The Final Victim(8)

Now he knows as well as Phyllida does that it's going to take more than what's left of their Remington trust funds to see the two of them through the remainder of their adulthood, not to mention helping to care for their mother eventually.

Right now, Susan Remington is living in Providence with one of her sisters and working at a boutique. Someday soon, she's going to need financial help, and it will be up to her children to provide it. What else does she have? Her own family lost everything when their importing business went belly-up years ago; she'll get nothing from them.

Gib's law degree is mostly for show, as far as Phyllida can tell. When she pressed him, he admitted he has yet to join a firm.

"But don't tell Mother," he warned. "I let her think I accepted an offer last month-just so she won't worry about me," he added at Phyllida's frown.

As for her, the mere few million she received on her twenty-first birthday barely funded her move to California, a house in Beverly Hills, acting lessons, cosmetic surgery, and her wedding.

She chose Oakgate as the setting-not out of sentiment or Southern tradition, but because it was free-cost-wise and scheduling-wise. She was pregnant; the wedding had to be thrown together in a matter of months; there was no time to wait for an opening at a glitzy Beverly Hills reception hall.

Anyway, Oakgate was large enough to hold, and in close proximity to, hundreds of well-heeled guests who came bearing lucrative envelopes.

Hers was a fairy-tale wedding, the kind she'd dreamed about ever since she was a little girl, despite the fact that she was secretly well into her second trimester when she walked down the aisle.

But it hasn't been a fairy-tale marriage.

Well, whose fault is that? You could have married a rich husband, she reminds herself.

But back then she was still crazy about Brian. With his square-jawed, swoop-haired, preppy good looks and upscale wardrobe, she thought he came from a wealthy family.

Turned out he was probably a better actor than most of those trying to make it a profession in LA: he grew un in a blue-collar household in Long Beach. When Phyllida met him, he was a caddy at a fancy country club and M salesman in the men's department in Neiman Marcus where he made good use of his natural charisma and his employee discount.

Infatuated, Phyllida was naive enough to believe them could indefinitely live a Beverly Hills lifestyle on his pay her trust fund, and the wedding booty. But there was always the promise of Remington millions on the horizon-not to mention her acting paychecks once she hit it big.

So far, she hasn't, though she hasn't given up that dream. But at this point, Phyllida is banking on her inheritance from Grandaddy as optimistically as her brother is, if not as blatantly.

So, she's certain, is Charlotte. That second husband of hers is some kind of computer technician. He can't possibly be supporting her and Lianna in the style to which they were accustomed.

Sorry, Grandaddy, but your death is a blessing.

For all of us.

Her palm skimming the polished wood banister as she goes upstairs, Charlotte is reminded of the time Grandaddy caught her sliding down it as a little girl.

"What on earth do you think you're doing, child?" he boomed, startling her so that she nearly toppled to the marble floor below. 'That isn't a dime-store pony ride. Get down this instant! You know better."

She did, and it was the first-and last-time she ever broke that, or any other rule of the household. For years after, she would glance longingly at the inviting slope and remember those stolen moments of childish glee, so swiftly curtailed.

Back then, she was a mere visitor at Oakgate-and an occasional one, at that. Grandaddy's primary residence at the time was a Greek Revival mansion on Orleans Square in Savannah that had been in the family since the eighteenth century. Hardly the sentimental type, Gilbert sold it well before the revitalization of the historic district. Charlotte, who was sentimental, wistfully walked by it sometimes when she was growing up; saw it fall into disrepair, turned into tenements, and ultimately torn down.

Thank goodness her grandfather chose to keep the immediate grounds and gardens of Oakgate, including the forlorn little ancestral cemetery. The brick main house was built by Charlotte's great-great-greatgrandfather, and its ownership has never strayed beyond the Remington family. It was constructed in typical antebellum style: symmetrical facade fronted by grand white pillars and a wide portico; hipped roof punctuated third-floor dormers; distinctive raised basement wall constructed of tabby, a regional mixture of oyster shell sand, lime, and water.

Oakgate didn't become Charlotte's official residence until the summer after she graduated from Duke, when she settled here rather than return home to live Savannah with her recently widowed mother.

Daddy had been the bond that held the two of the together; without him, she felt out of place at home She was closer to her grandfather than to her mother, and it seemed logical that she live at Oakgate with him.

It wasn't natural, on the heels of free-and-easy dormitory life, to settle into an old man's household with an old man's unbending rules and rituals. But somehow, they made it work. Charlotte eventually found herself looking forward to the rigid daily schedule of domestic events at Oakgate, in such stark contrast to her parents' chaotic nonroutines.

Every morning at precisely seven o'clock, Nydia served the same breakfast: grits, poached eggs, and slabs of thick country bacon that in the end probably contributed to Grandaddy's demise. The timing and menu didn't vary with the day of the week or the season; nor did it vary with the personal whims of the cook or diner.