The Final Victim(37)

He laughs at his own joke.

The lovely Melanie seems to lack a sense of humor. "Don't make fun of her… She's a sweet lady."

"I know she is. Sweet and," he can't resist leaning so close he can smell her fresh herbal scent-lotion, not perfume, "you have to admit, just a little bit…" He rotates an index finger alongside his ear.

To her discredit, Melanie again fails to crack a smile. She turns on the heel of her sensible white shoe and heads down the hall in the opposite direction of the third-floor stairway.

"Hey, where are you going? I thought we were going up to talk to Aunt Jeanne!"

"You are," she calls over her shoulder without a backward glance. "I'm going to get her some hot tea."

Your loss, Gib thinks with a shrug as he takes the stairs up two at a time.

And Aunt Jeanne's, he adds, as a wall of heat hits him.

Hot tea? Is Melanie trying to kill the old bat?

"Cripes, it's a sauna up here," he comments to the old woman, who's facing the opposite direction in her wheelchair. "You need to open some windows, Aunt Jeanne."

He strides toward the nearest dormer, deciding the lovely Melanie lacks a sense of humor and common sense.

'They are open," Aunt Jeanne tells him, and he realizes she's right. Several electric fans are whirring as well.

But with the late-afternoon sun beaming in through the glass and baking the roof overhead, there is little that can be done to sufficiently cool the large space.

Why central air was never installed in this old house, Gib will never understand.

Maybe these crazy Southerners are accustomed to the heat, but he personally can't wait to get back to Boston.

Literally "crazy Southerners" in Aunt Jeanne's case, he notes as she turns her wheelchair to face him, looking somewhat wild-eyed.

"I need to know, Gilbert."

For a moment, hearing the cryptic demand and the formal name nobody ever, ever calls him, he wonders if she thinks he's her dead brother.

Then, her gnarled old hands rolling the chair closer to him with surprising speed, she says, "I need to know what was in that will."

The will.

It comes crashing back with a vengeance; all the angst of the calamitous session in Tyler Hawthorne's office.

"Do you mean what was in it for you?" he asks the expectant Aunt Jeanne. "Because that would be the same thing that was in it for me. Nothing."

"Nothing?" Her voice is tremulous, yet there seems to be a curious lack of expression in her wrinkled face.

"Nothing. He left everything to dear cousin Charlotte."

Aunt Jeanne is nodding. For a moment, he isn't sure she even heard what he said.

Then she says, her jaw set in what seems to be resignation-or even, oddly, acceptance, "That's just as I expected."

*

People really shouldn't play favorites.

It isn't nice.

Who was it who once said a little healthy rivalry never hurt anyone?

Probably your mother… who else?

Well, she was wrong. About a lot of things.

But now isn't the time to worry about that.

Now is the time to make the final preparations of the cabin that continues to look for all the world like a vine-covered nursery rhyme cottage-or some lucky little girl's adorable playhouse.

Lucky little girl…

Pammy Sue.

Now there was a lucky little girl. With her blond ringlets and big green eyes, she was the apple of everybody's eye: Mama's, and Aunt Chessie's, and Pastor Brigham's…

Everybody's but mine.

But Pammy Sue never figured that out, not as a child, not even now, all grown up. It would simply never occur to her that one of her nearest and dearest could possibly dislike her.

Dislike?

Hah.

Even loathe is an understatement.

Yet nobody in all those years ever seemed to suspect the pure hatred expertly concealed by a mask of benevolent affection.

Pammy Sue might have won the lead in every school play, but her so-called acting talent didn 't hold a candle to mine.

It's ironic, even now, to recall that the spotlight and the applause always belonged to Pammy Sue when the truly masterful performance was unfolding right before everyone's eyes, undetected. Unappreciated.

Blind, smitten fools.

Yes, and you were right there in the front row every time, beaming, clapping for Pammy Sue along with those blind, smitten fools.

Ah, well, the perpetual deception was certainly good practice for all that lies ahead.

And it won't be long now before the ultimate curtain call is carried out in vengeful perfection.

The marsh after dark isn't a particularly appealing place to be… not even with a couple of kerosene lanterns. Their flames flicker eerily on the brick walls, casting the lone human shadow larger than life.

Which is as it should be.

At least I'm the master of this domain.

Yes, but what good is that? taunts an inner voice. It's still empty.

Although not for long.

Just outside the door lies a brown carton, its sides damp and pungent with absorbed humidity.

Inside are the last few items necessary to turn this little house into a home.

First, a large flattened cardboard box must be lain across the mud floor like a fine carpet. The new door came inside it.