The Final Victim(54)
Phyllida is on the line instantly, asking one fervent question after another. It takes a while for Charlotte to even get to the point of the call and ask her to bring a change of clothes and her toiletry bag to the hospital.
There's a moment of silence. "I don't have a car, Charlotte."
"Isn't Gib there?"
"No. I don't know where he is, but I'll try to reach him on his cell. We'll be at the hospital with your things as soon as I find him."
"Thanks."
It isn't until she's hung up that Charlotte realizes this is the first conversation she's had with either of her cousins since the meeting in Tyler's office the other day. Now she'll be forced to come face-to-face with them as well.
But Phyllida and Gib's lingering animosity and contestment of the will are the least of her worries.
Right now, all she cares about is Royce.
She reaches into her pocket and finds his cell phone, which the nurses gave her along with the rest of his personal belongings. For the second time since the shooting, she searches the phone's memory base for his daughter's cell phone number, then presses send.
It takes a few rings for Aimee to answer, with a fumbling sound as she does.
"Sorry, Charlotte, I'm at the airport trying to get to the gate," she says, sounding a little breathless.
"I'm glad you got a flight." Charlotte can hear the noise from the terminal in the background.
"I'm on the next plane out of here, but I have to connect through Atlanta so it's going to be a while. How's Daddy? Is he out of surgery yet?"
"Not yet. What flight are you on, Aimee? Do you want me to have somebody meet you at the airport?" Even as she asks the question, she hopes her stepdaughter will say no. Who, after all, could Charlotte possibly send to the airport?
The chauffeur is away, she wants Nydia to stay at home with Lianna, and she isn't comfortable asking her cousins for yet another favor. Nearly all of Charlotte's friends in Savannah are traveling this summer, and she hasn't been in close contact with them, anyway, since moving out to Oakgate. Not close enough to involve them intimately in something like this.
But it doesn't matter, because Aimee tells her she'll just take a cab to the hospital when she lands.
"Make sure you tell the cab driver that it's the hospital off the expressway… Are you at all familiar with Savannah?" Charlotte asks.
"No-hang on a second, they're making an announcement…"
In the background, Charlotte hears, "The aircraft that will make up Delta Airlines Flight 640 to Atlanta is now at the gate and will begin boarding momentarily. Please have your tickets ready so we can board the plane for an on-time departure."' "I have to go," Aimee says in a rush. "I'll get there as soon as I land."
"Have a safe flight."
Delia Airlines flight 640…
That's the one Royce always takes home to her from New Orleans, first thing in the morning. Ironic that just days ago, Charlotte was sitting in the Oyster Bar, worried about something happening to him.
Maybe it really was a premonition.
And maybe the next time you have one, you should listen.
Remembering to stop in the cafeteria, she waits in line for coffee with yet another group of casual, chatting staff members, along with a smattering of patients' loved ones. They're easily identifiable, not just by their street clothes and hushed conversations, but by their drawn faces etched with telltale concern.
To the workers, who seem disconcertingly oblivious to the life-and-death domestic dramas unfolding around them, this is just another morning on the job.
As Charlotte flips a black lever and watches steaming, aromatic liquid pouring into her white foam cup, a long-forgotten detail flits into her exhausted mind.
She remembers being huddled in the sand on the dusky beach off Achoco Island, some distance from the cluster of divers that had just emerged, empty-handed, from the depths of the sea.
She couldn't hear what they were saying as they removed their equipment.
Then the wind shifted abruptly and the unmistakable sound of laughter reached her ears. As she listened in disbelief, it became clear that they were discussing bets they had placed on the weekend's opening games of the NFL season.
Somebody's son had been lost in the treacherous Atlantic, and the men responsible for finding the child were engaged in lighthearted, meaningless conversation.
She never forgot it.
Nor did she ever tell Royce.
The divers were human. They were doing their job. Their cavalier talk of football wagers had nothing to do with the fact that they didn't retrieve Theo Maitland's body.
Intellectually, she knew that. Of course she did.
She just never got over that feeling of betrayal-or the realization that the immediate family, despite the hustle of activity by the many helping hands that materialize in their time of need, is unalterably isolated in any loss.
Feeling lonelier than she has in years, Charlotte pays for her coffee, grabs a couple of creamers and a packet of Splenda, and makes her way back to the elevator.
Upstairs, the nurse spots her coming toward the station and shakes her head. "Nothing yet, Ms. Remington."
'Thank you."
And it's Mrs. Maitland.
Toting Cameron on her hip, Mimi steps into the kitchen of her mother's small tract house in Tidewater Meadow to find Maude Gaspar seated at the table with a cup of coffee, utterly fixated on the small portable television on a metal stand in the corner.