The Girls in the Snow (Nikki Hunt #1) - Stacy Green Page 0,21
be?” Miller asked.
Miles flushed. “She got kicked off the volleyball team for fighting. I thought she’d be mean. Plus, she’s got a reputation for being kind of…” He flushed. “A thot.”
“Thot?” Miller asked.
“That ho over there,” Nikki said dryly. “A lovely term from social media. Why did she have that reputation?”
“Girls who didn’t like her started it, I guess. I heard she’d slept with a bunch of guys and even gave one a…” He turned red and looked at his mouther. “Well, you know… in the locker room. But Madison said those were all lies. She said Kaylee was a virgin.”
“You think Madison was right?”
“I didn’t know at first, but after I hung around with Kaylee, I did. She’s so shy and quiet. She was, I mean.” He stared at his plate. “I can’t believe they’re gone.”
“Bullying has become an everyday occurrence for these kids.” Drew Hanson sighed. “The things social media exposes them to, the pressure it adds, is unreal. And it’s the perfect rumor mill.”
“Sergeant Miller told me you were Kaylee’s English teacher?” Nikki asked.
Hanson nodded. “She had real talent. Her short stories were layered with the sort of emotion and substance usually seen in college writing.”
“Do you have any copies of those?”
Hanson shook his head. “I wish I did. They were wonderful.”
Nikki glanced at Miller. “You know if she had computer access at home?”
“She shared a laptop with her mother. No papers on it.”
“I don’t think she wrote her stories at home,” Hanson said. “She spent her free period in the computer lab and often stayed after school.”
“Do students have access to the cloud?”
“No,” Hanson said. “But they’re allowed to bring their own flash drives.”
“We didn’t find one in her school stuff,” Miller whispered to Nikki. “We can check her room again.”
“Tell me more about her papers,” Nikki said. “What sort of things did she write about?”
“Why?” Miles asked. “How are they going to help you find out who killed them?”
“When I started at the Behavioral Analysis Unit, my mentor told me that profiling wasn’t about the bad guy, but the victim. Profile the victim, because understanding the victim means understanding the person who hurt them. Make sense?” She’d learned Madison was wound tight and particular, and likely a stickler about obeying rules.
“Kaylee’s papers might have insight into who she was.” Miles looked impressed.
“Exactly,” Nikki said. “She very well might have put things into her stories—even if they were fiction—that she didn’t tell anyone else.”
“That’s fascinating,” Hanson said. “I believe the overarching theme in most of her stories was being the outsider. Misunderstood and never being heard. In one story, she likened it to standing in the middle of the room, screaming at every person in her life, and no one heard her.”
“Did you ever talk to her about them?”
“I tried,” Hanson said. “But she didn’t want to talk, and I respected her privacy. I hoped writing the stories probably helped her with whatever she was going through.”
“Kaylee was aware you were Miles’ father? She knew you’d be at the house?”
Hanson glanced at his son. “I assume she did.”
Miles grabbed a cookie off the plate. He chewed vigorously, eyes on his father.
“I’m just asking because I assume you being home would make it difficult for Miles to cover for them.”
Hanson’s gaze shifted around the room and then back to his son. “That’s a good question. Son, did you tell her I would be out of the house?”
Miles flushed red, his mouth set hard. He nodded.
“And you were home all day?” Nikki asked Hanson. “No chance you left and maybe saw the girls walking?”
“I wasn’t going to leave my fourteen-year-old son home with two girls,” Hanson said.
Miles grabbed another cookie, and his mother gave him a fresh soda. She smoothed his hair. “I don’t think he can help you any more than he already has.”
Nikki stood. “Neither girl ever talked about doing something they knew could get them in trouble? Meeting up with older friends or something?”
Miles chased the cookie away with a big chug of soda. “Madison told me that Kaylee had a crush on some older guy. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.”
Bingo.
“Kaylee had a secret boyfriend.” Miller kicked a frozen snow clod out of his way. They’d taken the short route back to their cars, which were still parked in front of the Bankses’ home. “Why didn’t he tell me that when I interviewed him before?”
“Well, he said she had a crush on a guy.” Nikki could feel Miller’s frustration. He’d already felt like he’d