Sam was so lost in thought that she did not hear her phone ring. The stuttered vibrations of the device shook her back to the present. She slid the bar across the screen. She put the phone to her ear.
“She signed the deal,” Charlie said by way of greeting. “I told her we could try to get it knocked down a few more years, but Lucy Alexander’s parents have been pushing pretty hard and the Wilsons just want it over with, so she’s at ten years, minimum security, eligible for monitored parole in five if she’s on good behavior, which of course she will be.”
Sam had to silently repeat Charlie’s words back in her head before she fully understood them. Her sister was talking about Kelly Wilson. Sam had hired a lawyer from Atlanta to help work out a plea deal. With Ken Coin’s abrupt resignation and the recording that Charlie had made of Judith Pinkman being considered tantamount to a deathbed confession, the state prosecutor had been eager to make the Kelly Wilson case go away.
Charlie said, “Coin would’ve never made that deal.”
“I bet I could’ve talked him into it.”
Charlie laughed appreciatively. “Are you ever going to tell me how you got him to quit?”
“It’s an interesting story,” Sam said, but did not tell the story. Charlie still refused to explain how her nose had been broken, so Sam still refused to explain how she had used Mason’s confession to intimidate Coin into stepping down.
Sam said, “Parole in five years is a good deal. Kelly will be in her early twenties when she gets out. Her child will be young enough for them to bond with each other.”
“It rankles,” Charlie said, and Sam knew she did not mean Kelly Wilson or her unborn child or even Ken Coin. She was talking about Mason Huckabee.
The FBI had done a full-court press against Mason for lying to a federal agent, tampering with evidence, obstruction of justice, and accessory to a double murder after the fact. Despite his voluntary confession to the Pikeville police, Mason Huckabee had, unsurprisingly, hired a really good, really expensive lawyer who’d pled him down to six years without a chance of parole. The Atlanta Federal Pen was not an easy place to serve time, but over the last few weeks, both Charlie and Sam had found themselves wondering if they should follow through on Sam’s threat to release Mason’s written confession.
Sam said what she always said: “It’s good for us to let this go, Charlie. Dad would not have wanted us to tie up our lives for the next five, ten, twenty years, hounding Mason Huckabee through the criminal justice system. We need to move on with our lives.”
“I know,” Charlie admitted, but with obvious reluctance. “It just pisses me off that he only got one more year than Kelly. I guess that’s a lesson about lying to a federal agent. But, you know, we could always go after him before his release. Who knows where we’ll be in six years? There’s no statute of limitations on—”
“Charlie.”
“All right,” she said. “Maybe he’ll get shivved in the shower or someone will put glass in his food.”
Sam let her sister talk.
“I’m not saying he should be murdered or anything, but, like, he loses a kidney or his stomach is shredded or, hey, better yet, he’s forced to shit into a bag for the rest of his life.” She took a quick pause for breath. “I mean, okay, the living conditions in prisons are deplorable and healthcare is a joke, and they feed them, basically, rat turds, but aren’t you kind of glad that he could get something as stupid as an infected tooth and die a miserable, painful death?”
Sam waited to make sure she was finished. “Once you and Ben are living in Atlanta, starting your new lives, it won’t matter as much. That’s your revenge. Enjoy your life. Appreciate what you have.”
“I know,” Charlie repeated.
“Be useful, Charlie. That’s what Mama wanted.”
“I know,” she said, sighing out the words for a third time. “Let’s change the subject. Since I’m catching you up on the Pikeville crime report, they had to let Rick Fahey go.”
Lucy Alexander’s grieving uncle. The man who had more than likely stabbed Rusty.
Sam said what Charlie must have known. “Absent a confession, they have no proof against him.”
“I keep telling myself that Dad saw him that night, and that he knew it was Fahey, but he decided to let it go, so we should let it go.”
Sam chose not to patronize her sister with Rusty’s line about the value in forgiveness. “Isn’t this exactly what you said you wanted to do—learn to let things go?”
“Yeah, well, I thought you were learning not to be a pain in my ass.”
Sam smiled. “I want to send you a check for cleaning—”
“Stop.” Charlie was too stubborn to take Sam’s money. “Look, we were thinking of taking a vacation before we start our new jobs. Swing down to Florida for a few days to make sure Lenore is settling in, then maybe fly up to see you?”
Sam felt her smile strain at her cheeks. “You won’t accept my money but you’ll accept free room and board?”
“Exactly.”
“I’d like that.” Sam looked around her apartment. Suddenly, it felt too sterile. She needed to buy things like pillows and hang some artwork and maybe add some color before Charlie got here. She wanted her sister to know that she had made herself a home.
Charlie said, “Okay, I’ve got to go stew and complain about this to Ben until I wear myself out. Check your email. We found something crazy in the basement.”
Sam cringed. The basement had been the bachelor farmer’s domain. “Is this another weird thing that’s going to freak me out?”
“Check your email.”
“I just checked it.”
“Check it again, but when we’re off the phone.”
“I can look while we’re—”
Charlie had hung up.
Sam rolled her eyes. There was a downside to having her little sister back in her life.
She clicked the home button on her phone. She opened her email. She dragged down the screen with her thumb. The circle spun as the emails reloaded.
Nothing new appeared at the top. Sam reloaded the emails again.
Still nothing.
She took off her glasses. She rubbed her eyes. She ran through all the troubling bachelor farmer surprises they had already found in the basement: assorted lingerie, various shoes, but only left ones, and a clock of a naked woman that had a perverted Tweety Bird effect.
Fosco jumped onto the counter. He sniffed the empty bowl of yogurt, clearly disappointed. Sam scratched his ears. He started to purr.
Her phone chirped.
Charlie’s email had finally arrived.
Sam skimmed the listing: this message has no content.
“Charlie,” she mumbled. Sam opened the email, mentally preparing a wry response, only to find that the message was not empty.
A file was attached at the bottom.
Tap to download.
Sam’s thumb hovered over the icon.
The file name was above her nail.
Instead of tapping the screen, she put the phone down on the counter.
She leaned over, pressing her forehead to the cold marble. Her eyes closed. Her hands clasped together in her lap. She slowly breathed in, filling her lungs, before she breathed out again. She listened to the pelting rain. She waited for the butterflies in her stomach to float away.