The Final Victim (53 page)

    But it was worth it in the end, just as he'd known it would be. The worst part was taking
that
bullet-made slightly more bearable thanks to a local anesthetic, courtesy of Odette, that he had injected into his thigh while pretending to
remeasure
the bathroom.

    If
Gib
Remington hadn't been so easily framed, thanks to the unexpected bequest of the cufflinks that enhanced things so nicely, the whole plot might have become transparent at any given stage.

    But it had all fallen into place.

    Now, nobody in Savannah, or on
Achoco
Island, will see Royce Maitland as anything but a fine, upstanding citizen, and a victim himself.

    
Gib
Remington can rot in jail, protesting his innocence until the day he dies. Nobody's going to believe him.

    As for Gilbert Xavier Remington II-the old man got what he deserved that day in the bathtub.

    It's just too bad he didn't suffer as much as the many people whose lives he destroyed.

    So Joseph doesn't feel bad about him. Nor will he feel bad about Charlotte's pain-in-the-ass kid.

    Not as bad as he's going to feel about-
No. Don't even think about that until you have to.

    Instead, he remembers what it was like to hold a classy, beautiful woman like Charlotte in his arms.

    What lies ahead is going to be hard on him. He has a heart, after all.

    But what has to be done will be done. She just won't deserve it.

    Not like Gilbert did.

    When Royce approached him to say his shady cover-up had been detected, Gilbert didn't even ask how. With resignation, as though he had been waiting for the day somebody would discover his duplicity, he simply asked his grandson-in-law how much he wanted to keep quiet.

    When Royce told him it would take more than a little hush money-that indeed, he would have to change his will to make Charlotte his only heir-Gilbert
balked.
But only until Royce showed him the letter detailing the cover-up, and promised him there was a duplicate in a safe place that would come to light if he didn't acquiesce.

    So Gilbert changed the will, undoubtedly spurred as much by his own guilt as by his need to protect his secret.

    There's no doubt that he adored Charlotte. No doubt that he knew how destroyed she would be if she found out what he had done.

    Gilbert must have believed, as Royce had anticipated, that leaving his entire estate to her would somehow justify it in the end. He didn't care about
Gib
and
Phyllida
anyway. Charlotte was the only one who had ever loved him, or respected him.

    If Gilbert had known what Royce was really up to
…

    But he never suspected. He must have believed that his granddaughter's husband had stumbled across the secret and was perhaps at worst an opportunist looking out for her best interests in addition to his own.

    "Come on, I think I just found some kind of false wall in the bedroom," he tells Odette now, heading in that direction.

    "Why didn't you say so?" She brushes past him. "I told you the other
day,
these old houses are full of them. Come
on,
let's get her, so we'll be ready when Charlotte comes."

    At last,
Lianna
is nearing the bottom of the second, flight-and salvation.

    No longer worried about what might await her in the cellar, she clings to the railings and cautiously lowers her foot, remembering that this is another spot where the treads have rotted away.

    Then, as she feels around for a rung to stand on, she hears the groan of an old wooden door from somewhere above.

    It can mean only one thing: they've found her.

    She can hear voices, Royce's and Aimee's, tumbling down the shaft from two stories overhead.

    
Maybe they won't realize I'm still here. Maybe they'll think I'm long gone
.

    She goes absolutely still, hands clenching the rails, one foot precariously balanced on the wobbly step, the other dangling down behind her.

    "It feels like some kind of a stairway," she can hear Aimee saying. "It must go down to the basement."

    "Get a flashlight," Royce responds tersely. "She has to be down there."

    "Not if she got away."

    An involuntary scream escapes her.

    She lets go of the rail and plummets to the storm-flooded earthen floor a good five feet below.

    "She's there!" Royce bellows overhead. "I'll go down this way; you go around to the outside entrance and block the basement door."

    As
Lianna
scrambles to her feet in half a foot of muddy water, she can hear the pounding of Aimee's retreating footsteps.

    Above, Royce is testing the stairway. As she feels her way back from the foot of the stairs toward the secret entrance to the basement, she hears him limp down the first two steps.

    Then he reaches the precarious third.

    The old wood groans in instant protest beneath his weight.

    Then, with a splintering sound, the step gives way al-together.

    Royce Maitland's petrified scream echoes in the tunnel as he falls.

    He lands with a deadly splash in the very spot
Lianna
has just vacated.

    Without even a whimper, she flees, knowing she has to make it out of the basement before Aimee gets there.

    She wades through the muck and water that have flooded the earthen floor, adrenaline pumping, feeling her way in the darkness. She crosses the cellar, foot by painstaking foot, guided by memory of where she thinks the door is located.

    But when she reaches the spot, there is only clammy tabby wall.

    Sobbing now in fright,
Lianna
feels her way along the wall, hoping she's going in the right direction.

    Then, all at once, the door opens… and she sees that she was wrong.

    Thank God, she was wrong.

