Page 84 of She’s a Doll

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.

29

“Sandy Brown,” Nicola read off her phone.

That’s not a real person, I said. It’s a hair color.

“You sure? That’s the name Ginger says is written on the bank statement.”

Banks don’t look at names, just the account numbers. It’s an alias. I’d bet my stuffing on it.

“You ain’t got no stuffing,” Nicola muttered.

Hey.

We were in Nicola’s shed. Nicola’s elbows were resting on the workbench, her phone held loosely in her hand. I sat in front of her, propped up against the WD-40 can with the hammer-shaped dent in the side. The light bulb hanging overhead was the sort that hummed and flickered and cast the room in a strange, sickly orange glow.

Needless to say, the vibes were immaculate.

“Why would Kyle put a fake name on the bank statement?” Nicola asked.

Because Ginger did meet her, I said. Did know her, but Kyle didn’t want her to ask questions. Ask her if a woman disappeared from their life around that time. Ask if she had sandy-brown hair.

Nicola’s thumbs began dancing over her phone screen, replying to Ginger’s text. “Where was this detective brain when I wanted to retrace your steps?”

Paying attention, I replied. I told you. Retracing my steps was useless. There was nothing to find.

“Nothing except a phone call to Krissy,” Nicola muttered, so quietly I almost didn’t hear her. I pretended I hadn’t.

Are you going to glue gun me again? I asked.

“Yeah,” she said.