The Good Daughter (The Good Daughter #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,86

his student, aloof even, so that she was convinced she had done something wrong. It wasn’t until after she had graduated, when she was in her second year at Northwestern, that Anton had reached out.

At Stanford, Sam had been one of only a handful of women studying in a male-dominated field. She had infrequently received emails from some of her professors. The subject lines tended to show a combination of desperation and a loose understanding of ellipsis: “I can’t get you out of my mind …” or, “… You have to … help me …” As if they were being driven mad by their desire and only Sam could alleviate the pain. Their collective insecurities had been one of the reasons she had applied to law school rather than pursue her Ph.D. The thought of any one of these pathetic, middle-aged lotharios being in charge of her thesis was untenable.

Anton had been well aware of his colleagues’ reputations when he first emailed Sam.

“I apologize if you find this contact unwanted,” he had written. “I waited three years to ensure that my professional authority has no overlap with, nor impact upon, your chosen field.”

He had retired early from Stanford. He had taken a job as a consultant for an overseas engineering firm. He had established his home base in New York so that he could be closer to her. They had married four years after Sam was named an associate at the firm.

Anton had opened up her life in ways that Sam had never fathomed.

Their first trip abroad was magical. Except for an ill-considered freshman jaunt to Tijuana, Sam had never before been outside of the United States. Anton had taken her to Ireland, where as a boy he had summered with his mother’s people. To Denmark, where he had learned to love design. To Rome to show her the ruins, to Florence to show her the Duomo, to Venice to show her love.

They had traveled extensively throughout their marriage, Anton taking jobs or Sam attending a conference with the sole purpose of being somewhere new. Dubai. Australia. Brazil. Singapore. Bora Bora. Every new country, every new foreign city that Sam set foot in, she thought of Gamma, the way her mother had urged Sam to leave, to see the world, to live anywhere but Pikeville.

That Sam had done this with a man whom she adored made each journey that much more rewarding.

Sam’s office phone rang.

She sat back in her chair. She glanced at the time. Her three o’clock call from Atlanta. She had lost herself in work again, skipping lunch, inexorably lost in a patent design for a narrow plated pintle hinge.

Laurens Van Loon was Dutch, living in Atlanta, and their in-house specialist on international patent law. He was calling about the UXH case, but like Sam, he was an enthusiastic traveler. Before they talked shop, he wanted to know all about the trip she had taken a few weeks ago, a ten-day tour through Italy and Ireland.

There had been a time in Sam’s life when she talked about foreign cities in terms of their culture, the architecture, the people, but money and the passage of time had made her more likely to talk about the hotels.

She told Laurens about her stay at the Merrion in Dublin, how the garden suite did not overlook a garden, but a rear alley. That the Aman on the Grand Canal was breathtaking, the service impeccable, the little courtyard where she drank her tea every morning one of the most tranquil spots in the city. In Florence there was the Westin Excelsior, which had a magnificent view of the Arno, but the noise from the roof-top bar had occasionally echoed down into her suite. In Rome, she told Laurens, she had stayed at the Cavalieri, for their baths and beautiful pools.

This last part was a lie.

Sam had booked a room at the Raffaello, because the budget hotel was the only place that she and Anton could afford during that first magical trip to Rome.

For Laurens’s benefit, Sam continued to prevaricate, recommending restaurants and museums from past journeys. She did not tell him that in Dublin, she had stood in the Long Room of the Old Library at Trinity College, looking up at the beautiful barrel-vaulted ceiling with tears in her eyes. Nor did Sam relay that in Florence, she had sat on one of the many benches inside the Galleria dell’Accademia, where Michelangelo’s David was displayed, and sobbed.

Rome had been filled with equal parts