Nice Girls(78)

In the car, it seemed obvious that Ron hadn’t killed her—he didn’t have the strength or the stomach for it. He had someone else do the work for him.

“Who’s Paul Bleeker?” I asked suddenly.

“What?” Ron stammered.

“Paul Bleeker, the guy you’re working with.”

“I—I don’t know who that is.”

Jayden slapped him. Ron whimpered.

“You wanna explain why you killed Olivia Willand?”

“I—I haven’t done anything. P-please—”

“We got your IP address, your email, everything,” sneered Jayden. “We traced it all back to you, boy.”

“P-please.”

“Stop hiding it.”

“I—I didn’t do anything—”

“Man, I am so tired of your pasty ass.”

Jayden bent over in his seat, shoving the black pillowcase over Ron’s head. He wrapped his hands around the fabric around Ron’s neck, trapping the air inside. I heard Ron’s scream turn to muffled gargling—Jayden was strangling him.

Ron began to jerk, his pant legs rolling up past his ankles. I saw a flash of pale skin. I could almost imagine little flakes of it dusting onto the floor, a remnant of him.

“What are you doing?” I asked, frozen.

“He should’ve thought about that before he killed them.”

I watched as Jayden squeezed his hands tighter around the pillowcase. The doubt crept in. I was so desperate to do something right—I was tired of being wrong. And I wanted someone to be the killer, I wanted someone to pay for what they’d done.

But the scene in front of me was grim. I had a scrawny, beaten teenager in front of me. And his hair and his drool and his flakes of skin were all over the place, waiting to be discovered.

“Why’d you kill her and DeMaria Jackson, huh?!” Jayden asked as Ron’s breathing grew fainter. He was going to kill him.

I’d have a corpse in the car.

I tried to shove Jayden’s arms away, panicking now.

Jayden abruptly let go. Ron gasped for breath, the pillowcase still on his head. I watched his back as it heaved up and down.

Jayden scooped the cell phone out of my hands and passed me a corner of the pillowcase.

I swallowed. I waited for Jayden to say something—anything—but the only sound in the car was Ron’s heavy breathing.

My hands somehow traveled down the pillowcase. I felt the concavity of Ron’s neck, the slight hill of his Adam’s apple. My hands were small around the black fabric.

Ron suddenly began to struggle. He rocked his head back and forth, groaning, while he tried to wriggle his wrists free. I kept my hands steady on his throat. Jayden didn’t move.

In that moment, I felt exhausted. It washed over me like rain. My limbs felt heavy. I was dead tired of the past month and the people who’d drifted in it:

Carly, for stripping me of my school, my dreams.

Jim, for firing me from a job I hated.

Ron, for exposing me, threatening me.

Olivia, for haunting me long after we’d ended our friendship.

It was one thing after another.

I squeezed both my hands around Ron’s throat. He gasped again, and I felt the adrenaline moving in my fingers, and I clamped down harder and harder until my hands began to hurt.

Jayden leaned over, his mouth hovering close to the pillowcase.

“Why’d you do it, huh? What kind of piece of shit releases a dead girl’s nudes?”

Ron’s gasps grew quiet under my grip.

He fell silent.

I let go, suddenly afraid.

There was nothing, except for my own breathing.

And then Ron sputtered, gasping for air. Jayden yanked off the pillowcase. Ron’s hair was messy, greasy with sweat. His entire body seemed to rattle as he took in one shallow gulp after another.

“You get one chance or I kill your ass.”

“N-not me—” Ron sputtered.

“Yeah, course not,” Jayden snorted.

“M-my c-cousin . . .”

“Sure, man, I believe you—”

“K-Kevin.”

I froze.

“Kevin Obermueller?” I asked, my voice squeaky. Ron only hacked again.

I could picture Ron and Kevin both clearly—there was no resemblance between the two of them. One was tall and scrawny. The other was short and stocky. They seemed like inversions of each other: one pale with dark features, the other darker with light blond hair. Ron couldn’t pass for an Obermueller, not compared to Kevin and his father.

Mr. Ronald Obermueller.

I felt the blood drain from my face.

Ronald Obermueller. Ron from the grocery store. One had been named after the other.

“You’re Ronald Obermueller’s nephew?” I asked, the alarm seeping into my voice.

Ron said nothing.

Everything became too sharp, as if a glass had been placed over my eyes. I could see Kevin again at Littlewood Park Reserve, when Olivia’s picture had been leaked. The anguish in his eyes, the desperation when he’d yelled at the crowd to calm down. The conversations we’d had at Espresso Haus and in the woods.

And then our last phone call, when I told him about the picture on Dwayne’s phone. On the other line, Kevin had taken a deep breath. Then he’d thanked me. He said that Olivia would’ve thanked me, too.