The Final Victim (42 page)

    "Well, I've been trying. God, I thought something awful had happened to
you
now!"

    "Huh?"

    "I mean, I know your freak cousin is in jail-Devin filled me in before she left."

    "Where did she go?"
'To visit her dad for the weekend.
And by the way, she couldn't get
ahold
of you, either. God,
Lianna
, I have been totally thinking the worst ever since I heard what happened to your stepdad. I swear
,
I've been trying to call you all weekend."

    
"On my cell?"

    "Yes! Didn't you get my messages?"

    "No, my cell is-the, um, battery died and I can't find the charger."

    "Well, I tried you on your regular phone, too, and the recording kept saying your number was out of service."

    "I guess that storm yesterday knocked it out,"
Lianna
says, before remembering that she had used it several times, to call Kevin. The last time she talked to him, Friday afternoon, he asked her to try to sneak out Sunday afternoon to meet him. She told him she'd think about it.

    
Which is all she's done since… not that she's made any decision yet, even though Sunday is here.

    "Maybe the storm did something to the line so it just can't get incoming calls," she muses aloud.

    "Yeah, it says the number's not in service. You better tell your mother."

    "I will. Right now, actually,"
Lianna
says hurriedly, thinking her father or Kevin might be trying to get in touch with her today.

    She tells her friend she'll call her right back, and goes downstairs to hunt down her mom. She finds her, conveniently located right in the first-floor stair hall, standing on a tall stool in front of the open door to the coat closet beneath the stairs.

    "Mom, there's something wrong with the phone. Casey's been trying to call for days and she keeps getting some recording."

    "Oh." Mom's voice is muffled as she stretches to reach inside the closet, moving things around on the top shelf. 'That's because I changed the number."

    
"You what?"

    
"Changed it.
Because of all those nosy reporters who kept calling."

    "Are you serious? And you didn't even tell me?"

    Mom's head pops out of the closet and she flashes
Lianna
an apologetic look. "I'm sorry… I honestly forgot to. I've had a lot on my mind."

    Okay, that's totally true. She has.
But still…

    "Have you seen
Phyllida
lately?" Mom asks.

    "
No-
oo
,"
Lianna
says, "but I doubt you're going to find her up there."

    Mom doesn't even crack a smile. "What about your Great-
Grandaddy's
radio? Have you seen that, by any chance?"

    "What radio?"
'The one that was on the mantel in the parlor?"

    
"Which parlor?"

    "Never mind," her mother says, climbing down to move the stool forward a few inches. "I didn't think so. Come on, help me look for it."

    
"In the closet?"

    
"In the house.
I thought maybe Nydia moved it because it stopped working, and stashed it someplace."

    "So why don't you ask Nydia?"

    "She has Sunday afternoons off. Listen, go into the utility drawer in the kitchen and grab the flashlight, will you? I can't see in the back."

    Grumbling under her breath that she thought the days of slavery ended in the Deep South almost a hundred and fifty years ago,
Lianna
follows her mother's instructions. Or rather, she tries to.

    "There's no flashlight in here," she calls, slamming the drawer shut.

    There is. You're just not looking in the right place,"
comes
the maddening reply.

    She opens the drawer again and gives the contents a cursory glance.
"Nope.
Not here."

    Hungry, she turns to the refrigerator and has about as much luck there as she did with the drawer.
Nothing to eat.
Nothing she wants, anyway.

    She's about to pour herself a glass of sweet tea from the full cut glass pitcher when she hears a sound in the doorway and looks up to see her mother.

    "What's up with Nydia, Mom? She's totally slacking off on the grocery shopping. Can you send her to the store?"

    "She's off today. I meant to go myself this morning, but I got sidetracked." Her mother jerks open the utility drawer.

    
Lianna
pours the tea, replaces the pitcher, and finds an apple. Not the reddish-orange Fuji ones she likes, but this green one will have to do.

    She watches in smug satisfaction, polishing the Granny Smith on her T-shirt as her mother conducts her own
fruidess
search for the missing flashlight.

    "See? I told you it wasn't in there."

    "Well, it must be around here someplace," Mom snaps, opening the next drawer down and rifling through stacks of dish towels. Next, she rummages through the cooking utensils, clattering metal against metal in growing frustration before finally giving up.

    She turns on
Lianna
. "Have you borrowed it lately?"

    "No! Why do you always think I have something to do with whatever you can't find?"

    "Because," Mom says, opening the silverware drawer, "things don't just vanish into thin air."

    "Are you sure about that?"
Lianna
asks, biting into the crisp-tart apple.

    "Actually"-her mother slams the drawer so hard that the glass rattles in the overhead cupboards-"I'm not sure about that at all today. Maybe things
do
vanish into thin air. For all I know, people do, too."

    The cabin's sturdy new door is still closed and padlocked, just as it was left in the wee hours Saturday morning…

    And then there were two
.

    "Yoo-hoo!
Ladies!"

    Oh, wait, it's not good manners to neglect to knock before dropping in, so…

    The rubber-grip end of the heavy flashlight beats a satisfying rhythm on the new door of the small brick house.

