Readers Guide to The Good Daughter

Flash forward to 2017

Now forty-one, Charlie heads to Pikeville Middle School. She’s there to meet Huck, a teacher she had a one night stand with. The two of them accidentally switched phones. 

They hear shots. Charlie runs out of Huck’s classroom and sees two victims: a young girl and Mr. Pinkman, the school principal. 

The police arrive. A teen girl is sitting on the floor with a shotgun. Huck intervenes as the police arrive. The girl, Kelly Wilson, gives Huck the gun. But the police shoot Huck in the shoulder.

Charlie is comforted by Mrs. Pinkman. In 1989 she was Charlie’s neighbor Miss Heller. After the incident in 1989, Charlie ran to her farmhouse for help.

Huck asks Charlie to call her father, but Charlie starts filming the scene with Huck’s phone. Greg Brennan, a police officer,  breaks her nose to get the phone. 

Charlie’s husband Ben, an ADA, shows up. She’s questioned by an agent from the GBI. The authorities seem certain there was only one shooter. They ask a lot of questions about what happened to Kelly’s gun.

Lenore picks Charlie up and they go in search of Kelly’s mother, as Rusty wants to represent her.

Charlie reflects on the aftermath of the horrific incident in 1989. Daniel Culpepper, Zach’s brother, was killed by police officer Ken Coin. Daniel’s brother Zach said he was the accomplice, and Daniel was found holding the gun that shot Sam. Zach ended up in prison. But the Culpepper family insists that Coin planted evidence against Daniel.

Lenore and Charlie meet with Kelly’s mother Ava. Charlie tells Ava that the police will arrive soon to search the house. She looks at Kelly’s room and takes a yearbook from the closet.

Huck calls Ava, and Charlie answers. He says he’s just spent four hours being questioned by the GBI. Charlie is upset that Huck lied about the video she took and the way her nose got broken.  She asks Huck what happened to Kelly’s revolver and he mentions a blind spot in the security cameras.

Charlie arrives at Rusty‘s office with Leonor and Ava. Charlie wonders how Huck could have removed the weapon from the scene.

Rusty arrives and tells Charlie that he thinks Kelly is innocent. She tells him that the police are worried about the location of the murder weapon. They look at the yearbook, which is filled with death threats from all Kelly’s classmates.

Charlie uses a fake Facebook account to spy on some of the people who wrote in Kelly’s yearbook. They are still saying horrible things about her

Rusty suggests that the estrangement between Ben and Charlie is because of multiple miscarriages Charlie had. Charlie thinks about her marriage and how she became angry all the time until Ben finally left her.

Charlie watches a reenactment of the school shooting on TV.

Ben comes over to get a file. She apologizes for cheating, even though they were separated. Apparently all Ben wanted was for her to go to counseling about her mother‘s murder. Ben answers a call. Rusty has been stabbed. Ben tells her to find Samantha.

What happened to Charlotte?

A retelling of the first chapter from Charlotte‘s point of view.

The night before, Charlotte had discovered a lot of blood in the bathroom. She thinks it was from her mother’s coughing.

The two masked men arrive. Charlie lets it slip that Samantha is in the house. The gunman shoots Gamma. Charlie realizes that one of the gunman is Zach.

The two gunman argue and Sam gets shot. In the chaos, Charlie runs. Zach comes after her, but the other gunman comes and pulls him off. She vows that Zach and the man he called “brother” will die in the electric chair. She finally gets up and runs to the farmhouse.

Sam’s POV

It’s Sam‘s birthday. reflects that she and Charlie had a blowout fight years ago. Charlie told Sam that they’d be able to move forward better separately.

Sam lives in New York City and works in patent law. 

She is still suffering the effects of the shooting. The physical effects include vision problems, mood disorders, balance issues, and more. Sam was married to a Danish man 20 years her senior, but he died. Sam gets a text from Ben that Charlie needs her, so she gets on a flight.

Ben, Charlie and Sam discuss who could have wanted to stab Rusty.

Charlie says Rusty was working on a mysterious case.

Rusty comes out of surgery and asks Sam and Charlie to to talk to Kelly.

Gamma had lung cancer and would have died within a year.

Charlie tells Samantha about the shooting, but lies about the reason she was at the school. Samantha says that Charlie should stay away from Mason “Huck” Huckabee because his sister was Rusty’s client, the woman who was sexually assaulted and took her own life.

Charlie tell Sam she can’t represent Kelly because she’s a witness. Sam says she will do it.

On the way to the arraignment, they see Zack‘s son Danny’s truck. Charlie says that Danny is a drug dealer.

At the very last minute, Charlie tells Sam that after the shooting, Kelly gave Huck the gun. She thinks Huck removed the gun from the scene.

