Charlie’s voice was so loud that she heard her words echo up the hallway.
Ben said, “Rusty had him sign a confession.” He looked at Sam, not Charlie. “I found it in the safe.”
Charlie looked up at the ceiling. She let her tears fall. She would never forgive herself for making Ben find out from a piece of paper.
Mason said, “I wanted to sign the confession. I wanted to come forward. I was sick with it, the lies, the guilt.”
Sam held onto Charlie’s arm as if to keep them both rooted in place. “Why didn’t Dad turn you in?”
“He didn’t want another trial,” Mason said. “You guys were living your lives, getting past it.”
“Getting past it,” Charlie mumbled.
Mason continued, “Rusty didn’t want it dredged up again, to make you come home, to make Charlie go on the stand. He didn’t want her to have to—”
“Lie,” Sam finished.
The box, sealed for so long, placed high on the closet shelf. Rusty had not wanted to force Charlie to choose between lying under oath and opening up the box for the world to see.
The Culpepper girls.
The torture those nasty bitches had put her through—still put her through. What would they say, what would they do, if proof came out that they had been right about Daniel’s innocence all along?
They had been right.
Charlie had pointed her finger at the wrong man.
Sam asked, “Why did my father write the checks?”
Mason said, “That was one of Rusty’s stipulations. He wanted Zach to know that he knew, that somebody else could blow up the deal, cut off the money to Danny, if Zach didn’t keep his mouth shut.”
“That put a target on his back,” Charlie said. “Culpepper could’ve had him killed.”
Mason shook his head again. “Not if he wanted the checks to keep going to his son.”
“Do you think he really cared about his son?” Sam asked. “Culpepper was taunting him. Did you know that? Every month, he sent Rusty a letter telling him You owe me. Just to rub it in. To remind Rusty that he could tear apart all of our lives, rob us of our peace, our sense of safety, at any moment.”
Mason said nothing.
Sam demanded, “Do you know what kind of stress you caused our father? Lying to us. Hiding the truth. He wasn’t built for that kind of deception. He’d already lived through his wife being murdered, his daughter almost dying, Charlie being—” She shook her head. “Rusty’s heart was already weak. Did you know that? Do you know how much your lies, your guilt, your cowardice, contributed to his bad health? Maybe that’s why he drank so much, to chase away the bad taste of his own complicity. Complicity that you drew him into. He had to live with that every day, every month when he wrote that check, every time he called me—”
Sam finally broke. She took off her glasses. She pressed her fingers to her eyelids. She said, “He was protecting us all of those years because of you.”
Mason leaned his head between his knees. If he was crying again, Charlie did not care.
Ben asked, “Why are you here? Did you think you could talk them out of turning you in?”
“I came to confess,” Mason said. “To tell you I’m sorry. That I have tried every day since then to make up for what I did. I’ve got medals.” He looked up at Sam. “I’ve got combat medals, a purple heart, a—”
“I don’t care,” Sam said. “You’ve had twenty-eight years of your life to plead guilty. You could have walked into any police station, confessed, and taken your punishment, but you were afraid you would end up with life in prison, or on death row, the same as Zachariah Culpepper.”
Mason did not answer, but the truth was self-evident.
Charlie said, “You knew we never told anybody about what really happened in the woods. That’s how you got my father on your side, isn’t it? You blackmailed him. My secret for yours.”
Mason wiped blood from his mouth. He still said nothing.
Charlie said, “You sat in that kitchen where my mother was murdered, and you told my father that you would use your family’s money to fight a murder conviction, no matter who it hurt, no matter what came out during the trial. Sam would’ve been dragged back down here. I would’ve been forced to testify. You knew Daddy wouldn’t let that happen to us.”
Mason only asked, “What are you going to do now?”
“It’s what you’re going to do,” Sam said. “You’ve got exactly twenty minutes to drive to the police station and confess on the record, without a lawyer, to lying to the police and taking Kelly Wilson’s gun from the scene of a double homicide or so help me I will take your written confession to attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder straight to the chief of police. This town doesn’t forget, Mason. Your excuse that you were just standing there, that it was an accident, still constitutes felony murder. If you don’t do exactly as I say right now, you’ll end up in a cell beside Zachariah Culpepper, where you should’ve been for the last twenty-eight years.”
Mason wiped his hands on his pants. He reached for his broken phone.
Ben kicked it away. He opened the back door. “Get out.”
Mason stood up. He did not speak. He turned and walked out of the house.
Ben slammed the door so hard that a new crack spread up the window.
Sam put her glasses back on. She asked Ben, “Where is the confession?”
“On the safe by the letters.”
“Thank you.” Sam did not go to the office.
She walked into the living room.
Charlie hesitated. She didn’t know whether or not to follow Sam. What could she say to her sister that could possibly make either of them feel better? The man who had shot Sam in the head, who had buried her alive, had just walked out their back door with nothing but a threat to make him do the right thing.
Ben turned the latch on the deadbolt.
Charlie asked him, “Are you all right?”
