Nice Girls(73)

And I unlocked the passenger door.

Jayden immediately slid into the seat, maneuvering the cardboard box on his lap. There were electronic wires sticking out of it.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Chill, Mary. I’m not here to hurt you,” said Jayden. Up close, his eyes looked sunken, as if he’d aged since I’d seen him two weeks ago. He looked tired.

“Why are you even here?”

Jayden rattled the box in his hands.

“I’m moving Dwayne’s shit out of his apartment. They ended his lease since he’s in jail now.”

The box looked innocuous.

“And you put him in there, didn’t you,” continued Jayden, his voice low. It was more of a statement than a question. “You turned him in.”

“I didn’t do anything,” I said. I sounded calm, even though my heart was pounding.

“I think it’s damn interesting that you start hanging out with my cousin for a few weeks and then all of a sudden his ass gets handed to the police.”

“It’s a coincidence.”

Jayden snorted.

“Some coincidence, Mary. You got Charice to give you the police file so you could use it on my cousin. She really thought you cared about justice and shit. But I knew you weren’t like that, Ivy League. You’ve got something dark going on there.”

The words stung, not because he’d hurt my feelings, but because they were true. The past month had proven it. Jim, Father Greg, Madison, now Jayden—it seemed like everyone seemed to know me better than I knew myself. They could sense something not right about me.

“I didn’t snitch on Dwayne,” I said, my throat tight.

“Sure you didn’t. But Dwayne didn’t kill anyone,” said Jayden, his words measured and low. Jayden was restraining himself, trying not to snap in the car. It was too risky for him to be angry with a security guard nearby.

But I couldn’t forget the scene back in the Sewers, how Jayden had knocked out Charice’s assaulter in one swing.

“What do you want from me?” I asked, trying to keep my words steady.

“I want you to get Dwayne out of jail. Take back what you said to the police. Fix what you did to my cousin.”

“I didn’t rat him out.”

Jayden shook his head. He wouldn’t even look at me.

“How do you even know that Dwayne’s innocent?”

“Because he’s a dumbass,” said Jayden. He was irritated, but I sensed it wasn’t directed at me this time. “Dwayne had his whole life handed to him on a gold plate. Good college, football talent. But he just had to screw it up, didn’t he? He got his ass kicked out of all of it. Then he knocked someone up. And look at this shit,” said Jayden, gesturing at the glass tower in front of us. “You really think he could live here? Fuck that—Dwayne was burning through his student loans for this. He was living paycheck to paycheck. All so he wouldn’t look like a giant fuckup.”

I thought of the view from Dwayne’s bed, the gray water below as opaque as concrete.

“When you fuck up that bad, that many times, you learn to be careful, Mary,” Jayden continued. “And I know Dwayne—he’s a dumbass who screws up, but he’s not evil. He doesn’t kill people. He wouldn’t hurt DeMaria like that.”

The anger was palpable, like smoke in the air. But there was something in the way that Jayden spoke, the steeliness when he mentioned DeMaria’s name. The hint of familiarity.

“Did you always know about Dwayne and DeMaria?” I asked slowly.

Jayden said nothing.

That day at the mall with him and Charice—Jayden had acted like DeMaria was a complete stranger, another name in the news. But he’d known everything, hadn’t he, about Dwayne and DeMaria, her pregnancy, and the way Dwayne had dumped them cold.

“You knew about her this whole time, and you said nothing?” I asked, outraged.

“Don’t turn this shit on me,” said Jayden, his voice suddenly rising. “I didn’t kill DeMaria. I feel bad that she died. But Dwayne didn’t kill her.”

“He left her and his own son.”

“I never said Dwayne was a saint,” said Jayden. “But he’s not a killer.”

A silence had fallen over us. Jayden was looking at the window into the lobby. He was getting antsy, one knee bouncing the cardboard box on top of it.

“You know Dwayne’s innocent,” murmured Jayden. “You know shit doesn’t add up. I need you to fix this.”

A part of me understood his frustration—he was protecting his cousin. But the other part of me—the larger, uglier, more spiteful part—wanted him to get the hell out of the car. He could struggle on his own.

“Tell me Dwayne’s innocent,” said Jayden.

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I said I don’t know.”

“How will you feel when an innocent man gets life in solitary because of you?”

And another part of me—the tired part—snapped. I hit the steering wheel with both hands. The car honked. And I was crying. Snot dripped down my nose, but I couldn’t stop it—I was so tired.

“Damn, if I knew you’d be this emotional—”