    "Little pigs, little pigs, let me in…"

    The key turns easily; the padlock falls away with a clanking sound. The door doesn't even creak as it swings open…

    
Yes, thanks to my expert installation job. You just never know what you can accomplish if you put your mind-

  
 
A wall of stench rolls out through the open door, so putrid that it makes crossing the threshold out of the question.

    "Yoo-hoo… I said, little pigs, little pigs, let me in- though I think I've changed my mind."

    No response.

    The flashlight's beam arcs across the exposed brick walls, the doll furniture,
the
maggot-filled, eyeless carcass that used to be
Pammy
Sue. Then it falls on what looks like a heap of rags on the dirt-or rather, mud- floor in the far corner.

    'You're supposed to say 'not by the hair of my
chinny
-chin-chin.' What's the matter, did you forget your line? What kind of actress are you?"

    Forget about staying outside. That isn't any fun.

    It takes a moment, after crossing the threshold, to grow accustomed enough to the horrible odor to be able to speak without gagging.

    
"
Pammy
Sue?
I hate to be the one to break it to you,
hon
, but you have terrible BO."

    How satisfying that
Pammy
Sue, who was allowed to borrow Mama's fancy perfume any old time she wanted,
now
stinks worse than Pigeon Creek
roadkill
.

    
Yes, and how satisfying that I'm the one who has the fancy perfume now.

    Real designer perfume from a department store cosmetics counter; not drugstore toilet water sold, along with bonus talc powder, in a cardboard gift box with a cellophane window.

    But back then, Mama's drugstore perfume was the epitome of elegant femininity, and only
Pammy
Sue got to partake.

    
Aside from that one morning when you snuck into Mama's room before Sunday School and splashed some Eau de Something-or-Other behind each ear.

    Bobby Lee Garrett, who was supposed to be impressed, didn't even notice. He was too busy gazing in blatant adoration at
Pammy
Sue as she handed out bible pamphlets.

    But Mama noticed, afterward. Her pointy nose sniffed the air and her eyes, beneath a swoop of thick reddish bangs stranded with gray, narrowed in suspicion.

    
Naughty, naughty child… what have you done this time?

    The punishment for perfume pilfering: being locked in the windowless woodshed overnight without food or water.
Alone in the dark, listening to rustling vermin at your feet and overhead, feeling creepy-crawly creatures skittering over your skin without warning.

    That was Mama's punishment for a lot of things.

    
And now, it's my punishment to dole out to those who deserve it.

    
Starting with
Pammy
Sue.

    Too bad she can't stay here for much longer. Not in this heat.

    
Not if I have to come back here and catch another whiff of her.

    "You're going to have to go soon,
Pammy
Sue.
But first things first."

    After a swift, hard kick, the pile of rags in the opposite corner squirms to life.

    
Phyllida
Remington gazes up from the filth, blinking into the light.

    Ah, Miss Beverly Hills is beautiful no more.

    The artfully sculpted nose was shattered by the antique andiron she never saw coming at her.

    Those surgically enhanced cheekbones are swollen purple and smeared with blackened streaks of dried blood.

    And her blue eyes are round with fear, bewilderment and, most satisfying of all: horrified, shocked recognition.

    Monday morning, Royce is still sipping his steaming first cup of coffee, delivered with a plate of buttered toast and honey and a kiss from Aimee, when he hears the crunch of tires on the crushed-shell drive outside the parlor window.

    From his propped-up position in the hospital bed, he can see an unfamiliar pickup truck with a dented fender pulling toward the house. Charlotte must have left the gate open again.

    His first thought is that maybe she did it deliberately and that the truck might belong to the contractor. Royce had asked Charlotte to invite him out here to meet with them to go over the final steps for the Oglethorpe Avenue house renovation.

    But he mentioned it less than an hour ago, when she was getting ready to leave to go to the supermarket. She didn't seem particularly enthusiastic about making the call and said she'll get to it later, when she has time.

    Anyway, the contractor's pickup is
red,
and it sure as heck isn't this beat-up.

    And, he sees now, there's a woman at the wheel-h just caught a glimpse of long blond hair and sunglasses before the truck disappeared from his sight range.

    He hears it pull past the window toward the center of the portico before the driver cuts the engine. She must be a reporter. Damn.

    He wonders whether Nydia has returned yet from her day off yesterday, so she can get rid of the reporter.

    
If not, I'm sure Aimee will welcome the pleasure
, he thinks with a sly smile as he takes a bite of toast.

    Through the screen, he can hear brisk footsteps crossing the drive, then tapping their way up the steps and across the flagstone.

    The doorbell rings.

    
"Nydia?"
Royce calls. "Are you here? There's a reporter out front."

    Ever-efficient, the housekeeper must have already been on her way from the kitchen; he can already hear the faint, familiar creak of the front door opening.

    Then
comes
the hum of female voices, followed by the unmistakable groan of the screen door.

    "Nydia, no, don't!" he calls, wondering why on earth she'd let a reporter into the house.

    
Too late.

    He can already hear footsteps clicking across the tile and hardwood floors, heading right for him.

    Then a stranger appears in the doorway.

    
A stranger who looks familiar…

    
Why?

    She must be on television, but she doesn't have that polished journalist appearance. Her hair falls loose past her shoulders without a hint of hair spray, and the blond streaks are from the sun, not a salon. That much is obvious in her tawny, freckled face and golden arms and legs.