Pretty Girls: A Novel

by Karin Slaughter

  “Miss Carroll.” The sheriff’s expression had changed from one of curiosity to wariness. “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s Mrs. Scott,” she corrected, hating the sound of the name. “This house belonged to my husband. He passed away recently, so I—”

  “Thought you’d ransack it?” He was looking at the mess Claire had made of the kitchen. Silverware, pots and pans, Tupperware, and anything else that had been inside a drawer or cabinet was now littering the floor.

  He lifted his foot, which had crunched some of the broken glass from the back door. “You wanna tell me what’s really going on here?”

  Claire started twisting her wedding ring around her finger. She tried to put some authority in her voice. “Why are you here?”

  “Got an emergency call, but there wasn’t nobody stayed on the line.” He tucked his thumbs into his belt. “Was that you?”

  “I dialed it by accident. I meant to dial information.” Claire stifled a cough. “I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

  “What’s your husband’s name again?”

  “Paul Scott.” Claire remembered that the name on the property deed was different. “The house is held in a trust with his law firm. Buckminster and Fuller.”

  The sheriff nodded, but he didn’t seem satisfied. “Looks like it’s been boarded up for a while.”

  “Did you know my husband?”

  “I knew his mama and daddy. Good people.”

  Claire couldn’t stop twisting her wedding ring. And then she looked down at her hand, because the Snake Man had taken her ring. How had it gotten back on her finger?

  “Mrs. Scott?”

  She squeezed her hands into fists. She wanted to yank off the ring and grind it in the garbage disposal. How had Paul gotten the ring back? Why had he put it on her finger? Why were her shoes off? And the keyfob in her pocket? Why was there a fucking pillow under her head when she woke up from her husband knocking the shit out of her?

  And where in God’s name was he taking her sister?

  “What’s this?” Huckabee touched his hand to his own cheek. “Looks like you got a shiner coming up.”

  Claire started to touch her cheek, but then she ran her fingers through her hair. Panic threatened to consume her. She could feel a physical pain in her skull from the strain of trying to process what had happened and what she needed to do next.

  Huckabee asked, “You need to sit down?”

  “I need answers.” Claire knew that she sounded crazy. “My father-in-law, Gerald Scott. You’re sure that he’s dead?”

  He gave her a curious look. “Saw it with my own eyes. At least, after the fact.”

  Claire had seen Paul die with her own eyes. She had held him in her arms. She had watched the life drain out of him.

  Then she had watched him punch her in the face.

  Huckabee leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb. “Something goin’ on here I need to know about?”

  The phone started to ring. Claire didn’t move.

  Huckabee shifted on his feet. He looked at the phone, then back at Claire.

  Paul wasn’t going to hang up. The ringing continued until the sound was like a chisel shaving down her eardrum.

  Claire picked up the receiver and slammed it back down.

  Huckabee raised one of his shaggy eyebrows. The man who for twenty-four years had insisted that her beautiful nineteen-year-old sister had simply turned her back on her family and joined a hippie commune was suddenly suspicious.

  The phone started to ring again.

  Claire imagined Paul sitting in a car somewhere on the side of the road watching all of this and being absolutely furious that Claire wasn’t doing exactly what he’d told her to do.

  He should know her better than that by now.

  Claire slid the wedding ring off her finger. She placed it in front of the camera on top of the fridge. She turned around to face the sheriff. “I know what happened to Julia.”

  Huckabee was a heavy breather, obviously a long-time smoker, so it was hard to tell whether or not he sighed or just exhaled normally. “Did your mother tell you?”

  Claire leaned against the fridge so she wouldn’t sink to the floor. She felt the shock of his statement, but worked to keep the turmoil off her face. Had Helen known about the tapes all these years? Had she kept it a secret from Claire? Had she hidden the truth from Sam?

  She tried to bluff Huckabee again. “Yes. She told me.”

  “Well, I’m surprised by that, Claire, because your mother said she wasn’t ever going to tell you girls, and I’m finding it hard to believe that a woman like that would go back on her word.”

  Claire shook her head, because this man knew there were videos of her sister being brutally murdered and he was lecturing her like she was twelve and he was disappointed in her. “How could you keep it from me? From Lydia?”

  “I promised your mother. I know you don’t think much of me, but I honor my word.”

  “You’re talking about your fucking word when I’ve been haunted by this for twenty-four years?”

  “There’s no need to use that kind of language.”

  “Fuck you.” Claire could almost see the black hatred spewing from her mouth. “You kept saying she was alive, that she’d just run off, that we’d see her come back one day. You knew all along that she was never coming back, but you gave us hope.” She could tell he still didn’t understand. “Do you know what hope does to people? Do you know what it’s like to see somebody in the street, to chase after them, because you think she might be your sister? Or to go to the mall and see two sisters together and know that you’re never going to have that? Or to go to my father’s funeral without her? Or to get married without—”

  Claire couldn’t go down that road, because she had married Paul, and the reason that Lydia hadn’t been by her side is because Claire’s husband had tried to rape her.

  Huckabee said, “Tell me how you really found out. Was it the Internet?”

