The Girls in the Snow (Nikki Hunt #1) - Stacy Green Page 0,95
I could.”
Nikki’s adrenaline evaporated. “What?”
“I’m still waiting on DNA, but John’s prints didn’t match any taken from the motel room,” Courtney said. “He wasn’t with Janelle in that motel room.”
“What about Madison’s effects?”
“A partial match on the watch, which will never hold up in court since they lived in the same house.”
Liam looked as defeated as Nikki felt. “Do you have anything good to tell us?”
“Maybe,” Courtney said. “I got the results back on some of the hair I lifted from the girls’ clothes. It’s cat hair. It’s on both of them, but Kaylee had much more, like she’d practically lain in it.”
“Can you tell what kind of cat?”
“Not without more testing.”
Liam drummed his fingers on the table. “I didn’t see a cat at the Bankses’ place.”
“Kaylee didn’t have one either. Or the Hansons, at least not that I saw.” Nikki felt numb. Could she have been that wrong about John? Had she been so caught up in her past that she hadn’t been objective about his involvement in the girls’ murders?
“Too bad we can’t go door-to-door asking for cat hair donations.”
Nikki’s phone vibrated with another call from an unknown number. Normally she’d let it go to voicemail, but she had made calls to a few places that might have blocked numbers. “Court, hang on.” Nikki put her on hold and then accepted the new call. “This is Nikki Hunt.”
“Nikki?”
She sat up straight. “Bailey? What’s wrong?”
“Daddy’s scaring me.” Bailey’s frightened whisper was barely audible. “He says he’s going to hurt Mommy. And she’s crying.”
“Are you somewhere safe?” Nikki was already shrugging her coat on.
“I’m in Madison’s room.”
“Lock the door. We’re on our way.”
Liam grabbed his coat. “What’s going on?”
“John Banks is losing it.”
Nikki hit the brake and slid back down the Bankses’ street. She’d alerted emergency services as soon as she got off the phone with Bailey, and two Washington County Sheriff’s cruisers blocked the driveway, lights flashing.
Sirens squalled a block away, and the ambulance came around the corner.
Nikki bolted from the jeep and raced up the slick sidewalk. “Agent Hunt with the FBI. Where’s Bailey?”
“We haven’t located him.” She recognized the deputy from the crime scene when they’d first found Madison and Kaylee’s bodies. “We have a single white female, beaten pretty badly. No sign of the husband or the boy.”
“Liam, look outside and in the garage.” Nikki took off upstairs and ran to Madison’s room. The door wasn’t locked. “Bailey?” Nikki yanked open the double closet doors and shoved her way through a sea of clothes. Bailey wasn’t in the room. He wasn’t anywhere in the house.
She nearly fell down the stairs. The paramedics were trying to stabilize Amy. Her face was a purple mess, with a deep gash in her temple, a black eye and a bloody mouth.
“Amy, it’s Nikki, can you hear me?”
Amy moaned, her swollen lips purple.
Nikki grabbed her hand. “You’re going to be okay. Did John take Bailey?”
Another moan, this one far more distraught.
“Do you know where he’d go?” John’s parents were in Florida. Would he try to flee? “Amy, please, if there’s any place, we need to know.”
“Her jaw’s broken,” the medic said. “She can’t talk.”
Nikki opened the notebook app on her phone and handed it to Amy.
The phone quickly slipped from Amy’s hands. Her eyes fluttered closed.
“We have to take her.” The paramedic tossed Nikki her phone, and she moved out of the way.
“Liam, we need to put out an APB for John Banks. He’s driving a Tahoe and he’s a danger to the boy and anyone he encounters.”
Forty-One
“The entire area has the information.” Miller had arrived a few minutes after the ambulance left with Amy. “Checkpoints are set up on every feasible way out of town. Airports are being monitored. His face is being broadcast everywhere. He’s not getting far.”
Nikki wanted to believe Miller. The deputies had entered the Bankses’ house seven minutes after Bailey’s call. John’s car was already gone, but they couldn’t have gotten very far.
This was her fault. Nikki had pushed John too far, and they were no closer to finding out who killed the girls. Bailey and his mother had paid the price for her impulsiveness. “Property records?”
“Nothing in Washington County,” Miller said. “My people are looking statewide. We haven’t found anything in John’s or Amy’s name.”
Nikki studied the family photos, trying to will information from them. One had been taken outdoors, in a field that could have been anywhere. She wrangled the picture from the frame and checked the back. No date or location. She didn’t