Nice Girls(58)

“Jesus, what the hell happened?” he muttered.

I shook my head, forcing myself up on the couch. There was a fleece blanket on the floor along with my phone. I’d kicked them off in my sleep. Dad hovered nearby, a stain against the yellow walls. He handed me a glass of water and a prescription bottle. The escitalopram.

“I think you need these,” he said, then retreated to the kitchen.

Slowly, I rattled the bottle, trying to guess the number of pills inside. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken one before bed.

I chugged down the water and two pills—an extra one for good measure—and went into the kitchen.

Dad was brewing coffee—I could feel my head start to ache from the caffeine withdrawal. I was sticky with sweat, my T-shirt clinging to me like residue. I wanted to wipe the sweat, the dirt, and the faint scent of the park off me.

“The news said more FBI are getting called in,” said Dad over the hiss of the coffee maker.

“I thought they were here already.”

“After yesterday, I think things have escalated,” Dad said. He didn’t mention what we both knew. “They think there’s a serial killer involved.”

I sat down at the kitchen table, my head spinning.

I hadn’t been crazy when I had told Madison my theory. I hadn’t been crazy when I’d reached out to Leticia Jackson, Kevin, Mr. Nguyen, Charice. The authorities now believed that Olivia and DeMaria were connected. They shared the same killer.

We no longer needed to leak DeMaria’s police file. I only hoped that Jayden or Charice was following the news. DeMaria’s case was finally being examined, and her mother would get some peace of mind.

But it wasn’t the news I’d been waiting for. It seemed like my phone call had done nothing.

In the shower, I washed my hair twice by accident. I let the water pelt over me even after the soap suds had long washed off. I watched as the water swirled down the drain in one endless motion.

When I came back downstairs, Dad was gone. He’d been running late to work because of me.

I poured myself another cup of coffee and sat down on the couch. I turned on the TV to a daytime talk show. I felt better having voices in the house, all talking and laughing. Their lives were frivolous and undisturbed.

Meanwhile, I had work the next day. I had to go to the grocery store and act normal, as if nothing horrific had taken place, as if I didn’t know—

The TV screen flashed. The talk show was gone, replaced with a Breaking News banner. I jerked forward, the coffee sloshing onto my hands. I was trembling.

A reporter stood in the parking lot outside Goodhue Groceries. Behind her, police cars surrounded the loading dock. The reporter was frowning as she mumbled into an earpiece. But when she realized that she was live, her expression changed into one of concern.

“This is News Four’s Macy Holmes, reporting live from Liberty Lake. I’m currently in front of the city’s Goodhue Groceries location, where police have just made an arrest in the kidnapping and murder of Olivia Willand. Though authorities have not yet released a statement, we do have footage of the suspect being escorted out.”

The scene cut to the loading dock. The screen suddenly became shaky and noisy—the cameraman, Macy Holmes, and everyone else nearby were rushing forward. A police officer was leaving, one arm trying to clear the news people out of the way.

But then Dwayne appeared. He stood like a giant over the chaos. He stared down at the ground. He was in his work uniform—the green polo shirt and the khaki pants. His arms were bound behind him. He was handcuffed and being pushed from behind.

As Dwayne moved forward, his head jerked up. He suddenly looked into the camera, his eyes wide with fear. And I knew why he was afraid:

He’d been caught.

He was going to pay for what he’d done.

As Dwayne passed the cameras, a blond crew cut peeked out from behind him. It was Kevin, who glanced briefly at the camera. His face was grim. Then he pushed Dwayne into a police car.

I remembered the mornings in the high school hallway as Kevin and Dwayne hung out; the lunch table where they congregated together; the prom photos where they sat in the back of a limo with Olivia and all their friends. Kevin and Dwayne had once smoked together, partied together, laughed together.

Now everything had changed.

Back at West End Park, I had stood still, staring into the darkness.

“Are you sure about this? Dwayne?” Kevin had asked. He’d been silent on the phone, listening as I fumbled through my words, trying to explain it all—the smell of bleach in Dwayne’s bathroom; Olivia’s nude photo that he’d received on the day of her disappearance; the lack of proper security guards and cameras at his apartment.

The more I talked, the more other things made sense. I told Kevin about Dwayne’s sick days from work—he had been gone from Goodhue Groceries for three days after Olivia had been announced missing. I had trained with Jim because Dwayne was gone. Dwayne could have used his sick days to dispose of Olivia’s body. He never even pretended to look for her, his old friend—he’d been more concerned with Jayden’s birthday party.

And if the police were to investigate further, they would most likely discover that Dwayne hadn’t been with his family on Halloween. If that was the case, then Dwayne had the opportunity to leak Olivia’s nude photo during the Halloween search.