The Girls in the Snow (Nikki Hunt #1) - Stacy Green Page 0,89

been with his wife. Dumbest mistake of my life. After John’s friends backed him up, I knew I had nothing. I was just a kid, Nikki.”

“What were their names?”

“Who?”

“His friends?”

“I don’t remember their names, but I told Hardin who they were. They should be in the file.”

Nikki was almost certain they weren’t. Her head was swimming with all this new information, but for the first time she trusted what she was being told. And she was sitting across from an innocent man she’d helped to convict. Her family hadn’t been the only one destroyed that night.

“Do you think it’s possible John put something in my drink?”

“I’ve never seen anyone that out of it after a few drinks. So unless you were drinking straight vodka…”

“I wasn’t.” Drinking that much would have likely caused alcohol poisoning and she certainly wouldn’t have woken up quickly, but if her drink had been spiked with liquid ecstasy, the effects wouldn’t last nearly as long. Depending on the dosage, the drug could have started wearing off after a couple of hours. But it still would have shown up in her tox screen. “You told Hardin that, didn’t you?”

Mark nodded. “He told me I was a pathetic liar.”

Anger coursed through her. Ever since Rory told her about the paramedic’s statement, she’d wondered why John would bother to drug her since they were already having sex.

Now she had the answer. He’d offered her to his buddies and planned to take pictures. Liam was right. He was a sadistic son-of-a-bitch. And Mark Todd was sitting in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

And if Mark didn’t kill her parents, she could think of only one other person with reason to come to her house—the same person Nadine heard racing down the gravel road.

Nikki couldn’t help but wonder if the photos of her were the ones that Bailey found. If Amy had seen them. That’s why she’d automatically hated Nikki.

Nikki stopped the recording and stood on weak legs. The guilt threatened to overwhelm her but wallowing in pity wasn’t going to help Mark. “Thanks for talking with me, Mark.”

“You know I didn’t do this, don’t you?”

Nikki could only nod. Mark was telling the goddamned truth.

Thirty-Six

Nikki didn’t remember driving back to Stillwater or even making the decision not to go home. She wasn’t sure she could have hidden her rage from anybody. Her stomach growled and she couldn’t remember when she had last eaten, but she wasn’t staying long, and then she’d treat herself to some greasy fast food before going back to St. Paul.

Rock salt littered the sidewalk and porch as she walked up to Rory’s house, but a fine sheen of ice still made the short walk treacherous. The curtain in the front window fluttered and the front door opened before she even had a chance to knock.

“What are you doing here?” Rory’s hair was slightly wild, like he’d been running his hands through it. His thin white T-shirt revealed several tattoos on his upper arms.

“I honestly don’t know,” she said and he opened the door to let her step inside.

An acoustic guitar was propped against the far wall. An eighties movie played on the muted television. Beige carpet, chocolate-colored furniture, a few pictures on the wall.

Common sense told her she shouldn’t be in the house, that she should have made her way back to work to find out what was going on, but it was too late for Nikki to speak to her team and Rory made her feel safe—even if Nikki had no clue why she was so terrified. Maybe it was because for the first time in her life she was facing up to what had happened to her.

This was the house Mark and Rory had grown up in. Nikki had been inside more than once, usually when Mark’s parents were already asleep and he brought three or four friends back after a party. They raided the refrigerator, and Mark’s dad always woke up and said that no one was driving if they’d been drinking. Nikki lived close enough to walk home, but plenty of kids had crashed in the Todds’ living room over the years.

“You want a drink?” Rory asked.

“Just water.” She followed him into the small kitchen. It looked just as she remembered, right down to the old flowered wallpaper and butcher-block counters.

Nikki took the bottled water he offered and sat down at the table. What was she doing at this man’s house, invading his life? It was selfish of her. If she wanted