The Final Victim(73)

A floorboard creaks, and Dorado reappears in the doorway, a questioning look on his darkly handsome face.

"My daughter's gone," she tells him.

He nods. "All right."

She sees a flicker of sympathy in his eyes and wishes he would say something, anything, to make this less disturbing.

But he simply turns to leave the room, undoubtedly going to alert Williamson that the coast is clear.

The backup officers are already on their way, she knows. As soon as they arrive, Charlotte is certain, chaos will prevail.

Gib and the others will be questioned, and the detectives will be free to execute the search warrant they obtained before they arrived.

If Grandaddy really is haunting Oakgate, he's got to be furious about this, Charlotte thinks, shaking her head in dread as she hears heavy footsteps going up the stairs already.

"I still have no idea why you left everything to me and not to my cousins, but I really don't think Gib is guilty, Grandaddy," she whispers to his ghost. "I want to help him somehow. But there's nothing I can do for him now."

Then it comes to her, as if her grandfather's spirit really does exist, and is channeling thoughts into her head.

There is one thing she can do.

She hurries out of the parlor to make the necessary phone call.

Perched in her wheelchair before the oval mahogany cheval mirror, Jeanne stares vacantly at her reflection.

One story below, she can hear heavy footfalls, creaking floorboards, doors opening and closing, and the rumble of unfamiliar voices.

"Something is going on down there." Melanie's voice is an octave lower than usual and she frowns as she runs the brush through Jeanne's long white hair. "I don't like the sounds of it, Jeanne, do you?"

"No…"

The bristles tug at a snarl; Jeanne winces.

Melanie's reflection reveals that she doesn't even notice; her eyes dart expectantly toward the door with every stroke.

"What do you think is happening?" Jeanne asks nervously.

"I have no idea. Do you want me to go down and check?"

"I don't know. I'm afraid…"

The distinct crunch of rubber tires on the crushed-shell driveway floats up through the open window at the front of the house.

"Do you hear that? Somebody else is here," she informs Melanie, who has already lowered the brush and r is hurrying over to peer out.

"It's definitely a police car," she reports. 'This time, it's marked. But I knew those others were cop cars, too. f One, two, three… Why are all these police here, Jeanne? This isn't good. It isn't good at all."

Gnarled hands clenched into fists in her lap, Jeanne remains silent, staring at herself in the mirror-this time, really seeing what is there.

A sad, lonely old woman.

There was a time, in her youth, when she was quite beautiful, almost as great a beauty as her grandniece Charlotte, minus the distinctive Remington cleft chin, of course.

The first time Jeanne laid eyes on Charlotte the day Norris and Connie June brought her home as a newborn, that chin of hers surely put to rest any doubt that Charlotte was a Remington, through and through…

More importantly, that her father was, before her.

Unlike his older brother, Xavy, Norris never did favor his father's side of the family. He had the same long, lean build, but his coloring was different, lighter. He looked so little like a Remington, in fact, that outsiders occasionally teased Eleanore about the mailman.

She never laughed.

Within these tabby and brick walls, there was no teasing about Norris's looks. Gilbert managed to treat his second son the same as he did his namesake. But Jeanne knew her brother had his doubts about his paternity.

More importantly, Eleanore knew as well. Nothing would convince her stubbornly suspicious husband of her faithfulness.

Nothing during her lifetime, anyway. Eleanore didn't live to see the granddaughter whose birth put the question to rest.

Before Charlotte came along, Jeanne herself used to stare at Norris, looking for any resemblance to Jonathan Barrow, the handsome financier Eleanore met at one of her own dinner parties not long after Xavy was born.

In the wake of Gilbert's accusations, Mr. Barrow was banned from Oakgate forever.

Jeanne longed to come right out and ask her sister-in-law, point-blank, if it was true she'd had an affair. Jeanne would have understood-in fact, wouldn't have blamed her sister-in-law if she had packed up the babies and left Gilbert altogether.

Nor would she have been surprised if Eleanore had threatened to take Gilbert's life-and her own-just as Jeanne's mother, Marie, had threatened, decades earlier brandishing a mother-of-pearl-handled pistol.

One would think that her brother-after watching his own mean-tempered father drive his mother in the arms of another man-would have learned. On would have expected Gilbert Remington H to do everything in his power to make his own marriage work.

But then, Gilbert never did see the worst of what had happened between his parents. Only Jeanne was here, cowering in her bed, on the night when the gun was drawn. Gilbert was safely off at Telfair Academy.

Thus, the sins of the father were passed to the son, along with the alma mater, the Remington millions-and the widower's curse.

Life went on… for everyone except Eleanore.

Jeanne wonders to this day whether her brother secretly blamed himself for his wife's suicide.