by that's me
THE NEXT TO DIE
The cabin's sturdy new door is still closed and padlocked, just as it was left in the wee hours Saturday morning…
And then there were two.
"Yoo-hoo! Ladies!"
Oh, wait, it's not good manners to neglect to knock before dropping in, so…
The rubber-grip end of the heavy flashlight beats a satisfying rhythm on the new door of the small brick house.
The key turns easily; the padlock falls away with a clanking sound. The door doesn't even creak as it swings open…
A wall of stench rolls out through the open door.
The flashlight's beam arcs across the exposed brick walls, the doll furniture, the maggot-filled carcass that used to be Pammy Sue. Then it falls on what looks like a heap of rags on the dirt-or rather, mud-floor in the far corner.
After a swift, hard kick, the pile of rags in the opposite corner squirms to life.
Phyllida Remington gazes up from the filth, blinking into the light.
Miss Beverly Hills is beautiful no more.
The artfully sculpted nose was shattered by the antique andiron she never saw coming at her.
Those surgically enhanced cheekbones are swollen purple and smeared with blackened streaks of dried blood.
And her blue eyes are round with fear, bewilderment and, most satisfying of all: horrified, shocked recognition…
Books by Wendy Corsf Staub
DEARLY BELOVED
FADE TO BLACK
ALL THE WAY HOME
THE LAST TO KNOW
IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE
SHE LOVES ME NOT
KISS HER GOODBYE
LULLABY AND GOODNIGHT
THE FINAL VICTIM
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
WENDY CORSI STAUB
The FINAL VICTIM
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
PARTI
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
PART II
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
PART III
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
PART IV
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
Part V
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
EPILOGUE
ZEBRA BOOKS KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
ZEBRA BOOKS are published by Kensington Publishing Corp. 850 Third Avenue New York, NY 10022 Copyright © 2006 by Wendy Corsi Staub All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."
All Kensington titles, imprints, and distributed lines are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotion, premiums, fund-raising, educational or institutional use.
Special book excerpts or customized printings can also be created to fit specific needs. For details, write or phone the office of the Kensington Special Sales Manager: Attn. Special Sales Department. Kensington Publishing Corp., 850 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022. Phone: 1-800-221-2647.
Zebra and the Z logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN 0-8217-7971-0
First Printing: April 2006
10 987654321
Printed in the United States of America
For Mark, Morgan, and Brody.
For my beloved father, known to most as Reg Corsi, and to a lucky few as simply "Poppo."
And in loving memory of my cherished mother, Francella Corsi, April 1942-May 2005.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author extends deepest gratitude to Laura Blake Peterson, Nathan Bransford, and the staff at Curtis Brown, Ltd.; John Scognamiglio and the staff at Kensington Books; and Nancy Berland and the staff at Nancy Berland Public Relations. In addition, the author wishes to thank the staff at Boone Hall Plantation; the staff at The Isaiah Davenport House; Barbara McQueeney, the concierge Marty Weiss, and the efficient staff at Marriott Savannah Riverfront; the knowledgeable guides at Savannah's Old Town Trolley Tours; and last alphabetically but never least, Wendy Zemanski.
The author also acknowledges having taken deliberate liberties with the timing of actual events depicted within this fictional plot, having opted for literary license over historic accuracy.
PROLOGUE
It took two years for her to come back to the beach.
Two years, the divorce, and the realization that life must go on.
Charlotte Remington, who took back her maiden name after her husband left, has no choice but to keep getting up in the morning, keep moving, keep breathing… if only for her remaining child's sake.
Breathe.
How many times during the initial shock did she have to remind herself to do just that?
Breathe, Charlotte. In and out. Just breathe. Keep breathing, even though your chest is constricted and your heart is breaking; even though you want to stop breathing…
Even though you want to die.
Charlotte Remington thought she had everything: loyal husband, loving son, happy-go-lucky daughter, loyal friends.
Now they're all gone.
Now there is only Charlotte, haunted and bereft; and a sad-eyed little girl who watched her big brother drown on a beautiful July day, just yards from the shoreline. This shoreline.
But it happened a long time ago; a lifetime ago. The first time, afterward, that Charlotte returned to the southeastern shore of Achoco Island to inhale brackish air, feel sand beneath her feet, and gaze again over the sea, she wanted to flee.
But she forced herself to stay.
Breathe. Just keep breathing.
And she forced herself to keep coming back, all through that first summer without Adam. And again the following year. And the one after that… It's been five years now. Five years and seven weeks, to be exact. Here she sits amidst the Labor Day weekend crowd, the day after a lavish family wedding. She has a pounding headache, though not from overindulging last night the wedding was dry. Grandaddy, a fiercely dedicated teetotaler, won't allow liquor to cross his threshold. But there was a band, and a crowd, and Charlotte danced too much, and stayed up far too late chatting with peop
le she hadn't seen in years.
It was fun. She has few regrets about last night as she lounges in her blue and white striped canvas sand chair with her woven sweetgrass hat on her aching head, a romance novel in her hands, and her daughter at her side.
Lianna never goes into the water. Not here. Not anywhere. Not even a pool.
The other parents in Charlotte's bereavement support group back in Savannah have experienced similar reactions in their surviving children. One, who lost a teenager in a traffic accident, said his younger son had panic attacks for months every time they got into the car. Another, whose toddler succumbed to a rare stomach disease, said the older sibling eventually developed anorexia, afraid to eat lest she somehow "catch" what her little sister had.
