The Final Victim (8 page)

    At least, Charlotte assumes it contributed to her paternal grandmother
Eleanore's
decision to kill herself. The topic of her death has always been as
forbidden
within the family as liquor was at
Oakgate
.

    The official story is that
Grandaddy's
wife died in her sleep of some undiagnosed illness.

    But local gossip, which invariably reached Charlotte's ears courtesy of insensitive childhood peers, claimed that one night,
Eleanore
tucked her two small sons into bed, then fixed herself a lethal cocktail spiked with barbiturates.

    It was her younger son who reportedly found her the next morning, though Charlotte's father never affirmed that. No, Norris just wandered through life wearing a
Perpetually
haunted expression that grew even more haggard when he was self-medicated with bourbon. The only time Charlotte ever really saw him looking at peace was the day she kissed him good-bye on one
unfurrowed
brow as he lay tucked into the white satin lining of the finest casket money could buy.

    Mom followed him soon after, giving in to the cancer that had been recently diagnosed, and which she was prepared to battle valiantly as long as she had some thing to live for.

    Without her husband, Connie June Remington apparently had nothing left to live for. He was her whole world. Raised on the island a stone's throw from
Oakgate
Charlotte's mother was a spoiled, pampered only child. Her parents were middle-aged when she came along, and) had thought they were infertile. Their daughter was the center of their world for the rest of their lives. The indulgent, laid-back Norris took over where they left off coddling his wife until the day he died.

    Nothing could fill the emptiness in the orphaned and widowed Connie June's life. Not even a daughter, no matter how Charlotte tried.

    Not that she tried all that hard.

    Her mother was never the doting parent Daddy was. Norris Remington showered his only child with both affection and material goods.

    Now they're all gone, Charlotte thinks bleakly. Not just her father and her mother and Uncle
Xavy
, but her grandfather, too.

    Yet none of those losses has had the shattering impact of another loss, the one that weighs most heavily on her heart.

    The one she almost didn't survive at all.

    You're supposed to bury your parents and grandparents.

    Not your children.

    
Lianna
discovered the cobweb- and dust-shrouded hidden stairway entirely by accident one night not long after moving into her temporary quarters at
Oakgate
.

    Even with a flashlight and cell phone reassuringly in hand it took all her nerve that first night to descend the old wooden staircase into the depths of the house. When she realized where it led-to the basement, with its own exit to the outside world-she immediately recognized its potential.

  
 
Freedom
.

    
Lianna
had been feeling stifled by her overprotective mother long before they settled in at
Oakgate
. At least in Savannah, there was some reprieve from her mother's watchful eye. She could hang out occasionally at friends' houses, the squares, the mall…

    But these days, her visits to Savannah require the orchestration of an overseas military invasion.

    Basically, now that she's stuck out here in the marshes, there is no readily accessible escape.

    At least, there wasn't. Not until she found the hidden passageway… and Kevin
Tinkston
.

    Even he has no idea exactly how she gets out of the house for their forbidden rendezvous. She isn't about to jeopardize their relationship by admitting that the only way she can see him is to creep through an old tunnel in the night like a convict making a jailbreak. At eighteen he's five years older than her, but she told him she's almost seventeen and he apparently believes her, or doesn't care how old she is.

    If her mother ever knew she was riding off into the night in a car with an older boy-a man, really-she would freak.

    Look at how she went berserk just last week when she found out that
Lianna
hadn't spent the afternoon at the library with her friend Casey and her mother, but at the mall with her friend Devin and her stepfather. They were supposed to go to the library first, but it was closed, and Casey was supposed to be there too but she blew them off.

    "You lied to me!" Mom screeched at
Lianna
, who denied it vehemently.

    She didn't lie. She just deliberately failed to mention that Devin, whom her mother thought was a bad influence, was involved in the plans. Or that Devin's mother was staying out at their house on Tybee and Devin's stepfather, Ray, a long-haired, reportedly
womanizing
musician of whom Mom naturally didn't approve, would be chaperoning.

    
Lianna
pushes away a renewed pang of guilt, reminding
herself
that she had no choice but to withhold the details that day. And that it isn't her fault that her mother is unreasonably protective.

    
But at least she wants you under her roof,
she reminds herself.

    Unlike Daddy, who decided not to fight for custody and moved away to Jacksonville.

    
Lianna
can usually muster the resentment to blame her mother for all of that, and more.
But not tonight.
Tonight, on the heels of losing
Grandaddy
, maybe she's feeling a little sorry for her mother. There have been too many funerals in Mom's life, that's for sure.

    And Mom has good reason to worry excessively about her safety-that much is definitely true.

    But it isn't fair that
Lianna
has to suffer now for the tragedy that happened when she was a little kid. And it isn't her fault. None of it is her fault. Not her parents divorce, nor her brother's death that triggered it.

    
Yeah, right. Sure it
isn't
,
says a mocking voice she can never quite drown out with reason, no matter how she tries.

    
You know what you did.

    You '11 never tell, but you '11 never forget, either.

    And you '11 never stop paying the price
.

    Royce squeezes Charlotte's hand reassuringly, almost as if he's read her mind and knows she's thinking about her lost son.