  She nodded because that seemed most believable.

  He looked down at the floor. “I always worried the tapes would get put out there.”

  Claire knew she should get rid of the sheriff, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “How did you find out about them?”

  “Your father’s apartment. He had one of ’em loaded on his video player while he did it. I expect that’s what made him …”

  He didn’t have to finish the sentence. They both knew what her father had done. Now that Claire knew Sam Carroll had seen the tapes, had been watching them while he put the needle into his arm, she finally understood why. She could very well imagine her father wanting to end his life as he watched Julia’s being taken from her. The act had an appealing kind of symmetry.

  Was that the reason Helen had concealed the truth? Was she afraid that Claire would find copies of the tapes and end up following in her father’s footsteps? And Lydia—poor, fragile Lydia. No one saw it at the time, but her addiction had never been about the high, it had been about the escape. She had been actively seeking ways to destroy herself.

  Claire asked the sheriff, “What did you do with the tapes?”

  “Handed them over to a buddy of mine was in the FBI. We always wondered was there copies. I guess now we know.”

  Claire looked down at her hands. She was twisting her finger even without the ring.

  Huckabee said, “You ain’t gotta try and trick me, gal. She was your sister. I’ll tell you the truth.”

  Claire had never wanted to physically hurt someone so badly in her life. He was acting like he’d been willing all along, when Claire had contacted the sheriff countless times over the years asking if there were any new updates. “Then tell me.”

  He smoothed down the edges of his mustache as if he needed time to figure out how to go about breaking her heart. Finally, he said, “Fella in the movie was part of some kind of ring that distributed a lotta them videos. My friend, like I said, he was in the FBI, so I got some of the inside
scoop on it. He said they already knew about the guy. Name was Daryl Lassiter. Caught him in California back in ninety-four trying to snatch a gal same age, same hair color, same build as your sister.”

  Claire was confused. Had she been wrong about Paul’s father? Was there another murderer out there? Had Paul’s father come by the tapes as a collector?

  Huckabee said, “Lassiter’s dead now, if it helps.”

  No, there was the barn that had been outside, and the kill room not fifteen feet away from where they stood.

  “Jury put him on death row.” Huckabee looped his thumbs back through his belt. “There was some kind of scuffle at the jail house. Lassiter got stabbed in the neck about a dozen times. He died around the same time your pa died.”

  Claire tried to think of what to ask next. “Where did Daddy get the tapes?”

  Huckabee shrugged. “No idea.”

  “You didn’t look into it?”

  ‘Course I did.” Huckabee sounded offended, as if he was actually good at his job. “But your daddy was always on wild goose chases, one after another. There was no telling which one actually panned out, and he wasn’t exactly sharing his information with me.”

  “You weren’t exactly encouraging him to.”

  Huckabee shrugged again, more “water under the bridge” than “I’m sorry I left your father so alone that he killed himself.”

  But then again, Helen had left Sam alone, too. And then she had lied to Lydia and Claire for years about everything that mattered. Was there anyone in Claire’s life who ever told her the truth? Even Lydia had lied about her daughter.

  She asked, “Why would Daddy kill himself before finding out who killed Julia?”

  “He left the tape playing out on the machine. He knew we’d find it. I mean, that’s what I figured he left it for, and he was right. I turned it straight over to the feds. In less than a week, they connected it to the man who killed your sister.”

  Claire didn’t remind the sheriff that the Carrolls had begged him for years to go to the FBI. “And you never made it public so people would know what happened to my sister?”

  “Your mom asked me not to. I guess she was worried you girls would look for the tapes.” He glanced over Claire’s shoulder into the den. “My thinking is she figured it’d be better to never know than to find out the truth.”

  Claire wondered if her mother was right. Then she wondered how different her life would’ve been if she’d known that Julia was really gone. How many times had Claire quietly shut herself into her office and cried because an unidentified body had been found in the Athens area? How many missing girl cases had kept her awake at night? How many hours had she spent searching the Internet for cults and hippie compounds and any word of her missing sister?

  “Well, that’s all I know.” Huckabee shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “I hope it brings you some peace.”

  “Like it did my father?” She resisted the urge to tell the sheriff that Sam Carroll might still be alive if the sheriff had done his fucking job.

  “Anyway,” Huckabee glanced around the kitchen again, “I told you what you wanted to know. You wanna tell me why you’re standing in the middle of all this mess with a knife in your back pocket?”

  “No, I don’t.” Claire wasn’t finished questioning him. There was one more thing she had to ask, though she felt in her gut that she already knew the answer. Paul had a mentor, a man who had single-handedly ensured that Quinn + Scott jumped into the stratosphere, a man who took chartered flights and stayed in expensive hotel rooms thanks to Paul’s Centurion American Express card. Claire had always chalked up the hours of golf games together and private phone calls and afternoons at the club to Paul just doing whatever it took to keep the Congressman happy, but now she understood that the connection ran deeper.

  She asked the sheriff, “Who was your friend at the FBI?”

  “Why’s that matter?”

