Nice Girls(72)

It was more surprising that Olivia hadn’t said it. She wasn’t on a runway or in a clothing catalog, but she had a presence on Instagram. She had nice photos, and she’d even made some money off them. It wasn’t a reach to call Olivia an Instagram model.

I took out my cell phone and looked up her Instagram page.

Her followers had more than doubled in number. A month ago, she had nearly 50,000 followers. Her page now had over 120,000. In death, she had become more famous. No one found it strange that they were following a murder victim.

On her last post, with the slice of pizza, people were still adding new comments:

Rest in peace beautiful!





Hope your watching from above!! Praying your killer rots in hell





I feel bad about your nudes but you were pretty hot RIP





I began to tap through her photos, one by one. I didn’t know what I was looking for. I had a rhythm going: tap a photo, tap away, repeat. I was skimming for something that tied back to modeling or Liberty Lake or DeMaria Jackson. I hoped I would recognize it.

There were images of Olivia at her college campus, at charity events with her sorority, on a beach in the Bahamas, in a park by the Eiffel Tower. But after finding the dozenth photo of her at a coffee shop, I grew frustrated. There was nothing useful.

I started scrolling past row after row of photos, my finger flicking impatiently. Then I reached the very end, back to Olivia’s very first photo, from 2011. It was the same photo that now graced Liberty Lake and the rest of the country: Olivia in her white dress, smiling, with a glint in her eyes. The photo had garnered 117 Likes, a sign of more to come. She’d left a quirky caption: Just me looking angelic I guess.

I closed my eyes. The back of my head was starting to ache. Nothing made sense.

But with my eyes closed, I could only see two things clearly.

The black car. And Dwayne Turner.



I drove to the Jewel of Liberty Lake. I circled the ground-level parking lot. Mr. Nguyen said that DeMaria had walked into a black luxury car after she was fired. He said it looked like a tank.

Even if Dwayne hadn’t owned a black luxury car, he could have borrowed one or rented it. He could have even used one near his apartment. But very few of the cars matched the description in the parking lot. An old woman passed me in her black Mercedes-Benz.

I parked at a guest spot and watched as a car slid down into the underground parking garage. If anyone had a nice imported car from Germany or Switzerland, they would’ve paid extra to protect it underground. But I had no way to access the garage on my own.

Through a glass window, I could see a white Christmas tree in the apartment lobby. It was lavish, with gold ornaments hanging off its branches. The rest of the lobby was decorated, too, with bright string lights and fake snow.

We had yet to celebrate Thanksgiving in two weeks. But the decorations were meant as a distraction. Otherwise, people would dwell on the fact that a murderer had just lived there.

I imagined Dwayne bringing DeMaria to the Jewel, her eyes widening as she took in the gorgeous view, the gaudy designs, the smell of money. The realization that she had met her Prince Charming.

But then again, Dwayne had lied about being away in Wisconsin. He might never have brought her to the apartment at all.

As I pulled out of the guest spot, a blur flashed by the passenger window.

Jayden was suddenly behind the car.

And I hit the brakes, screaming.





35




Jayden knocked on my back window, his face grim. He wore a dark gray winter jacket and a black hoodie underneath. He carried a small cardboard box in his hands.

I thought about honking. I thought about running him over. But Jayden kept knocking on the back window.

“We need to talk,” he said, his voice muffled from the outside.

I lifted my foot just a little from the brake. The car rolled backward a bit. Jayden stepped back a few steps, but he wouldn’t leave.

“Shit, are you really gonna run me over?” he jeered. “I just need to talk.”

I was angry and jittery from the coffee. If I ran him over, I could argue self-defense. No one would bat an eye about it. And Jayden would pay for leaking my info at Goodhue Groceries.

But then again . . . what if he hadn’t?

I remembered the way Jayden had held Charice at the apartment, the way she had talked about marrying him. Charice loved him.

I didn’t want to run over the wrong person.

Jayden suddenly walked around the car. He hovered outside the passenger window, bending down so that we were at eye level.

“Mary, we need to talk about Dwayne.”

I didn’t move.

“Don’t forget about the fun times we had,” he jeered. “Remember last time at the mall? That shit was fun.”

At the mall, we had talked about leaking a police file to the New York Times. It was a veiled threat.

I swallowed, glancing around the parking lot. There were other cars nearby. In the lobby, a girl sat at the front desk. A security guard stood alert nearby. It seemed that after the scrutiny with Dwayne’s arrest, the Jewel had hired better security. I also had a cell phone with an emergency call screen under my thumb.

If anything happened, I wouldn’t go down without a fight. Carly knew that firsthand.

I slowly pulled back into the spot.