The Bad Daughter(10)



“I’ll be in the hall. Take your time. Whenever you’re ready.”

Robin glanced back at her father. Serves you damn right, she thought, fighting back another onslaught of unwanted tears. “I’m ready now,” she said.





CHAPTER FOUR


“How are you holding up?” the sheriff asked, leading Robin toward a small waiting room at the end of the hall and motioning for her to sit down.

“I’m okay.” Robin sank into one of the green vinyl chairs in front of a window that showcased the mountains in the distance. Sheriff Prescott lowered himself into another chair and pulled it toward her, their knees almost touching. He leaned forward in a gesture that was curiously both intimate and intimidating.

“I understand you just got in from Los Angeles.”

Robin nodded. “That’s right. What can you—”

“You drive?” he interrupted.

“No. I flew to Sacramento yesterday, then took the bus here this morning. What—”

“I guess Red Bluff’s not the easiest place to get to anymore,” he said, interrupting again, clearly determined to be the one conducting the interview. “They tell me you’re a therapist.”

“That’s right. What can you tell me about what happened?” she asked in one breath, refusing to give him the opportunity to interrupt a third time.

“Unfortunately, not much more than what I assume your sister has already told you,” Sheriff Prescott answered. “I was actually hoping you could tell me a few things.”

“Such as?”

“Such as if there’s anyone you can think of who might have had a motive to shoot your father or Tara.”

It would be harder to think of someone who didn’t, Robin thought. “I haven’t seen or talked to either of them in over five years,” she told the sheriff. “I have no idea who might have done this.” She stopped abruptly. “Wait. I thought it was a home invasion.”

“That’s one of the scenarios we’re considering,” he said. “But until little Cassidy is able to tell us something, we have to consider all possibilities.”

“How is she?”

“Hard to say. The doctors are cautiously optimistic, but they said it might be some time before she’s out of the woods.”

“So you haven’t told her…”

“About her mother passing? No. There doesn’t seem to be much point at the moment. We don’t know how much, if anything, is registering. In the meantime, we’re trying to get as good a grip on this thing as possible, so anything you can tell us about your father and his wife would be helpful. I understand you and Tara used to be friends.”

You understand a lot more than you’re letting on, Robin thought. “Yes, that’s true.”

“Best friends, I hear.”

“Since we were ten years old.”

“But not anymore.”

Robin sighed with frustration. “It’s kind of hard to stay friends with someone who ditches your brother to marry your father, especially so soon after your mother’s funeral.”

A small smile tugged at the corners of the sheriff’s lips. “I imagine it is.”

“Is this relevant?”

“Indulge me,” Sheriff Prescott said. “What was Tara like?”

Robin paused to consider her answer. “I’m probably the wrong person to ask, since she obviously wasn’t who I thought she was.”

“And who was that?”

“My friend, for starters.”

Another tug at the corners of his lips. “What else?”

Again, Robin paused to consider her former friend, but no thoughts came. Her mind was like a blank canvas, and no matter how much paint she threw at it, nothing stuck. She felt the familiar tingle stirring in her chest. “I’m sorry, Sheriff. I’m tired and more than a bit overwhelmed. I don’t think I’m ready to have this conversation after all.”

He nodded. “I understand. We can talk later.” A statement, not a request.

“If you could just tell me what happened…”

Sheriff Prescott stared down at his boots, the top of his head reflecting the glare of the overhead fluorescent lighting. “The nine-one-one call came in about half past midnight the night before last,” he began, raising his head as he spoke, until once again his eyes were level with Robin’s. “It was Cassidy, screaming that her parents had been shot. And then the dispatcher heard what sounded like a gunshot, and the line went dead. The police got to the house as fast as they could. They found the front door open and your father and Tara lying on the living room floor, their bodies riddled with bullets, Tara’s face pretty much blown off.”

Oh, God. Tara’s beautiful face. Gone. Robin fought the almost overwhelming urge to throw up and zeroed in on the sheriff’s eyebrows in an effort to still her growing panic attack. His eyebrows were darker and bushier than she’d first realized. They lay like two caterpillars across the bottom of his forehead. “And Cassidy?”

“She was upstairs in her bedroom, sprawled across her bed. Unconscious. Barely breathing. The front of her pajama top soaked through with blood. Phone still in her hand.”

What kind of monster shoots a twelve-year-old girl? Robin asked herself again. Then, out loud, “What else?”

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