The Girls in the Snow (Nikki Hunt #1) - Stacy Green Page 0,48

seconds, his expression more confused than angry. “For what, exactly?

“You knew he was a protestor. There’s a good chance the two of us argue. If you come in and break things up—save me, even—you might gain my trust,” she said. “Putting me in a position of owing you a favor might persuade me to look at Mark’s file.”

He leaned forward and folded his hands on the sticky table. “But I know you can take care of yourself. You carry a gun. You don’t need saving.”

His husky tone and unrelenting gaze made her feel light-headed. Did he turn this kind of charm on for everyone? “No, I don’t. But your timing—”

“I fired Ricky,” he said quietly. “I didn’t want to, but he admitted to me that he had been dealing at one of my job sites. He says he’s done, but I can’t allow that. I’ve worked too hard to risk my business and reputation.”

“You did the right thing.”

He peeled the label off the beer bottle, his gaze boring straight into her. “Nicole, I didn’t wait around to see what the protestor would do. I’m grateful you’re talking to me.”

“Fine.” Nikki believed him for now. “It’s the cop in me. I’m naturally suspicious.”

“So, what’s it like to be a mind reader?” Rory asked, still looking at her intently.

“We hate that term.” She felt bad being so blunt with Rory, unsure what he wanted to gain from making conversation with her. “We study behavioral patterns, in an attempt to understand how one piece of behavior predicts another and then another. It’s not mind reading.”

“And it works?” Rory asked, intrigued.

“It’s a tool. If it were a magic solution, Frost would be in prison.”

“You learned all of that from the FBI?”

“I have a master’s in psychology. I wouldn’t have made it into the academy without it, much less gone into profiling.”

“But you get why people do the things they do.” He said it flatly, and she realized where this conversation was going. That’s what they had come to do. Rory probably had little interest in her life outside of that.

“To an extent,” she said. “But that comes over the course of an investigation.”

Rory pushed his beer aside and folded his arms on the table. “But you’ve never looked at my brother’s case with a trained behavior analyst’s eye, have you?”

“No,” she said. “Do you really think I could be objective?”

“If you knew the things I do, yes. It would be hard, but you’re too good at your job not to be.”

“You overestimate my—”

“I’ve read all about you,” he said. “You’ve been featured on a couple of police shows, and your peers were kind of in awe with how well you read people.”

She flushed at his compliment, not knowing why she felt embarrassed by Rory saying this. She was used to being analyzed in the press for years, but it felt different coming from him. “I guess seeing violence like I did is both a curse and blessing. It made me hyper aware. Obsessed, almost. If I’d only understood him better, I would have realized what your brother was capable of.”

“You didn’t realize because he isn’t capable of it.”

Nikki admired Rory’s loyalty. “What did you want to talk to me about, specifically?”

He ran a hand through his hair and Nikki couldn’t help but watch, her eyes trained on the way it settled on his brow. “I’m absolutely positive that you would see things differently if you sat down with the case file. There are so many things that don’t add up.”

“D.A. Mathews told me that was the defense’s position.” Her stomach knotted. “Did you leak any of the new details about the case to Caitlin?”

“I would never do that,” he said. “It was probably someone from the Innocence Project.”

Should she really trust him? What if he was recording the conversation?

“Can I see your phone?” she asked.

“Why?” he replied, moving back slightly as if shocked by the question.

“I want to make sure you’re not recording me. I’m here to talk to you, not the attorneys.”

Rory looked irritated but slid the phone across the table. “It’s unlocked.”

He didn’t have a lot of apps, and voice memo wasn’t turned on.

“Thank you.” She slid the phone back to him. “Look, I know you want to believe your brother, and I’ve been told about the new DNA testing and evidence. But it doesn’t change what I remember. You know what happened earlier in the night from my testimony. John found Mark on top of me at that party. I woke