Kelly admits to Sam that she shot Lucy and Mr Pinkman but she doesn’t explain her motive. She also says that she gave the gun to Huck who put it down his pants.

Kelly is extremely suggestible. Sam tries to figure out when she got mirandized. She learns they also videotaped Kelly. Was she interviewed?

Ben slips Lenore a thumb drive. It has the CCTV footage from the school.

Strange things about the shooting: Pinkman was shot in the head twice and chest once. One shot hit Lucy. Why didn’t Kelly use the last bullet in the gun?

The sisters fight: Sam is angry because she wanted Charlie to get away and now that Charlie did she feels like Charlie is ruining her life.

Sam heads to the hospital to give Rusty her notes. They discuss the fact that Kelly might have been pregnant. 

Sam tells her father that Kelly said Mason put the gun down the back of his pants. He says he’ll find another way to win his case.

Rusty Dies

Sam and Charlie talk about their father. Sam finally tells Charlie about her late husband.

Charlie finally tells Sam about her horrific sexual assault. Because Rusty defended men like that, he told Charlie that they were going to keep a secret.

Sam asks Charlie if the assault could be the cause of her miscarriages and Charlie says the doctors really don’t know.

Mason calls Charlie, but she says her she doesn’t want to talk to him even though he says it’s extremely important.

Rusty’s investigator Jimmy Jack comes to talk to Charlie and tells her that Rusty worked for the Alexander family. Rusty got Lucy’s father off on a DUI bust that happened when he was with his mistress.

Ben helps out again

Ben comes to the funeral and tells them he wants to help them. He quit his job last night.

Ben gives them a lot of information. The forensics match the premise that Kelly was the shooter. Kelly had Frank Alexander for math and he was going to fail her. Kelly, a high school student, was at the middle school because Judith Pinkman was tutoring her.

Again, they discussed the number of bullets and decide to look at the video again. Ben says the police think that Lucy Alexander’s uncle stabbed Rusty.

They all look for the secret photo of Gamma that Rusty insists is in his office.

They don’t find the photo but they find a safe. Inside is a stack of love letters some postcards and a mysterious checkbook. They’re trying to figure out what the checkbook is for when Mason shows up.

Huck/Mason offers to pay for Kelly’s defense. He mentions that Kelly tried to kill herself. Charlie says that’s not possible because there was a bullet in the gun. Mason insist there were six shots.

Mason also points out that Kelly was the water girl for the football team and that Douglas Pinkman coached the football team. Mason asked if he can use the bathroom and heads there. Suddenly, Charlie asks how Mason knew were the bathroom was, since he’s never been in the house.

Ben attacks Mason suggesting he was one of the intruders back in 1989

Charlie is confused. She was sure that Daniel Culpepper was the second intruder.

Mason said when he was seventeen, he hired Zach to help him take care of Rusty as revenge for the fact that Rusty represented his sister’s attacker. The girls were supposed to be at track practice. Mason tried to stop Zach when Rusty wasn’t there.

Sam figures out that Rusty was writing checks to Zack’s son.

Mason confessed to his family and they gave Rusty $1 million to pay to Zack to stay quiet.

Ken Coyne planted evidence to frame Daniel. Zach agreed to keep silent about his brother’s innocence in exchange for $2000 a month.

Rusty made Mason sign a confession and put it in his safe.

Rusty didn’t report the crime because he didn’t want his daughters to suffer further. The letters that Zach sent Rusty that said “you owe me” were because Zach had agreed to keep quiet about what happened to his daughters.

Charlie apologizes that Ben had to find out what happened to her from Mason‘s confession, but he says Rusty already told him.

Charlie and Sam watch the shooting video one more time. They see something new in the video: another person.

Charlie goes to Judith Pinkman‘s house and thanks Judith for keeping her secret all these years.

Then Charlie tells Judith it must’ve been such a betrayal for Kelly to shoot Judith‘s husband.

Judith says that her husband slept with Kelly in Judith’s classroom and that he slept with a lot of other students. Doug was happy about Kelly’s pregnancy and wanted Judith to raise the baby.

Judith’s plan was to kill Kelly after shooting Doug, but Kelly wouldn’t let go of the gun. They struggled and the bullet ricocheted into the floor. Then she accidentally shot Lucy she apologizes to Charlie for making her part of it.

Judith asks Charlie to leave. Charlie thinks Judith intends to shoot herself. Charlie begs her not to do it.

Epilogue

Charlie and Ben get back together. They never did find the photo of Gamma.

Kelly agrees to a plea deal of 10 years.

Mason Huckabee hires an expensive lawyer who gets him a plea deal of six years for taking the gun and lying about it. He still hasn’t had to face anything for what he did to the sisters.

They were never able to prove that Rick Fahey stabbed Rusty

Charlie tells Sam to check her email. She has finally found the photo of Gamma.