    She's several yards away from the opening, well beyond the block of gray daylight that spills through.

    Silhouetted in the doorway is the unmistakable figure of Aimee Maitland… And she's holding a gun in her right hand.

    
Lianna
flattens her back against the wall, vowing not to move a muscle, not to make a sound, not even if a snake wraps itself around her ankles.

    "
Lianna
… Where are you, little sis?" Deranged laughter echoes eerily off the tabby walls. "Are you afraid of the dark, like your mommy? Here, this will help."

    It's only then that
Lianna
sees the object in her left hand.

    
A flashlight.

    She doesn't stand a chance.

    She holds her breath and waits for the beam to flood her hiding spot; waits for the blast of gunfire.

    Maybe Adam will be waiting for
me
,
is her last thought before she's blinded by the light.

    She squeezes her eyes shut, knowing that any second now…

    "No!" With a mighty shove, Charlotte catches Aimee off guard from behind.

    Aimee drops to her knees in the waterlogged doorway, the gun flying out of her hand to land with a splash somewhere in the darkened basement beyond.

    
"Mom!"

    Charlotte tackles Aimee, clawing at her clothes, her face,
her
hair.

    "
Lianna
!" she screams. "Run!"

    "Mom-"

    "Get help!
Hurry!"

    "But the phone-"

    "Not here! Run out to the highway! Keep going until you find someone!" Charlotte screeches before Aimee gets hold of her and flips her onto her back with a guttural curse.

    Hearing her distraught daughter sloshing frantically away, Charlotte prays she'll follow through, escape…

    Whatever happens to Charlotte now,
Lianna's
life must be saved.

    Yet she'll fight ferociously for her own.

    As Aimee reaches for her throat, Charlotte bites her wrist as hard as she can.

    
A yelp of pain, a window of opportunity.

    Fueled by rage, Charlotte seizes the moment, grabbing hold and heaving her attacker with all her might.

    Aimee lands beside her.

    
Go for the eyes
, Charlotte thinks frantically.

    Coated in thick slime, Charlotte struggles to get on top.

    But Aimee is quicker.

    
Stronger.

    As Charlotte goes for Aimee's eyes, Aimee's hands close around Charlotte's throat, constricting her windpipe.

    It is Charlotte who is flipped to the flooded floor
tiiis
time, landing on her stomach in the sludge.

    Aimee is on top of her, riding the small of her back, fingers splayed on Charlotte's head. Charlotte's arms are clamped between viselike thighs as Aimee presses her face underwater.

    Try as she might to turn her head or buck her attacker, the effort is futile. Charlotte is hopelessly, helplessly pinned.

    
Oh, God, please help me…

    She holds her breath as long as she can.

    Then, overcome by the reflexive urge to inhale, her aching lungs are swamped.

    No, oh, no…

    This time, she really is drowning.

    She's going to die.

    There's no one to save her…

    
Lianna
has escaped, but help will be too late for Charlotte now.

    
But
Lianna
is safe.

    Charlotte's chest is burning.

    Her useless arms have given up the struggle.

    She's delirious, dying…

    
In the distance, a brilliant light…

    
Adam… Adam is waiting for me.

    Then comes the violent explosion in the distance- and everything goes black.

    
Lianna
is halfway across the great lawn when she hears the gunshot.

    
"Mommy!
No!"

    She takes off running, toward the basement and the gun, not away from it.
Toward her mother.
She can't leave her there to die alone.

    Aimee's got a gun.

    I don't care.

    Aimee's going to shoot me, too. I'm running right into a death trap.

    I have no choice.

    It's all I can do.

    She slips wildly through a grass-slick puddle, fells, picks
herself
up.

    
Runs a few more steps, falls again.

    
Keep going. Get to Mommy…

    At last,
Lianna
skids around the back of the house.

    Her mother's body, limp, lies face up just outside the basement door in the pouring rain.

    Royce is on top of her, trying to choke her.

    
"Stop!"
Lianna
screams.

    
Just before she spots the gun lying at the edge of a puddle in the grass, a few feet from Royce and her mother.

    She lunges for it.

    "I swear to God, I'll shoot you, Royce!"

    "Help me, for God's sake,
Lianna
!" he commands hoarsely without even flinching, and she realizes that he isn't trying to choke her mother after all.

    He's doing compressions.

    Royce, bleeding from a gash in his own forehead, is trying to save her mother's life.

    
"Oh, my God!"
Lianna
wails, dropping the gun and sinking to her knees beside her mother. "Mom… I"

    It is then that
Lianna
spots Aimee, face down in the muddy water beyond the basement doorway.

    A pool of scarlet is seeping into her blond hair where the back of her head has been blown away.

    
Royce pumps furiously.

    Lianna prays.

    
Her mother gasps.

    "Yes," Royce whispers.
"There, babe.
Yes."

    Charlotte sputters and chokes, water spouting from her lips.