Her biggest regret was that she had included Huckleberry in the email list, because according to witnesses, Sheriff Carl Huckabee had been sitting at his computer reading Claire’s email when he grabbed his chest and died of a massive heart attack.
He was eighty-one years old. He lived in a nice house that was paid off. He’d seen his children and grandchildren grow up. He’d spent summers fishing and winters at the beach and pretty much enjoyed all of his other twisted hobbies with absolutely no impediments.
If you asked Claire, Huckleberry was the one who’d really gotten away with murder.
“Hey.” Lydia threw a sock at Claire to get her attention. “Have you given any more thought about seeing a real therapist?”
“‘With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee?’”
“More like ‘Kid Fears.’”
Claire laughed. They had been listening to Indigo Girls on one of the hundreds of mix tapes Julia had kept in a shoebox under her bed. “I’ll think about it,” she told Lydia, because she knew that the twelve-step program was important to her sister. It was also the only reason Lydia was able to stand there folding Julia’s clothes instead of curling into a ball in the corner.
But as Claire had told her court-appointed therapist during their last mandated session, her quick temper had ended up leading them to Julia. Maybe one day, maybe with a real therapist, Claire would work on her anger issues. God knew there was plenty enough to work on, but for right now, she wasn’t inclined to get rid of the very thing that had saved them all.
Who the hell would?
Lydia said, “Did you see the news?”
“Which news?” Claire asked, because there was so much that they could barely keep up with it.
“Mayhew and that other detective were denied bail.”
“Falke,” Claire provided. She didn’t know why they were still holding Harvey Falke. He was absolutely a bad cop, but he was just as clueless as Adam Quinn had been about Paul’s illegal business. At least that’s what Fred Nolan had told Claire after the Big Boys came down from Washington and interrogated both men for three weeks.
Could she believe Fred Nolan? Could Claire ever believe another man for as long as she lived? Rick was nice. Lydia had finally asked him to move in with her. He was taking care of her. He was helping her heal.
And yet.
How many times had Claire done the same thing for Paul? Not that she thought Rick was a bad man, but she’d thought Paul was a good man, too.
At least she was certain on which side of the line Jacob Mayhew fell. His house had been raided. The FBI had searched his computers and found links to almost all the movies that Paul had ever created, plus many of the international ones.
Claire had guessed correctly about the scale of the operation. Between Mayhew’s computer, the contents of the USB drive, and the VHS tapes from the garage, the FBI and Interpol were working to identify hundreds of victims who had hundreds of families all over the world who might one day find their way back to peace.
The Kilpatricks. The O’Malleys. The Van Dykes. The Deichmanns. The Abdullahs. The Kapadias. Claire always repeated aloud each of their names from each of the news stories, because she knew what it was like all those years ago when people had opened their newspapers and skipped over Julia Carroll’s name.
Congressman Johnny Jackson’s name was not one that anyone could avoid. His involvement in the snuff porn ring was still the lead story in every newspaper, webpage, news report, and magazine. Nolan had confided that there was some kind of plea deal being worked out to keep the Congressman off death row. The US Department of Justice and Interpol needed Johnny Jackson to corroborate the details of Paul’s business in various courts of law around the world and Johnny Jackson did not want to be strapped to a gurney while a prison doctor jammed a needle into his arm.
Claire was sorely disappointed that she would not be able to sit in the viewing room and witness every single flinch and whimper and sob as Johnny Jackson was put to death by the Great State of Georgia.
She knew what it was like to watch a bad person die, to feel their panic swell to a crescendo, to watch the dawning in their eyes when they realized that they were completely powerless. To know that the last words they would ever hear were the ones you said to their face: that you saw through them, that you knew everything about them, that you were disgusted, that you did not love them, that you would never, ever forget. That you would never, ever forgive. That you would be fine. That you would be happy. That you would survive.
Maybe she really should consider going into therapy sooner.
“Jesus Christ.” Lydia grabbed the socks away from Claire and started folding them. “Why are you so distracted?”
“Fred Nolan asked me out.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Claire tossed her a stray sock. “It’s weird how the guy who seemed like he was into snuff porn was actually the only guy who wasn’t into snuff porn.”
“You’re not going to go out with him?”
Claire shrugged. Nolan was an asshole, but at least she would know it going in.
“Jesus Christ.”
“‘Jesus Christ,’” Claire mimicked.
Helen knocked on the open door. “Are you two squabbling?”
They both answered, “No, ma’am.”
Helen smiled the relaxed smile Claire remembered from her childhood. Even with the press hounding her door, Helen Carroll had finally found peace. She picked up one of Julia’s socks from the pile on the bed. There were two kissing dachshunds embroidered around the band. Helen found the match. She folded them together. The Carrolls weren’t sock rollers. They paired them together in a drawer and assumed they would manage to stay that way.
