Nice Girls(49)

“If you need more information, you can talk to the police.”

“They won’t tell me anything.”

“Then you shouldn’t ask me.”

“I think it’s important.”

Mr. Nguyen shook his head. His gaze shifted over to the lone group of customers sitting at a booth.

“I think you should go back to studying,” he said. “You’re giving yourself a headache here.”

I leaned forward, keeping my voice as pleasant as possible.

“I know DeMaria worked at Pho Village for a little while. And you said you saw her on the day she disappeared.”

“How would you know that?” he asked. His eyes were hard and dark. He was frowning, the wrinkle lines drawn near his mouth.

I ignored him.

“I just need to know about the last time you saw her. Like what did she say and where was she going afterward? Did you notice anything strange about her on that day?”

Mr. Nguyen suddenly headed for the front door of the restaurant. I followed him outside into the cold, the door slamming behind me.

“Mr. Nguyen, I know you don’t want to talk about this, but it’s important. There might be a killer here in the city who went after DeMaria, then Olivia Willand. And that killer might go after someone else, too, unless—”

“Please leave, Mary,” said Mr. Nguyen, his eyes flashing. “I already talked to the police about this. I’m just trying to work.”

“DeMaria quit here on the day she disappeared. Don’t you think you might have noticed something important?”

“Why would I know anything?”

“Your employee’s body was found ripped apart in a lake. Now another girl is missing. Doesn’t that concern you?”

Mr. Nguyen said nothing.

“And if someone else dies, wouldn’t part of that be your fault?” I blurted.

He glared, his jaw set. I had never seen Mr. Nguyen look so angry before. The contempt radiated off him. He typed a number into his cell phone and put it against his ear.

“There are other people’s lives at stake.”

“Hello? Hi, I’m requesting police,” he said into the phone.

A shiver ran through me.

“Yes, I’d like to report a harasser here at my restaurant . . . Yes, she’s still here . . . No violence so far, but harasser refuses to leave my property. I’d like someone to remove her.”

My eyes were growing wet, watching as Mr. Nguyen described my clothes and my features to the police dispatcher. He was treating me as if I were a stranger, a criminal.

“Should I give her one last warning?” asked Mr. Nguyen.

But I was backing away, already beelining for Mom’s car. When I was out of the parking lot, Mr. Nguyen was still on the phone.



I lay on the couch, staring aimlessly at a law drama on TV. I never even got up to make dinner for Dad, who was coming home late. Instead, I dug my hands into a bag of barbecue-flavored potato chips.

But no matter how hard I tried, I kept looking at my cell phone on the coffee table. I kept watching it, waiting for an angry phone call from Mr. Nguyen. Or the police.

After my incident with Carly, there had been a phone call. An RA named Vince had spoken on the phone. And I had watched him, my stomach growling in the hallway. I was nearly giddy—I knew he was talking about me. But I should have known that it was the beginning of the end.

There was a buzz from the coffee table—my cell phone was vibrating. I stared at it, unmoving. It was either Mr. Nguyen or the police. Whoever it was, it didn’t bode well.

Slowly, I reached for the phone. It was an incoming call from Madison. I began to tremble.

“Madison?”

“Did you harass my dad at work?”

I could hear my own breathing in the phone.

“I was asking him about a missing girl who once worked at the restaurant.”

“He had nothing to do with her death,” Madison said. Her words were cold, clipped. It was almost worse that way.

“I never said that I suspected him.”

“You told my dad that it was his fault if another girl died. You know how fucking insane you sound?”

My mouth felt dry.

“I just think your dad knows something about DeMaria Jackson. And if there’s a serial killer out there—”

“What serial killer?”

“The same person who went after Olivia—”

“I don’t fucking care about Olivia,” said Madison, her voice rising.

I realized that the memory still haunted her.

Madison was euphoric when our high school made her the valedictorian. Her GPA had beaten mine by a hundredth of a decimal. Madison thought it would help her with college applications. She thought Yale would appreciate it.

Then in calculus class, one of Olivia’s friends mentioned the news.

Olivia sighed. She sat only a few rows behind us.

“Why’s the valedictorian always Asian?” asked Olivia. “Can’t the rest of America get a chance?”

“Right?” someone else agreed. “It’s kind of annoying.”

“We should have two of them. One Asian, one normal,” said Olivia. Her friends snickered. Other people agreed.

Meanwhile Madison said nothing. We sat in the front row, and Madison kept working in her notebook. With me, she was outspoken and blunt. But in class, she couldn’t say anything to Olivia or our classmates. I couldn’t defend her, either. No one would take our side.