Nice Girls(26)

My eyes followed a woman who sat down at a table nearby.

“DeMaria and Olivia are both young women from Liberty Lake,” I said carefully. “They’re the same demographic of victim.”

“Hardly,” said Kevin. He sounded as if he would start wagging his finger. “Aside from what you said, Olivia and DeMaria are almost complete opposites. One is white, the other’s Black. One is upper middle class, the other is poor. You’ve got a college student versus high school dropout. They lived on opposite ends of the city. And Olivia doesn’t have a criminal record. Meanwhile, DeMaria’s criminal history is a fucking headache—a school suspension, a DWI.”

My mind was racing. I was overwhelmed, trying to make sense of everything he’d said. Admittedly, Kevin had a point.

“So what happened to DeMaria Jackson then? Why was she cut up and dumped in the lake?”

“Some people in the force think it was gang violence that went haywire. And to clean up their mess, they just cut her up and threw the evidence away.”

“She was in a gang?” I asked.

Kevin shrugged and downed the rest of his coffee.

“It’s confidential,” he finished. “Personally, I think DeMaria ran away from her family. Just couldn’t deal with her life anymore, but then a gang caught up to her, you know? Everyone’s gonna have a theory on the DeMaria girl’s body. It’s fascinating. But right now, I think she’s a time suck. She’s dead. It’s sad, but it’s over. Meanwhile, you’ve got Olivia still missing out there.”

We both turned to look at the flyer in the window. Olivia had been a presence in both of our lives, but for Kevin, her disappearance was more personal. His friendship with her had lasted longer than mine—where Olivia and I had ended, she and Kevin began. The two of them were more similar than they knew.

In high school, they had looked so carefree together—Kevin, Dwayne, Olivia, their whole circle of friends. They looked as if things would always stay that way.

“Did you two still talk?” I asked quietly.

Kevin nodded, not looking at me.

“We talked less when she went away to college. She got busy with Instagram and sorority stuff. But whenever Olivia came back home for break, it was like nothing had changed. We still saw movies and hit up bars and everything. She was cool like that,” he said wistfully. “I just wish this shit had never happened.”

I didn’t know what else to add to that. Kevin glanced at his watch.

“You okay if I cut this short, Mary? I have lunch plans downtown.”

“That’s fine,” I said, relieved.

“I feel bad that we never even got to talk about you,” he said, standing up. “I want to hear more about your research.”

Despite the queasiness in my stomach, I smiled, the apples of my cheeks rising on their own.

“It’s complicated,” I said.

“Hopefully we can do this again then.”

“Sounds good.”

“And Mary?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell Dwayne I said hi,” said Kevin, disappearing out the door.





14




I couldn’t sleep.

Each time I started to drift off, I kept picturing a cold metal gurney. There was a head lying at one end. And below that, there was one full, rotted forearm and two long legs positioned in their proper spots.

But the limbs weren’t attached. The rest of her body was missing: no abdomen, no other arm. There were only open spaces of air.

She was a dismembered doll come to life—her limbs yanked apart by something more brutal than a rough child. Eventually, her brown eyes would flutter open, widening in shock as she realized what had happened . . .

I shivered, tightening my comforter around me. I lay awake in bed, staring at the moonlight that filtered through the window blinds.

One night, a girl had been asleep in Liberty Lake. The next night, she was gone.

DeMaria Jackson was a mystery. There was nothing about her on the Internet, only a single Facebook post left by her mother. Kevin said that DeMaria had a criminal history and gang involvement.

None of it was related to Olivia.

Still, two disappearances in this city was unusual. It wasn’t hard to imagine that someone had snatched one girl off the street. Then a few months later, they’d decided to snatch another. They both could have been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

No one even mentioned the circumstances around DeMaria’s disappearance: where she’d last been seen, what she’d been doing. The police had one story, Leticia Jackson had another. Somewhere, the communication had failed between them. Leticia Jackson might have failed to mention a crucial lead, or the police could have misinterpreted her. With how upset she’d been in her post, it might have been the latter.

Someone else needed to talk to DeMaria’s mother. I could even do it. It was easy enough to find her in the city.

I hadn’t done much else for Olivia. I hadn’t joined the search efforts. I’d tried to ignore all of it. Even now, as she was missing, I couldn’t shake off the old bitterness. It seeped out of me like sweat. Olivia was possibly dead, and I still couldn’t let it go.

I owed it to her to try.

I could talk to Leticia Jackson, pick up anything that the police had missed.