Angie wanted Jo to be more like Keisha. To go out into the world. To tell everybody to fuck off, to stand up, to be strong like her mother. To do something other than hide herself away.
Was it shyness? Was it fear?
For the last few months, Angie had been mentally composing a letter to Jo. The content wasn’t always at the forefront of her thoughts. She wasn’t obsessing over it. What happened was, she was packing up her shit to move to a new place or she was driving down the road in her new car and she would think of a line that would work in the letter:
I should’ve kept you.
I should’ve never let you go.
I loved you the moment I saw you yell at that asshole in Starbucks because that was when I understood that you are my daughter.
Angie knew that she could never actually write the letter. Not if she wanted to give Jo her happy ending. The temptation was still there, though. Angie was selfish enough, she was coldhearted enough, and she certainly had proven that she didn’t mind leaving a few casualties in her wake, but for now, she was content to do what she had always done: watch her daughter from afar.
Jo seemed like she was going to be okay. She was going out more. Sometimes, she’d wind up at the coffee house near Anthony’s new school, where she’d sit for hours just because she could. Other times, she’d go to church and sit in the back pew, hands clasped in her lap as she stared at the stained glass behind the altar. There were aunts and cousins and all sorts of boisterous, happy people that Angie could not imagine having to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with. Anthony was attending a private school two counties over. They were financially secure. Jo hadn’t been on any of Reuben Figaroa’s accounts, but she was still married to him when he had taken the coward’s way out, and she had inherited all of his investments, the properties, the cars, the money.
Angie had her own inheritance, too. From her uncle, which had a certain kind of irony, since Dale had never claimed her until Deidre was gone and he could trick her out. The bricks of cash that Angie had taken from his Kia totaled $18,000. Together with the money in her bank account, she had about fifty grand to live on before she figured out what to do with the rest of her life.
Back to being a private eye? Back to running scams? To running girls? To running pills? Back to Atlanta?
Not once since Deidre drugged herself into oblivion had Angie felt like she had choices. From the age of ten, Dale was always there, pushing Angie, pulling her, slapping her around. Even when she managed to get away, Virginia always connived her back into the fold.
In her imaginary letter to Jo, Angie would explain how Dale and Virginia had gotten their hooks into her. That she had only been four years older than Anthony when it happened. That she had been vulnerable. Terrified. That she had done anything and everything to keep them happy because they were all she had in the world. Maybe she would even quote LaDonna Rippy. The bitch was going to spend some hard time in prison for holding on to those shoes, but she hadn’t been wrong about the nature of damage. Some people had holes inside of them that they spent their lives trying to fill. With hate. With pills. With scheming. With jealousy. With a child’s love. With a man’s fist.
Angie had created the hole inside of Jo. She had to own that truth. Jo had been raised by her adoptive parents. She’d had a normal life. But the second that Angie had abandoned her baby in that hospital room, Jo had started to tear. The old saying was that women married their fathers. Angie had a sinking feeling that Jo was attracted to men who were more like her mother.
There weren’t a lot of excuses to make, but this is what Angie would have told her daughter: badness doesn’t come all at once. The dominoes fall over time. You hurt someone by mistake and they let you get away with it. Then you try hurting them on purpose, and they still stick around. And then you realize that the more you hurt them, the better you feel. So you keep hurting them, and they keep hanging on, and the years roll by and you convince yourself that the fact that they still stand by you means that the pain you cause is okay.
But you hate them for it. For what you do to them. For what they do to you.
A sudden, strong breeze cut through Angie’s thin shirt. She looked up at the tree. American sycamore, she guessed, maybe one hundred feet tall. Tiny dots of dead leaves and twiggy tendrils gave the canopy the appearance of a hair net. Massive trunk, shallow roots. The kind of tree that for all its grandeur, would eventually topple during a bad storm.
“Anthony!” Jo yelled, loud and clear.
He was running up the slide. He guiltily ran back down, waving an apology. Jo slowly returned to the bench. She shook her head. She was smiling. Not a big grin that showed her teeth, but a smile that said things might end up okay.
Would Angie end up okay?
She was doing all this thinking about writing a letter when the only letter that mattered was the one that Will had left for her.
