The Girls in the Snow (Nikki Hunt #1) - Stacy Green Page 0,41

negative. Four years of that had sucked. Nikki wouldn’t go back to high school for any amount of money.

“What about the girl Kaylee punched?” Nikki asked. “Was there fallout?”

“Trinity’s all talk. She threatened to beat Kaylee up after school, but never did anything. I need to get back to class,” Jade said. “Are we done?”

“Yes.” She didn’t want to push the girls, to scare them. They were keeping themselves together, but Nikki could tell Madison and Kaylee’s murders had upset them. “Thank you for your time.” Nikki handed each girl a business card. “Please call me if you think of anything else.”

The assistant vice principal told the girls to return to class, and they left single file, with Brianna lingering in the back. She glanced over her shoulder at Nikki, chewing on her lips, and then pocketed the card and hurried from the room.

Principal Phillips offered to take them to Mr. Hanson’s room. She and Miller quietly discussed the student body’s reaction to news of the murders, but Nikki lagged behind.

Walking through the halls felt surreal. She never dreamed she’d set foot in this place again. Not all the memories were bad, but she’d had to lose the good ones to get rid of the awful.

The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. For all the advances in technology, high school, at its core, remained a four-year survival course. The popular kids were different than the ones she’d known, but they were just as catty and cruel. Kids who didn’t conform to their standards spent high school trying to fly under the radar, while the popular kids secretly feared that one day they would end up on the outside looking in. The idea that high school was supposed to be the best years of your life was hysterical. But, in the end, most people wound up an upgraded version of their high-school selves, passing on their agenda to their kids.

Jade Eby looked just like her mother, save for the darker skin tone. She seemed to have inherited the same calculating personality, the same arrogance, confident she could do and say whatever she wanted to whomever she wanted. Connie didn’t even know Nikki existed until she’d started dating John Banks. They’d all wanted to be her friend after that. To her credit, Connie never pretended to be anything but mean.

Nikki spent her last two years in high school being “the girl whose parents were slaughtered.” Other kids called her a freak because of what she’d seen. And some doubted her story.

Sweat broke out over her forehead as a long-forgotten memory slipped through her defenses.

“She was all sorts of messed up.” Connie Butler’s nasal voice bounced off the locker-room walls like an echo chamber. “I heard John was in there with her for a while before Mark. You know they were banging.”

Nikki pulled her feet up and balanced on the toilet, her heart pounding. If they caught her, she’d have to stand up for herself. She wasn’t afraid of Connie or her friends, but Nikki didn’t want to talk to anyone about that night or anything else.

“Guess that’s what happens when you date an older guy way out of your league.” Shelly Peek, another cheerleader, laughed. “I can’t feel sorry for her. He’s always been a player.”

“And a creep,” Connie said. “We fooled around a couple of times last year, and he wanted to do some really kinky things. So gross.”

“Nikki Walsh probably lets him do whatever she wants. Look how popular she is now that she’s dating him.”

“God, you guys are awful.” Mary Barton was the rare breed of nice cheerleader. She sat near Nikki in English and had been nice to her long before she started dating John. “Her parents were just murdered.”

“And she’s putting the wrong guy in jail.” Connie’s hard tone echoed through the old walls. “Mark would never.”

“He was, like, there,” Shelly said. “With blood on his hands.”

“He said he went to tell Nikki what happened at the party,” Connie said.

“John kicked his ass for trying to have sex with his drunk girlfriend. He was humiliated.”

Connie snorted. “I heard Mark was trying to stop John.”

“How do you know that? It was a college party.”

“I know a girl who was dating one of John’s friends. She heard it from him.”

“Sounds like a bad game of telephone,” Mary said. “The cops know what they’re doing. They wouldn’t have arrested Mark if they weren’t sure.”

“Maybe,” Connie said. “But Nikki Walsh was drinking enough vodka to pass out. No