The Final Victim(3)

Yes. She should. She should see him. For closure, if nothing else.

Again, she shifts her gaze from the water to the sand…

And finds that the spot where Gib once stood has been taken over by a lone seagull.

Her heart sinking, Mimi spots him sauntering toward the grassy dunes.

Why are you surprised? He never was the type to stay by your side for very long.

She shakes her head, remembering the bad times.

And, reluctantly, the good.

Forget it. Forget him. You don't need that jerk in your life.

Then, above the crashing surf and distant buzz of a seaplane, she hears a frantic shout in the distance.

"Help! Please, help!"

A man is running down the beach, waving his arms at her.

"My son!" he screams, and gestures at the water. "Theo! I can't find him! Oh, God, please, help me!"

All thoughts of Gib are obliterated as Mimi hurtles herself from the lifeguard stand, frantically blowing her whistle to summon the other lifeguards for rescue.

Long after sunset, sheriffs boats bob in the increasingly rough water off the beach, the surf eerily lit by dozens of floating spotlights.

Divers plunge again and again into the murky, sandy, churned-up depths in their grisly search for the victim of today's tragic drowning accident.

Be careful. Don't smile, not even to yourself. Not even out here in the dark, when you think nobody is looking at you.

You just never know.

From this point on, it will be crucial to keep up the facade at all costs, treading carefully every step of the way.

A sudden splash and shout heralds the possible discovery of the child's waterlogged body.

No. Another false alarm.

The boy has yet to be found.

The tide is coming in. Soon, they'll call off the search for tonight, with the waves and undertows ripping dangerously due to that storm in the Caribbean.

But they'll resume tomorrow if they can. They'll probably search for days, just like the last time, with the Remington boy.

Will it make a difference that he was the scion of a powerful local family, while today's victim was an outsider?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

In the end, who cares?

In the end, all that matters is that after many months of planning, it has begun at last.



PARTI

THE FIRST VICTIM



CHAPTER 1

Three summers later

"You look pale. Why don't I ask Nydia to bring you a fresh glass of sweet tea?"

Startled by her husband's voice, Charlotte Remington Maitland looks up from the novel she's been pretending to read.

Royce is standing in the broad archway that separates this large front parlor from its twin just beyond. She didn't even hear him open the French doors.

"No, thank you," she murmurs, setting the book on the doily-decked piecrust table that once belonged to her great-great-great-grandmother, the first mistress of Oakgate. There, on an embroidered coaster, sits the full glass of now-lukewarm tea me housekeeper had brought her a little while ago.

Or maybe it's been longer than that.

Sunlight, spilling through the filmy lace curtains that cover the narrow, twelve-foot floor-to-ceiling windows, falls at a different angle now: more blue than golden, casting long shadows across the patterned Aubusson rug-Charlotte glances at the clock on the marble mantel, studiously avoiding her grandfather's vintage portable electric radio that still sits beside it.

"Is that the right time?" she asks, startled to see that the hands indicate nearly seven o'clock. Maybe Nydia forgot her clock-winding ritual this morning, with all that's gone on.

But Royce assures her, 'That's the right time." Unbelievable. Charlotte had sat down at half-past four, promising herself a few quiet moments with her own ritual: afternoon sweet tea and a book.

"You must be hungry," she tells her husband as he crosses the room and sits beside her on the antique yellow-silk sofa.

She notices that his black hair is damp from a recent shower and his handsome face, prone to five o'clock shadow, is clean-shaven. He's changed out of his black suit and into clothes that are, for Royce, casual. Pressed chinos, white linen, long sleeved, button down shirt, leather loafers. With socks.

She loves that about him; loves the way he always manages to look as though he just stepped out of the pages of a catalogue, even when he rolls out of bed in the morning. Not a day goes by that she isn't thankful for him in her life; the proverbial sunshine after the darkest of storms.

"I'm not that hungry." He rests a warm hand on her shoulder. "I could eat anyway, though. I had two sandwiches at the luncheon after the service, but you didn't touch a thing. You must be famished."

She shakes her head. She hasn't been hungry in a few days now, her usual voracious appetite having given way to the dull pain of grief.

She didn't expect her grandfather's death to hit her this hard. After all, Gilbert Xavier Remington II was an old man, closing in on ninety. He wasn't going to live forever.

But he always said he'd be around to escort Lianna down the aisle when the time came, even if he had to roll by her side in a wheelchair. Until a few days ago, the idea of the formidable Remington patriarch in a wheelchair was far more outlandish than the presumption that he'd be at his adolescent granddaughter's wedding one day.