The Final Victim(6)

Years before Charlotte was born, Remington Paper was swallowed up by an internationally renowned conglomerate, Global Paper Corporation; its operation moved to the Midwest, the paper mill was razed and a low-income housing development built on its site.

Grandaddy reinforced his position as one of the wealthiest men-and the family name among the most prominent-in coastal Georgia. As the local newspaper's social columnist once wrote: Boston has the Kennedys, New I York the Rockefellers, Delaware the Duponts, and Savannah the Remingtons.

What the press failed to note is that unlike his Northern counterparts, Grandaddy wasn't exactly a philanthropist The world never knew-or at least the press refrained from mentioning-his frugality. His children and grandchildren were provided with perfunctory trust funds, but he was determined to control the family purse strings until he died. His sons, who had been content with their figurehead positions in the mill, were equally content to live off the profits as long as they could afford their bon vivant lifestyles.

"What do you say?" Royce is asking. "Some seafood, a nice glass of Pinot Grigio…"

"The Pinot Grigio is definitely tempting. I wish there were a bottle in the house, though… That way we wouldn't have to go out." But there's no liquor here at Oakgate. Grandaddy didn't imbibe, or condone it in outers, or allow the stuff to cross his threshold.

"Oh, let's go. Maybe we can even catch a movie after we eat. It'll get your mind off things."

"I shouldn't really be out socializing in public tonight,"

Charlotte reminds her husband. "It doesn't look right."

His brown eyes overcast with understanding, Royce nonetheless shakes his head and urges, "Come on,Charlotte. We're not staying on the island."

"Grandaddy wasn't exactly anonymous in Savannah, and neither am I. People will say, 'Look at her, out celebrating all those millions she just inherited.'"

That disapproving comment was uttered by Grandaddy himself about the widow of Dr. Silas Neville, his lifelong friend, when she showed up at the hospital ball in a red gown just weeks after the funeral.

"Who cares what people think?" Royce asks.

"Not me, but…"

Oh, who are you kidding, Charlotte?

The magnolia blossom doesn't fall far from the tree, or so Grandaddy liked to say. The Remingtons have always played by the rules of polite Southern society. Charlotte was raised to be a lady at all times.

That, in part, is why it took her so long to get out of her marriage to a man who was anything but a gentleman. If Vincent hadn't taken it upon himself to end it, she might still be with him.

What an abhorrent thought.

"I'm just not in the mood to go out," she tells Royce. "But you go, take Lianna. And maybe you should see if anyone else wants to join y'all," she adds as an afterthought, remembering the Remington relatives currently staying with them at Oakgate.

"I barely know your cousins."

"That makes two of us. They were much younger, and I only saw them when they visited down here in the summers, remember?"

"Well, forgive me for saying this, but from what I do know, I'm not exactly anxious to spend the evening with them."

She smiles briefly. "It's all right. I don't blame you. But Lianna-"

"She won't come out of her room."

"Why not?"

"Who knows? She's refusing to talk." Charlotte sighs. "Again?"

"She's probably just upset about your Grandaddy."

Charlotte shakes her head grimly. Her temperamental daughter took to barricading herself in her bedroom in stony silence well before her greatgrandfather's fatal heart attack.

If the doors in this old house had been updated in the last sixty years, Charlotte wouldn't hesitate to unlock her daughter's and barge in whenever she pulls this. But Grandaddy, whose parents reportedly used to lock him in his room for days as punishment, had all the two-way locks removed when he became head of the household.

Now there are no keys; all bedroom doors lock only with latches on the inside. And Charlotte refuses to stand in the hall begging Lianna to open up, having endured that futile power struggle on more than one occasion.

Although handling Lianna's recent transformation from docile child to tantrum queen pales in comparison to other, far more traumatic maternal experiences Charlotte had faced in the past, it's distressing nonetheless.

With a rustle of her black-silk funeral dress, she stands and heads for the doorway.

"I already tried to talk to her," Royce warns. "She won't even answer. I think she's locked in for the rest of the night."

"I'm not going to try to talk to her. I'm going to change out of this dress so you can take me to dinner, just the two of us."

"Really?"

"Really." Suddenly, the last thing she wants is to spend a long evening in this house with a sullen teenager, a batty old aunt, and assorted relatives who came for the memorial service and obviously feel entitled to linger.

It's been a couple of years since Charlotte has seen Gib and Phyllida. Gib is presumably an attorney in Boston by now, and his sister moved to the West Coast years ago to pursue acting, before she was married. Charlotte hasn't seen Phyllida's husband, Brian, since their wedding, or glimpsed so much as a photo of their son, Wills.