Pretty Girls

by Karin Slaughter

  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 fund-­raisers. 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 it.

  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 key chain 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 key tag from the mailbox by now. They’d transferred the work files in the garage. What else was on the thumb drive? “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.

  His anger spurred Claire on. “The police put it in one of those clea
r plastic evidence bags.” She tried to spot the holes in her story. “I used the spare at the house to drive the Tesla home. But I know the key tag is in evidence because they sent me a list for insurance. I had to forward it to Pia Lorite, our insurance agent.”

  Claire held her breath and prayed that the story made sense. What was on the USB drive inside the key tag? Back in the garage, she had checked to make sure there were no movies. The only folder contained software. Or at least that’s what Paul had made it look like. He had always been exceptionally good with computers.

  Paul asked, “Can you get it back?” His words were clipped. She could practically see him clenching and unclenching his fists, her usual sign that her words were hitting their mark. In all the years of their marriage, she had never been afraid that he would use those fists on her.

  And now she was struck by the very real threat that he would use them on Lydia.

  Claire said, “Promise me you won’t hurt Lydia. Please.”

  “I need that key tag.” The underlying threat in his tone had a deadly stillness. “You have to get it for me.”

  “Okay, but—­” Claire started to babble. “The detective—­Rayman. Don’t you know him? Somebody had to help you plan what happened in the alley. There were paramedics, police officers, detectives—­”

  “I know who was there.”

  She knew that he did, because Paul had been right there in the alley alongside Claire. How long had he pretended to be dead? Five minutes at least, then the paramedics had put the blanket over him and that was the last Claire had seen of her husband.

  She said, “Eric Rayman is the detective who’s in charge of the investigation. Can’t you call him?”

  Paul didn’t answer, but she could feel his anger as if he were standing right in front of her.

  She tried again. “Who helped you do this? Can’t you—­”

  “I want you to listen to me very carefully. Are you listening?”

  “Yes.”

  “There are cameras all over the house. Some you can find, some you’ll never see. Lydia’s cell phone is tapped. The phone you’re on right now is tapped. I’m going to call you on this landline every twenty minutes for the next two hours. That’s going to get me far enough away so that I know I’m safe, and it’s going to keep you there while I figure out what you’re going to do next.”

  “Why, Paul?” She wasn’t just asking about what was happening right now. She was asking about everything that had come before. “Your father murdered my sister. I watched the tape. I know what he did to—­” Her voice broke. She felt like her heart was breaking along with it. “I don’t—­” Claire fought back the agony. “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Paul’s voice filled with emotion. “We can get through this. We’ll get through it.”

  She closed her eyes. He was trying to soothe her. And the horrible part was that she wanted to be soothed. Claire could still recall what it had felt like in the den when she woke up and realized that Paul was alive. Her husband. Her champion. He was going to make all of this go away.

  “I never killed any of them.” He sounded so vulnerable. “I promise you.”

  Claire put her hand to her mouth so that she wouldn’t speak. She wanted to believe him. She so desperately needed to believe him.

  “I didn’t even know what Dad was doing until after the car accident. I went into the barn and I found all of his . . . stuff.”

  Claire bit her fist to keep from screaming. He was making it sound so logical.

  “I was just a kid on my own. Tuition was due at the academy. I had college to think about. It was good money, Claire. All I had to do was make copies and send them out.”

  Claire couldn’t breathe. She had spent that money. She had worn jewelry and clothes and shoes paid for by the blood and suffering of those poor girls.

  “I promise you. It was only a means to an end.”

  She couldn’t take this anymore. She was so close to her breaking point that she could practically feel herself bending.

  “Claire?”

  She said, “The movies on your computer weren’t old.”

  “I know.” He was quiet for another moment, and she wondered if he was trying to think of a lie or already had one and was just pausing for effect. “I was a distributor. I never participated.”

  Claire struggled with the urge to believe him, to hold on to this one piece of her husband’s humanity. “Who is the masked man?”

  “He’s just a guy.”

  Just a guy.

  “You don’t have to worry about him.” Paul sounded like he was talking about an asshole from work. “You’re safe, Claire. You’re always safe.”

  She ignored his comforts because her only other alternative was to believe him. “What’s on the USB drive?”

  He went quiet again.

  “Are you forgetting who gave you that Auburn key tag, Paul? I know there’s a USB drive inside the plastic disc, and I know you want it back because you put something on it for safekeeping.”

