Pretty Girls

“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 key fob 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 longtime 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 k

new 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 jailhouse. 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.”