Lydia said, “Mom, can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
Lydia hesitated. They had been apart so long. Claire had keenly noticed that their rapport wasn’t as easy as it once was.
Helen said, “It’s all right, sweetheart. What is it?”
Lydia still seemed hesitant, but she asked, “Why did you keep all this stuff when you knew she wasn’t coming back?”
“That’s a good question.” Helen smoothed Julia’s quilt before sitting down on the bed. She looked around the room. Lilac walls. Rock posters. Polaroids stuck in the mirror over the dresser. Nothing had changed since Julia had left for college, not even the ugly lava lamp that everyone knew their mother hated.
Helen said, “It made your father happy to know it was the same, that her room would be waiting for her if she ever came back.” Helen rested her hand on Claire’s ankle. “After I found out she was dead, I guess I just liked coming in here. I didn’t have her body. There was no grave to visit.” She invoked Grandma Ginny’s words. “I suppose this was the only place where I could come to leave my grief.”
Claire felt a lump come into her throat. “She would’ve liked that.”
“I think so.”
Lydia sat down beside Helen. She was crying. So was Claire. They were all crying. This was how it had been since they had looked down that well. Their lives had been rubbed raw. Only time could thicken their skin.
Lydia said, “We found her. We brought her home.”
Helen nodded. “You did.”
“It’s all that Daddy ever wanted.”
“No.” Helen squeezed Claire’s leg. She stroked a strand of hair behind Lydia’s ear.
Her family. They were all together again. Even Sam and Julia.
“This,” Helen said. “This is all your father ever wanted.”
VII
I remember the first time you wouldn’t let me hold your hand. You were twelve years old. I was walking you to Janey Thompson’s birthday party. Saturday. Warm weather though it was early fall. The sunlight was drumming at our backs. The low heels of your new shoes were clicking against the sidewalk. You were wearing a yellow sundress with thin straps. Too old for you, I thought, but maybe not because suddenly, you were older. S
o much older. No more gangly arms and lanky legs knocking over books and bumping into furniture. No more excited giggles and pained screams at the injustice of denied cake. Golden hair turned blonde and wavy. Bright blue eyes squinted with skepticism. Mouth no longer so quick to smile when I pulled your pigtails or tickled your knee.
No pigtails today. Stockings covered your knees.
We stopped at the street corner and I instinctively reached for your hand.
“Dad.” You rolled your eyes. Your voice was older. A hint of the woman I would never get to meet.
Dad.
Not Daddy anymore.
Dad.
I knew that was it. No more holding my hand. No more sitting in my lap. No more throwing your arms around my waist when I walked through the front door or standing on my shoes while we danced around the kitchen. I would be the bank now. The ride to your friend’s house. The critic of your biology homework. The signature on the check mailed away with your college application.
And as I signed that check at our kitchen table, I would remember how I used to drink pretend tea from tiny china cups as you and Mr. Biggles excitedly told me about your day.
Mr. Biggles. That poor, stuffed shaggy dog had survived chicken pox, a spilled glass of Kool-Aid, and an unceremonious toss into the trashcan. He was flattened by your weight, accidentally burned when placed too close to a curling iron, and sheared for reasons unknown by your baby sister.
Me walking into your room as you packed for college: “Honey, did you mean to throw away Mr. Biggles?”
You looking up from your suitcase filled with too-small T-shirts and cut-offs and make-up and a box of tampons that we both chose to ignore.
Dad.
The same annoyed tone you’d used that day on the street corner when you wrenched your hand from mine.
The next times you touched me would be casually—as you grabbed car keys or money or hugged me quickly for letting you go to a concert, a movie, a date with a boy I would never like.
If you had lived past the age of nineteen—if you had survived—would you have married that boy? Would you have broken his heart? Would you have given me grandchildren? Great-grandchildren? Christmas mornings at your house. Sunday dinners. Birthday cards with hearts on them. Shared vacations. Complaining about your mother. Loving your mother. Babysitting your nieces and nephews. Annoying your sisters. Bossing them around. Calling them all the time. Not calling them enough. Fighting with them. Making up with them. Me in the center of all of this, taking late-night phone calls about croup and chicken pox and why won’t the baby stop crying and “what do you think, Daddy?” and “why does she do that, Daddy?” and “I need you, Daddy.”
Daddy.
I found one of your scrapbooks the other day. You and your sisters spent the fifteenth year of your brief life planning your dream wedding. The dresses and the cake, the handsome grooms and their sophisticated brides. Luke and Laura. Charles and Diana. You and Patrick Swayze or George Michael or Paul McCartney (though he was much too old for you, your sisters agreed).
Last night, I dreamed of your wedding—the wedding you never had.
