The Final Victim(60)

That stretch of Oglethorpe Avenue is mainly residential. At the hour of the night when Royce was shot, pedestrians were few and far between.

So why there?

Why then?

Why Royce?

Charlotte is almost looking forward to her next meeting with the detectives, though it won't be fun to sit through another session like the one she endured earlier.

Maybe Aimee will be here with me, she thinks hopefully.

Of course she will. Where else does she have to go? Unlike Gib and Phyllida, her main concern is for her father's well-being.

Relieved to be in the company of a kindred spirit, Charlotte lets out a deep, quavering breath.

"You know, everything is going to be okay," Aimee says. "I just really feel like he's going to be fine."

"I know he is… But why Royce? Why did this happen to him?"

"The police really don't know who did it?" Aimee asks again.

"No."

"Well, they're right about it probably being random… I know that for sure."

"How do you know?"

"Because Daddy didn't have an enemy in the world."

I wouldn't say that, Charlotte can't help thinking.

And I don't think Royce would, either.

It's no secret that Vince holds a grudge against his daughter's stepfather.

Still, for everything Vince is, Charlotte is fairly certain of what he isn't, a cold-blooded killer.

But Vince isn't the only one who isn't fond of Royce.

He has frequently mentioned how much his ex-wife hates him. He said it just the other night, when Charlotte told him she'd never encountered anyone who didn't like him.

That's because you haven't met Karen.

Could his ex possibly hate him enough to come here and gun him down?

Again, Charlotte thinks of the person she saw in the cemetery. She gave as thorough a description as she could to the investigators, which was a challenge, considering that she didn't see much.

As she told the detectives, all she knew for sure was that he was wearing dark clothes, and agile enough to be mistaken for a teenager.

In other words, it was no hulking, six-foot tall hit man…

Or woman.

After all, the shooter could have been a female.

Oh, come on, Charlotte. You're not really thinking Royce's ex-wife hates him enough to try to kill him, are you?

No. Of course not. It's just…

Well, as she learned in the bereavement group that literally saved her life, grief can do strange things to people. It can put ideas into their heads they might otherwise never have conceived-or seriously considered.

Why else would Charlotte have fantasized about taking her own life after her only son lost his? If it wasn't for Lianna, she would never have gone on.

Karen doesn't have a small child at home who needs her. Aimee just graduated from nursing school; she'll be out on her own from now on. And, more importantly, she's forgiven her father, forged a new bond with him.

How does Karen feel about that?

On Charlotte's best days, despite her best intentions to be adult about the situation, she can't help but resent Vince's relationship with Lianna.

She should be glad, perhaps, that her daughter doesn't see him for what he really is, but she isn't always. Not when she herself gets the brunt of Lianna's moodiness and has the sole responsibility for disciplining her, while Vince is the lone recipient of whatever shred of respect a troubled adolescent is capable of showing anyone.

Surely Karen has mixed feelings, at the very least, about Aimee welcoming Royce back into her life?

The door to the waiting room opens, and a nurse in green scrubs peers in. "Mrs. Maitland?"

"Yes?" Charlotte gets immediately to her feet, pulse racing.

"You can see your husband now. He's awake."

"Thank you." She practically flies across the room, and is halfway to the door before she remembers.

Aimee.

"This is his daughter," she tells the nurse, turning back. "Can she come, too?"

"Of course. But only one of y'all in the room at a time. The other can wait outside the door."

Aimee smiles gratefully at Charlotte, who grasps her hand tightly as the two of them hurry down the corridor after the nurse.

"You don't think she did it herself?" Phyllida asks her brother in disbelief, staring at him over the rim of her coffee cup.

"Shhh" Gib looks around as if to make sure the other patrons of the Bull Street Cafe haven't overheard. "I didn't say she did it…"

Phyllida lowers her voice to a whisper. "You just said-"

"What I meant was that she could have hired somebody to do it."

"I can't think of anything more out of character than prim-and-proper Charlotte sneaking around interviewing hit men. Sometimes I think you're losing it, Gib."

"And sometimes I think that prim-and-proper thing she does is an act."

"I don't know… I think she was really shaken up by this," she tells Gib. "I felt sorry for her at the hospital."

"So did I," he admits. "Do you think one of us should have stayed with her for a while?"

So Gib suddenly has a conscience? Talk about out of character…