Page 91 of Kings & Corruption

“They call them runaways,” Nikki said.

“Runaways are kids,” I said. You couldn’t be classified as a runaway if you were over eighteen. I knew because it was one of the excuses the police had used when Emma went missing.

“I’m using the term loosely,” Nikki said. “Point is, they always look like they left on their own. Their purses and phones are always missing. Their bank accounts are empty. Their parents file missing persons reports, but it never goes anywhere because no one really looks. Until Emma.”

“I’m confused.” I hated to admit it, but the pieces weren’t coming together the way I needed them to.

Nikki’s gaze slid to the door. Her foot was tapping faster now. “The girls who went missing before Emma, they were girls that don’t get sympathy on the news. Two black girls. A Native girl.”

I sucked in my breath. She didn’t need to explain. I knew how it worked, knew that some girls got more media attention than others because they were white and considered pretty. It was a statistical fact, one I’d learned in the immediate aftermath of Emma’s disappearance.

“No one even looked for them?” I asked.

There had been justified outrage when Emma’s case hit the news, pictures of other girls her age who’d gone missing without any fanfare, questions about why there was so much attention on Emma and so little on others.

I’d felt guilty that Emma was getting special treatment, but I hadn’t had the luxury to dwell on it while my sister was missing. Now, the guilt came rushing back. Was Nikki telling the truth? Had three other girls gone missing from Bellepoint with so little attention that they hadn’t even come up in the research I’d done online?

“Not really,” Nikki said. “I mean, the parents put up posters and stuff, but the police said they couldn’t do anything, not when it looked like they’d chosen to leave.”

I chewed my bottom lip, hesitant to ask the next question. “Is there any possibility they did?”

Nikki looked at me —reallylooked at me — for the first time since she’d let me into the room. “Three of them?”

I exhaled. She was right. It was too much, too many girls to be a coincidence.

“Why didn’t you go with Emma that night?” I asked. “You’d gone with her before.”

“Honestly? The place creeped me out,” she said.

“Aventine?”

She nodded.

“Why?” I asked.

“It always felt like something else was going on, like everyone at Aventine was in on some joke that we weren’t part of.” I thought about the game, our families that were impossible to explain to anyone outside of the criminal underworld. “And it wasn’t the game,” she added, as if reading my mind.

“So what was it then?” I asked.

She went back to picking at the thread on her comforter. “I don’t know, but it felt like…” She took a deep breath and met my eyes gain. “You know how the douchebags in high school pick on one kid, except they pretend to be the kid’s friend so that kid never quite realizes they’re being picked on? And everyone else is kind of embarrassed and humiliated for them?”

I nodded. Who didn’t? High school was savage.

“It was like that,” Nikki said. “Except we were those kids, invited to parties, targets for hookups with the Aventine guys, but secretly laughed at… or something.” She shook her head. “I can’t explain it. I just picked up a vibe I didn’t like. I didn’t feel safe there, and neither did Emma.”

That got my attention. “What do you mean?”

“We talked about it. I begged Emma to stop going, but she wouldn’t. She felt it too,” Nikki said.

“Then why did she keep going without you?” I asked.

“Because,” Nikki said, looking up at me, “she wanted to find out what was going on.”

Chapter39

Willa

“Why didn’t you tell me about the other missing girls?” I asked, storming into the kitchen from the garage.

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