The Good Daughter (The Good Daughter #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,167

tried to take Charlie back to that day, to the kitchen in the farmhouse, to that damp room where Gamma had left a pot of water on the stove to boil while she had gone down the hallway in search of Sam.

The man had told Charlie to close her eyes and picture herself at the kitchen table, her hands working the folds of the paper plate as she tried to turn it into an airplane. Instead of hearing a car in the driveway, he told her to imagine Jesus walking through the door.

He was a Christian therapist. Well-meaning, undoubtedly sincere, but he thought that Jesus was the answer to a lot of things.

“Keep your eyes closed,” he had told Charlie. “Picture Jesus lifting you up.”

Instead of Gamma grabbing the shotgun. Instead of Sam being shot. Instead of Charlie running through the woods to Miss Heller’s house.

Charlie had kept her eyes closed as instructed. She had sat on her hands to keep them still. She could remember swinging her legs, pretending to play along, but she saw Lindsay Wagner, not Jesus Christ, coming to her rescue. The Bionic Woman used her super strength to punch Daniel Culpepper in the face. She karate-kicked Zachariah in the balls. She moved in slow motion, her long hair swinging as the chuh-chuh-chuch-chuh bionic sound played in the background.

Charlie had never been particularly good at following instructions.

Though, she seethed with humiliation to think that the frumpy licensed social worker with a bad haircut that Ben had dragged her to had been right about at least one thing. Something horrible that had happened to Charlie almost three decades ago was screwing up her life now.

Had screwed it up, because her husband was gone, her sister was flying back to New York in a few hours and Charlie was going to go home to an empty house.

It wasn’t even her week to take care of the dog.

Charlie stared at her father’s casket. She didn’t want to think about Rusty lying inside the cold, metal box. She wanted to remember him smiling. Winking at her. Tapping his feet. Beating out a staccato on the nearest table. Telling one of his bullshit stories that he had told thousands of times before.

She should have taken more pictures of him.

She should have recorded his voice so she wouldn’t forget the inflections, the annoying way he would stress the wrong words.

There had been times in her life that Charlie had prayed that Rusty would just please, for the love of God, shut the fuck up, but now, all she wanted in the world was to hear his voice. To listen to one of his yarns. To recognize one of his obscure quotes. To feel that moment of clarity when she realized that the story, the odd line, the seemingly innocuous observation, was actually advice, and that the advice was usually, aggravatingly, worth taking.

Charlie reached out to her father.

She placed her palm flat to the side of the casket. She felt stupid for doing this, but she had to ask, “What do I do now, Daddy?”

Charlie waited.

For the first time in forty-one years, Rusty did not have the answer.

17

Charlie walked around the Memory Chapel with a glass of wine in her hand. Only her father would specify that alcohol be served at his funeral. There was hard liquor at the bar, but at noon, it was too early for most, which was the first problem with Rusty’s speedy funeral plans. The second problem was one that Sam had spotted early on: the sightseers, the hypocrites.

Charlie felt bad for painting some of her former friends with this same brush. She couldn’t blame them for choosing Ben over her. She would have chosen Ben, too. In a week or a month or maybe next year, their silent presence, their kind nods and smiles, would mean something, but right now, all she could concentrate on was the assholes.

The townsfolk who had reviled Rusty for his liberal do-gooder ways were out in force. Judy Willard, who had called Rusty a murderer for representing an abortion facility. Abner Coleman, who had called him a bastard for representing a murderer. Whit Fieldman, who had called him a traitor for representing a bastard. The list could go on, but Charlie was too disgusted to go through it.

The worst offender was Ken Coin. The pustulant cocksucker stood at the center of a group of minions from the district attorney’s office. Kaylee Collins was front and center. The young woman who was probably