The minute she had been released from police custody, Angie had rushed to her PO box. She needed to cash her last check from Kip Kilpatrick before his account was closed.
The check wasn’t there.
She had found a letter from Will instead.
Not a letter, really. More like a note. No envelope. Just a folded sheet of notebook paper. He hadn’t used his computer. He had used a pen. Will never wrote anything but his signature anymore. He was too ashamed. The last time Angie had seen his handwriting was in high school, before computers, before anyone knew what dyslexia was and just thought his childish, backward letters and bad spelling signified a low IQ.
Typical Will, his note was succinct, as brief as anything Angie had ever left Sara on the windshield of her car.
It is over.
Three words. All underlined. Unsigned. Will had always avoided contractions. She could picture him sitting at his desk in his house, studying the note, sweating over the spelling, unable to tell if he’d gotten it right and too proud to ask anyone to check it for him.
Sara wouldn’t know about it. This was between Will and Angie.
“Mommy!” The piercing scream made her flinch. Three little girls started running around, shouting their heads off. There didn’t seem to be a reason why, but the sound was contagious. Pretty soon all the kids were screaming.
Her cue to leave.
Angie walked toward the parking lot. The sun quickly warmed her. Her car was an older model Corvette she’d bought off Craigslist. The money had come from an advance she’d taken off Delilah Palmer’s credit card. It’s not like the little bitch would get stuck with the bill. Weirdly, the car reminded Angie of Delilah. The tires were bad. The paint was chipping. Still, the engine had a threatening rumble when she turned the key.
The interior had the lingering odor of perfume. Not from the previous owner, but from Angie. She still had half a bottle of Sara’s Chanel No. 5. The scent didn’t exactly suit her, but then it probably didn’t suit Sara, either.
Angie was still keeping an eye on her placeholder.
She had gotten Sam Vera to hook her up with the same technology he had used to clone Reuben Figaroa’s computer. The contents from Sara’s laptop were updated in real-time now. She was still writing sickly sweet e-mails about Will to her sister.
When he holds me in his arms, all I can think is that I want this to last forever.
Angie had laughed when she’d read the line.
Forever was never as long as you thought it was.
Acknowledgments
First thanks always goes to Kate Elton, my editor, and Victoria Sanders, my literary agent. My film agent, Angela Cheng Caplan, at Cheng Caplan Agency rounds out the list. I would also like to thank Bernadette Baker Baughman and Chris Kepner at VSA. Liate Stehlik, Dan Mallory, Heidi Richter, and the folks at HC US are much appreciated, as are my fantastic, enthusiastic publishers around the world. A special thanks goes to my translators who made the transition with me. It’s so important to me that my readers have the best experience, and I am grateful that the team is still working on all cylind
ers to make that happen.
Thanks to Dr. David Harper for all the medical stuff that makes Sara sound like a real doctor. Or at least a real doctor in fiction. Dr. Judy Melinek gave me a really weird and creepy idea (thanks, Judy!). Patricia Friedman gave me some nonbinding legal advice. Dona Roberts (GBI ret.), Sherry Lang (GBI ret.), and Vickye Prattes (APD ret.) were very helpful with procedural questions; any mistakes are my own.
Lastly, I continue to be grateful to my daddy for taking care of me while I am writing in the mountains and D.A., for taking care of me at home.
About the Author
KARIN SLAUGHTER is the #1 internationally bestselling author of more than a dozen novels, including the Will Trent and Grant County series and the instant New York Times bestsellers Cop Town and Pretty Girls. There are more than thirty-five million copies of her books in print around the world. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Also by Karin Slaughter
Blindsighted
Kisscut
A Faint Cold Fear
Indelible
Like a Charm (editor)
Faithless
Triptych
Beyond Reach
Fractured
Undone
Broken
Fallen
Criminal
Unseen
Cop Town
Pretty Girls
E-book Originals
Snatched
Thorn in My Side
Blonde Hair, Blue Eyes
Busted
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
the kept woman. Copyright © 2016 by Karin Slaughter. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
HarperCollins books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information, please email the Special Markets Department at
[email protected] first edition
Photograph by MC2000/Shutterstock, Inc.
Digital Edition SEPTEMBER 2016 ISBN: 978-0-06-243023-6
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-243021-2
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Karin Slaughter, The Kept Woman
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