Perhaps Lianna will never venture into the water again. Then again, maybe she will. The child psychiatrist she's been seeing since the tragedy told Charlotte not to push her. So she doesn't.
She just brings her to the island beach on beautiful summer days, where they sit companionably side by side with their books, and they breathe salt air.
Just breathe.
The beach is postcard-perfection on this, the last official weekend of summer.
Down beyond the dunes, where sea oats sway in the warm salt breeze, bright-colored blankets and umbrellas dot powdery sand. Crisp white sails skim the horizon. The ocean air is rife with the sounds of gleeful children splashing in the surf, the incessant roar of the waves, the squawking of circling gulls, the hum of banner-toting planes cruising the coast.
Largely unpopulated until the last decade or so, Achoco Island lies off the coast of Georgia, about midway between Tybee and the Golden Isles; nowhere near the tourist hub of either. The entire northern end, above the longer of the two mainland causeways, consists of a wetland wildlife refuge and what remains of the Remington family's private estate.
But the island's southeastern shore is teeming with activity on this cloudless September afternoon. A steady stream of beach traffic snakes from the boardwalk beyond the dunes to both the north and south causeways, and no doubt all the way back to the mainland highway to Interstate 95.
That's why this day was chosen. Because of all the people.
The holiday crowd surpasses every expectation and will serve its purpose. Nobody pays the least bit of attention to the lone occupant of a blanket carefully spread a strategic distance from any of the three lifeguard towers.
Nobody suspects that this idyllic holiday weekend is about to give way to chaos-and tragedy-the likes of which this beach hasn't seen in five years.
Or, to be more precise, five years and seven weeks.
"Well, look at you! If it isn't Mimi Gaspar, all grown up and gorgeous!"
Perched high above the sun-baked sand on the wooden lifeguard tower, Mimi-nee Martha Maude- Gaspar doesn't allow her gaze to leave the surf for even a split second.
The waters off Georgia's crowded island beach are choppy today, courtesy of a new tropical depression churning six hundred miles southeast in the Caribbean.
Anyway, she can identify the speaker by his voice alone, though it's been a few years since she heard Gib Remington's trademark low-pitched, lazy drawl. A fake drawl, as far as Mimi is concerned.
He didn't even grow up in the South-he was raised in Rhode Island, where his mother's family lived. After he was kicked out of his boarding school there, he was sent to Telfair Academy, his father's and grandfather's alma mater down here, presumably where his stern Grandaddy could keep an eye on him. A lot of good that did.
"What's the matter, you're still not speaking to me?" he asks.
"I figured y'all were back for your sister's wedding yesterday," Mimi says at last.
The beautiful Phyllida Remington might be living among the movie stars in California's Beverly Hills- with hopes of becoming one herself-but she chose to marry at the family's nineteenth-century mansion right here in the Low Country. The wedding was the social event of the summer for the hundreds who were invited.
Mimi was not among them. She doubts she'd have been welcome even if she was still dating Gib. He never did bring her home to meet his family.
"I'm only here till tomorrow. I'm flying back up to Boston first thing in the morning," Gib informs her importantly. 'The fall semester starts Wednesday."
Law school. Some fancy one in New England, maybe Ivy League. She doesn't know for certain, and she doesn't care.
"What about yours?" Gib asks.
"My what?" She skims the whitecaps for the pale head of a surfer who just took a harrowing tumble off his board. It's one of the Tinkston brothers, probably Kevin, the youngest of the four notorious local hell-raisers. Down at the water's edge, two fellow lifeguards stand at the ready with orange rescue tubes.
"Your fall semester."
Yeah, right.
Once upon a time, her future was promising. She had been a full-scholarship student at Telfair Academy-live out, of course-and followed up her high school career with another free ride at Georgia Southern. She was working on a degree in international studies, dreaming of one day moving abroad.
But that was before Daddy, a fisherman and heavy smoker, was diagnosed with lung disease.
Now, as beach season draws to a close and her pals prepare to head back to dormitories and lecture halls, she'll be peddling her meager resume around Savannah. She has to get a regular job and help her parents make ends meet-never an easy task for them, but nearly impossible now.
"Let's hook up tonight and catch up," Gib suggests, undaunted by her failure to respond to his last question. "What time are you off duty?"
Ignoring that as well, Mimi watches the Tinkston boy resurface among the breakers and promptly paddle back out with his board in tow, resilient, she thinks, as her ex-boyfriend here at the base of the lifeguard tower. Gib seems to have forgotten that the last time they saw each other she informed him she never wanted to see him again.
Technically, she still hasn't. Seen him, that is.
But curiosity gets the best of her now. She flicks her gaze downward to catch a glimpse of him.
Big mistake.
Law school obviously agrees with Gilbert Xavier Remington IV.
So does yet another summer spent in New England as a lifeguard on a coastal island presumably worlds away from this one.
Deeply tanned, clad only in red and white hibiscus-print board shorts and sunglasses, Gib is all abs and biceps. His hair is longer than it was when he lived under his father's roof. The sea breeze whips the sun-streaked locks back from his face to reveal a familiar jawline Mimi often traced with her fingertips, and the full lips that have been kissing other girls-countless o
ther girls, she's sure.
She shouldn't have looked at him, damn it.
Now it's almost impossible to drag her eyes away and focus them back on the water, where they belong.
She's already got a boyfriend: Jed Johnston, whom she's known her whole life. His family lives a few doors down from hers in Tidewater Meadow, a low-income island housing development. The two of them were inseparable until Mimi went to prestigious Telfair Academy and Jed to tiny Achoco Public.
