The Final Victim (49 page)

    She just has to keep on going.

    
We confirmed everything with the airline. She went through Atlanta, just like you said…

    Why did Dorado call?

    It had to be Dorado; it couldn't be a prank. He knew J too much…

    But then, why would he say what he did?

    
Royce Maitland and his daughter Aimee were killed…

    Who's lying? Royce?
Or Detective Dorado?

    Not Aimee.

    
Aimee was telling the truth…

    
"… just barely made the connection to Savannah because the first flight was way behind schedule…"

    Yes, she was on that same flight Royce takes.

    Of course she wasn't lying.

    
I heard the airport in the background. I heard the flight announcement. Delta Flight 6- What was it?

    
Six-something.

    Royce takes it whenever he comes home from New Orleans.

    Delta…

    
Delta Airlines Flight 640.

    Yes, that's it.
Flight 640.
The one that's always on time.

    "Delta Airlines Flight 640 to Atlanta is now at the gate and will begin boarding momentarily
. "

    Yes!

    Yes…

    There it is.

    At last, the firefly-thought alights, barely within her grasp, flickering faintly like a birthday candle in a breeze.

    No… Don't…

    Charlotte desperately lunges for the memory before it can be extinguished.

    
"Please have your tickets ready so we can board the plane for an on-time departure…"

    Yes, that's it.

    The thought fully ignites, burning into her like a flame to scorch her world-her precious new life-to ashes.

    An image flashes into her brain.
Herself and Royce, seemingly standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon on a picture-perfect day.

    Is it possible that the airport announcement could have been a staged audio one?

    Come on, Charlotte, think. Think about it.

    She heard the airport announcement with her own ears, the plane was at the gate and they would be making an on-time departure. Aimee later mentioned it went smoothly.

    But on that day, the first flight was late getting into New Orleans and back out again to Atlanta. Dorado said so himself.

    Charlotte covers the last few yards toward the end of the causeway.

    Somebody's lying.

    
But not Royce.
Royce was shot. Royce has been her lone ally in this mess over the will. Royce doesn't care about money. He told her to go ahead and give it away.

    
But did he really think you would?

    Was it all an act, her husband's utterly refreshing lack of greed?

    No. It couldn't have been. Whatever the explanation for this chaos, Royce wouldn't
lie
to her. She believes in him. She believes him.

    
So who else are you going to believe?

    
Detective Dorado or Aimee?

    Hearing a roar, she turns to see a towering wall of seawater coming at her.

    It slams into her, sweeping her to blackness.

    Mimi watches as Detective
Talibah
Jones, a stunning African-American woman with a no-nonsense attitude, impatiently rifles through the sheaf of damp papers she just removed from the envelope the elderly gentleman tossed on the table.

    "Start at the beginning, Mr. Hawthorne. I'm not following what you're trying to tell me."

    "It's all there, like I said," responds the man who earlier, and hastily, introduced himself to Mimi as the
Remingtons's
attorney, Tyler Hawthorne.

    "But what, exactly, is 'it'?" The detective looks
ques-tioningly
from him to Mimi, who shrugs.

    Hawthorne replies, "You're holding pertinent medical records and legal contracts-"

    "
Which would take me hours to go through.
And believe me, Mr. Hawthorne, I don't have hours to spare."

    "When you find out what I'm telling you, Detective Jones, I'm sure you'll agree that it's worth your while."

    "I hope so. But tell me. Don't show me." She waves the papers at him. "What's going on with this? And how; is Mrs. Johnston here involved?"

    "She isn't. She happened to be here dealing with another issue altogether and she overheard me. It turns!
out
that her husband has been stricken by the same terminal illness-
Kepton
-Manning Syndrome, an incredibly rare condition for which there is no cure-that & referred to in these files."

    No cure.

    That isn't news to Mimi. Yet hearing her husband's inescapable doom affirmed again makes her want to stick her fingers into her ears and scream.

    She refrains. That isn't going to help anybody.
Certainly not Jed.

    Nor is her being a part of this disclosure likely to help him, but she manages to maintain control of her emotions, just as she did when she revealed
Gib
Remington's incriminating comment the day of the shooting.

    That was even more difficult.
Gib
might have committed far worse crimes than she, but that doesn't alleviate the guilt she's lived with for three years.

    The night of Theo Maitland's drowning, Jed was working a double shift.

    But
Gib
was there, on the beach, watching the search for the boy's body. He was the one who comforted Mimi when they gave up looking-comforted her with bourbon from his silver flask, then with kisses that quickly led to passion.

    It was just that one night. And Jed never knew.

    But Mimi will forever be haunted by the consequences of that day, for reasons that go well beyond the drowning on her watch.

    
"
Kepton
-Manning Syndrome?"
Detective Jones frowns. "I've never heard of it."

    Mimi informs her, "That's because it's so rare. Chances of coming down with this disease are one in a million-"

    "They're much lower than that," Hawthorne interrupts. "Statistically speaking,
there's
a relative handful of documented
Kepton
-Manning cases worldwide each year."

    "And…?" Jones looks from Hawthorne to
Mimi,
and back again.

