The Good Daughter (The Good Daughter #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,175

I just want Mom’s photo. Or a copy of it. Of course I’ll make one for you. Or for me. You can have the original if—”

“We’ll figure it out.” Charlie tried to smile. Sam was never rattled, but she was clearly rattled now. “I can do this for you, you know.”

“Let’s go.” Sam nodded toward the house.

Charlie helped her up the stairs, though Sam did not ask. Ben had left the door open. She could hear him opening more windows to help air the place out.

They would be better off sealing it, like Chernobyl.

The bulk of Charlie’s inheritance filled the front room. Old newspapers. Magazines. Copies of the Georgia Law Review dating back to the 1990s. File boxes from old cases. A prosthetic leg Rusty had taken as payment from a drunk everyone knew as Skip.

“The boxes,” Sam said, because some of Gamma’s thrift store finds had never been unpacked. She peeled back the dry tape on a cardboard box marked EVERYTHING $1 EA and took a purple Church Lady shirt off the top.

Ben watched from behind the TV set. He said, “There’s another box in the den. You could probably make a fortune from that stuff on eBay.” He looked at Charlie. “No Star Trek. Just Star Wars.”

Charlie couldn’t believe she had managed to disappoint her husband even as far back as when she was thirteen. “Gamma picked everything out, not me.”

His head ducked behind the set. He was trying to hook up the components that Rusty had unplugged, claiming all of the blinking lights were going to give him seizures.

Sam said, “Okay, I think I’m ready.”

Charlie did not know what she was ready for until she saw Sam looking into the long hallway that ran down the length of the house. The back door with its opaque window was at the far end. The kitchen was at the top. This was where Daniel Culpepper had stood when he had watched Gamma leave the bathroom.

Charlie could still remember her own trek down the hallway in search of the toilet, the way she had screamed “Fudge” for her mother’s benefit.

There were five doors, none of them laid out in any way that made sense. One door led to the creepy basement. One led to the chiffarobe. Another led to the pantry. Yet another led to the bathroom. One of the middle doors inexplicably led to the tiny downstairs bedroom where the bachelor farmer had died.

Rusty had turned this room into his office.

Sam went first. From behind, she seemed impervious. Her back was straight. Her head was held high. Even the slight hesitation in her gait was gone. Her only tell was that she kept her fingers touching the wall as if she needed to make sure she had access to something steady.

“The back door.” Sam pointed toward the door. The frosted glass was cracked. Rusty had attempted to repair it with yellow masking tape. “You have no idea how many times I’ve woken up over the years dreaming about running out that door instead of walking into the kitchen.”

Charlie said nothing, though she’d had the same kinds of dreams herself.

“All right.” Sam wrapped her hand around the doorknob to Rusty’s office. She opened her mouth and inhaled deeply, like a swimmer about to put her head under water.

The door opened.

More of the same, but draped with the clinging odor of stale nicotine. The papers, the boxes, the walls, even the air had a yellow tint. Charlie tried to open one of the windows but paint had sealed it shut. She realized that her wrist felt sprained from banging on her father’s casket. She was not having a good day with inanimate objects.

“I don’t see it,” Sam said, anxious. She was at Rusty’s desk. She pushed some papers around, stacked others together. “It’s not here.” She looked at the walls, but they were adorned with drawings from Charlie’s school projects. Only Rusty would tape on his wall an eighth grader’s rendering of the anatomy of a dung beetle.

“There’s this one,” Charlie said, spotting the flimsy black metal frame that had held the photo for almost fifty years. “Shit, Dad.” Rusty had let the sun bleach out their mother’s face. Only the dark holes of her eyes and mouth were evident under the black mop of her hair.

“It’s ruined.” Sam sounded devastated.

Charlie felt sick with guilt. “I should’ve taken this from him a long time ago and had it preserved, or whatever you’re supposed to do. I’m so sorry, Sam.”

Sam shook her