The Final Victim(112)

He looks Jones in the eye, wondering if she can possibly understand about the Telfair Trio, or being raised with so much that you always want more.

No, she can't.

Because I don't understand, myself.

In the end, all there is, all I can do, is accept the blame.

"Because Gilbert was our friend," he says simply, with a shrug.

This is it, Charlotte comprehends as she is ruthlessly wrenched from the concrete refuge, a helpless pawn in a raging battle at sea. It's over.

Her flailing limbs are powerless; her furious, terrified scream snuffed by the tempest's mighty roar.

She is engulfed…

And then, miraculously, she is not.

It is an excruciating landing, her body catapulted onto a rocky bed of shoreline.

She can feel jagged edges slicing into her tender skin, leaving her raw and bleeding, drenched in saltwater that mercilessly stings her fresh wounds.

For a moment, she's certain she's going to die, so brutal is the agony.

But the moment passes, and she's alive.

Alive, and heaving herself onto the battered, wobbly legs that will carry her straight to Oakgate, and her daughter.

"Did you get in touch with the police on the island?" Mimi asks Dorado, finding him waiting for her in the office where she left him earlier.

He answers without looking up from his computer screen, still rapidly tapping the keyboard. "I did, but I had a hell of a time getting them to agree to go check things out at Oakgate. They've got their hands full with this storm and it won't be easy for them to get up there.

They said a tree fell across the road just north of the causeway. It cut off the only route that leads up there."

"Can't they go on foot or by boat or something?"

"They'll get there just as soon as they can, however they can."

He looks up at her at last. "I need you to look at something, Mrs. Johnston. I don't think you noticed it the first time. Neither did I."

"What is it?"

He gestures for her to come around behind his desk.

She leans over his shoulder to see the computer screen and finds the New Orleans newspaper write-up she'd read earlier.

Once again, the unfamiliar faces of the doomed father and daughter smile at her, and she suppresses a shudder.

'They look so happy," she tells Dorado, shaking her head. "What am I supposed to be seeing in the picture?"

"You're supposed to be reading the article. Here."

He jabs an index finger at a paragraph of text.

She reads it aloud.

"Arriving at the scene of the accident, where a steady stream of Aimee Maitland's friends have been leaving flowers, notes, and candles, her mother, Karen, broke down in tears. 'She was my baby-my only child. She and Royce were everything to me.' The anguished mother-“

Mimi breaks off and looks up at the detective as it dawns on her.

He nods. "Her only child." He grabs the mouse and scrolls down the page. "Here, look at the obituaries. See here? It says Royce Maitland is survived by his wife, his mother, two aunts, and several cousins. Period."

"But…" Shaking her head, Mimi asks, "What about his son? Theo? Ten years ago, Theo was still alive."

"Not according to this."

"I don't…" She trails off, trying to wrap her brain around the impossible until Dorado states it for her.

"Mrs. Johnston, Theo Maitland never existed at all."

The fist-sized cobblestones of the boat ramp leading away from the water make it impossible for Charlotte to run. Even in sneakers, she has to pick her way slowly over the rough surface, lest she twist an ankle.

Can you imagine having to run for your life on this surface?

Was it only weeks ago that she asked that seemingly absurd question of her husband, on their way out to dinner in Savannah?

His answer, so reassuring then, now fills her veins with an icy current.

Why would you be running for your life?

Why, Royce? Why am I running for my life-and running from you?

Dragging his throbbing leg behind him, Royce limps over to the closet door.

He jerks Lianna's clothing back and forth, hangers clattering and rasping along the metal pole, half-expecting to find her concealed among the garments.

But the closet is as empty as the space beneath the bed, and behind the bathroom door, and alongside the dresser and armoire. He even wedged himself painfully into the fireplace and looked up, thinking she might somehow have stuffed herself into the chimney.

No Lianna.

All right, so where can she be?

She was in this room, and she didn't leave through the door. He pushed it in; it was latched from the inside.

She couldn't have gone through the windows, either. All of them are closed and latched from the inside.

That leaves only two explanations: either Lianna is a little witch, and she used her magical powers to vanish into thin air, or there's another way in and out of this room.

She can be a little witch, Royce thinks, his jaw set as he surveys the layout of the room, but I sure as hell don't believe in magic.

He smirks, remembering that he said just the opposite to his wife, back when they first met. She just about swooned over the corny line, and he made sure to kiss her good and hard after he said it.

Yes, if ever a woman was ripe to fall in love, it was Charlotte Remington…