The Final Victim(58)

Stayed there on our wedding night, before we left for Niagara Falls.

No, she shouldn't say that to Royce's daughter; it might be insensitive, considering the romantic, intimate honeymoon images it evokes.

"Is it expensive?" Aimee asks a bit apprehensively, seeming not to notice Charlotte's unfinished sentence.

"Not very," she replies, and, seeing the look on the girl's face, quickly thinks better of it. Her idea of what's expensive is probably very different from that of a girl who just graduated nursing school and doesn't have a job yet. "But of course, we'll pay for your room, Aimee. And we'll reimburse you for your plane ticket."

"Oh, no, Charlotte, I wasn't hinting for y'all to-"

"I know you weren't hinting. But of course we'll pay for it In fact, I can give you the money for the ticket right now," she offers somewhat awkwardly, reaching for her purse. For all she knows, Aimee spent her last dollar on the flight. "How much was it?' "It wasn't much at all, and I can't let y'all do that. Really. I can afford it."

"It must have been a fortune at the last minute like that."

"It wasn't bad. Really. And I'm a big girl. Y'all don't have to pay for my room. Just… Maybe there's a Super 8 around, or something?"

"I'm… not sure. But we'll check."

I should just ask her to come back to Oakgate with me, Charlotte thinks. But with her cousins occupying the other guestrooms, where would Aimee even stay?

There's Grandaddy's room…

Charlotte hasn't ventured there since he died, but Nydia has been cleaning it regularly. And it isn't as though he was the type of man who collected clutter and had personal effects scattered about.

In fact, it's one of the few rooms in the house that remains free of framed photographs and other remnants of the past Anyone glancing through the doorway might mistake it for a guest room: all it contains are a bed, a chair, and several bureaus and a nightstand whose tops contain only table lamps. Plus, there's a private bathroom.

But that's where Grandaddy died. Does it really feel right to turn it over to a stranger?

Not a stranger. My husband's daughter. My stepdaughter.

Unaware of Charlotte's inner turmoil, Aimee says, Thank you so much again for calling me last night."

"Of course! Of course I would call you."

"I don't know… You didn't have to."

Before Charlotte can interject a protest, Aimee goes on, "But you did call. And I appreciate your thinking of me right away."

Charlotte hesitates, then, because she has to say something, tells Aimee, "You must know that I totally respect your relationship with your dad…"

She trails off, aware that this isn't the time or place for this conversation.

Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine that her first meeting with Aimee would be in a hospital waiting room, with Royce lying unconscious.

She always pictured flying with him to New Orleans; shaking hands with Aimee in the airport, or maybe even giving her a motherly, polite embrace. Then they would all go someplace for a nice dinner…

But it wasn't meant to happen that way.

Life is a series of accidents… some good, some bad…

And some, Charlotte can't help but think with trepidation, perhaps not accidents at all.

Lianna is sitting on the bottom step on the stairs in the front hall at Oakgate, willing the doorbell to ring, when a voice from above startles her.

"What on earth are you doing down there?"

She looks up to find Nydia peering down at her. "Geez, do you have to sneak up on people like that?"

The housekeeper narrows her eyes as she walks down the stairs, a can of furniture polish and a rag in her hand. "I wouldn't go around accusing other people of sneaking around, if I were you."

Lianna scowls. Obviously, nobody's business is private around here.

"Hey, isn't this your day off?" Lianna asks. When she got up at twelve thirty, she figured the housekeeper must have been long gone.

'Your mother asked me to stay. All this company in the house makes extra work."

Judging by the disdainful look on her face, Nydia doesn't appreciate that.

"Do you know where my mother and Royce went this morning?" Lianna asks, changing the subject.

Nydia stops to wipe something, probably a microscopic fleck of dust, on the wooden stair tread as she answers, "I haven't seen them. Why?"

"I just wondered, that's all. When I got up, they were already gone somewhere."

She wait for the inevitable comment about sleeping late. Not that Nydia has said anything about it in the past, but Lianna can tell by her usual attitude that she disapproves of anyone lying around in bed past noon.

"You still haven't told me why you're sitting here all dressed up," is all Nydia says.

Lianna is wearing the sundress Mom bought for her at the beginning of the summer, the one Lianna said was too fancy to wear.

She changed her mind when she tried it on. It made her look longer, leaner, more grown up.

More like Mom, in fact.

"My father's coming to see me," she informs Nydia.

"How do you know that?"

"He told me yesterday. He was supposed to try and come last night but he got hung up at the restaurant with some business clients."