by that's me
Again, she wonders whether her cousin made it home to California, and why she didn't at least say good-bye before she left. True, they aren't on the best of terms after all that's happened, but Phyllida must know Charlotte doesn't hold her responsible for her brother's actions.
Gib.
Even now, after all these days, she still can't quite grasp the enormity of what he did. Every morning, the shocking truth settles over her anew, like an ill-fitting uniform you can't wait to strip off when the day is done.
She supposes she'll get used to the idea that the enemy was lurking under this very roof-behind the mask of a loved one, no less.
Crossing the threshold into the parlor, she finds the heavy amber-silk draperies still pulled across the lace curtains, to block out the morning light.
When her eyes have grown accustomed to the dim interior, she glances toward the hospital bed on the far side of the room, in a nook beside the window. Royce is there, his mouth thrown open, obviously in a deep sleep.
After crossing the carpet on tiptoe, Charlotte realizes she'll need to tuck her car keys into her purse to free her hands for carrying the radio.
Unfortunately, she misses the zippered pocket, and the keys plummet to the floor. Of all the luck, en route, they strike one of the antique brass andirons with a deafening jangle.
Gasping in dismay, Charlotte swivels her head to look at Royce.
He doesn't even appear to have moved a muscle.
Panic overtakes her as she remembers the sight of Grandaddy's corpse, looking as though he had fallen sound asleep in the tub. In fact, she had almost convinced herself that Nydia was hysterical over nothing, jumping to conclusions…
Until she touched his skin and found it as cold as the bathwater and hard as the porcelain tub.
Heart pounding in dread, she walks over to Royce.
No, she thinks. This can't be happening.
I can't lose him now, after everything.
Slowly, she reaches for his hand, exposed on top of the sheet.
Thank God, she thinks as her fingers graze her husband's unmistakably warm flesh.
He doesn't even flinch as she gives him one last, firm stroke, just to be sure.
Aimee was right, she thinks, amused as she goes back to retrieve the keys. That painkiller he's on is good stuff. A freight train could roar through here, and it probably wouldn't even wake him.
On her key ring, the plastic frame that holds the Grand Canyon photo of herself and Royce has cracked.
Taken aback, Charlotte sees that a jagged line now appears to divide it in half, right between their smiling faces, almost as if it's a harbinger to…
No. Don't be ridiculous. Nothing is going to happen to Royce.
Anyway, the whole picture is an illusion in the first place: artificial backdrop, smiles, and all. They'd had a rare argument shortly before it was taken. Over what, she can no longer remember. It doesn't matter.
She gives her sleeping husband one last, grateful glance. He's going to be fine. Really.
"I won't be gone long," she whispers. "I love you."
Now she just needs to grab the radio, dash back to the kitchen for the recipe card, which she forgot on the counter, and be on her way.
There's just one problem.
The spot in the center of the mantel…
The spot where the radio sat for decades in its place of honor…
Is now conspicuously empty.
After a quick, fruitless search of the room-indeed, the entire first floor-Charlotte, dumbfounded, concludes that her Grandaddy's radio seems to have somehow vanished altogether.
With little to do each day but observe his own droughts, Gib has grown to loathe Detective Williamson.
Dorado is tolerable-you get the feeling that he's at least human, that you might actually like him under regular circumstances. His partner, however, is thoroughly abrasive in every possible way.
Thus, when Gib is summoned to face him in a window-less room no different, really, than a jail cell, it's all he can do not to-
What? Spit in his face? Give him the finger?
Yeah, that'll go over big. Especially with Tyler here. Gib can't help but notice that the lawyer seems to be growing less benevolent with every passing day.
In fact, this morning, Tyler sits, arms folded, as though he's waiting impatiently for the detectives to begin… or end, so he can get on with his day.
He also refuses to meet Gib's eyes.
That isn't a good sign.
Gib assumes they're all here for another attempt at plea bargaining. If so, they're wasting their time.
