The Girls in the Snow (Nikki Hunt #1) - Stacy Green Page 0,7
her that day.” Nikki would bet a month’s salary on Kaylee having a secret phone. She just hoped Madison wasn’t the only one who knew about it. “Any suspects?”
“No good ones,” Miller confirmed. “Kaylee’s mom had an on-again, off-again boyfriend. He was at work when the girls disappeared, alibied by several people. Miles Hanson, the boy Madison and Kaylee were going to see before they disappeared, has an alibi. His dad was at home with him all day and security footage from Hanson’s front and back door confirmed the girls never showed.”
“What about the parents?” How anyone could harm their own child was beyond Nikki, but the statistics didn’t lie—someone close to the family was usually responsible.
“Kaylee’s mom works long hours at a nursing home,” Miller said. “She was at work all day. Madison’s mother went to visit her parents in Northfield. Her stepdad works for a pharmaceutical company. He had a business meeting with a client in downtown Minneapolis. Restaurant receipts verified a lunch meeting around the time Madison and Kaylee left for their friend’s.”
The stepdad had at least an hour’s drive time both ways, and probably more. “You’re certain the stepdad was in Minneapolis?”
“At the time they left the house, yes. We have security-camera footage of the girls leaving shortly after Madison sent the text to her friend,” Miller said. “And a witness saw them on the trail not far from Madison’s house. They disappeared at some point after that.”
“When did the stepdad come home?” Nikki asked.
Miller handed her a dog-eared evidence file. “He went to the office. Entered at 3:00 p.m., left shortly after 7:00 p.m. Kaylee’s mother went to the Hansons’ to pick up Kaylee. When she realized the girls had never arrived, she called him, and he rushed right out of the office.”
Nikki sifted through the notes. Miller’s neat handwriting was easy to read, and his records appeared to be thorough. “What about her real father?”
“Left when she was little and lives in California. His alibi is rock solid. He was in the hospital with kidney stones.”
“What about the other kids Kaylee hangs out with?”
“She was kind of a loner. Her cousin lives in Hudson, and Kaylee started hanging out with her and her friends over the summer,” Miller said. “Everyone she was known to hang out with was accounted for.”
“But Kaylee didn’t come around much after they got caught partying. Her cousin hadn’t talked to her since before she got her phone taken away.” Hardin shrugged. “I’d like to think she would have told us that Kaylee had a secret phone, but…” He spread his hands wide. “You know teenagers.”
Nikki chest tightened, but she didn’t look up from her notes. Everyone drove across the river to Hudson for fireworks and Wisconsin beer. “Teenagers lie to police all the time. And they’re a lot smarter than we were. Most of them know you can’t look at their phone without a warrant. And you’d never get one without a lot more evidence.”
“Madison had a decent-sized social circle at the high school,” Miller said. “None of their friends had anything bad to say about either girl.”
“Which is suspect in itself.” No matter how fast the world changed, the behavior of teenage girls remained predictable. There was no way some other girl didn’t have a grudge against one or both of them.
“Teachers were a different story,” Miller added. “Madison was the golden kid, but Kaylee was a problem child who didn’t live up to her potential and had a smart mouth. She spent a couple of afternoons in detention.”
“If it were just Kaylee, I’d have suspected she ran away when she was first reported as missing. But Madison isn’t the type,” Hardin said. “Lots of similarities to your Frost murders. That’s why I invited you to check things out.”
Hardin wasn’t an idiot. He’d known the chances of Frost committing these murders were slim. He’d more than likely used the case as a reason to get her back to Stillwater and defer some of Newport’s attention away from him and onto Nikki. “Evidence suggests it isn’t him.”
Hardin nodded. “That was my thinking, but Sergeant Miller thought differently.”
Miller’s face heated. “I agreed with you that we shouldn’t ignore the possibility.”
Nikki resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “I believe we’re looking for someone who knew the girls. Not a serial killer. However, as I told Sergeant Miller earlier, if we let the public believe Frost is an option, then the killer might feel safe and make a mistake.”