    Thank God, thank God, thank God for this kind, loving man who descended to the bottomless pit of grief with her and brought them both back to life.

    "What would I do without you, Royce?"

    "I was just thinking the same thing about you." He opens the door to the Oyster Bar, one of their favorite restaurants on River Street. "I just wish I didn't have to leave tomorrow morning."

    Charlotte's smile fades. "Then don't."

    "I have to. But I'll be back before you know it. I have the first flight out Monday morning."

    "You mean the flight that was late last time so you missed your connection and got stuck in Atlanta all day?"

    "That wasn't because it was late-that flight always goes on time. It was a mechanical problem with the one from Atlanta."

    "All I remember is that we were supposed to spend the day with the furniture designer picking out our new living room set-and I had to do it on my own."

    "
Right,
and you got the one with the cabbage rose print that I never would have let you order, so count your blessings."

    Her smile returns. "I'd have rather had boring beige and you with me instead of stuck in Atlanta."

    "Well, this Monday morning I promise I'll be here before you set foot out of bed."

    
"Mr. and Mrs. Midland!
How nice to see y'all tonight," the hostess says in surprise when she spots them. She quickly adds, "I'm so sorry about your grandfather."

    "Thank you, Lisa."

    Charlotte shoots a glance at Royce, as if to say,
See? I shouldn't be out in a restaurant when the entire town must know today was
Grandaddy's
funeral.

    Royce shrugs as Lisa goes on, "I was so shocked when I saw the write-up about him in the
Morning News.
I thought he was going to live forever."

    "So did
we
."

    There's a moment of awkward silence. Then Lisa checks to see if a table is available and, luckily, one is. 8 As they settle in beside the large window facing River Street, Charlotte does her best not to pout about Royce's upcoming trip.

    She should be happy that Aimee, Royce's nearly grown daughter, recently welcomed her father back; into her life after a long estrangement.

    And she is happy. She knows how tormented he's been, bearing his daughter's and ex-wife's blame for Theo's drowning death at
Achoco
Island Beach. Royce was in complete agreement with them. He blamed himself, too.

    What parent wouldn't?

    He was the one who had insisted on taking his son on vacation in Georgia, just the two "men" in the family, while he scouted business locations in Savannah.

    Neither Aimee nor Karen wanted to leave New Orleans. It was Royce who wanted it.
Royce who convinced little Theo that it would be a good idea.

    Royce was the one who was there with his son on the beach that day.
The only one.
He was in charge. He turned his back… if only for an instant.

    Having been in his shoes, Charlotte is glad that her husband had finally made peace with his past.
Really.
She rejoiced with Royce when his only surviving child reached out at last.

    It's just that he visited Aimee for
Mardis
Gras, for Easter in April, and again for her graduation, much to her father's pride, in Louisiana just last month. She had been working in a salon since high school but after a catastrophic hurricane she had been inspired to go to nursing school. Royce was beaming from the front row at her graduation, presumably alongside his ex-wife.

    Is it really necessary for him to fly back down there again just to spend Aimee's twenty-fifth birthday with her?

    
You're not jealous, are you?
Charlotte asks herself, not for the first time.

    All right, maybe she
is,
a little. But mainly, she's worried.

    What if something happens to Royce while he's in New Orleans?

    What if there's another terrible hurricane? It's the season… Did he even bother to check the Weather Channel?

    Or what if he's in an accident?

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

    That's what Josie, the counselor in the bereaved parents group, used to say whenever somebody grew despondent, asking why.

    
You can't look for reasons. You'll drive yourself crazy. There are no reasons. Things just happen
.

    There were times when Charlotte found those words oddly comforting. Now she just finds them frightening.

    What if something "just happens" to Royce?

    
Stop it, Charlotte. He’ll be fine. Why do you always have to do this to yourself?

    Why, indeed?

    
Because I know what it is to be blindsided by an unimaginable loss
.

    
Yes, so now what? Do you think that if you constantly dwell on the worst that can happen, it won't?

    
Perhaps.

    Perhaps she's doomed to spend the rest of her life haunted by anxious what-ifs.

    
No. You have to stop worrying, Charlotte. Stop
.

    
But what if…?

    What if these aren't mere worries?

    What if they're…
premonitions
?

    What if something really does happen to Royce?

    
No! Stop!

    She has to let him go. This is the first birthday he'll be celebrating with his daughter since she was in her teens. The plane ticket was purchased long before
Grandaddy's
death.

    
But I need you, too
, Charlotte longs to protest.
Especially now.
Don't leave me alone in that house with a daughter who isn't speaking to me, an aunt who often doesn't recognize me, and those cousins…

    Not to mention the ghosts, which probably now include
Grandaddy's
.

    If she says all that to Royce, he'll undoubtedly feel even
more guilty
than he already does. He'll quite possibly change his mind about leaving.

    But whining to get one's way is a most unattractive characteristic, as Charlotte's mother liked to remind her.

    There's nothing to do but hold her breath and let go.

    This deserted stretch of beach is in a cove that lies, mercifully, a few miles north of the public beach where both Adam and Theo drowned.