The Good Daughter (The Good Daughter #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,33

He was silent as his thumbs moved across the screen.

She leaned against the wall and waited for him to finish texting whoever he was texting. Maybe the twenty-six-year-old from his office. Kaylee Collins. The girl was Ben’s type. Charlie knew this because, at that age, she had been her husband’s type, too.

“Shit.” Ben’s thumbs swiped across the screen. “Gimme another second.”

Charlie could’ve walked herself out of the police station. She could’ve walked the six blocks to her office.

But she didn’t.

She studied the top of Ben’s head, the way his hair grew from the crown like a spiral ham. She wanted to fold herself into his body. To lose herself in him.

Instead, Charlie silently repeated the phrases she had practiced in her car, in the kitchen, sometimes in front of the bathroom mirror:

I can’t live without you.

The last nine months have been the loneliest of my life.

Please come home because I can’t take it anymore.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.

“Plea deal on another case went south.” Ben dropped the phone into his jacket pocket. It clinked against Charlie’s half-empty water bottle. “Ready?”

She had no choice but to walk. She kept her fingertips to the wall, turning sideways as more cops in black tactical gear passed by. Their expressions were cold, unreadable. They were either going somewhere or coming back from something, their collective jaws set against the world.

This was a school shooting.

Charlie had been so focused on the what that she had forgotten the where.

She wasn’t an expert, but she knew enough about these investigations to understand that every school shooting informed the next one. Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook. Law enforcement agencies studied these tragedies in an effort to prevent, or at the very least understand, the next one.

The ATF would comb the middle school for bombs because others had used bombs before. The GBI would look for accomplices because sometimes, rarely, there were accomplices. Canine officers would hunt for suspicious backpacks in the halls. They would check every locker, every teacher’s desk, every closet for explosives. Investigators would look for Kelly’s diary or a hit list, diagrams of the school, stashes of weaponry, a plan of assault. Tech people would look at computers, phones, Facebook pages, Snapchat accounts. Everyone would search for a motive, but what motive could they find? What answer could an eighteen-year-old offer to explain why she had decided to commit cold-blooded murder?

That was Rusty’s problem now. Exactly the kind of thorny, moral and legal issue that got him out of bed in the morning.

Exactly the kind of law that Charlie had never wanted to practice.

“Come on.” Ben walked ahead of her. He had a long, loping stride because he always put too much weight on the balls of his feet.

Was Kelly Wilson being abused? That would be Rusty’s first line of inquiry. Was there some sort of mitigating circumstance that would keep her off death row? She had been held back at least one year in school. Did that indicate a low IQ? Diminished capacity? Was Kelly Wilson capable of telling right from wrong? Could she participate in her own defense, as required by law?

Ben pushed open the exit door.

Was Kelly Wilson a bad seed? Was the explanation here the only explanation that would never make sense? Would Delia Wofford tell Lucy Alexander’s parents and Mrs. Pinkman that the reason they lost their loved ones was because Kelly Wilson was bad?

“Charlie,” Ben said. He was holding open the door. His iPhone was back in his hand.

Charlie shielded her eyes as she walked outside. The sunlight was as sharp as a blade. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Here.” Ben handed her a pair of sunglasses. They belonged to her. He must have gotten them out of her car.

Charlie took the glasses but couldn’t put them on her tender nose. She opened her mouth for air. The sudden heat was too much. She leaned down, hand braced on her knee.

“Are you going to be sick?”

“No,” she said, then “maybe,” then she threw up just enough to make a splatter.

Ben didn’t step back. He managed to gather her hair away from her face without touching her skin. Charlie retched two more times before he asked, “All right?”

“Maybe.” Charlie opened her mouth. She waited for more. A line of spit came out, but nothing else. “Okay.”

He let her hair drop back around her shoulders. “The paramedic told me that you have a concussion.”

Charlie couldn’t lift her head, but she told him, “There’s nothing they can do about it.”

“They can monitor you for