"We have a few more questions for you, Remington," Dorado informs him, and something in his tone warns Gib the case has taken a turn. For better or worse, he isn't certain. But he senses that there's been a new development.
His brain is immediately fraught with possibilities- and fear. Still, he's careful to maintain an utterly blank facade, lest the circling predators sniff blood in the water. Gib knows now, from experience, that they will feed off the slightest hint of vulnerability.
What the hell is going on?
Did they do another search of his belongings?
Did they look more closely at the items in his Dopp bag?
Could they possibly have found the contents of the receptacles disguised as a shaving cream can and hair product?
No! Of course not. If they didn't find it the first time, they aren't going to keep going over and over the same evidence, Gib reminds himself.
Still, it takes every bit of his concentration to keep from betraying his foreboding as Williamson says, "We're not going to beat around the bush with you, Remington."
Gib shrugs, even as a shrill voice in his head shrieks, They 've found it. They know everything. You 're fried.
"I'm going to ask you a straightforward question, Remington." Williamson leans forward, his voice menacingly low, "And I want a straightforward answer. Got it?"
Gib nods, holding his breath, reminding himself that this whole nightmarish situation is getting blown out of proportion.
Seriously, it's not like I've been accused of murder.
But Williamson's next words make quick wreckage of that particular thought, hitting Gib like a cyclone.
"Where were you on the night your grandfather died?"
Royce sighs, watching Charlotte once again look at the empty spot on the mantel, almost as though she expects the missing radio to have miraculously materialized there.
"Charlotte, there has to be a logical explanation for this," he says gently, and not for the first time since he woke from a sound sleep to find her moving the couch to search behind it.
"I know there is."
He can't help but say, "I promise that the house being haunted by your grandfather's ghost isn't it."
"I k
now it sounds cra2y…" She smiles sheepishly, turning away from the mantel to return to his bedside. "It's just that when it wasn't working, I thought maybe it 1 was because Grandaddy's spirit did something to it."
"Which makes a whole lot of sense." He returns her smile to show that he's teasing.
"Royce, don't laugh at me."
"I'm not laughing, honey. I'm just trying to convince you that somebody-a human being in this house- must have moved the radio. Or taken it."
"Who would possibly do that?"
"Think about it, Charlotte. Who do you think?"
She shrugs. "I've already checked with Nydia and Aimee. I know Lianna couldn't have had anything to do with it…" She gives a purposeful nod, and he can tell she hasn't let go of his earlier insinuation about the pain medication.
This probably isn't a good time for him to mention that he's noticed the supply seems to be dwindling. He'll bring it up later, when she isn't as distracted.
'The only other person in this house is Aunt Jeanne," Charlotte points out, "and unless she told her nurse to come down and grab it, she's out of the question."
"Maybe she did just that."
There's a long pause.
"Why would she?"
Why? Because she's a nutcase, is what he wants to say.
But he opts for the more sensitive, "You know she's not exactly of sound mind. Why does she do or say anything?"
Charlotte shrugs again. "I'll ask her nurse tomorrow. She doesn't come on Sundays, and there's no use asking Aunt Jeanne directly."
"I don't think that matters," Royce says meaningfully.
His wife raises a brow. "Why?" 'Think about it, Charlotte. You forgot about one other person who's been in this house."
"Who? Phyllida?"
"Bingo."
"You think she took the radio? Why would she do that?"
Now he shrugs. "Out of spite? Because she knows that of everything in this house, it had the most sentimental value to you?"
The light dawns blatantly on Charlotte's face… along with unmistakable outrage. "You're right. I bet she did take it. I can't believe that. What should I do?"
"Write it off as a loss, and good riddance to your cousin?"
"No. I'm not going to just drop it." She looks at her watch. "It's still too early to call California. But believe me, as soon as it's a reasonable hour, I'm going to get ahold of her and ask her about it."
Having finally worked up her nerve to call the telephone number she had committed to memory in her misguided youth, Mimi is immediately discouraged when a recorded voice greets the call. "We're sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this reading in error, please check the area code and the number and try your call again."
