The Final Victim(16)

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."