She nodded. “I’d rather focus on Madison and Kaylee, if you don’t mind. That’s what I’m here for.”
Hardin’s chair groaned as he leaned back, his meaty jowls making him look like a dangerously overfed bulldog. Nikki worried his uniform buttons might become tiny projectiles at any moment. “I just want you to understand you’re going to get hit with questions, especially if Mark Todd’s younger brother finds out you’re in town.”
“I’m not worried about it,” Nikki said. “I’m only here to do my job.”
Hardin’s meaty hands rested on his stomach. “So, you married? Kids?”
“Divorced. Too busy for kids.”
Sergeant Miller cleared his throat. “The families will be here soon.”
Nikki was thankful for the interruption. “Kaylee and Madison disappeared six weeks ago?”
“Yes. Kaylee was at Madison’s home. It backs up to the woods and a nature trail that’s close to the lake,” Miller said. “Madison texted a friend who lives on the other side of the park to let him know they were coming over and taking the trail. It’s about a ten, fifteen-minute walk. They never showed.”
“Just vanished,” Hardin added. “Madison’s cell phone was turned off, and it’s never come back on again. No GPS. Her phone records don’t show anything suspicious.”
“What about Kaylee’s phone?”
“She didn’t have one.”
“A teenager without a cell phone? Really?”
“Her mother confiscated it a few weeks before,” Miller explained. “Kaylee was a bit of a handful. Got caught this summer sneaking out and partying with people she had no business being around.”
Hardin smiled and winked at her, but his eyes were flat. He’d busted more than one underaged party Nikki had been attending.
“You didn’t find anything in her phone records? No texts to suspicious people? What about her social media?”
“Kaylee only had a few contacts in her phone: her mom, Madison, her mom’s work. But like the sheriff said, she didn’t have it for three weeks. She only had Instagram, and it was set to private. She deleted all her other accounts last year.”
“I can’t fathom a teenage girl going without a phone for three weeks,” Nikki said. “Did Kaylee have a part-time job?”
“Sort of. She babysat for some of the neighbors,” Miller replied. “Her mom Jessica barely keeps her car running and she works long hours. Kaylee didn’t have a ride to work anywhere else.”
“But she did have cash?”
“Presumably.”
“Then she had a cheap phone somewhere,” Nikki said. “Pay as you go. No way she’s cut off from friends like that.”
“We searched her room,” Miller said.
“She likely had it on her that day.” Nikki would bet a month’s salary on Kaylee having a secret phone. She just hoped Madison wasn’t the only one who knew about it. “Any suspects?”
“No good ones,” Miller confirmed. “Kaylee’s mom had an on-again, off-again boyfriend. He was at work when the girls disappeared, alibied by several people. Miles Hanson, the boy Madison and Kaylee were going to see before they disappeared, has an alibi. His dad was at home with him all day and security footage from Hanson’s front and back door confirmed the girls never showed.”
“What about the parents?” How anyone could harm their own child was beyond Nikki, but the statistics didn’t lie—someone close to the family was usually responsible.
“Kaylee’s mom works long hours at a nursing home,” Miller said. “She was at work all day. Madison’s mother went to visit her parents in Northfield. Her stepdad works for a pharmaceutical company. He had a business meeting with a client in downtown Minneapolis. Restaurant receipts verified a lunch meeting around the time Madison and Kaylee left for their friend’s.”
The stepdad had at least an hour’s drive time both ways, and probably more. “You’re certain the stepdad was in Minneapolis?”
“At the time they left the house, yes. We have security-camera footage of the girls leaving shortly after Madison sent the text to her friend,” Miller said. “And a witness saw them on the trail not far from Madison’s house. They disappeared at some point after that.”
“When did the stepdad come home?” Nikki asked.
Miller handed her a dog-eared evidence file. “He went to the office. Entered at 3:00 p.m., left shortly after 7:00 p.m. Kaylee’s mother went to the Hansons’ to pick up Kaylee. When she realized the girls had never arrived, she called him, and he rushed right out of the office.”