All right, so maybe her memory isn't fail-proof.
Still, she gives the memorized number another try, pressing the buttons more slowly. After all, it's not as though her hands weren't shaking like crazy when she dialed the first time, nor was she taking her time.
Once her mind was made up to take the plunge and make the call to Oakgate, she couldn't connect fast enough.
But she's going to have to wait a little longer.
Once again, the voice informs her that the number isn't in service.
She hesitates only briefly before calling directory assistance. They'll have to come up with the extra fifty cents, or whatever it costs, when the bill comes next month. This is important…
Life or death, she thinks, brooding as she waits to bypass the automated response.
When the operator comes on the line, Mimi requests the number for the Remingtons, only to be informed that it's unlisted.
Plunking the phone back into its cradle, she paces across the kitchen to the doorway and peeks into the next room.
Jed is still sound asleep on the couch, courtesy of the prescription painkillers he finally agreed to take during the day, but only after she showed him that he still had plenty to spare.
Mimi's mother, God bless her, kept Cameron overnight again and promised to bring him home tomorrow morning, first thing. Today, she insisted on having him stay for church and a little picnic at the playground.
Maude Gaspar has been a godsend these past few days, keeping her grandson happily occupied so that Mimi can attend to Jed-and the newly complicated matter at hand.
I have to speak to Gib's cousin, she thinks resolutely, watching Jed's chest rise and fall in reassuring cadence. The second Mom gets here tomorrow, I'm leaving her here with Jed and Cam and going straight over to Oakgate.
She's never officially met Charlotte Remington Maitland, but she used to see her at the beach when she was a lifeguard. She remembers watching the beautiful and sophisticated Charlotte in admiration as she sat reading in the shade of her beach umbrella. She remembers wondering if it was hard for her to be on the beach at Achoco, after losing her son in that awful drowning accident there.
She remembers, too, daydreaming about what it would be like to be a Remington herself.
As if Gib ever would have married the likes of Mimi Gaspar.
Well, thank goodness he didn't want me, she thinks now, acknowledging what's become of her former boyfriend.
She shudders and pushes away the very thought of him, as she has all week, not even wanting to acknowledge Gib Remington's role in her past-let alone hers in his apparently dismal future.
But that hasn't stopped her from reading the papers. Not this time.
There's been no mention of the tip that led to Gib becoming a suspect in the first place, thank God.
The accounts are full of background about the illustrious family, with details about every player-from Royce Maitland's twenty-five-year-old daughter, Aimee, rushing to his bedside from New Orleans to Gib's sister, Phyllida, age respectfully omitted, and referred to as a Hollywood starlet, though there's never any mention of which films or TV programs, exactly, she has starred in.
There is, of course, plenty of media speculation about what could have driven the disgraced scion to such violence.
But Gib is no longer the family member who is most important to Mimi.
Nor, at the moment, is the secret that is far more likely to destroy what is left of her husband's life than to save it.
Charlotte is the only Remington Mimi is interested in contacting.
First thing tomorrow, she promises herself again, wishing she didn't have to wait that long. But she can't leave Jed here unattended, no matter how pressing her need to get over to Oakgate.
It's all right. Tomorrow will be here before you know it.
It has a way of doing that lately, she thinks grimly, wondering why time seems to stand still only when you long to savor precious moments. These last few weeks have flown by, each day seeming to alight fleetingly befo�
�re being swept away, like the rapidly flipping calendar pages in a silent movie scene depicting the swift passage of time.
Yes, tomorrow will dawn all too soon, Mimi tells herself, brushing away the tears that spring to her eyes.
I just have to ask Charlotte what she knows about her mother… and just hope it's not too late.
Gib is lying.
Tyler is certain of it.
Alone with his client at last, he looks Gib in the eye. "Let me make one thing clear. Your grandfather is the only reason I'm even here in the first place. He was a close friend of mine throughout my life."