  He kept silent.

  “Why?” She couldn’t stop asking the question. “Why?”

  “I was trying to protect you.”

  “Is that some kind of stupid joke?”

  “The plan had to be moved up. There were other things in play. I tried my best to keep you out of it. But what happened with that guy in the alley, the sentiment was real, Claire. You know I would lay down my life to protect you. Why do you think I’m still here? You’re everything to me.”

  Claire shook her head. She was dizzy from all of his excuses.

  He said, “The ­people who are into this stuff are not nice ­people. They’re powerful. They have a lot of money and influence.”

  “Political influence.”

  He made a surprised sound. “You were always so damn clever.”

  Claire didn’t want to be clever anymore. She wanted to be in control. “It’s your turn to listen to me. Are you listening?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you hurt Lydia, I will hunt you down and burn you into the fucking ground. Do you understand me?”

  “God, I love you like this.”

  The phone clicked. He’d ended the call.

  CHAPTER 13

  Lydia stared into the darkness of the trunk as she listened to the hum of wheels on the road. She had already run through all the things you were supposed to do if you ever got locked inside a trunk. Obviously, Paul had run through them, too. There were steel plates bolted to the back of the taillights so Lydia couldn’t punch them open and stick out her hand to wave down passing motorists. The emergency release latch had been disabled. There was another thick, steel plate between the trunk and the backseat so she couldn’t kick her way to freedom. She was pretty sure the area was insulated for sound, too. She couldn’t imagine Paul had padded the trunk for her comfort.

  Which meant that he had designed this car specifically to hold a prisoner.

  Lydia could hear Paul in the front of the car talking on the phone. There were only a few words she could make out, and they were all useless—­yes, no, okay. Paul’s tone was brisk, so Lydia assumed he wasn’t talking to Claire. His voice was different when he talked to her sister. It made Lydia ill to think about how different it was, because Claire had been right: Paul made a conscious choice when he showed his dark side.

  She had seen it on full display when he’d opened the trunk to take Lydia’s picture. She had watched him turn the darkness on and off like a lightbulb. One minute, he was telling Claire to go check Lydia’s phone and the next, his face was so frightening that Lydia was afraid she was going to lose control of her bladder.

  He had reached into the trunk and grabbed her face so hard that she felt the bones crushing. “Give me a reason to do to you what my dad did to Julia.”

  Lydia had been shaking so h
ard when he closed the trunk that her teeth were chattering.

  She rolled onto her back to relieve some of the pressure in her shoulder. Her arms and legs were zip-­tied, but she could still move if she was careful. The blood from the cut in her forehead had dried. Her swollen eye was leaking tears. The drumming in her head had subsided to an occasional dull thud.

  Paul had hit her with something heavy and solid back at the Fuller house. Lydia wasn’t sure what he’d used, but it had pounded into her head like a sledgehammer. She hadn’t even heard him coming. One moment, she was standing in the kitchen with her mouth open to give the 911 operator her name, and the next, stars were bursting in front of her eyes. Literally. Lydia had felt like a cartoon character. She tottered back and forth. She tried to brace herself on the kitchen table. And then Paul had punched her again, then again, until she was unconscious on the floor.

  Lydia had managed to shout, “No,” before she blacked out. Obviously, that wasn’t enough to warn Claire. Or maybe she’d gotten the warning but didn’t know what to do. Lydia couldn’t imagine her baby sister having the wherewithal to fight off Paul. Then again, she couldn’t imagine her baby sister kneecapping her tennis partner.

  She guessed that Claire was asking herself the same questions that were running through Lydia’s mind: Why had Paul faked his death? Why had he taken Lydia? What did he want from them?

  She didn’t want to dwell on that last question, because Paul Scott was clearly obsessed with the Carroll sisters. His father had kidnapped and brutally murdered one of them. He had married another. And now he had Lydia in the trunk of his car, a trunk that had obviously been prepared well ahead of time.

  Was he really going to do the same thing to Lydia that had been done to Julia?

  Was he going to murder her and rape her while she died?

  Julia. Her vibrant, big sister. Her best friend. Screaming as the machete cut through her neck and shoulder. Writhing as Paul’s father ripped her apart.

  Bile burned up into Lydia’s mouth. She turned her head and spit as more came up. The smell was noxious in the confined space. She moved closer to the back of the trunk to get away from it. Her stomach felt hollow. She could not clear the image of Julia from her mind.