Nice Girls(70)

My throat was burning. My sight was blurry. And my chest felt tight.

I climbed up the stairs, my legs wobbly. I opened the door to my room, hobbling toward the nightstand. I grabbed my bottle of escitalopram and looked at the pills that were left inside.

I dumped the bottle out. Nine pills total.

I went downstairs into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water. I rattled the pills in my fist.

I pictured Mom driving us to church, a knitted cap on her head, a box of canned goods in the back seat. Mom always loved to help people. She knew the end was coming. She’d been prepared.

I tilted my head back, my hands trembling. And I squeezed my eyes shut.

One second, two, on three . . .

My cell phone began to vibrate.

I waited for the caller to stop, my head throbbing.

But the phone kept buzzing for one minute, then another. Whoever was calling was insistent. I finally checked my cell phone.

It was an unknown number.

In my mind, I could hear the robotic voice again. I had gotten the call at Littlewood Park Reserve and Olivia’s funeral Mass. The robotic voice always called before something was leaked.

But I had missed the implication yesterday:

The person who had murdered her was targeting me.

And Dwayne was in jail . . .

The panic was rising in me, like bile. I was being watched.

I looked out at the cul-de-sac through the living room window. And slowly, I put the phone to my ear, answering it.

“What is it? What do you want?” I stammered.

“Mary?”

“Mr. Nguyen?”

“Yes. It’s me.”

I heard the wind bellowing in the background. It sounded like Mr. Nguyen was out in the cold. Mass would have just ended at St. Rita’s. He might have been standing in the church parking lot.

“What is it?” I asked, my voice growing softer.

It was silent on the other end, except for the wind. Then I heard Mr. Nguyen sigh.

“I saw the funeral on the news yesterday. For the Olivia girl. The church is hanging up her picture inside for a few weeks.”

I said nothing. Olivia’s parents had likely asked for it—St. Rita’s was honoring its late parishioner.

Mr. Nguyen cleared his throat.

“You talked about a serial killer. You were right.”

“I guess,” I murmured.

“You asked about DeMaria before.”

“I did.” But then he had called the police on me.

“I don’t want trouble,” said Mr. Nguyen. “I stay out of it, you know?”

“I know.”

Madison wasn’t wrong about her father. All he did was work. Mr. Nguyen didn’t want to get involved in anything outside of it. The rest of the world—particularly other people—just brought more problems. Madison said he’d dealt with enough in one lifetime.

“I don’t think I did anything wrong,” said Mr. Nguyen. “I didn’t try to.”

The pills felt sweaty in my hand.

“What happened?”

“I fired DeMaria. She kept coming into work late. First, it was ten minutes. Then fifteen, then a half hour. She had a kid, so I felt bad. But during the summer, she was skipping work shifts. I gave her two warnings.

“But July tenth, DeMaria was two hours late for her lunch shift. I had another server come in. I was so angry—I fired her when she showed up. I told her to have fun at the job center,” he said, his voice faint. He was growing uncomfortable as he retraced the events of that day.

“And you know what DeMaria did? She laughed. She said she was going to quit anyway, she was a model. She said one day I’d be cooking for her, then she’d fire me.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. That’s the last thing she said to me.” Mr. Nguyen paused. “But I watched her get into a car.”

I felt goose bumps rise on my arms.

“A car?”

“DeMaria left the restaurant with one of my aprons. I went after her down the street, but she was walking into a black luxury car. It looked like a tank, like something from Germany or Switzerland.”

“Did you see who the driver was?”

“The back windows were tinted from where I was.”

I swallowed, my stomach now churning.

Mr. Nguyen could have possibly been one of the last people to see DeMaria alive. The driver of the black car might have been Dwayne, but he owned a tan car. Mrs. Jackson had also said that DeMaria had gotten a ride that day. Whoever the driver was, they had played a crucial role on the last day of her life.

Mr. Nguyen coughed.

“When the killer was arrested . . . I thought the police needed the extra information. I want you to know that I told the police.”

“Well, that’s good—”

“And it wasn’t my fault,” he continued, his voice cracking. “I didn’t push her to die. I didn’t want the other girl to die, either.”

I heard the wind blowing from his cell phone. I could almost feel the chill from outside.

And I remembered what I had said to him last time—that there were other lives at stake, that if someone else died, part of it was his fault for not speaking up about DeMaria’s last day. I had been overly harsh.