The Good Daughter (The Good Daughter #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,56

“Did the mother say the girl was sexually assaulted?”

“The mother thinks the girl is a snowflake.”

“All right,” Rusty said. “So, if something happened, then it might be in her school records or there might be somebody you could ask at the DA’s office who—”

“No.” Charlie knew to shut him down quickly. “You can ask Ava to request a copy of her school records and you can do a juvenile court query on a possible file.”

“I will do exactly that.”

Charlie said, “You need a really good computer guy, someone who can do forensic searches into social media accounts. If enough kids were involved in this yearbook project, there might even be a separate Facebook page for it.”

“I don’t need a guy. I’ve got CNN.” He was right. The media would already have experts scouring the web. Their reporters would be talking to Kelly’s classmates, her teachers, looking for friends or people who claimed to be friends who were willing to go on camera and say anything, true or not, about Kelly Wilson.

Charlie asked, “Did you get a chance to check on Mrs. Pinkman?”

“I tried to pay a social visit, but she was heavily sedated.” He exhaled a raspy breath. “Bad enough to lose a partner, but to lose ’em like that is the very definition of anguish.”

Charlie studied him, trying to figure out his tone. Twice now he had mentioned Gamma. She supposed that was her fault, considering her involvement this morning at the school. Another arrow she had slung her father’s way. “Where did you go today after the hospital?”

“Took a little side trip down to Kennesaw to do a satellite interview. You’ll be treated to your daddy’s handsome visage all over your TV tonight.”

Charlie wasn’t going to be near a TV if she could help it. “You’re going to have to be careful with Ava, Daddy. She doesn’t understand a lot. I don’t think it’s just shock. She doesn’t track.”

“Daughter has the same problem. I’d put her IQ in the low seventies.” He tapped the yearbook. “Thanks for the help, my dear. Did Ben get in touch with you this morning?”

Her heart flipped the same way it had when she’d first heard that Ben had called. “No, do you know why he was calling me?”

“I do.”

Her desk phone rang. Rusty started to leave.

“Dad?”

“You will need your umbrella tomorrow. Sixty-three percent chance of rain in the AM.” He hummed a passable “Happy Birthday,” giving her a salute as he backed down the hall, knees high like a marching-band leader.

She said, “You’re going to give yourself another heart attack.”

“You wish!”

Charlie rolled her eyes. He always had to make a fucking exit. She picked up the phone. “Charlie Quinn.”

“I’m not supposed to be talking to you,” Terri, the youngest of Ben’s older sisters, said. “But I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“I’m good.” Charlie could hear Terri’s twins screaming in the background. Ben called them “Denise” and “Denephew.” She told Terri, “Ben said he called you guys this morning.”

“He was pretty upset.”

“Upset at me or about me?”

“Well, you know that’s been a damn nine-month-long mystery.”

It wasn’t, actually, but Charlie knew anything she told Terri would be passed on to Carla and Peggy, who would tell Ben’s mother, so she kept her mouth firmly shut.

Terri asked, “You there?”

“Sorry, I’m at work.”

Terri didn’t take the hint. “I was thinking when Ben called about how funny he is about talking about things. You have to poke and poke and poke and then maybe, eventually, he’ll tell you back in 1998 you stole a French fry off his plate and it really hurt his feelings.”

She said more, but Charlie tuned her out, listening instead to Terri’s children try to kill each other. Charlie had been sucked in by Ben’s bitchy sisters once before, taking them at face value when she should have realized there was a reason Ben only saw them at Thanksgiving. They were bossy, unthinking women who tried to rule Ben with an iron fist. He was in college before he realized that men were allowed to pee standing up.

Terri said, “And then I was talking to Carla about this thing going on with you two. Doesn’t make any sense at all. You know he loves you. But he’s got something up his butt and he won’t say anything.” She stopped a moment to yell at her children, then picked up the conversation where she’d left off. “Has Benny said anything to you yet? Given you any kind of reason?”

“No,” Charlie lied,