The Final Victim (5 page)

    It was grits, poached eggs, and bacon at seven.
Always.

    
Grandaddy
napped every afternoon after lunch, snoring peacefully in his recliner. A lifelong insomniac, he claimed it was the only place he could ever fall asleep-and stay asleep-without the prescription medication he often resorted to in the wee hours.

    Every night, after supper and his bath,
Grandaddy
watched the NBC Nightly News at six thirty. Then, without fail, he would turn off the television and turn on the radio, the one on the mantel. It was always tuned to the same Oldies station, which ironically played swing music that was probably newer than the radio itself. Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Count Basie…

    That first Christmas she lived with him, Charlotte got her grandfather a brand new stereo system.

    It still sits, unused from that day, in a cabinet in the far corner of the living room, along with the stack of golden oldies CD's she bought him to go with it. She has long since gotten over the hurt, having come to understand that Gilbert Remington was a creature of habit. He wanted to hear his old music on his old radio.

    She stayed for almost two years, moving out only when she married Vincent.

    But the Savannah condo and later the two-story, center-hall Colonial that she shared with her first husband never entirely felt like home. Not even when Adam was alive. Selling the house and returning to
Oakgate
after the divorce hadn't been a difficult decision, though
Lianna
had complained. But soon even she grew comfortable here.

    It was Charlotte who couldn't quite settle in.

    That had nothing to do with
Grandaddy
or the house. She was still mourning her losses. Initially, she thought being at
Oakgate
would make her feel closer to her little boy, buried in the family graveyard behind the house.

    Instead, it was a constant reminder of all that she had lost; of what will never be.

    She had already decided to buy a house of her own hack in Savannah before that fateful Labor Day weekend three years ago.

    It was shortly afterward that she met Royce, under the most horrific of circumstances.

    The first time he showed up at the bereaved parent group she used to attend, she instantly recognized him from the beach.

    She watched him running that day, screaming for his son. She saw him hurtling himself helplessly into the water, screaming for Theo, until the lifeguards dragged him out.

    
Lianna
witnessed it as well.

    As far as Charlotte knows, her daughter hasn't been back to the beach since.

    But
Lianna
seemed to welcome Royce into their lives, when Charlotte finally got the nerve to bring him home.

    Theirs was a whirlwind courtship that seemed inevitable from the moment they met. Each had found the only other person in the world who truly understood what they had been through.

    Sometimes, even now, Charlotte finds it difficult to wrap her mind around the eerie, cruel coincidence that brought them together. She still wakes up every morning of her life wishing desperately that it had never happened, that Adam had never died. Yet if he hadn't, and if Royce hadn't lost his son, they wouldn't have found each other.

    They've long since stopped asking why. It's far too painful to look back. They've both done their best to accept what is, to only look ahead toward their future and the fresh start they're building together.

    But that isn't easy here at
Oakgate
, where the past exists hand in hand with the present.

    Built on a slight knoll at the end of a long lane bordered by an arch of Spanish moss-draped live oaks, the red brick mansion's rooms remain filled with heirloom nineteenth-century furniture, and seem to echo with ghosts of a bygone era.

    Charlotte has long harbored a curious mix of affection and dread for the old place, which, like many old Low Country homes, is rumored to be haunted.

    She's never actually seen a ghost, but that doesn't mean they aren't here… And it doesn't mean she wants to continue living under this roof any longer than is absolutely necessary.
Especially now that
Grandaddy
is gone.

    But for the time being, with
their own
home in Savannah undergoing extensive renovations after having been gutted down to the studs, she, Royce, and
Lianna
are stuck here.

    Everything will be brighter for all of us when we can get back home
, Charlotte tells herself wistfully.
We just have to hang in there until then
.

    
Phyllida
tosses a shrewd glance at the man in the framed photo on the nightstand.

    The black-and-white image of her grandfather in his youth came with the room, of course.
Though maybe she'll take it with her as a nice little memento when she goes back to California.

    Yes, physical evidence of her loss will make her friends and neighbors out West even more sympathetic. She'll keep the picture on the mantel for a while and when people come to visit, she'll affectionately point out
Grandaddy's
cowlick, so like
Wills's
, and the bruise on his cheek undoubtedly caused by some youthful Prank.

    
I'll tell everyone he got hurt rescuing the family dog from a burning house
,
Phyllida
thinks dreamily.
I'll say that he used to take me on his knee and tell me that story when I was little
.

    She smiles faintly at the image of herself as a wide-eyed little girl curled up on her grandfather's lap, almost believing, for a split second, that it really happened. But, of course, it didn't Widowed when his sons were toddlers,
Grandaddy
was a tough old son of a bitch; tougher, even, than
Phyllida's
father. And unlike
Phyllida's
father, who didn’t seem to care much for either of his children,
Grandaddy
played favorites.

    Uncle Norris's daughter, Charlotte, was the only one
Grandaddy
ever really noticed. Not
Phyllida
, not even
Grandaddy's
own namesake, Gilbert IV.

    Growing up,
Phyllida
couldn't help envying her Southern cousin.
But not so much for their grandfather's attention.
Nor for demure Charlotte's natural grace, hen genuine kindness and goodness… nor for the feet that she always seemed to do and say the right tiling without even thinking about it.