    "And there have been more than half a dozen cases on
Achoco
Island."

    
Jones nods,
steepling
her hands as if in prayer.
"What does this have to do with the
Remingtons
?"

    Tyler Hawthorne clears his throat. "For one thing, Connie June Remington, Charlotte's mother, died of this disease, but nobody ever knew it. Not even Connie June herself."

    "She didn't know she was ill?"

    "Oh, she knew she was ill." Tyler's abrupt laugh is utterly devoid of mirth. 'There was no doubt about that."

    Fists clenching in her lap, Mimi pictures Jed, gaunt and helpless, wasting away before her eyes.'

    Tyler leans forward, resting his forearms on the table. "But her physician told her it was cancer."

    Both Mimi and Jones gape at the attorney, who goes on to reveal, "The physician's name was Silas Neville."

    
Silas Neville…

    Yes.
Old Doc Neville.
He treated Mimi's family for as long as she can remember; it was he who referred Daddy to a lung specialist in Atlanta.

    
Daddy-

    "That's it!"

    Mimi doesn't realize she'd spoken aloud until both Jones and Hawthorne look over at her, startled.

    "I'm sorry," she murmurs, shaking her head, brows knit. "I just remembered something."

    She knows where she's seen that nurse before-the one she encountered in the hall at
Oakgate
this morning: at the
Baywater
Hospice office on the mainland.

    She was there on that awful, memorable day when Mimi went to set up her father's care, when he first became ill three years ago.

    Only back then, the nurse was a good thirty pounds heavier, her hair was short and dark…

    And her eyes were brown, not green.

    Plunged into the raging tide at the causeway's island edge, Charlotte narrowly misses striking a concrete piling that juts from the frenzied water.

    She attempts to paddle away from it, toward the island's rocky western shore that, hours ago in this spot, would have been dry land beneath her feet.

    Dragged under by the relentless current, she struggles to surface.

    
I'm drowning
, she realizes in disbelief.

    Is this what Adam felt?

    
Oh, Adam… my baby
.

    Her resolve rapidly weakening, she flails helplessly where the surface should be, finding nothing but water.

    
Lianna
…

    
Lianna
needs me.

    I have to get to her…

    With a burst of adrenaline and a mighty upward thrust, she manages to get her head above water.

    Immediately, a rogue wave hurtles her back toward the piling; this time, fighting her way to the surface inches from it, she instinctively grabs hold.

    Her feet claw helplessly at the smooth cement surface and, miraculously, find a toehold. Propping her arches on what feels like a jutting metal prong, she hoists herself upward so that the incessant waves batter her knees and thighs instead of repeatedly sweeping over her head.

    I'm still going to die
, she thinks, looking helplessly at the shore just yards away.

    
I'm going to die and
Lianna
will be left alone
.

    No, not alone.

    Charlotte closes her eyes against the spray.

    
Lianna
will be left with her stepfather and stepsister-who inexplicably call themselves Royce and Aimee Maitland.

    Charlotte's eyelids snap open abruptly.

    Gazing, with a renewed vow to survive, at the cobblestone boat ramp on the rocky shore, she never sees the monstrous wave bearing down on her from behind.

    "Dr. Neville treated Connie June along with the other patients on
Achoco
who were ill with the same disease," Tyler informs his rapt audience. "Most of them were former employees of Remington Paper, and two were children who lived in houses at Tidewater Meadow."

    "And where is that?" Detective Jones asks, now taking notes.

    It is Mimi who, wide-eyed, replies before Hawthorne has a chance. "It's the low-income housing development that was built on the old Remington Paper factory site. Both my husband and I grew up there."

    Tyler isn't surprised. He continues his tale, "There's a doctor in Europe-"

    "Dr. Petra Von Cave," Mimi cuts in.

    "Yes. She's been the world's foremost
Kepton
-Manning research scientist for decades. Gilbert managed to locate her and she did attempt, to treat his daughter-in-law.

    But that was before Gilbert realized just how many people had been affected-and that there was nothing Dr. Von Cave could do anyway."

    "She does have some kind of experimental treatment she's working with now."

    Tyler looks at Mimi, sees the consternation in her eyes. "Thanks to Gilbert," he says quietly, "by now, she may.
He'd been quietly financing her research foundation ever since Connie June died."

    
"What a guy," Detective Jones says dryly, shaking her head as she makes a note. Clearly, she already suspects where this is going.

    Tyler opens his mouth to defend his friend as noble, but his conscience won't let him.

    
It's too little, too late and you know it. Possibly saving lives in the future doesn’t make up for the ones that could have been saved in the past, if he had just come clean with everything.

    But all that ever mattered to Gilbert in the end was protecting himself and the Remington name-even posthumously. He didn't have the decency-or the guts-to make a bequest to the foundation in his will. Tyler suggested it many times, but Gilbert was afraid it might establish a link between himself and
Kepton
-Manning.

    "When I called Dr. Von Cave," Mimi speaks up, "she recognized my area code and that I lived on or near
Achoco
Island. She made the connection between Jed and Connie June's case. That's why she called me back. But she didn't tell me there were so many."