The Final Victim(56)

Caught off guard by the fervent greeting, Charlotte returns it gratefully. These have been the longest, loneliest hours of her life, and Aimee feels less a stranger to her than her own cousins did when they were here earlier.

"I'm so glad you're here," Charlotte tells her, but the words sound more strained than she intended.

Probably because I've never met her before in my life, and here I am clinging to her like she's my long-lost best friend.

She releases Aimee from her grasp.

"My luggage," the girl says, turning to the suitcase she left behind in the doorway.

"I'll get it. Sit down." Charlotte hurries over to grab the bag, noticing the airline tag around the handle. "You had to check it?"

Too big for carry-on. I didn't know how long I'd be here, so I just threw everything into the biggest bag I had." 'That's good." Charlotte nods, trying to think of something else to say, and missing her husband more than ever. This wasn't how she was supposed to meet Royce's daughter for the first time.

"When I didn't see you in the big waiting room I was worried that something went wrong and he was still in surgery, but I can tell by your face that Daddy's okay. He is, isn't he?" Aimee adds anxiously.

"He's out of the OR but still in recovery. They told me I could wait in here instead of going down to the big waiting room."

"Why?"

The question is perfunctory, yet Charlotte doesn't want to answer it.

She suspects the nurses allowed her to remain in this small, empty waiting room rather than mingle with the masses because she's a Remington, a VIP. Or maybe it's because of the commotion caused earlier down the hall when a couple of pesky reporters tried to question her, before a stern nurse ordered them out.

It doesn't matter why she's here. She's far more comfortable in seclusion, where she can weep and pace and worry away from the prying eyes of strangers.

"How did the operation go?" Aimee asks.

'The surgeon said we're lucky it didn't shatter the bone, or hit an artery…" She shudders at what might have been.

"Oh, God." Tears spring to Aimee's eyes. "I've been so worried… I tried to call you when I landed but I got your voice mail. Is Daddy awake? Has he said anything?"

"I don't know, I haven't seen him. The doctor said they were able to remove the bullet and repair the damage to his leg."

Charlotte can't help but feel as though she's methodically reciting a report she's given before, and in a sense, she is. She repeated the same information to both her cousins when they were here earlier.

It took at least two hours after she called Phyllida for her to show up with Gib. They both seemed shaken, and asked if there was anything else they could do.

There are probably a lot of things they could do, if Charlotte was capable of thinking straight-and willing to ask.

But she is neither. Not under the circumstances.

"So Daddy will really be okay?"

They said he will."

Thank God." Aimee's voice is ragged; she sinks into a chair. "It must have been awful… You must have been so scared." “I was."

Charlotte closes her eyes tightly, trying to block out the barrage of memories.

The deafening report of what she didn't even realize was gunfire…

The shocking sight of Royce lying at her feet, bleeding…

Cradling her moaning husband in her lap on the wooden porch floor, pressing the open wound in his leg with her bare hand…

It seemed as though she sat that way forever, fearing the worst, reliving the frightful moments on the beach that day as the lifeguards searched for her lost son in the surf. But that took hours; this couldn't have been very long at all.

No, she heard sirens screaming through the night even as the 9-1-1 operator she had reached on her cell phone told her to stem the flow, keep him alert, and stay on the phone-that help was on its way.

They let Charlotte ride in the back of the ambulance with him, and she watched as the paramedics stabilized him and stopped the bleeding. Royce was conscious, moaning, but unable to respond to the questions the medics were asking.

Mostly the questions were about his pain, but one of them did ask if he had any idea who could have shot him.

Royce could only groan in response.

At the time, Charlotte was irked that the medics would even ask such a question at a time like that.

Now she understands that it was necessary; that they were probably trained to do so.

And when Aimee asks almost the same tiling now- "Did the police get whoever shot him?"-Charlotte is less irked than she is reluctant to reply.

"I wish I could tell you they'd found him, but they haven't. They think it might have been random, a sniper attack."

"Oh, my God." Aimee digs her fingertips into her scalp beneath a thick mane of flaxen hair. "Poor, poor Daddy."

Struck by a wave of renewed longing for Royce, Charlotte fumbles in her purse for a tissue, finding only a clump of damp used ones.

She turns her back, hoping Aimee won't hear her sniffling, and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand.

Royce. I need you, Royce.

"Here…" Aimee is pressing a packet of Kleenex into her hand. "Take this."

"Thank you," she manages to say, before her voice gives way to sobs.