He took off his glasses, wiped the blood from the lenses. “I’ve never been in a real fight before. Not where I managed to hit anybody.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you were upset. I’m sorry that I lied. I’m sorry that you had to read about what happened instead of me telling you myself.”
“There’s nothing in the confession about what Zachariah did to you.” Ben slid his glasses back on. “Rusty told me.”
Charlie was speechless. Rusty had never betrayed a confidence.
Ben said, “Last weekend. He didn’t tell me Mason was involved, but he told me everything else. He said that the worst sin he had ever committed against anybody in his life was making you keep it a secret.”
Charlie rubbed her arms, unable to fight off a sudden chill.
Ben said, “What happened to you—I’m sorry, but I don’t care.”
Charlie felt his disregard as an almost physical pain.
“I said that wrong.” Ben tried to explain, “I’m sorry it happened, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t care that you lied. I don’t care, Chuck.”
“It’s why—” Charlie looked down at the floor. Fittingly, Mason Huckabee had left a trail of blood on his way out of the house.
“It’s why what?” Ben was standing in front of her. He tilted up her chin. “Chuck, just say it. Holding it in is killing you.”
He already knew. He knew everything. And still, she struggled to give voice to her own failures. “The miscarriages. They were because of what happened.”
Ben rested his hands on her shoulders. He waited for her to look him in the eye, then said, “When I was nine years old, Terri kicked me in the nuts, and I peed blood for a week.”
Charlie started to speak, but he shook his head, telling her not to.
“When I was fifteen, I got punched in the junk by a jock. I was just hanging with my nerd herd, minding my own business, and he punched my balls so hard I thought they went up my asshole.”
Ben pressed his finger to her lips so she could not interrupt.
&n
bsp; “I keep my cell phone in my front pocket. I know I’m not supposed to because it scrambles your sperm, but I do it anyway. And I can’t wear boxers. You know I hate the way they bunch up. And I masturbated a lot. I mean, some now, but when I was a kid, I was Olympic-ready. I was the only member of the Starfleet Club in my school, and I collected comic books, and I played triangle in the band. No girl would look at me. Not even the ones with acne. I jerked myself off so much that my mom took me to the doctor because she was worried I would get blisters.”
“Ben.”
“Chuck, listen to me. I dressed up as red shirt ensign from Star Trek for my senior prom. There wasn’t a theme. I was the only guy who wasn’t in a tux. I thought I was being ironic.”
Charlie finally smiled.
“Obviously, I was not meant to procreate. I have no idea why I ended up with someone as hot as you, or why we couldn’t—” He didn’t say the words. “It’s just the card we drew, babe. We don’t know if it’s something that happened to me or something that happened to you or plain old natural selection, but that’s the way it is, and I am telling you that I don’t care.”
Charlie cleared her throat. “Kaylee could give you children.”
“Kaylee gave me gonorrhea.”
Charlie should have felt wounded, but the first emotion that registered was concern. Ben was allergic to penicillin. “Did you have to go to the hospital?”
“I spent the last ten days going to Ducktown so no one here would find out.”
Now she felt the wound. “So, this was recent.”
“The last time was almost two months ago. I thought I was just having trouble peeing.”
“You didn’t think that was a sign that you should go to the doctor?”
“Eventually, obviously,” he said. “But that’s why I didn’t—the other night. I tested clean, but it didn’t feel right to not tell you. And I was there to check on you because I was worried. I didn’t need a file. There was no plea deal that went south.”
Charlie did not care about the lie. “How long did it last?”
“It didn’t last. It was four times, and it was fun at first, but then it was just sad. She’s so young. She thinks Kate Mulgrew got her start on Orange Is the New Black.”
“Wow,” Charlie said, trying to make a joke so she didn’t cry. “How did she manage to get through law school?”
Ben tried to joke, too. “You were right about being on top. It’s a lot of work.”
Charlie felt nauseated. “Thanks for the image.”
“Try never being able to sneeze again.”
Charlie chewed the inside of her cheek. She should have never told him the details. She sure as hell wished she had not heard his.
He said, “I’m going to go pack up that stuff for Sam.”
Charlie nodded, but she didn’t want him to go, not even down the hall.
He kissed her forehead. She leaned into him, smelling his sweat and the wrong detergent he was using on his shirts.
He said, “I’ll be in your dad’s office.”
Charlie watched his goofy, loping gait as he walked away.
He hadn’t left the house.
That had to be something.
Charlie didn’t immediately go to Sam. She turned around. She looked into the kitchen. The door was hanging open. She could feel the breeze coming through. She tried to adjust her memory to that moment when she had opened the door, expecting to find Rusty, instead seeing two men, one in black, one wearing a Bon Jovi T-shirt.
One with a shotgun.
One with a revolver.
Zachariah Culpepper.
Mason Huckabee.
The man who had been too late to stop Charlie’s rapist was the same man she’d had frenzied sex with in the parking lot of Shady Ray’s.
The same man who had shot her sister in the head.
Who had buried Sam in a shallow grave.
Who had beaten Zachariah Culpepper, but not before he had torn Charlie into a million tiny pieces.
