The Final Victim(20)

And it doesn’t help that you’re having her for a few days.

Charlotte isn't the type to lay on a guilt trip. She really is upset to see him go.

Sorry, Charlotte, he thinks, rolling over to look at her, but it can't be helped.

The room is bathed in the soft glow of the night-light she insists on using. She was so embarrassed, back when they spent their first night together, to admit that she's afraid of the dark.

"I have been ever since I was a little girl," she confessed. "I know it's stupid, but… I can't help it. Even Lianna sleeps in a dark room, but I can't."

Royce lingers, watching her sleep, thinking that she really does look like a defenseless child, lying there with her beautiful face scrubbed clean, her hair tangled on the white pillowcase. The hint of vulnerability he glimpsed the first time he ever laid eyes on her is often swept behind a sophisticated facade during the day. Not so at night, especially when she's asleep.

Tempting as it is, he can't lie here watching her a moment longer. He sits up noiselessly on the new king-sized pillowtop Sealy that Charlotte's grandfather purchased when they moved into his guest room.

Nothing but the best for his favorite granddaughter-and, by proxy, her husband.

Royce yawns, wishing he could curl up beside Charlotte and catch some more sleep. But he can't. It's time to get moving.

He swings his legs over the edge of the bed and his bare feet make contact with the satiny hardwood floor Walked on by countless Remingtons.

Sometimes he thinks, If this old house could talk…

Good thing it can't, Royce tells himself. Some things are better kept buried in the past, where they belong.

He bends over his wife's sleeping form and presses a gentle kiss on her exposed shoulder, just below a reddish, heart-shaped birthmark he once thought was an out-of-character tattoo.

"Are you kidding?" she asked laughingly the first time he questioned her about it. "Grandaddy would have shot me if I ever got a tattoo!"

She went on to reveal that she grew up calling the distinctive birthmark an "angel's kiss," one that was shared by a couple of other Remingtons. Grandaddy, for one.

Her late son, Adam, for another.

She sobbed when she told Royce how he looked when his body was pulled from the sea.

His face was… It was… That's how they knew it was him, Royce. Because of the birthmark.

Shhh, shhh, I know, he said soothingly, and hoped she wouldn't bring up the fact that he didn't know at all-that his own son's body was never found.

"Sleep well, darling," he whispers softly now, knowing she probably won't hear him. "I'll see you in a few days. Don't worry while I'm gone."

But she will. He's seen the haunted expression in her eyes, however fleeting; has caught her brooding when she doesn't realize he's watching her.

She's afraid. Of what, he doesn't know. But that comment she made earlier about running for her life… He made light of it at the time, masking his uneasiness.

But it stayed with him, nagging at him all evening. I What if…?

What if she's having some kind of premonition?

Maybe I shouldn't leave right now, Royce can't help thinking, and he hesitates beside the bed, mulling it over. Maybe it's not a good idea.

But what about Aimee?

He has to go.

That's all there is to it.

Waist-deep in the rough sea, Mimi whirls around and around, flailing her outstretched arms in the water, grasping for the helpless child who vanished on her watch: a lifeguard's worst nightmare.

But it really happened to her.

And now she must continue to relive it, over and over, in her sleep.

She's aware that she's dreaming as the events unfold in numbingly familiar procession.

The fruitless, frantic search among the relentless breakers…

The hysterical father hurling pleas and, eventually, accusations…

The requisite paperwork and the endless verbal recounting, official and ultimately therapeutic, of what, exactly, happened on that beach beneath the hot September sun…

The shrill peal of the telephone…

The telephone…?

Yes.

With that, the sequence is broken.

Mimi opens her eyes abruptly and finds herself looking at the illuminated digital clock.

Four thirteen AM, and a lifeguard's worst nightmare is instantly traded for a wife's worst nightmare.

Something's happened to Jed. Or her mother.

For no other reason would the phone ring at this hour.

Heart pounding with dread, she untangles herself from the sheets and hurries to answer it.

Lianna is uneasily aware of the rhythmic night sounds; the dank, humid smell of brackish water; the overcast night sky void of moon or stars.

She reaches into her pocket for her small flashlight, but comes up empty-handed.

Is it any wonder?

Kevin had her shorts halfway down her legs out there at the beach. The flashlight probably fell out into the sand as they rolled around.

Terrific.

Now she'll have to sneak back into the house in the dark.

It's not that she's a big baby about the dark…

Not like Mom.

No, but who wants to venture into a creepy old basement without even a flashlight?

The thought of that is bad enough; she can't imagine bringing herself to enter the tunnel and walk up two flights of the pitch-black hidden stairway. There are definitely spiders and mice. And probably even bats in there-what if one flies into her hair?