The Good Daughter (The Good Daughter #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,132

stood up. The second cop walked in the direction of Kelly Wilson.

Suddenly, the girl appeared on screen, face down, the cop’s knee in her back. She had been tossed over like a sack.

Sam looked for the murder weapon.

Not in Kelly’s hands or on her person.

Not on the floor near Kelly.

Not in the hands of the cop who had his knee in her back.

Mason Huckabee was standing, empty hands at his sides, talking to the cop with the shotgun. Blood had turned his shirtsleeve almost black. He was talking to the cop as if they were discussing a bad call at a sporting event.

Sam scanned the ground at their feet.

Nothing.

No lockers had been cracked open.

None of the cops appeared to have tucked the revolver into the waistband of their pants.

No one had kicked the weapon across the floor.

No one had reached up to secrete it behind a ceiling tile.

Sam returned to Charlie. Her hands were empty. She still sat cross-legged on the floor, still looked dazed. Her head was turned away from the men. Sam noticed that a patch of blood swiped her cheek. She must have touched her face.

Her nose was not yet broken. Bruises did not encircle her eyes.

Charlie didn’t seem to register the group of cops rushing down the hall. Their weapons were drawn. Their vests flapped open.

The monitor went black.

Sam stared at the blank screen for a few seconds more, even though there was nothing to see.

Lenore let out a long stream of breath.

Sam asked the only question that mattered. “Is Charlie okay?”

Lenore’s lips pursed. “There was a time when I could tell you everything about her.”

“But now?”

“A lot has changed in the last few years.”

Rusty’s heart attacks. Had Charlie been shaken by the sudden prospect of Rusty’s death? It would be just like her to hide her fear, or to find self-destructive ways to take her mind off of it. Like sleeping with Mason Huckabee. Like alienating herself from Ben.

“You should eat,” Lenore said. “I’ll make you a sandwich.”

“Thank you, but I’m not hungry,” Sam said. “I need a place to make some notes for Dad.”

“Use his office.” Lenore took a key from her purse. She slid it over to Sam. “I’m going to transcribe this video, make sure we haven’t missed anything. I want to pull that so-called re-enactment from the news, too. I’m not sure where they’re getting their information about the sequence, especially the gunshots, but they’re wrong, based on this video.”

Sam said, “In court, Coin indicated there was audio.”

“He didn’t correct Lyman,” Lenore said. “My guess is there’s an alternate source. The school can barely afford its electric bill. The cameras are probably decades old. They wouldn’t pay to wire them for sound.”

“A useless endeavor, considering the number of children who are typically in the hallway. Isolating one voice from the din would be challenging.” She guessed, “A cell phone, maybe?”

“Maybe.” Lenore shrugged as she returned to her computer. “Rusty will figure it out.”

Sam looked down at the key on Lenore’s desk. The last thing she wanted to do was sit in Rusty’s office. Her father had been a hoarder before television popularized the disorder. She imagined there were boxes at the farmhouse that had not been unpacked since Gamma had brought them home from the thrift store.

Gamma.

Charlie had said that the photo—the photo of Gamma—was on Rusty’s desk.

Sam walked back to her father’s office. She could only get the door partway open before it caught against a pile of debris. The room was large, but the clutter brought down the scale. Boxes, papers and files overflowed from almost every surface. Only a narrow path to the desk indicated anyone ever used the space. The stagnant air inside made Sam cough. She reached for the lights, then thought better of it. Her headache had only slightly receded since taking off her glasses in court.

Sam left her cane by the door. She carefully picked her way toward Rusty’s desk, imagining that a virtual stroll through her father’s convoluted brain would not be dissimilar. How on earth he managed to work in here was a mystery. She turned on the desk lamp. She opened the blinds to the filthy, barred window. Sam supposed the flat surface provided by a stack of depositions served as his writing table. There was no computer. A clock radio Gamma had given him when Sam was a child was the only acknowledgment of modernity.

The desk was walnut, a large expanse that Sam recalled had a green leather blotter. It