“Charlie?” Sam called.
She was sitting in the straight-back chair when Charlie entered the living room. Sam was not throwing things or fretting or doing that slow boil that she did when she was ready to go off. Instead, she had been studying something in her notepad.
Sam said, “Quite a day.”
Charlie laughed at the understatement. “How did you figure it out so fast?”
“I’m your big sister. I’m smarter than you are.”
Charlie could offer no evidence to the contrary. “Do you think Mason will go to the police station like you said?”
“Did it seem likely to you that I wouldn’t follow through on my threat?”
“It seemed likely that you would’ve killed him if someone had put a knife in your hand.” Charlie winced at the thought, but only because she didn’t want Sam to have literal blood on her hands. “He didn’t just lie to the GBI. He lied to an FBI agent.”
“I’m sure the arresting officer will happily explain to him the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony.”
Charlie smiled at the neat trick, which could mean years in federal prison as opposed to monitored probation with weekends at the county jail. “Why are you so calm right now?”
Sam shook her head, puzzled. “Shock? Relief? I always felt that Daniel got away with something, that he hadn’t suffered enough. In a strange way, it brings me some satisfaction to know that Mason was tormented. And also that he’s going to go to prison for at least five years. Or at least he’d better unless the prosecutors want me hounding their very existence.”
“You think Ken Coin will do the right thing?”
“I don’t think that man has ever done the right thing in his life.” Her lips curved into a private smile. “Maybe there’s a way to knock him off his perch.”
Charlie didn’t ask her to explain how that miracle would come about. Men like Coin always managed to weasel their way back on top. “I’m the person who pointed the finger at Daniel. I said that Zachariah called the second man his brother.”
“Don’t put that on yourself, Charlie. You were thirteen years old. And Ben was right. If Mason and Zachariah hadn’t been here in the first place, none of it would have happened.” She added, “Ken Coin is the one who took it upon himself to frame and murder Daniel. Don’t forget that.”
“Coin also stopped the investigation into finding the real shooter.” Charlie felt sick when she considered the unknowing part she had played in the cover up. “How hard would it be to figure out that the rich kid who was suddenly shipped off to military school in the middle of the night was involved?”
“You’re right. Zachariah would have flipped on Mason without inducement,” Sam said. “I want to care about Daniel, even about Mason, but I just can’t. I feel like it’s behind me now. Is that strange?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Charlie sat in Rusty’s cleared-out space on the couch. She tried to examine her emotions, to explore how she felt about everything Mason had told them. She realized that there was a feeling of lightness in her chest. She had expected to feel unburdened after telling Sam the truth about what happened in the woods, but it hadn’t come.
Until now.
“What about Dad?” Charlie asked. “He hid this from us.”
“He was trying to protect us. Like he always did.”
Charlie raised her eyebrows at her sister’s sudden conversion to Rusty’s side.
Sam said, “There is value in forgiveness.”
Charlie wasn’t so sure about that. She slumped back into the couch. She looked up at the ceiling. “I feel so tired. The way cons feel when they confess. They just go to sleep. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in the middle of an interview and they start snoring.”
“It’s relief,” Sam told her. “Am I wrong for not feeling guilty that Daniel was a victim in this just as much as we were?”
“If you’re wrong, then so am I,” Charlie admitted. “I know Daniel didn’t deserve to die lik
e that. I can tell myself he’s a Culpepper and he would’ve eventually ended up behind bars or six feet under, but he should’ve been allowed the luxury of making his own choices.”
“Apparently, Dad got past it,” Sam said. “He spent most of his life working to exonerate guilty men, but he never cleared Daniel’s name.”
“‘Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility.’”
“Shakespeare?”
“Mr. Darcy to Bingley.”
“Of all people.”
“If it wasn’t his pride, it was his prejudice.”
Sam laughed, but then she turned serious. “I’m glad Dad didn’t tell us about Mason. I think I could handle it now, but back then?” She shook her head. “I know this sounds horrible, because the decision obviously haunted Dad, but when I consider where my mind was eight years after being shot, I think that making me come back here to testify would have killed me. How’s that for hyperbole?”
“Pretty accurate, if you include me.” Charlie knew that a trial would have accelerated her own downward trajectory. She would not have gone to law school. She would not have met Ben. Neither she nor Sam would be here talking to each other. She asked, “Why do I feel like I can handle it better now? What’s changed?”
“That is a complicated question with an equally complicated answer.”
Charlie laughed. This was Rusty’s real legacy. They were going to sit around quoting a dead man quoting dead people for the rest of their lives.
Sam said, “Dad must have known that we would find the confession in the safe.”
Charlie easily spotted one of Rusty’s high-stakes gambles. “I bet he thought he’d outlive Zachariah Culpepper’s execution date.”
“I bet he thought he’d figure out how to fix it on his own.”
Charlie thought they were probably both right. There was not a plate that Rusty would not try to spin. “When I was little, I thought Dad was driven to help people because he had this burning sense of justice. And then I got older and I thought it was because he loved the idea of himself as the scrappy, asshole hero fighting the good fight.”