Epilogue
Scoot Loeffler, dressed in pastel-toned, luxury athleisurewear, poured her morning coffee, dosed it with a generous splash of Kahlúa, then pushed open the sliding glass door and walked out onto her balcony.
It was another glorious fall day on Tybee.
Sun shining. Seagulls wheeling and crying above. Waves crashing on brown sand.
She hated it here.
She sipped her coffee and closed her eyes. These days she didn’t see anything around her, only images of her darling Casimir. Right now, for instance, she was seeing a boy of three with white-blond curls and big brown eyes running after a soccer ball in Forsyth Park, chubby hands outstretched.
After that it was only a short segue to another image. This one a flash of Rill’s smile as she walked down the aisle of First Presbyterian Church toward him wearing her mother’s wedding gown. And then a flash of his body on hers in their lavish bedroom on the second floor of the mansion …
And then came the jarring image that followed. The one that always overlaid the good memories …
Both bodies, her son’s and husband’s, arranged over each other on the floor of Rill’s study. Blood everywhere. Mrs. Leimberger scurrying around. And that girl … that witch … screaming and screaming—
She gulped her coffee and squeezed her eyes shut. No. If she thought of that, she’d lose her absolute marbles, strip naked, and run out onto the beach like a madwoman, plunge into the cold surf and let it sweep her under. She had to think about something else.
Something nice …
The young man at Peregrin who bought her drinks.
Yes. The sexy, dark-haired one wearing a backward baseball cap.
The young man who had, briefly, ended up sitting in a cell, charged with the murder of her family.
He had followed her into the ladies’ room and kissed her beside the stall. She could think about that, thank God.
It had been so long since she’d kissed a man.
But this memory was ruined, too, because there were other things she was starting to recall as well.
At first, she had thought it was the sexy, dark-haired man who had somehow located her little BMW and eased her behind the wheel.
Let’s go to the beach, he’d said in a suggestive drawl once he was sitting in the passenger seat.
But now she was almost certain she’d gotten it wrong.
The young man in the car with her had been shorter, with tanner skin and strong hands.
And wasn’t that blond hair curling out from under the backward baseball cap he wore?
He had seemed so familiar to her at the time even though she’d been too out of it to place him, and it had taken her a good few weeks in the second visit to the rehab to place him.
The witch’s roommate.
Rill’s bastard son.
That nasty little thieving pirate who took everything. Who kept her and Sailor apart.
But he was in trouble now, wasn’t he? Arrested, then let out on bail, and under investigation. His trial wasn’t until next year, but he’d get what was coming to him, she was confident of that. He’d get his, and then she could finally see her precious daughter again.
Show her that her mother wasn’t the villain in this story …
There was knocking then at the condo door. Polite but insistent. She went back inside and opened the door to the sight of two uniformed police officers and another dumpy, middle-aged man wearing a tragic suit and whom she instantly recognized.
The detective.
He nodded a greeting at Scoot. “Morning, Mrs. Loeffler. Detective Ray Shannon.”
“I remember. Is this about the trial? I told my lawyer I’d rather not testify—”
“No, ma’am. I’m actually here for another reason.” He glanced at one of the cops. “Officer.”
She caught the exchange and tensed, gesturing with her coffee. “I don’t—”
Before she realized what was happening, the officer had deftly removed the mug from her hand while the other officer clamped metal handcuffs on her free wrist.
“Excuse me—”
A second set of cuffs chinked on the second wrist.
“Laura Loeffler, you are under arrest for the murder of Edith White. Your Miranda rights will be read to you when you are in police custody at the station.”
Scoot bristled. “What? What in the world—”
“You’ll be able to make a phone call at the station—”
She let out a screech of outrage. “This is about that witch. Ingrid White! What did she tell you?”
“—and we’ll take your statement about your activities concerning Mrs. White.”
She drew herself up to her haughtiest height. “I will have all your jobs, every last one of you! I will sue you into the ground! I will sue the entire department into the ocean! I will take Ingrid White for everything she has and then I will bury her—”
“Ma’am, if I were you, I would not be making threats—”
Now came the dragon fire. “I am a Fairburn and a Loeffler! I pay your salaries, and this will not stand—”
Detective Shannon jutted his chin tiredly at the officers. “Take her to my car. Put her in the front seat. No use in making a show of it.”
She looked wildly around at the group. “You sniveling, taxpayer-funded bunch of second-rate toy soldiers-for-hire! Have you ever heard of Brooks Glover? Well, you’re about to, you filthy, poorly dressed terrorists—”
Gingerly, the officers guided Scoot out of her apartment and toward the elevators at the end of the hall. For a moment, Detective Shannon stood very still, watching a block of light as it shimmered on the walkway, as if it was a living thing.
He heard the faint, melodic sound of a guitar.
It was coming from one of the other units, probably.
The old John Denver song, “Sunshine on My Shoulders.” For a moment, he felt himself swaying along to the tune, then, catching himself, he pulled the door of the condo shut and made his way down the hall after them.