The Final Victim(28)

"Your nephew must have decided that I was, because he didn't have a problem with the new will when he drew it up."

"He doesn't know you the way I do."

Gilbert snorted at that.

As if to say, You don't know me at all, Tyler.

Still…

"Why didn't you wait for me to come back before you made the changes?"

"At our age, Tyler, who has time to wait?"

"You could at least have consulted me."

"You were lying in a hospital bed." Gilbert's tone was surprisingly subdued. "How could I do that to you?"

"What did your family do to piss you off, might I ask?"

"You might," Gilbert shot back, his lapse into kindly consideration unsurprisingly temporary, "but I don't have to answer, you nosy son of a bitch."

It was hardly the first time in Tyler's life that Gilbert had called him that-usually with utmost affection. But this time, it was hardly a term of endearment.

What on earth could have happened? Obviously, something earth-shattering enough to cause Gilbert to set aside his typically pragmatic approach to family finance.

"You have to know all hell is going to break loose when your family finds out what you've done."

"I won't be there to see it," was Gilbert's succinct response.

"No, but I will."

"Look on the bright side, Tyler. Maybe you'll get lucky and check out after I do."

"I doubt that. I've always thought you were going to live forever," he replied, only half-kidding.

"Then neither of us has anything to worry about, do we?"

Maybe you don't, Tyler thinks now, gazing at the legal document waiting on his desk. But I most certainly do.

The will is bound to be messily contested.

What the hell was Gilbert thinking?

*

The Magnolia Clinic is conveniently located in the shadows of Highway 16, just off the exit ramp. Mimi has no problem finding it, just as Dr. Redmond's nurse promised when she called this morning to summon them.

Everything about this place is depressing, from the unadorned, yellow-brick facade to the rusty chain-link and barbed wire fence that rings the parking lot. There is nary a magnolia in sight. Most of the cars here, including those with MD license plates, are older domestic models, many in some form of disrepair, mute testimony to the economic level of clientele and staff.

But this is where the Johnstons have landed, courtesy of a nonexistent insurance plan and a virtually empty bank account.

"I'm going to have to park pretty far away from the door. Do you want me to go get a wheelchair?" she asks Jed, when they find themselves circling the lot a second time.

"No. I'll walk."

She opens her mouth to protest, but thinks better of it. He hates being treated like an invalid. He's been through enough of that lately, and who knows what lies ahead?

After collapsing at work and being rushed to Candler General's ER with unbearable stomach pain, poor Jed spent a miserable week in a hospital bed. He was hooked up to an IV, injected and scanned and drained of various fluids as gastroenterology specialists attempted to determine the cause of his illness.

Now, presumably, they know.

And it's news that needs to be delivered in person.

Which means it can't be good.

This is just like what happened with Daddy…

No, don't go there, Mimi warns herself, turning into a fortuitously vacant spot beneath the parking lot's lone shade tree, a straggly-looking oak.

Don't think ahead. Don't even consider that. Daddy was a time bomb; he smoked three packs a day. Jed doesn't even-

"Stop! "Jed calls sharply.

She slams on the brakes and looks at him in hopelessness, wondering how on earth she's going to coax him into going in to face the prognosis. He didn't want to come, doesn't want to know.

When he's spoken at all in the hours since the doctor's nurse called to summon them here, it's to voice his intent to steal a boat and hurtle himself overboard far out in the Atlantic the next time a storm blows in.

I swear, Mimi, if that doctor tells me something's really wrong with me, I'm not going to sit here and the a slow death…

"Jed, I know this is hard," she says gently, her hands trembling on the steering wheel, foot frozen on the brake, "but we can get through it, whatever-"

"Broken glass," he interrupts.

She stares at him. Now he's incoherent How on earth is she going to get him to- "There." He points to the parking space she was about to take. Shards of a brown glass bottle are strewn with other litter between the parallel white lines. "Don't pull in. You'll slash the tires."

"Oh." She swallows hard, shifts into reverse.

Slashed tires can be patched, replaced. Slashed tires are so easy, really, in the grand scheme of things; ridiculously simple to remedy.

"I'll find another spot," she manages to say around the lump in her throat as she eases the car back into the midday sun's full glare on the asphalt.

"Or we could just leave. We could go pick up Cam from your mother's and get the hell out of here."

"And go where?"

"Who the hell cares? California. Hawaii. Europe. You've always wanted to go to Europe. You would have, I if it weren't for me."