The Good Daughter (The Good Daughter #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,82

immediate ending to their relationship, an understanding that there was neither the need nor the desire for either of them to talk to each other ever again.

Charlie had been in her last year at Duke. She had flown to New York to visit Sam and to interview at several white shoe firms. Sam realized at the time that her sister was not visiting her so much as treating Sam’s apartment as a free place to stay in one of the most expensive cities on earth, but almost a decade had passed since she’d seen her little sister, and Sam had been looking forward to the two of them reacquainting as adults.

The first shock of the trip was not that Charlie had brought a strange man with her, but that the strange man was her husband. Charlie had dated Ben Bernard for less than a month before legally binding herself to someone about whom she knew absolutely nothing. The decision was irresponsible and dangerous, and but for the fact that Ben was one of the most kind, most decent human beings on the planet—not to mention that he was clearly head over heels in love with Charlie—Sam would have been livid with her sister for such a stupid, impetuous act.

The second shock was that Charlie had canceled all of her interviews. She had taken the money Sam had sent to buy proper business attire and instead used it to purchase tickets to see Prince at Madison Square Garden.

This brought about the third, most fatal shock.

Charlie was planning to work with Rusty.

She had insisted that she would only be in the same building with their father, not involved in Rusty’s actual practice, but to Sam, the distinction held no difference.

Rusty took risks at work that followed him home. The people who were in his office, in the office that Charlie would soon share, were the kinds of people who burned down your house, who went to your home looking for you, and when they found out you weren’t there, murdered your mother and shot your sister and chased you through the woods with a shotgun because they wanted to rape you.

The final altercation between Sam and Charlie had not taken place immediately. They had argued in fits and starts for three long days in Charlie’s planned five-day visit.

Then on the fourth day, Sam had finally exploded.

She had always had a slow-boiling temper. It’s what had made her lash out at Zachariah Culpepper in the kitchen while her mother was lying dead a few feet away, her sister was covered in urine, and a blood-smeared shotgun was pointed directly at her face.

Subsequent to her brain injury, Sam’s temper had become almost unmanageable. There were countless studies that showed how certain types of damage to the frontal and temporal lobes could lead to impulsive, even violent, anger, but the ferocity of Sam’s rage beggared scientific explanation.

She had never hit anyone, which was a piteous victory, but she threw things, broke things, attacked even cherished objects as if she were ruled by insanity. The physical acts of destruction paled in comparison to the damage rendered by her sharp tongue. The fury would take hold, Sam’s mouth would open, and hate would spew like acid.

Now, the meditation helped smooth out her emotions.

The laps in the pool helped re-direct her anxiety into something positive.

Back then, nothing had been able to stop Sam’s venomous rage.

Charlie was spoiled. She was selfish. She was a child. She was a whore. She wanted to please her father too much. She had never loved Gamma. She had never loved Sam. She was the reason they had all been in the kitchen. She was the reason Gamma had been murdered. She had left Sam to die. She had run away then, just like she was going to run away now.

That last part, at least, had proven to be true.

Charlie and Ben had returned to Durham in the middle of the night. They had not even stopped to pack their few belongings.

Sam had apologized. Of course she had apologized. Students didn’t have voicemail or email back then, so Sam had sent a certified letter to Charlie’s off-campus apartment along with the carefully packed box of things they had left in New York.

Writing the letter was without question the hardest thing that Sam had ever done in her life. She had told her sister that she loved her, had always loved her, that she was special, that their relationship meant something. That Gamma had adored