The Final Victim by Wendy Corsi Staub

her eyes and spill down her cheeks. She probably shouldn’t have worn mascara today. “But if he didn’t like you, Royce,” she goes on, “he’d have let me know about it.”
    â€œI wouldn’t be so certain about that.”
    She shakes her head. “Are you sure you can’t cancel your meeting and come with me?”
    â€œI wish I could, but this could be a major new corporate client for me.”
    â€œYes, but after today . . .” She trails off, but he must know what she’s thinking. After today, they’ll be millions of dollars richer. The income from his computer-consulting business will be even less necessary than it is now.
    â€œIt isn’t about the money for me, Charlotte,” he reminds her. “I love what I do, and I’m good at it.”
    â€œOf course you are. I didn’t mean—”
    â€œI know you didn’t.” He smiles as if to show her that his pride isn’t wounded.
    â€œNothing is going to change, Royce. After today. I remember what we said about tucking it away and going on. So don’t worry.”
    â€œI’m not worried.”
    Then why, Charlotte can’t help but wonder as a nagging uneasiness takes over, am I?
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    â€œHow about a little more pudding, Jeanne?” Melanie asks. “It’s tapioca. You love tapioca.”
    Jeanee hates tapioca, but what does it matter? They’ve been bringing it to her for years, assuming she enjoys it because she eats it all.
    She supposes she could ask for vanilla pudding instead, or even chocolate, but that would mean striking up a conversation, and potentially inviting other topics.
    It’s much easier, much safer, to just eat the tapioca, and whatever else the nurse brings to her.
    Today it was sloppy joes, overcooked carrots, and pudding; yesterday, creamed beef, limp string beans the color of jarred olives, and stewed peaches.
    Institutional food. If you’re hungry enough—and Jeanne invariably is—you’ll eat it.
    Jeanne eats it, and she remembers . . .
    Remembers beans freshly picked off the vine: stem ends snapping easily beneath her fingers; their vibrant, grassy shade of green retained even after they were slightly steamed; delicious buttered and salted—the crisp burst of flavor on her tongue . . .
    Remembers peaches plucked from the orchard out back, so ripe your fingertips could rub the skin from the flesh at the slightest touch, revealing luscious, pink-tinged, orange-yellow fruit that always reminded Jeanne of a Low Country sunset . . .
    â€œJeanne?” Melanie persists. “More tapioca?”
    She shakes her head vehemently.
    Now her peaches and her beans come from cans, plopped in compartments of thick beige paper trays and delivered by young women who speak to her with the measured simplicity of a preschool teacher and merely bide their time here, their thoughts on their otherwise fascinating lives.
    Petite blond Melanie is Jeanne’s favorite by far of all the nurses who have come through here over the years; she, at least, doesn’t seem particularly eager to leave when her shift is over. She doesn’t seem to have much of a life away from Oakgate. Often, she arrives early or stays longer than she needs to, bustling around reassuringly, often humming.
    She’s always, always cheerful. Too cheerful, almost. Never before has Jeanne ever encountered another human being who doesn’t seem to have a bad day—or even a so-so day— ever .
    But she doesn’t only sing and hum and, on occasion, whistle jauntily. She talks, too, ostensibly to Jeanne, but sometimes, it seems, to herself, often about herself. She reveals in disarming detail a childhood spent in one foster home after another, abusive parents who willingly signed away their rights. She spent years praying she’d be adopted, and realized in her teens that the prayer would never be answered.
    You’d think a person like that