be difficult to reach. Are you certain you wouldn't like me to take a message?"

    "No, that's all right."

    Mimi hangs up, frustrated.

    What message could she possibly leave?

    My name is Mimi and I live in America and I need you to save my dying husband out of the goodness of your heart.

    She'd have a better chance if she knocked on the door of Trump World Tower and asked The Donald if he can spare a few million.

    Still, she'll try again later.
And tomorrow.
For as long as she has to.

    Because now that
Gib
will be behind bars, her only option is to give up and helplessly watch Jed waste away in agony.

    
Damn you, Gib.

    How could you?

    Restless, she paces the length of the small kitchen, then back again, and returns to refill her coffee cup. God knows she needs the jolt after yet another sleepless night.

    She did the right thing, telling the police what
Gib
said…

    Didn't she?

    It's not as if she has any proof that he's the one who shot Royce.

    Still, after what he said Saturday morning when they met on that bench in the square, after she asked-no, shamelessly
begged
-him to help her…

    "I'd love to loan you some money, Mimi, and it's for such a good cause. But I just don't have it."

    He was lying.

    That's what she thought at the time, anyway. She thought he
had
to have money. He's a Remington, for God's sake.

    "My trust fund is ancient
history,
I've got student loans, credit cards, borrowing against future earnings- all that, and nothing coming in."

    "What do you mean?"

    "I don't have a job yet," he claimed.

    She should have stopped right there, but she couldn't. Not with Jed's life hanging in the balance, and money
being
the only way to save him.

    She had to go and bring up the fact that
Gib's
grandfather had just died.

    Well, who wouldn't assume he had inherited millions from the old man?

    "No, he left everything to my cousin Charlotte,"
Gib
informed her, so venomously that she realized he had to be telling the truth.

    There was no mistaking the authenticity of that vengeful glare in his eyes as he went on, "So it looks like I'll be a pauper for at least a while longer, until
Phyllida
and I are successful in contesting the will-unless something god-awful happens to Charlotte and her husband and kid."

    He said it carelessly, or so she thought, tossing the words from his tongue as easily as he asked her, in the next breath, if she was sure she didn't want to join him that evening for a night on the town.

    "I'm married,
Gib
," she pointed out. "Remember?"

    "Oh, yeah," he said flatly, in a tone that told her he hadn't forgotten, even for a moment. Far be it from
Gib
Remington to let a little thing like another man-or a. wedding ring-stop him from making a move.

    She couldn't help but be reminded of that awful day back in high school, when she let herself into his dormitory room to find a live tableau of the world's oldest boarding school cliché: there was
Gib
, in bed with Miss Lucas, the blond, buxom young English teacher.

    Mimi's favorite teacher, in fact, and the one who helped her fill out all those essays on her scholarship-application forms.

    To her credit, Miss Lucas was mortified.

    To Mimi's utter disgust,
Gib
was not.

    No, he had the nerve to be vexed that she had invaded his privacy and used her key-the key he had pressed on her just weeks earlier, when he hinted that it would be a nice birthday surprise if he came back from physics class and found her waiting for him, naked, in his bed.

    
So much for physics class.

    
So much for Miss Lucas being Mimi's favorite teacher.

    
And so much for Mimi being
Gib
Remington's girlfriend.

    She vowed then that she would never speak to him again.

    And she kept that vow…

    
Until that the day on the beach.

    The day that forever altered the course of her life- just as
Gib
Remington's eighteenth birthday had years earlier and the Magnolia Clinic would years later.

    "Why would
Gib
shoot Royce?" Charlotte asks in disbelief, still trying to absorb what the detectives have inferred these last few minutes, after she told them that the cufflinks belonged to her grandfather, and were bequeathed to
Gib
.

    But if
Gib
did take them, there's no telling when, and that would mean that he helped himself from Gran-daddy's jewelry box. At least, that's where the cufflinks were the last time Charlotte saw them, along with his prized gold watch, on the day her grandfather died - when she was gathering it and the burial suit he had chosen long ago.

    "Could money have been a motive?" Williamson suggests. "It often is."

    Seeing her cousin in a whole new light, Charlotte pushes aside a renewed rush of speculation over why
Grandaddy
might have disinherited
Gib
and
Phyllida
.

    "Royce doesn't have money," she tells Williamson. "He runs a computer-consulting business."

    "And he's married to you."

    She shrugs.
"Why him, then?
Why not me?"

    For a moment, the only sound is the chirping of birds beyond the tall screened windows, and the hum of the paddle fan as it turns overhead, failing to stir the sultry morning air.

    Then Dorado says, "We aren't entirely sure that your husband was the shooter's intended target, Mrs. Maitland."

    With a sigh, Mimi remembers her coffee, growing cold in her hand.

    She shoves the cup into the microwave and presses Reheat, with a silent pledge to put
Gib
out of her thoughts for the remainder of the day.

    Her regret that she had even approached him in the first place mingles now with relief that she wasn't forced to take things a step further.

    She had been prepared to do whatever she had to, if it meant she'd have a way to get the money from Gib.

    But in the end, that wasn't necessary.

    
Gib
might have revealed his shocking little secret- his own unlikely poverty-but hers is still safe.

    
Yes, but at what cost?

    
Shaking her head as if to rid it of that distressing thought, Mimi opens the refrigerator to look for the half-and-half.

    Staring unseeingly at the contents of the fridge, she reminds herself that it wasn't meant to be. She wasn't meant to tell. And now, she knows she never will.

    
But what about Jed?
How can I help him
now ?

    Sorrow, swift and raw, settles over her once again.

    At least she did the right thing, going to the police.
If
Gib
had anything to do with the attack on his brother-in-law…

    
"Unless something god-awful happens to Charlotte and her husband…"

    Mimi shakes her head.

    
Why did you have to go and say that,
Gib
?

    Amazing that there's still a part of her that wants to protect him, even after all the lousy things he did to her.

    She should be remembering being disgraced that day in his dormitory. She should be thinking payback is a bitch.

    But she isn't.