The Final Victim(32)

Mimi seizes that information like a drowning victim grabbing a buoy. "I need to get in touch with her."

"Mrs. Johnston…" Dr. Redmond reaches across the desk and rests a hand on her wrist. His fingers are warm; his grasp almost gentle. So he's human after all. "Your husband is uninsured, and even if he had the best policy in the world, Dr. Von Cave's 'treatment,' as it were, wouldn't be covered."

"We'll find a way to pay for it," Mimi says frantically, shaking off his hand.

"Do you have any idea what kind of money you're talking about?"

"So what? It's a chance to save him. I don't care what it costs. We can-"

"Mrs. Johnston, please take this." The physician opens a desk drawer and pulls out a stack of business cards. Removing one, he thrusts it into her hand.

She looks down, expecting to find Dr. Von Cave's contact information.

What she finds is the address and phone number for Baywater Hospice.

"Make no mistake about it, Mr. Hawthorne, this will is going to be contested."

Gib delivers his parting shot from the doorway of the conference room, then turns to follow his sister, whose Oscar-worthy sobs are audible from the reception area.

As rattled as the plate glass windows in the wake of Gib's reverberating slam of the door, Charlotte looks across the table at Tyler Hawthorne. He is rhythmically tapping the bottom edge of his sheath of papers on the polished mahogany surface, but she can see that the movement is more frenetic than productive.

He, too, is shaken.

Charlotte leans back in her chair and kneads her forehead with her thumb and fingertips. The migraine she felt coming on in the car after the scene with Lianna is full blown now.

"Tyler," she says, still dumbfounded, as much by what was in the will as by her cousins' reflexive, melodramatic responses, "what on earth just went on here?"

"Your grandfather left most of his money to you."

"Most?" she echoes, shaking her head. 'Tyler, he left all of it."

"Not all."

"You're right, I forgot… He did include my cousins." The corners of her mouth twist sardonically.

Yes, he left both Phyllida and Gib the same token sum he had bequeathed to his maid and his chauffeur.

Turning the stack of papers horizontally, Tyler continues his fidgety pretense at efficiency. "Face it, Charlotte, you were always Gilbert's favorite. You were the only one who ever gave him the time of day. And he knew you much better-You lived down here; they didn't"

"Come on, you know that never mattered to Grandaddy. Anyway, Gib lived here, too, when he was in high school."

She was married to Vince by that time, and rarely saw her cousin, who attended Telfair Academy.

"Your grandfather liked you best, Charlotte."

She doesn't bother to argue the point with Tyler. He's right. Still…

"Both my cousins were in the will as equal heirs all these years. Why would he change it now?"

"Maybe they said or did something he didn't like."

"Both of them together?" She dismisses that notion with little consideration. "They live on opposite ends of the country, and they never visit Oakgate. I can't see them teaming up to do or say something drastic enough to get cut out of the will."

Tyler shrugs. "I'm sure Gilbert had his reasons. In fact, I assumed the three of you must know what they were."

"I'm clueless."

"I'll bet your cousins aren't."

Charlotte isn't so sure about that. Gib and Phyllida seemed as stunned as she was to learn that they had been relegated to the inheritance level of mere household help.

Gib did come out slightly ahead of his sister: Grandaddy bequeathed to him a pair of heirloom platinum monogrammed cufflinks that had belonged to the first Gilbert Xavier Remington.

But the gesture was probably more practical than sentimental on Grandaddy's part: who but a man who shares his unusual initials-and is similarly inclined to wear French-cuffed shirts-would have any use for the cufflinks?

"Now what?" she asks Tyler, pressing her thumb and middle fingertip into her temples to somewhat ease the throbbing.

"Now your cousins hire a lawyer and contest the will."

"Are they going to be successful?"

"If they can prove that Gilbert was under duress when he made the change, yes. Or that he was senile. Or that the will is invalid due to some legal technicality-trust me, it isn't. My nephew oversaw the change, but I went over everything."

"Well, Grandaddy wasn't senile, either."

"No," Tyler agrees, offering a half-smile at the notion, "he wasn't."

"So chances are, Gib and Phyllida aren't going to overturn the will."

"People rarely manage to do that. But it doesn't stop them from embarking on drawn-out, expensive legal battles. It happens every day."

"I'm sure that when things settle down a bit, they'll come to their senses."

"Don't be so sure. Greed is a powerful driving force."

"You've seen my cousins. Phyllida has a beautiful home and a nanny and a career in California. Gib went Ivy League all the way and now he's a lawyer in Boston. They-"

"He hasn't joined a firm yet."