Free The Final Victim by Wendy Corsi Staub Page B

stone-and-iron entrance to Oakgate, she wonders if she’s in over her head.
    If the wine hadn’t smelled musty and tasted bitter, who knows what might have happened?
    As it was, Lianna couldn’t bring herself to drink more than that first tentative sip. She had tasted enough good wine pilfered from her friend Devin’s parents to know that the stuff Kevin offered was either horribly cheap or horribly spoiled, perhaps both.
    In the end, much to his disappointment, she managed to maintain her sobriety—and virginity. Not that she’s particularly prone to clinging to either in the grand scheme of things.
    But tonight, it wasn’t meant to be. Or perhaps, just not there, on the island beach. Or with him.
    Having reached the lowest spot in the stone wall surrounding the gated entrance to Oakgate, she waves at Kevin.
    He blinks the headlights once before driving away, leaving her alone in the dark.
    Â 
    Â 
    Royce reaches over to turn off the alarm a minute before it rings, not wanting to wake Charlotte.
    She’s sleeping soundly at last. Between her grief and the houseguests and Lianna’s typical teenaged strife, his wife is on the verge of becoming a physical and emotional wreck.
    And it doesn’t help that you’re leaving her for a few days.
    Charlotte isn’t the type to lay on a guilt trip. She really is upset to see him go.
    Sorry, Charlotte, he thinks, rolling over to look at her, but it can’t be helped.
    The room is bathed in the soft glow of the night-light she insists on using. She was so embarrassed, back when they spent their first night together, to admit that she’s afraid of the dark.
    â€œI have been ever since I was a little girl,” she confessed. “I know it’s stupid, but . . . I can’t help it. Even Lianna sleeps in a dark room, but I can’t.”
    Royce lingers, watching her sleep, thinking that she really does look like a defenseless child, lying there with her beautiful face scrubbed clean, her hair tangled on the white pillowcase. The hint of vulnerability he glimpsed the first time he ever laid eyes on her is often swept behind a sophisticated façade during the day. Not so at night, especially when she’s asleep.
    Tempting as it is, he can’t lie here watching her a moment longer. He sits up noiselessly on the new king-sized pillowtop Sealy that Charlotte’s grandfather purchased when they moved into his guest room.
    Nothing but the best for his favorite granddaughter—and, by proxy, her husband.
    Royce yawns, wishing he could curl up beside Charlotte and catch some more sleep. But he can’t. It’s time to get moving.
    He swings his legs over the edge of the bed and his bare feet make contact with the satiny hardwood floor walked on by countless Remingtons.
    Sometimes he thinks, If this old house could talk . . .
    Good thing it can’t, Royce tells himself. Some things are better kept buried in the past, where they belong.
    He bends over his wife’s sleeping form and presses a gentle kiss on her exposed shoulder, just below a reddish, heart-shaped birthmark he once thought was an out-of-character tattoo.
    â€œAre you kidding?” she asked laughingly the first time he questioned her about it. “Grandaddy would have shot me if I ever got a tattoo!”
    She went on to reveal that she grew up calling the distinctive birthmark an “angel’s kiss,” one that was shared by a couple of other Remingtons. Grandaddy, for one.
    Her late son, Adam, for another.
    She sobbed when she told Royce how he looked when his body was pulled from the sea.
    His face was . . . It was . . . That’s how they knew it was him, Royce. Because of the birthmark .
    Shhh, shhh, I know, he said soothingly, and hoped she wouldn’t bring up the fact that he didn’t know at all—that his own son’s body was never found.
    â€œSleep well, darling,” he whispers softly now, knowing she