    No, more than anything else,
Phyllida
was jealous on Charlotte's effortless beauty. Even as a child, she was lithe and long-limbed, with wavy black hair, porcelain skin, and unusual purplish eyes fringed with thick, dark lashes. She even inherited the "Remington chin," the same distinctive, comely cleft shared by
Grandaddy
and some of her ancestors, whom she's seen in old family portraits.

    Today, Charlotte's striking face and figure remain unenhanced by cosmetic surgery-unlike
Phyllida's
.

    But in the end, none of
that matters
, does it? In the end, everything equals out.

    
Phyllida
has plain-old blue eyes, not aquamarine like those of her brother, father, and grandfather, nor Liz Taylor-violet like Charlotte's. She considered-and dismissed-the notion of wearing colored contacts, despite how authentic-looking they are these days. But thanks to Dr. Zach Hilbert of Beverly Hills,
Phyllida
is now easily as stunning as her East Coast cousin.

    And Charlotte will be entitled to the same third of the family fortune
Phyllida
and
Gib
will get. No
more
,no
less.

    Financial fair-mindedness was a proud trait of
Grandaddy's
, and always had been.

    
Phyllida's
father had always assured her of that.
Grandaddy
deplored his own father's decision to cut his daughter out of his will. Great-Aunt Jeanne got nothing;
Grandaddy
got everything-on the stipulation that he not leave a penny of it to his sister upon his death.

    So
Grandaddy's
estate would be divided equally between his two sons, Gilbert Xavier III-always called by his nickname,
Xavy
-and Norris.

    Nobody ever dreamed that neither son would outlive the father.

    Now, presumably, what was meant to belong to
Phyllida's
father and his brother will be divided equally among their heirs.

    
Presumably
.

    Of course it will,
Phyllida
assures herself, watching her toddler's little chest rise and fall rhythmically in the questionable old crib.

    In just a few days, when the will is read, she'll find herself tens of millions of dollars richer.

    
Then, to hell with the acting career, Hollywood, even Brian.

    For once in her life,
Phyllida
Remington Harper will have everything she wants. Everything she needs.

    
But for now, there's nothing to do but bide her time in this spooky Southern relic of a house.

    The huge plantation house kitchen reportedly once had a dirt floor and a fireplace big enough to walk into It's obviously been remodeled many times through the years. Royce doubts, however, that it's been touched in the last couple of decades, other than to add a fairly up-to-date dishwasher and wedge a microwave into a nook on the soapstone countertop.

    Having spent the last few months pouring over design catalogues in the midst of redoing their new house in Savannah, he finds it fairly easy to identify each of the other upgrades with the era in which it was done.

    The painted white cabinets with glass-front doors and fold-down ironing board have to be from the twenties. The enormous black
cookstove
is Depression era And the floor-black-and-white tile set in a checkerboard diamond pattern-is as blatantly 1950s as a tuna casserole served by June Cleaver in a bib apron.

    Retro style is all the rage in the
Maitlands's
social circle, but here at
Oakgate
, everything-including the appliances-is the real deal.

    Standing at the vintage farmhouse sink, Royce pours his wife's untouched sweet tea-a remnant of her well loved, late-afternoon ritual-down the drain.

    "Better run some water," a voice says behind him, startling him so that he nearly drops the glass.

    He turns to see the
Remingtons's
longtime live-in housekeeper standing in the doorway that leads to the maids' quarters off the kitchen.
"Nydia!
You scared me."

    Her staccato laugh is free of mirth.

    
She's one tart old biddy
, Royce thinks every time he finds himself interacting with her.

    To Nydia's further discredit: she has a disconcerting way of slithering up behind a person when they least expect it. This isn't the first time she's caused Royce to jump out of his skin.

    "Did you think I was a ghost, Mr. Maitland?"

    
"Of course not."
But you do look like one
, he can't help noting.

    Nydia is a wisp of a woman, prone to wearing
pastels,
and her short hair and uninteresting features are as pale as the tiresome grits she dishes up every morning. Royce has no idea how old she is; she's one of those people who could be in her fifties or in her seventies, but is most likely somewhere in between. He does know she's been with Charlotte's grandfather since his children were young.

    "Some people think this house is haunted," she comments, taking the glass from his hand and opening the dishwasher.

    "Do you think it's haunted?"

    "By the living as much as the dead," is her strange, prompt reply.

    He waits for her to elaborate.

    She doesn't, forcing him to ask, "What do you mean by that?"

    Having placed the glass on the top rack, she closes the dishwasher in silence and turns to the sink, brushing him aside.

    She turns on the water.

    When she speaks, it's only to say, "Tea stains this old white porcelain, you know, Mr. Maitland."

    Royce steps back, watching her wash it away, wondering if he should press her on that cryptic comment about the house. She's lived here for decades. She must know many things he doesn't.

    Before he can speak up, she turns off the water, dries her hands, and faces him once again, dour as usual.

    'There.
A place for everything, and everything in its place."

    "I was about to put away the glass and rinse the sink when you came in," he is compelled to inform her.

    "I'm sure you were."

    
No, you aren't. You don't trust me, and you don't think I belong here
, Royce thinks, not for the first time.

    He can't help but notice, as he also has before, that Nydia owns the only pair of blue eyes he's ever seen that aren't the least bit flattering. They're close-set and' small, the washed-out shade of the sky on a halfhearted summer afternoon, with a smattering of lashes the color of fresh corn silk.