The Final Victim(78)

The detectives don't believe him, and neither does Charlotte.

She's certain now that Grandaddy's reason for disinheriting Gib, and Phyllida, too, stemmed from something he must have found out about them. And she's going to find out what it is.

Now, however, she's just trying to focus on Royce, on getting him settled here at Oakgate so he can heal.

As for Phyllida…

Charlotte couldn't bring herself to ask her lingering cousin to leave, though that's what she wanted.

But Phyllida is going anyway. She announced tins morning that she's booked a flight out for tomorrow night.

"I wanted to get out over the weekend," she told Charlotte. They're saying there's a tropical storm coming tins way early in the week, and it could turn into a hurricane."

Charlotte was cordial, hoping to mask her relief with a pleasant, 'That's a good idea. You'll be home safe and sound before the storm hits."

Right, and-well, I wanted you to know I've realized there's no point now in contesting the will. So I might as well go."

Good. Just leave me alone, Charlotte thought when she said it.

She wants nothing further to do with either of her cousins, regardless of Grandaddy's reasons for disinheriting them. Charlotte is more than ready to move on… if not, necessarily, out.

The prospect of preparing Oakgate to be sold is daunting one. In her exhaustion, she can't imagine finding the motivation to start sorting through the house packing things up, bringing realtors through, making arrangements for Aunt Jeanne…

Anyway, there's no rush.

The house on Oglethorpe isn't ready yet, thank goodness. The renovation has ground to a halt, with the finishing fixtures and paint as yet unselected. On Monday afternoon, Charlotte instructed the contractor to just g on to his next project, promising she would call him t finish when things settle down.

"Are you sure you don't just want me to wrap thing up for you now, Mrs. Maitland?" Don asked, as she pulled out a pen and her checkbook. "If you just had few hours to go over the paint and the other couple o things, I could-"

"No," she said firmly. "Right now, my time is devote to my husband. We'll call you when we need y'all again after he gets out of the hospital."

The contractor left with a doubtful suit yourself shrug and a hefty check.

Now that Royce is out of the hospital, the last thin Charlotte wants to think about is that house.

Gone are her visions of cheerful, sun-splashed room and laughter; all she remembers is that awful night ' the dark, and fumes, and gunshots, and blood…

How can that house ever be home?

Maybe in time…

That's what Aimee keeps telling her.

'You know, I hate that this has robbed you of your spirit, Charlotte," she said just last night, when Charlotte halfheartedly said she didn't care where they stopped for dinner on the way back from the hospital, or what they ate. "Don't let him do this to you."

"Who?"

"Gib!" Aimee said, in a who else? tone. "He hasn't won yet. Daddy is alive, and so are you. And Gib is in jail. He can't hurt y'all anymore, and he can't win, unless you give in and let him."

Aimee is right.

Charlotte has no intention of letting Gib ruin the life she's worked so hard to rebuild. She just needs time.

Time for Royce's wounded leg to heal.

And time for Charlotte's wounded soul to do the same.

It has become increasingly difficult for Phyllida to leave her room. Every time she ventures out into the house, she feels like an interloper, disgraced by association to her brother.

Anyway, it's no longer as though she has as much a right to be here as Charlotte does.

The house, and everything in it, belong to Charlotte. It's a wonder she hasn't come right out and asked Phyllida to leave, though the unspoken invitation has been obvious all week.

Well, she'll be out tomorrow. With little else to occupy her, she's been watching the Weather Channel, and she has no desire to top off this horrendous visit East with a hurricane. All she wants for the next twenty-four hours is to be left alone to pack her things and gather her courage to return to the wreckage of her life.

Now, as she rounds a corner of the upstairs hall on her way to find something to eat in the kitchen, Phyllida is dismayed to hear movement on the stairs below.

She pauses to consider fleeing back to her room, but hunger gets the better of her and she continues on.

To her relief, it's only Melanie, Aunt Jeanne's terminally cheerful nurse, starting back up the stairs carrying a tray filled with food.

"How are you?" Phyllida asks, because she has to say something, conscious of the younger woman's curious gaze from the foot of the steps.

"Fine," Melanie says, and makes a tremendous effort to adjust a steaming cup on the tray with one hand.

That's so she won't have to look at me, Phyllida notes.

She'd be amused at the transparent ploy, if she weren't so darned…

Well, weary.

Not so much physically tired, though she can't remember the last time she slept through an entire night.

She's just… depleted. Utterly depleted, in every way. She has nothing left to give to anyone.

Not even her own child.

That's part of the reason she's lingered at Oakgate this long. How can she bring herself to fly home to her son when she can barely get through each day without falling apart?