The Girls in the Snow (Nikki Hunt #1) - Stacy Green Page 0,49

up and Mark was hovering over me and I screamed.” Nikki hugged her arms to her chest to hide her balled fists.

“Is that how you remember it?” he asked softly.

She hesitated. “Yes.”

“There’s no way you don’t have blank spots. Mark says you were completely blasted and passed out. You didn’t go into that room to sleep if off.”

“I’m sure that’s his version. I never denied drinking, but I was told my sobriety was confirmed when I gave my statement. There’s nothing unreliable about what I saw.” She waited for him to mention the missing report, but he didn’t seem to know.

“You’re remembering what you’ve been told happened.”

“That’s not true,” Nikki said, anger growing inside of her.

“Nicole, how do you know Mark was going to rape you?”

“His hands were on my shoulders. He was straddling me.”

“And then John’s your hero,” he said dryly. “Do you remember fighting with him earlier that night?”

“Yes.” John always had to be the center of attention, especially hers. He didn’t like her mingling with other people at parties. Nikki usually complied, but that night she’d drunk enough that she didn’t care. John had pulled her into the hallway, and they’d argued. He’d gone on about her embarrassing him, how she’d been flirting with every guy. He usually succeeded in manipulating her into an apology when they argued, but her liquid courage had prevailed. She’d told him to shove it and gone for another drink. And then another. “We argued all the time.” Nikki shouldn’t be talking about John to anyone given her involvement in Madison’s case. “But I’m not sure what that has to do with Mark. He’s the one who killed my parents and waited around for me so he could finish what he’d started at the party.”

Rory’s eyes shined with sympathy. “I’m sorry for what you went through, but Mark didn’t do it. He’d come over to wait for you, yes. But then he heard the shot and went inside. That’s why the front door was broken into. He found your mom, but he was hit on the back of the head before he was able to get help—”

“Why didn’t the killer shoot him?” Nikki asked. “He’d already killed one person and a second one was dying. Shooting Mark would have been the only option.”

“The killer used your dad’s gun. The chamber was empty. He had to subdue Mark,” Rory said. “Mark was hit on the back of the head—that’s a documented injury.”

“From John kicking his ass earlier in the night.”

“His skull was cracked. The X-rays were taken two days after the murder, so the prosecutor got them ruled inadmissible. You’ll see them when you look at the case file.” Rory was leaning against the table again, his hands close enough to touch.

Nikki set back against the booth. “Then he smacked his head hard during the fight. It’s easier to crack a skull than you might think.”

“Was he bleeding from the back of the head when he left the party?”

Nikki didn’t reply; she couldn’t remember if she’d been inside the house or standing in the front yard when Mark ran off.

“He refused to go to the hospital and get stitches because he knew the cops were already looking for him,” Rory said. “He has the scar to prove it.”

“Then it must have been bleeding when he left.”

“There was no blood on the side of your house where he supposedly climbed into the window. None on the windowsill. They did find his blood in your parents’ room, several feet from the bed. He was knocked out, his skull cracked and bled on the floor. He came to and went downstairs looking for a phone. You came home. He panicked and almost ran. But he didn’t know if the killer was still inside, so he went upstairs to get you.”

So now Mark was actually her knight in shining armor. “His memory’s awfully good for someone hit hard enough for the skull to crack.”

“He didn’t remember all the details right away, but it didn’t matter because Hardin made up his mind the minute you told your story. Getting even with Mark fell right into his lap.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Mark was having a relationship with Hardin’s wife.”

Bitter stomach acid rose in Nikki’s throat; she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “What?”

“She was only a few years older than him. He worked for them during the summer, cutting their grass and doing odds and ends. She was lonely, I guess. Mark said she invited him in to cool