The Final Victim(30)

"Probably. Anyway, I broke my leg and a couple of ribs, but the doctor said I'm lucky it wasn't worse. At my age, you don't bounce back as quickly as you'd like."

Phyllida murmurs an appropriate comment, and sneaks a glance at her watch.

"I trust your cousin Charlotte is on her way?" Tyler asks, somewhat anxiously.

As if on cue, the door to the conference room opens. The receptionist announces, "Mrs. Maitland is here."

"Wonderful." Tyler's tone is hearty. "We can get started."

But Phyllida can't help but notice that he looks far more apprehensive than he does relieved.

Dr. Maurice Redmond has garlic breath and a splash of something tomato-orange on his white shirt, just below his collar.

But that isn't why Mimi dislikes him even more intensely today than she did when they first met in Jed's hospital room.

The man has zero bedside manner. He greets them with all the warmth of the security guard who validated their parking ticket downstairs.

Now, after brusquely ordering them to take two hardback chairs pulled up to his battered metal desk in an office with all the ambiance of a public restroom, he reaches unceremoniously for a manilla folder.

Watching him scan the report inside, Mimi fantasizes about bolting from the clinic with Jed in tow. Europe… They really should go to Europe, like Jed suggested. Right this second. They should grab Cam and get on the first plane the hell out of here.

Never mind that there are no direct overseas flights from Savannah, that they don't have passports, that they can't afford a pack of gum, let alone airline fares. None of that matters. All that matters is escaping.

Before it's too late.

Before this unpleasant man tells them his horrible news.

And Mimi has no doubt that it will be horrible.

Nothing positive can possibly transpire in a place like this: scarred linoleum and fluorescent lights. Concrete-block interior walls painted mustard yellow. The pervasive scent of Pine-Sol that doesn't quite mask the underlying odor of vomit.

"Mr. Johnston, I have your test results here."

Dr. Redmond has begun.

God help us.

Jed squeezes Mimi's hand.

Not reassuringly.

No, it's as though he's holding on for dear life, terrified that whatever the doctor is about to tell them is going to change their lives forever.

"I'm afraid…" The doctor pauses, takes a deep breath and seems to hold it indefinitely.

He's afraid? Mimi thinks incredulously. He's afraid?

"I'm afraid," Dr. Redmond repeats, "the tests indicate a rare malignancy."

"I direct that all my debts and funeral expenses be paid as soon after my death as may be practicable. I further direct…"

The document trembles in Tyler's hands as he pauses in the reading, just for a moment. Just to gather his nerve for the gathering storm.

The only sound in the conference room is the distant wail of a siren somewhere up by the river. The three heirs of Gilbert Xavier Remington II are focused on him, their collective silence and unwavering stares almost as unnerving as the prospect of what comes next.

He continues to read the standard language involving estate and inheritance taxes, conscious that nobody in the room has moved a muscle, or made a sound.

Is it because they sense what's about to happen?

No.

It's because they continue to erroneously anticipate what is not.

Tyler can stall no longer. "I give, devise, and bequeath all of my estate of whatever kind and wheresoever situated…"

Tyler clears his throat and adjusts his reading glasses one last time. He knows they're expecting him to continue with the phrase "in equal shares."

But that was in the old will.

Tyler's voice somehow holds steady as he delivers the explosive language of this one-"to my granddaughter, Charlotte Remington Maitland, provided she survives me."

Royce welcomes the blast of dim, cool air as he steps into the small cafe a stone's throw from the loft space he rents for his computer-consulting business.

Beyond the plate glass windows, Broughton Street is awash in relentless noonday sun and teeming with hot, sticky pedestrians.

Ella Fitzgerald croons a bluesy ballad on the cafe's retro soundtrack as he waits his turn behind a middle-aged couple. If their Yankee accents didn't give them away as tourists, their order would: two large "iced" teas, unsweetened.

Here in the South, it's sweet tea, sugary as gum-drops. Even his wife, who always drinks diet soda and sweetens her coffee with Splenda, enjoys her daily glass of sweet tea before dinner.

Royce orders his from Sheryl-or is it Sherri?-the multipierced, college-aged Goth Girl he finds behind the register every weekday about this time.

Her black-polished fingernails clack on the keys as she rings it up. "We have your favorite eggplant sandwich on whole grain bread as a special today, Mr. Maitland."

"That sounds tempting, but I can't have lunch today.

I've got a meeting to get to down the street in fifteen minutes." He checks the Breguet watch Charlotte gave him on their wedding day, and amends, 'Ten minutes."

"Maybe tomorrow."

"Maybe," he agrees, opening his wallet to remove two dollar bills, fully aware that Sheryl or Sherri is checking him out, as usual.