28 #3
“The new mall,” Ginger said, sounding relieved to have an answer.
“The one they’re building up on the hill on the edge of town, near the highway.
Kyle’s only meant to be delivering gravel, but he’s made friends with the guy in charge and now he’s helping out with organizing and logistics.
Honestly, I don’t know much about it, other than it’s a disaster.
The workers are all underpaid, and half are underage, so they do a shit job, never double-check anything with the site manager, and leave all the equipment out overnight. It’s a miracle nothing’s been stolen.”
“You think that’s why he’s been crying?” Nicola said. “The mall?”
“It’s been a lot of work,” Ginger argued.
“They messed up the last big load of cement, so now they’ve got little machines there mixing up small batches to fill in the gaps before the next couple of trucks arrive.
There’s meant to be another shipment of tools or something arriving soon, but it’s late and—”
“You think that’s why he’s been crying?” Nicola asked again, firmer, angrier. “Over a late shipment?”
“No,” Ginger finally admitted. “No, I don’t.
I thought it was you. Except it didn’t get better, even after the police spoke to you, after you stopped.
So I asked him. I said, ‘Did you do it? Did you hurt Lucy?’ And he .
. .” Ginger’s handbag creaked in distress, the stitches straining.
“He didn’t yell or scream. I thought he would.
I thought he should. I was asking him if he killed someone.
He should’ve been angry. But he just sat there, said nothing, and after what happened with you .
. .” She sucked in a long, shuddering breath.
“I need to know if I married a monster. I need to know. I can’t.
I can’t keep just playing along, no matter how much everyone wants me too, my mum, Krissy, Kyle.
They all want me to just sit down and be quiet. But I—”
“I told you he was a monster,” Nicola snapped. “I told you when—”
“My mum said that wasn’t—”
“No offense but fuck your mum. And fuck Kyle. And fuck you too. You were my friend, Ginger. Maybe my best friend. Actually, no. You were my best friend. I trusted you more than anyone, and you—”
“He’d never been like that with me,” Ginger said quickly, desperately. “We’d been dating for over a year, and he hadn’t ever done anything yet that—”
“You believed him, not—”
Yet? I whispered, breaking my promise, but I couldn’t help it, I needed Nicola not to miss that word, to hear it, as loud and clanking and awful as I heard it. He hadn’t ever done anything yet?
The silence that followed was thick and cold, broken by Nicola’s breathing, quick and sharp and matched, breath for breath, with Ginger’s.
“Nicola?” Ginger asked.
“Has he ever hurt you?” Nicola asked.
Ginger didn’t answer.
“Ginger,” Nicola said, and raked her fingers through her hair. “I’m not . . . I’m not the bad guy here. Please just talk to me. Tell me what’s—”
“I’m pregnant,” Ginger said.
“Pregnant?” Nicola repeated, like the word was in another language, like she didn’t know what it meant.
“Eleven weeks,” Ginger confirmed. “Twelve tomorrow. And . . . I should be happy. We’ve been trying for so long. I want this baby more than anything. But now this is . . . this is happening, and I can’t stop thinking . . .”
He can’t be a father. I didn’t mean to think the thought that sharply, or that clearly. But I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t help picturing him, a baby in his hands, the same hands that held me down, crushed the life out of me, the same hands that hurt Nicola, the same hands that hurt Ginger.
He can’t be a father. He can’t. If it’s a girl, he’ll hurt her, and if it’s a boy, he’ll make him like him. He’ll—
“It’s OK,” Nicola said, voice soft. Her eyes, in the rearview mirror, were aimed at me. “It’s OK.”
Except that was a lie. It wasn’t OK. I wasn’t OK. None of this was OK. This was a doomsday clock, hanging over our heads, ticking down to zero.
“I need to know who I married,” Ginger said. “Now more than ever, I need to know.”
“I think you already do,” Nicola replied.
Ginger didn’t deny it.
“My plan,” Nicola said, softer now, kinder, turning to look at Ginger. “Plan B. It was meant to . . . to make him confess. I was trying to scare him, to haunt him. That’s why I did what I did. I wanted him to come clean.”
“Plan B?” Ginger asked. “What was Plan A?”
“Kill him,” Nicola said without a flicker of hesitation. “Plan A was to kill him, to do to him what he did to Lucy, but I couldn’t do it. So, Plan B it was. But . . . if you know something. If you can tell the police anything that would make them investigate him, then maybe we have a Plan C.”
“I don’t know anything about Lucy,” Ginger said.
“But you know something else?” Nicola pushed.
“Last Christmas, there was a woman,” Ginger said, speaking fast now, too fast. “I never met her. Kyle said nothing happened, that she was just trying to ruin his reputation. But he paid her. He paid her a lot of money, money that we’d been saving.
Why would he do that if nothing happened?
And Kyle, he’s got a temper. He gets drunk.
He says things, does things. I just . . . ”
“What’s her name?” Nicola asked.