The Final Victim(21)

What if she loses her balance and falls? Several of the runglike steps have rotted away in the dampness; others, are about to. With a flashlight, she can pick her way past them. In the dark, she'd be playing Russian roulette1' with every step.

Nobody would ever find her in there. Not with those fourteen-inch-thick tabby foundation walls that are probably soundproof.

Okay, so she obviously isn't going back into the house the same way she came out.

But maybe that's not necessary anyway. Glancing at her watch, she sees that it's well past four in the morning. Nobody will be stirring at this hour. She can slip inside through the back door, using the key Great-Grandaddy always kept hidden among the perennials that ring the base of an old stone sundial in the garden.

Her heart pounding, Lianna decides it's a brilliant idea.

It takes her quite a few minutes of rooting around for the key in the dewy, overgrown bed that contains more weeds than flowers. Something pierces her fingertip, probably a spider's bite, and she thrusts her stinging finger into her mouth.

This is a stupid idea. Really stupid. What if the spider was poisonous? There are lizards in here, too, and God knows what else. A dark, rodent-infested tunnel is now almost more appealing than reaching back into the weeds again.

But when she does, she finds the key almost immediately.

All right, so this was a good plan after all.

The big door opens silently and the rooms are deserted, just as she knew they would be. She pockets the key, hoping she'll remember to replace it later, in broad daylight.

It isn't until she reaches the door to her bedroom that she realizes she's made a huge mistake.

It's latched… from the inside.

How could she have forgotten?

Now what?

Before she can plot her next move, she hears a movement behind her.

A voice drawls, "Well, look who's prowling around at this hour."

Charlotte sits straight up in bed, heart racing wildly.

Then she realizes it was just a dream.

No, not a dream. A nightmare.

Not even that.

It really happened.

But it isn't happening now, she reminds herself, pressing her hand against her pounding chest. It's over. Long over.

She lies back slowly against the pillows, closing her eyes as if to block out the images that have haunted her for eight years. But they're still there, more vivid than ever.

She can see the foaming ocean; can feel it, sun-warmed and saltily stinging her newly shaved legs; can feel her hands swirling helplessly through it, coming up empty again and again.

She can hear screams, her own screams, as she bellows her son's name over and over again in futile, exhausting effort.

A sob escapes her throat even now.

She shudders and rolls toward Royce's side of the bed, needing to feel his warm body against hers. He alone understands. He's been there, too.

Even on their honeymoon, when they found themselves standing at the brink of Niagara Falls, he knew instinctively what she was thinking as she gazed down at the churning blue-gray water. He was thinking it, too. "Come on," he said, and quietly led her away.

Charlotte needs him now as she needed him then.

But the covers are thrown back on his side of the bed; his spot as cold and empty as her arms that ache for a child who will never come home.

*

Even in the dim light from a distant sconce, Gib can see the panic in the kid's eyes.

"What are you up to, Leigh Ann?" he asks, reminded suddenly of a childhood fishing expedition with his maternal grandfather in Narragansett Bay: the empowering sensation of gazing down at a helpless cod trapped in his net.

"Lianna," she says, lifting her chin, and it takes him a moment to realize she's correcting him about her name.

"Lianna," he repeats, amused by the insult that now mingles with panic in her gaze. "Sorry about that."

She shrugs and tries to seem casual as she inquires, "What are you doing up?"

"I asked you first."

"Well, I'm going back to bed."

"So am I," he tells her, though it's not entirely true.

He hasn't yet been to bed in his assigned guest room. But he's willing to bet Cassandra has long been asleep beneath the old-fashioned eyelet canopy. He can feel his loins tighten at the mere thought of her, naked, between the sheets.

He'll get to her momentarily.

For now, he can't resist toying with Charlotte's daughter. Poor thing clearly didn't inherit the Remington genes when it came to looks. Perhaps she looks like her father, although he can't seem to conjure an image of Charlotte's first husband. Gib saw him only rarely, and hasn't in years.

Lianna isn't unattractive, yet hardly possesses her mother's beauty, or Phyllida's, or even Gib's. Maybe she'll get there one day, but for now, she's on the scrawny side, with sharp features and a slight overbite. Braces would help, Gib concludes. Braces, and longer hair. Highlights in her hair would be good, too-or even if she was a brunette like her mother…

Instead, her hair is a dull, sandy shade that could, Gib supposes, pass for blond-just not to a connoisseur, like him.

"I'd be willing to bet," he says, leaning in, "that your mother doesn't know you're locked out of your room at this hour."

"What makes you think I'm locked out?"