The Girls in the Snow (Nikki Hunt #1) - Stacy Green Page 0,90
company, she had Tyler.
“What are you thinking?”
“That things have become a colossal shitshow.”
Rory sipped his beer. “Your investigation?”
“Everything. I went to see Mark.” He looked at her, surprised. “You’re right. He didn’t do it.”
Rory stared at her for several long seconds before draining his beer. The intensity in his eyes was so intimidating she looked away. “What exactly convinced you?”
How could she explain it without sounding like a stubborn fool? she wondered. “I’ve always thought of a murder investigation as a kind of patchwork quilt,” she started. “You don’t know the pattern at the beginning, but as the pieces come together, the pattern finds itself. It’s the clear way to make the quilt. That why cases built on strong circumstantial evidence get people convicted.”
“And the pattern in Mark’s case?”
“It’s a fucking mess. It doesn’t make sense that they were able to get him convicted. And Mark… I earn my living by understanding human behavior. I know a manipulative liar when I see one, and I didn’t see that in him.” Nikki swallowed the stupid sob working its way up her throat. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t,” Rory said. “I wanted to hate you. Hell, I have hated you, even though Mark never blamed you, I did—”
“I can never make it up to your family.”
“We don’t want you to,” Rory said. “Not long ago, I would have said the opposite. But going through all of this with Mark and his attorneys helped me to understand that Mark was right about you being a victim.”
“Hardin told me this week, when the paper came out, that he had no idea I was under the influence. Shamed me for possibly putting the conviction in jeopardy. But he knew, because he knew what happened at the party. Mark told him what John tried to do to me. And I think he drugged me, just like Mark told Hardin that night.”
Her voice threatened to break as she explained about the noise in her dreams, the fuzzy bits and pieces that flared up after she came back to Stillwater, and the building panic that she’d forgotten something crucial.
“John’s friends did nothing. They never told the truth.” Nikki’s hands balled into fists. “I’m going to contact Mark’s attorney and let him know she can back up his version of events.”
“Thank you,” Rory said.
“I can’t stop thinking about those pictures. If John didn’t destroy them, they’re still out there.”
“He wouldn’t have kept them,” Rory said. “They’re too incriminating.”
Nikki didn’t mention the box of pictures John’s son had found. Those pictures were more than trophies. They helped him relive the moments he craved. Nikki understood why people did terrible things and it meant she couldn’t tell herself the lies that Rory did, the ones that might help her sleep at night.
And Mark’s story fell in perfectly with Brianna’s information. Was there more to John and Amy’s argument? Was Kaylee in the pictures? Or Madison? She felt sick at the thought, but at this point, she had to believe that John was capable of anything. Had Madison somehow found out and that’s why he’d killed the girls?
“I’ve spent almost twenty years pushing people away so that I didn’t get too close. Even my ex-husband. Mark and I had been friends, and after what happened, I felt like I couldn’t trust anyone.” Nikki couldn’t believe how badly she’d misjudged her ex-boyfriend. “How could John have done that? How could I not have known what he was capable of?” She shook her head in disgust. “I was wrong the whole time.”
Rory sighed. “When I started high school, I was so grateful to be just another face in the crowd. But people always asked about Mark, and most either wanted to know more about the murders, or they wanted nothing to do with me at all.”
“That’s my fault,” Nikki said.
“It’s not,” he replied. “Anyone in your position would have thought the same thing. The police failed Mark. You’re a cop—can you imagine being so single-minded that you didn’t look under every rock for evidence?”
Nikki thought about Liam’s accusation that she’d been trying to come up with a reason for John’s possible actions instead of just admitting he was a cold-blooded criminal. “That’s one of the reasons we work cases in teams. Personal agendas cause mistakes.” She couldn’t stop thinking about one of Mark’s initial comments. “Mark talked about how prison gossip travels, and one of the guys I’d locked up called me an ice-cold bitch.”
She’d obsessed over the words the entire drive from the correctional facility.