The Final Victim(70)

Mimi's favorite teacher, in fact, and the one who helped her fill out all those essays on her scholarship-application forms.

To her credit, Miss Lucas was mortified.

To Mimi's utter disgust, Gib was not.

No, he had the nerve to be vexed that she had invaded his privacy and used her key-the key he had pressed on her just weeks earlier, when he hinted that it would be a nice birthday surprise if he came back from physics class and found her waiting for him, naked, in his bed.

So much for physics class.

So much for Miss Lucas being Mimi's favorite teacher.

And so much for Mimi being Gib Remington's girlfriend.

She vowed then that she would never speak to him again.

And she kept that vow…

Until that the day on the beach.

The day that forever altered the course of her life-just as Gib Remington's eighteenth birthday had years earlier and the Magnolia Clinic would years later.

"Why would Gib shoot Royce?" Charlotte asks in disbelief, still trying to absorb what the detectives have inferred these last few minutes, after she told them that the cufflinks belonged to her grandfather, and were bequeathed to Gib.

But if Gib did take them, there's no telling when, and that would mean that he helped himself from Grandaddy's jewelry box. At least, that's where the cufflinks were the last time Charlotte saw them, along with his prized gold watch, on the day her grandfather died - when she was gathering it and the burial suit he had chosen long ago.

"Could money have been a motive?" Williamson suggests. "It often is."

Seeing her cousin in a whole new light, Charlotte pushes aside a renewed rush of speculation over why Grandaddy might have disinherited Gib and Phyllida.

"Royce doesn't have money," she tells Williamson. "He runs a computer-consulting business."

"And he's married to you."

She shrugs. "Why him, then? Why not me?"

For a moment, the only sound is the chirping of birds beyond the tall screened windows, and the hum of the paddle fan as it turns overhead, failing to stir the sultry morning air.

Then Dorado says, "We aren't entirely sure that your husband was the shooter's intended target, Mrs. Maitland."

With a sigh, Mimi remembers her coffee, growing cold in her hand.

She shoves the cup into the microwave and presses Reheat, with a silent pledge to put Gib out of her thoughts for the remainder of the day.

Her regret that she had even approached him in the first place mingles now with relief that she wasn't forced to take things a step further.

She had been prepared to do whatever she had to, if it meant she'd have a way to get the money from Gib.

But in the end, that wasn't necessary.

Gib might have revealed his shocking little secret-his own unlikely poverty-but hers is still safe.

Yes, but at what cost?

Shaking her head as if to rid it of that distressing thought, Mimi opens the refrigerator to look for the half-and-half.

Staring unseeingly at the contents of the fridge, she reminds herself that it wasn't meant to be. She wasn't meant to tell. And now, she knows she never will.

But what about Jed? How can I help him now ?

Sorrow, swift and raw, settles over her once again.

At least she did the right thing, going to the police. If Gib had anything to do with the attack on his brother-in-law…

"Unless something god-awful happens to Charlotte and her husband…"

Mimi shakes her head.

Why did you have to go and say that, Gib?

Amazing that there's still a part of her that wants to protect him, even after all the lousy things he did to her.

She should be remembering being disgraced that day in his dormitory. She should be thinking payback is a bitch.

But she isn't.

She only feels sad for him.

That's because he's an expert manipulator. He knows just how to get what he wants.

Don't I know it.

There's another part of her, thank goodness, that doesn't give a damn about Gib Remington anymore. Yes, and she'd just as soon see him thrown in jail if he really did take a shot at Charlotte and her husband Saturday night.

If he didn't, the police will figure out his innocence quickly enough.

Detective Williamson certainly was grateful for her information. He was no teddy bear, but he did shake her hand warmly and thank her for coming forward.

So she did do the right thing.

Definitely.

Realizing that the microwave is beeping, she grabs the half-and-half. The cardboard carton is weightless when she lifts it from the shelf; she realizes it's all but empty.

Terrific. They're out of everything. Milk, bread, eggs…

I have to buy food, she thinks dully. And I have to pick up Jed's prescriptions from the pharmacy, and drop off Cam's library books and duck out before I have to pay a fine we can't afford, and pay the electric bill…

Life goes on.

It has a way of doing that.

It did after Daddy died.

It is now, with Jed so sick.

And it will even if something happens to him.

For the first time, Mimi allows herself to imagine life without her husband.

What will happen to me and Cam?

Who will love us?

She sinks into a chair, buries her head in her arms, and cries at last, long and hard.