Nice Girls(65)

“Olivia was used to a way of living, and suddenly we couldn’t afford it anymore. We sold a car, our time share, some of his stocks. But Martin owed so much, Mary. And Olivia was heading off to college soon, but we were scrounging for money. We’d failed her.” Mrs. Willand’s voice was faltering now. “You know how upset she got when we couldn’t go to Mexico anymore?”

My mind started to race. It didn’t make sense—Olivia’s Instagram had been plastered with vacation photos. She’d taken trips to Madrid, S?o Paulo, Dublin, Paris, the Great Wall of China. She’d been traveling since high school. I figured her parents had funded all of it.

“I thought Olivia went to France,” I said stupidly.

“She did,” said Mrs. Willand, wiping her nose. “But Martin and I didn’t pay for it, that’s for sure. Olivia paid for it all herself.”

“Was she working?”

“If she did, I never saw it.”

Her words pricked at me. Olivia was dead. We were putting her to rest. Her killer had been put away. Everything was finished.

But even now, Olivia still had things to hide. Like a child, I couldn’t leave it alone—I would prick at it and peel it back until I saw the raw truth. I needed the explanation. I needed her to make sense.

“She could have made some money off Instagram,” I offered. “She could have done a few paid ads.”

Mrs. Willand scoffed. She shook her head.

“They paid her in publicity and free clothes. Half of it was trash,” murmured Mrs. Willand. “Back then, her following was never good enough. The most Olivia made was a couple hundred bucks. She would’ve blown through it quickly.”

“Then where was the money coming from?” I asked, my throat dry.

The restroom door suddenly opened. A woman walked in, stopping next to the sinks.

“Heather?” asked the woman.

Mrs. Willand didn’t respond. She leaned in closer to me. I could smell the coffee on her breath as she whispered into my ear:

“I’m afraid she did something illegal.”

“What?”

“I saw it . . . Her phone . . .” she murmured, her voice so quiet that I was straining to hear it. “. . . Doberman . . .”

I swallowed, unsure if I had misheard. The Willands didn’t own a dog, but a Doberman seemed ominous. I imagined one sprinting toward the lake, its black coat a stain over the grass. It stopped short of the water and gnawed at a lump of flesh in the cold, hard ground, blood staining its teeth.

Before I could ask, Mrs. Willand suddenly backed away, her face discolored and messy, the grief clawing at her eyes.

“Heather?” asked the woman again. The door to the stall nudged slightly open. “Is that you? They’ve already started.”

Mrs. Willand took a deep breath, one hand patting my leg. Mom used to tell me that a woman’s hands showed her age, not her face or her body or her hair. Mrs. Willand’s hands were small and brittle. She was gesturing at me to go.

A short woman entered the stall. She let out a gasp when she saw us.

“Hi, Val,” said Mrs. Willand.

I left the two women in the bathroom, and I made my way down an empty hallway, listening to the hum of music.

Through the large windows, I could see a patrol officer waiting outside next to a motorcycle. He would lead the motorcade after Mass to the cemetery. It seemed like the Willands were putting themselves into more debt, paying for the cop, the casket, the service, the flowers, the funeral.

But to them, Olivia was worth it. She was their last shared expense.

My phone began to vibrate in my dress pocket. It was an unknown number. The phone kept vibrating, even after a minute.

“Hello?” I finally answered.

There was a pause and then a metallic voice: “Email.”

It was the same voice from Littlewood Park Reserve.

I was trembling now as I fumbled through my email app, opening the most recent message. After a moment, a photo loaded.

Me.





32




I was looking at my mug shot.

I saw the numbers near my head, as black and oafish as the lines behind me. I saw my crinkly blue T-shirt, a long rip running from the top of my neckline. It was where Carly had yanked, trying to protect herself. I looked wild, my hair sprung around my face, the knotted ends clinging to my cheeks, my lips drawn into a thin line.

But mostly I saw my eyes, flat and grainy in the picture.

They were empty.

I had never seen myself like that before—and it scared me.

There were words around me, scattered like dots. I tried to read the article, connecting the words to my name, but each line seemed to slip right through me. I didn’t need to read them to know what had happened.

Someone had sent me a clipping of a school news article with my mug shot. The email sender was E69Ch3aT896. It was the same person who had sent Olivia’s nude.

But that had been Dwayne, and he was in prison. There was no way he could email me.

I spun around slowly, scanning the church hallway on both sides. My skin was crawling—someone was watching me. But there was no one else around. I walked away from the windows, planting my back against a wall.

I looked at the email again, my eyes landing on the recipient list. It was loaded with other email addresses and names. It could have been the same list of people from the Halloween search party. The email’s subject heading simply read: “ivy league mary.”