Who would’ve been waiting for you at the end of the aisle? Sadly, not that purposeful young man you met at freshman orientation, or the pre-med student who had a ten-year plan. It’s more likely you would’ve chosen that slouchy, feckless boy with the floppy hair who so proudly declared his major was undeclared.
Since this wedding that never happened is my fantasy, that boy is clean-shaven on your special day, hair combed neatly, slightly nervous as he stands by the preacher, looking at you the way I always wanted a man to look at you: kind, loving, slightly in awe.
We would both be thinking the same thing, Mr. Feckless and I: Why on earth did you choose him?
The music plays. We begin our march. People are standing. There are whispers about your beauty. Your grace. You and I are a scant few feet away from the altar when suddenly, I want to grab you and run back up the aisle. I want to bribe you into waiting a year. Just living with him, though your Grandma Ginny would be scandalized. You could go to Paris and study Voltaire. Visit New York and see every Broadway show. Move back into your room with the posters on the walls and Mr. Biggles on your bed and that ugly lamp you found at a yard sale that your mother was praying you would take with you to college.
Though even in my dream, I know that pushing you one way will send you hurtling in the other direction. You proved as much at the end of your life as you did at the beginning.
And so there I am standing beside you on your phantom wedding day, holding back tears, offering you to the future you will never have. Your mother is in the front row waiting for me to join her. Your sisters are by the preacher, opposite the boy, and they are beaming and nervous and proud and tearful from the romance and also from fear of the changes they know will come. They are both maids of honor. They are both wearing dresses that were fought over long ago. They are both so proud and so pretty and so ready to get out of their tight dresses and pinching heels.
You cling to my arm. You hold on to my hand—tightly, the way you used to do when we crossed the street, when a scary movie was on, when you just wanted to let me know that you were there and that you loved me.
You look up at me. I am startled. Suddenly, quite miraculously, you are a grown-up beautiful woman. You look so much like your mother, but you are still uniquely you. You have thoughts I will never know. Desires I will never understand. Friends I will never meet. Passions I will never share. You have a life. You have an entire world in front of you.
Then you smile, and you squeeze my hand, and even in my sleep, I understand the truth: No matter what happened to you, no matter what horrors you endured when you were taken away, you will always be my pretty little girl.
Acknowledgments
First thanks goes to my stellar editor and Brain’s Best Friend, Kate Elton, who makes everything I do so much easier. Victoria Sanders, my literary agent, and Angela Cheng Caplan, my film agent, round out my fantastically supportive team. I would also like to extend a heart-felt thanks to my new friends at Harper Collins—Dan Mallory, Liate Stehlik and Virginia Stanley, among many others. Thanks to Random House UK (Susan Sandon, Jenny Geras, Georgina Hawtrey-Woore and the gang).
Patricia Friedman assisted me with some of the thornier legal issues in the story. The kindly folks at Quickshot Shooting Range familiarized me with various weapons. Lynne Nygaard told me some treat stories about her dad, which I was very open about stealing and/or combining with stories about my own wonderful father. Barry Newton helped me with some of the computer stuff (any mistakes are all his fault). The gentlemen at Tesla Marietta walked me through the most awesome car in the world. For many years, I’ve written about BMW in the hopes of being rewarded (Mr. Musk, a loaded grey metallic P85D with matte obeche wood and grey interior would not go amiss …). My Dymo labelmaker has brought me endless pleasure in the order it provides (sorry Dymo, I would rather have the Tesla). Pia Lorite won a “have your name appear in the next Karin Slaughter novel” contest. Abby Ellis should be commended for her accurate recollections of all the bars in Athens (though I was concerned by her less-than-accurate recollections of the campus). Those who went to UGA should keep in mind that this book is fiction. It is neither fact nor travelogue (your first clue: Georgia beats Auburn).
As always, I would like to give special thanks to my daddy, who brings me soup when I am writing and makes sure I do important things like comb my hair and sleep. And lastly to D.A., whose label would read MY HEART.
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Copyright © Karin Slaughter 2015
Karin Slaughter has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Lines from ‘Closer to Fine’ by Indigo Girls, words and music by Emily Saliers and Amy Ray, published by Universal/MCA Music Ltd; Lines from ‘Justify My Love’ by Madonna, written by Lenny Kravitz, Ingrid Chavez, with additional lyrics by Madonna, published by Universal Music Publishing Group, REACH MUSIC PUBLISHING, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.; Lines from ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’ by Taylor Swift, written by Taylor Swift, Max Martin and Shellback, published by Sony/ATV Music Publishing UK Ltd.
First published in Great Britain by Century in 2015
www.randomhouse.co.uk
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781780893556 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781780893563 (Trade paperback)
Pretty Girls: A Novel Page 44