  “It’s Johnny Jackson, isn’t it?” Claire knew the man’s bio. She’d sat through enough tedious introductions at countless rubber-chicken-dinner fundraisers. Congressman Johnny Jackson had been an agent with the FBI before entering politics. He had given Quinn + Scott millions, sometimes billions, of dollars’ worth of government contracts. He had sent Captain Jacob Mayhew to the Dunwoody house to investigate the robbery on the day of Paul’s funeral. He had probably also sent Agent Fred Nolan to rattle the bars on Claire’s cage.

  Jackson was a very common last name, so common that Claire had never made the connection between the maiden name on her dead mother-in-law’s headstone and Paul’s generous benefactor.

  Until now.

  She told the sheriff, “He’s my husband’s uncle on his mother’s side.”

  Huckabee nodded. “He worked in Atlanta on some kind of special task force.”

  “Did he ever help Paul get out of trouble?”

  Huckabee nodded again, but he didn’t elaborate. The man probably did not want to speak ill of the dead. Should Claire tell him that Paul was alive? That her husband had abducted her sister?

  The phone started to ring again.

  Claire didn’t move, but she said, “I should get that.”

  “You sure there ain’t nothin’ else you wanna tell me?”

  “I’m positive.”

  Huckabee reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a business card. “Cell number’s on the back.” He put the card on the kitchen table, then tapped it once with his finger before leaving.

  The phone kept ringing. Claire counted off the seconds as she waited for the sound of the sheriff’s car door opening and closing, an engine starting, then the grind of wheels on the driveway as he backed onto the road.

  Claire picked up the phone.

  Paul said, “What the fuck was that about?”

  “Give me back my sister.”

  “Tell me what you said to Huckleberry.”

  She hated that he knew that word. It was something that belonged to her family, and this sadist she was talking to was no longer her family.

  “Claire?”

  “My father was watching the tapes of Julia when he killed himself.”

  Paul said nothing.

  “Did you have something to do with that, Paul? Did you show my father the tapes?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you were already working on getting Lydia out of the way, and the last person left in my life who really mattered, who would help me no matter what, was my father.” Claire was so distraught that she couldn’t catch her breath. “You killed him, Paul. You either did it yourself or you just as good as put the needle in his arm.”

  “Are you insane?” Paul’s voice rose with indignation. “Jesus, Claire. I’m not a fucking monster. I loved your father. You know that. I was a pallbearer at his funeral.” He stopped talking for a moment, leaving the impression that he was rendered speechless by her accusation. When he finally continued, his voice was low and calm. “Look, I’ve done some things I’m not proud of, but I would never, ever do that to somebody I loved. You know how fragile Sam was toward the end. There’s no telling what finally pushed him over the edge.”

  Claire sat down at the kitchen table. She turned the chair so that Paul couldn’t see the angry tears rolling down her face. “You’re acting like you had nothing to do with any of this, like you were just an innocent bystander.”

  “I was.”

  “You knew what happened to my sister. You watched me struggle with it for almost two Goddamn decades, and you could’ve told me at any time what happened to Julia and you didn’t. You just watched me suffer.”

  “I hated every second of it. I never wanted to see you hurt.”

  “You’re hurting me now!” Claire slammed her fist into the table. Her throat spasmed with pain. The anguish was too much. She couldn’t do this. She just wanted to lie down on the floor in a ball and cry herself senseless. An hour ago, she had thought she’d lost everything, but now she understood that there was always more, and that
so long as he was alive, Paul was going to be there to take more.

  He said, “How was I going to tell you what happened to Julia without giving you the whole story?”

  “Are you really saying you didn’t know how to lie to me?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Why did you fake your death?”

  “I didn’t have a choice.” He paused for a moment. “I can’t get into it, Claire, but I did what I had to do in order to keep you safe.”

  “I don’t feel very safe now, Paul.” Claire struggled against the anger and fear that raged inside of her. “You knocked me out. You took my sister from me.”

  “I didn’t want to hurt you. I tried to be as gentle as I could.”

  Claire could still feel a pulsing pain in her cheek. She couldn’t imagine how badly it would hurt if Paul hadn’t held back. “What do you want?”

  “I need the rest of the keychain to the Tesla.”

  Claire felt her stomach clench. She remembered Paul handing her the keys outside the restaurant before he pulled her into the alley. “Why did you give it to me?”

  “Because I knew you’d keep it safe.”

  Adam would’ve retrieved the keytag from the mailbox by now. They’d transferred the work files in the garage. What else was on the thumbdrive? “Claire?” Paul repeated. “What did you do with it?”

  She grasped for something that would throw him off. “I gave it to the cop.”

  “Mayhew?” Tension filled his voice. “You have to get it back. He can’t have it.”

  “Not Mayhew.” Claire hesitated. Should she name Fred Nolan? Would Paul be relieved if she did? Or was Nolan in on it?

  “Claire? I need to know who you gave it to.”

  “It was in my hand.” Claire pushed back the terror threatening to cloud her thinking. She had to come up with a believable lie, something that would give her some kind of edge over Paul and buy her time to think. “In the alley, I had it in my hand. The man who killed you—who pretended to kill you—he knocked it out of my hand.”

  Paul spewed a volley of curses.