The Good Daughter (The Good Daughter #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,112

They bust down your door and drag you in by your collar and do everything they can to scare the shit out of you so that you know you’re in trouble.”

“So, Danny just happened to be here?”

Charlie shrugged. “He’s a drug dealer. He’s at the station a lot.”

Sam searched her purse for a tissue. “Is that how he purchased that gauche truck?”

“He’s not that good at selling drugs.” Charlie watched as the truck squealed the wrong way up the one-way street. “Prices at the Gauche Truck Emporium are through the roof.”

“I read that in the Times.” Sam used the tissue to pat sweat from her face. She had no idea why she’d even spoken to Danny Culpepper, and there was not enough time left on earth to explain her words to him. In New York, Sam did everything possible to diminish her disability. Here, she seemed inclined to wield it as a weapon.

She returned the tissue to her purse. “I’m ready.”

“Kelly had a yearbook,” Charlie said, her voice low. “You know the thing where—”

“I know what a yearbook is.”

Charlie nodded back toward the stairs.

Sam needed her cane, but she walked the ten feet back unaided. This was when she saw the sheet of bowed plywood laid across the sloped grass on the other side of the stairs. The handicapped ramp, she supposed.

“This godforsaken place,” Sam muttered. She leaned against the metal railing. She asked Charlie, “What are we doing?”

Charlie glanced back at the doors as if she was afraid they would be overheard. She kept her voice to barely more than a whisper. “A yearbook was in Kelly’s room, hidden on the top shelf of her closet.”

Sam was confused. The crime had only happened yesterday morning. “Has Dad already received some of the discovery?”

Charlie’s raised eyebrow explained the provenance.

Sam heaved out something between a sigh and a groan. She knew the kinds of shortcuts her father took. “What was in the yearbook?”

“A lot of nasty stuff about Kelly being a whore, having sex with football players.”

“That’s hardly anomalous to high school. Girls can be cruel.”

“Middle school,” Charlie said. “This was five years ago, when Kelly was fourteen. But it was more than cruel. The pages were filled. Hundreds of people signed on. Most of them probably didn’t even know her.”

“A Pikeville version of Carrie without the pig’s blood.” Sam realized the obvious. “Well, someone’s blood was shed.”

“Right.”

“It’s a mitigating factor. She was bullied, probably isolated. It could keep her off death row. That’s good.” Sam equivocated, “For Dad’s case, I mean.”

Charlie had more. “Kelly said something in the hallway before she gave Huck the gun.”

“What?” Sam’s throat hurt from trying to keep her voice down. “Why are you telling me this when we are standing outside of a police station instead of when we were inside the car?”

Charlie threw out her hand toward the doors. “There’s only a fat guy behind a bulletproof window in there.”

“Answer me, Charlotte.”

“Because I was pissed off at you in the car.”

“I knew it.” Sam grabbed onto the railing. “Why?”

“Because you’re here for me even though I told you that I don’t need you, and you’re lying like you always do out of this misplaced sense of duty to Gamma, and pretending that it’s about this arraignment, and it just occurred to me when we walked up the steps that this isn’t the bullshit tug-of-war between us. This is Kelly’s life. She needs you to be on point.”

Sam stiffened her spine. “I am always on point with clients. I take my fiduciary responsibilities very seriously.”

“This is a lot more complicated than you think it is.”

“Then give me the facts. Don’t send me into that building where I’m going to get blindsided.” She indicated her eye. “More than I already am.”

“You’ve got to stop using that as a punchline.”

She was probably right. “Tell me what Kelly said in the hallway.”

“This was after the shooting when she was sitting there. They were trying to get her to hand over the gun. I saw Kelly’s lips move, and Huck heard it, but he didn’t tell the GBI, but there was a cop standing there who heard her say it, too, and like I said, I saw it happen, but I didn’t hear it, but whatever she said really upset him.”

“Do you have a sudden aversion to proper pronouns?” Sam felt inundated by data fragments. Charlie was acting like she was thirteen again, flush with the excitement of telling a story. “This information was less important than complaining about