The Girls in the Snow (Nikki Hunt #1) - Stacy Green Page 0,9

I know it’s been weeks, but I still had this hope that she would come home. Who would do this?”

“The worst kind of monster,” Nikki said. “I know this is extremely difficult, but can I ask you a few questions?”

He nodded. “I’m not sure what else I can tell you that the sergeant hasn’t already asked.”

“How long had the girls been friends?”

“Just a few months.” John cleared his throat. “They played volleyball together, until Kaylee was kicked off the team for fighting.”

“This is all Kaylee’s fault.” Amy Banks had returned, her grief weaponized into rage. “That girl barely had any adult supervision. I told Madison to stay away from her, but she wouldn’t listen.”

John took his wife’s hand. “Kaylee wasn’t a bad kid. Her mom worked all the time, so she was on her own a lot. She spent a lot of time at our house.”

Amy’s mouth tightened. “Not because I wanted her to.”

Nikki hadn’t missed the angry glances Amy gave to John every time she said Kaylee’s name. She blamed Kaylee for her daughter’s death, but he didn’t seem to share her sentiments. Perhaps that had driven a wedge between them.

“Kaylee’s mother’s on her way,” Sergeant Miller said.

John looked at Nikki. “I’ve followed your career with the FBI. Maddie, too. She was fascinated by the killer from the Ivy League schools. She wanted to go into criminal justice and when she found out I’d known you in high school, she begged me to email you so she could talk to you as part of her project for career day. I kept putting it off.” John’s mouth trembled and his hands fisted on the table. “Now you’re investigating her murder.”

Throughout grad school and her first few years with the FBI, Nikki kept her head down and worked her way up the food chain. Only a select few of her colleagues knew about her past. Six years ago, while working for the BAU at Quantico, her profile helped track down Marshal Weathers, better known as the Ivy League Stalker. Weathers had terrorized the elite schools for nearly a decade, with murders at Princeton, Brown, Yale and Harvard. Nikki hadn’t been the lead agent, but luck put her right in Weathers’ crosshairs. His dramatic capture at Harvard’s famed Memorial Hall made national news, and so did Nikki, along with her past.

After the capture of the Ivy League Stalker, Nikki had been offered the chance to start a behavioral analysis unit in St. Paul that would serve not only Minnesota but be available to assist law enforcement in Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan. She’d hesitated to take the job because it could eventually bring her back to Stillwater, but heading a new unit was an opportunity the bureau probably wouldn’t offer her again. Her team made the news that summer after catching the resort murderer.

“To be fair, the Ivy League Stalker helped us. I don’t think we would have ever caught him if his ego hadn’t gotten involved,” Nikki said. “They always make mistakes, eventually.”

“And yet the Frost Killer is still out there.” Amy’s bitter tone matched the anger in her eyes. “You’ve failed to catch him and now he’s killed our daughter.”

“We can’t be sure that the Frost Killer did this.”

“Sergeant Miller said—”

“Sheriff Hardin was right to suggest the Frost Killer,” Nikki said. “And it’s important that we continue to consider him a suspect, but I’m not concentrating my investigation on just Frost.”

Sergeant Miller gave her an appreciative glance. “Agent Hunt will know more after the medical examiner is ready to report her findings.”

“Did she suffer?” John asked.

Nikki hated lying to grieving families but knowing the grim details of their loved one’s death, especially if the victim was a child, served no purpose. “She looks like she’s sleeping.”

John’s stoic expression crumbled. “My poor little girl. It’s my fault.”

Nikki could see that John’s love for Madison was sincere, but she was still surprised he’d married a woman with a child. The John she’d known would have never settled down and had a family. But time changed people.

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Nikki said.

“It is,” John replied. “I wasn’t home. I was supposed to be, but a client I’ve been trying to land called and had time to meet with me. The guy is so busy, it’s nearly impossible to get a meeting. I met him for lunch in Minneapolis. If I had been at home, then maybe she wouldn’t have gone into the woods that day.”

“Kaylee was already at your house with Madison when