Page 90 of The Girls in the Snow

“You had no real scientific training, and yet you convinced the sheriff that some evidence wasn’t worth testing. You ignored Nadine Johnson’s report of a muscle car racing down the road in the middle of the night.”

“Big deal,” he said. “It was the weekend.”

“John Banks drove a ’68 Shelby Mustang, and you knew it,” Nikki replied. “I know Mark told you about the pictures of me and that he thought I might have been drugged, and that’s why you buried my blood test, isn’t it?”

Hardin pointed a fat finger at her. “I suggest you stop right there. I’m not going to have my career destroyed—”

“If John Banks has kept that up all these years, how’s that going to look for you?”

“You actually think John killed your parents? That’s ridiculous. Maybe I made mistakes, but we got our man. I stand by that conviction.”

“You should know I intend to speak on Mark’s behalf when the DNA exonerates him,” Nikki said, and stormed out.

Thirty-Eight

Telling Hardin off left Nikki exhilarated. He talked a big game, but he’d make a terrible poker player: he refused to make eye contact and constantly shifted his posture.

Now that Nikki had faced up to John’s lies, she wondered if he was the person Kaylee had gone to see. Was John the person Kaylee had had sex with before she died?

“Agent Hunt.” Miller jogged down the hall to catch up with her. “Agent Wilson’s in my office. He’s found something you really need to see.”

“What’s going on?” Nikki closed the door to Miller’s office.

Liam paced back and forth. “The loading dock at Roan Pharmaceuticals is on the same side of the building as John’s corner office. I noticed the emergency exit door when you and I first went to Roan. The security videos we were provided to confirm John’s alibi were of the main entrance and the employee entrance on the opposite side of the building. John used the main entrance when he came into the office that day, and he left from it that evening. I walked around the campus yesterday and finally realized the emergency exit near John’s office is actually a stairwell that leads right down to the loading dock. Look.”

Nikki took his phone and looked at the pictures he’d already cued up. The emergency stairwell was clearly visible through the building’s enormous glass windows. The stairwell opened onto the side of the big dock. Anyone who used the exit just had to walk down a short set of concrete stairs to reach the grounds. “Did you request the security videos?”

Liam nodded. “The security firm Roan employs said I needed a warrant. I’m waiting for it, but I talked to a couple of the warehouse guys who’d come out for a smoke. John’s been known to use the stairwell in the middle of the day when the weather isn’t terrible. He’s friendly to the workers and always returns in about thirty to forty-five minutes. A couple of other people confirmed he walks around the campus.”

“Madison and Kaylee disappeared on Saturday,” Nikki said. “She texted Miles Hanson at 12:45 p.m. that they were heading to his house. A jogger spotted them roughly five minutes later, not far from the Bankses’ home. The receipt for John’s lunch meeting is marked as 1:15 p.m. There’s no way he’s the person who picked the girls up.”

“No, there isn’t,” Liam said. “But it doesn’t mean he didn’t kill them.”

“Kill them?” Miller said, astonished. “We have reports that he had affairs, but we don’t have anything that suggests he’s capable of murder.”

Nikki sank into a chair. “No, but I think he might have murdered my parents.”

“What?” Miller asked. “Why would you think—”

“I’ve spoken with Mark Todd.” Nikki looked at Liam.

“What?” Liam asked.

“I’ve been through the evidence that they’re using to retry Mark, and his story suggests that John is lying, that he came to my house that night. It also suggests that not all of the women in his photos were there willingly.”

“Jesus,” Liam said, looking at Nikki. Nikki knew she didn’t need to say that she was one of those girls. “If Madison and Kaylee were going to confront him about those pictures, he would have panicked—”

“And if anybody else got a closer look at them, John may have been connected to my parents’ case. Especially with the retrial happening,” Nikki replied.

“The news talked about it as early as October,” Miller said. “Mark’s parents told a local reporter they were speaking with the Innocence Project. They believed they’d found evidence to reopen the case. I remember because Hardin was livid.”

“So, John’s already nervous and then the girls confront him about the pictures,” Liam said. “Kaylee’s murder is quick, but he takes his anger out on Madison.”

“And the initials Madison tried to scratch into her arm?” Liam asked.

“I have no idea,” Nikki said.

“Where does Janelle fit into this?”

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