The Birthday List(101)

I almost felt bad for the girl. Almost. Simmons was using the love for her boyfriend and some well-strung lies to break down her walls. He was capitalizing on her youth and the emotional stress of being trapped in a colorless room for hours. Simmons was using it all to push her over the edge.

“Nina,” he said gently. “Just tell me what happened. I’ll do whatever I can to help you. Just . . . let it out. Tell me what happened.”

She sobbed again, then dropped her hands. Her eyes were begging Simmons to understand. “Samuel didn’t kill them. Please, it wasn’t him.”

Simmons waited, stretching the silence out until it was nearly unbearable, until finally, Nina whispered, “It was me.”

The words came out of her mouth and rang in the air as guilt and relief and sorrow washed over Nina’s face.

Maybe she’d been wanting to confess. Maybe she had been tired of keeping it in. Whatever the reason, there was no doubting the truth in her voice.

Nina Veras had killed Jamie Maysen and Kennedy Hastings.

I fell back into my chair, shocked to my core.

Simmons had done it. He’d been the key to breaking this case all along.

I’d been holding out hope, praying that we’d be granted a miracle. I’d wished that this day would come. But I’d never actually thought it would happen. I’d never thought about how I’d feel in this moment.

I was relieved. I was grateful. But it was painful too.

I hurt. For Jamie. For Kennedy. For Poppy. My heart hurt now that we’d learned the truth.

That a seventeen-year-old girl had killed two people.

“He did it,” Matt whispered. “Holy fucking shit, he did it.”

Simmons reached across the table and took Nina’s hand as she cried. “Okay, Nina. Tell me what happened.”

Over the next thirty minutes, Matt and I sat and watched as Nina Veras gave a complete confession to the liquor store murder.

As Matt had suspected, her involvement with Samuel had been the motive. The couple had just moved to Montana from Los Angeles, where Samuel had been a long-standing member of the Bloods. He’d been sent here to branch out, to make money and start a new crew for the gang.

And part of his crew was a girlfriend willing to do whatever he’d asked, no questions.

So Samuel had sent Nina into the liquor store with a gun and clear orders. Get the money from the register. If anyone refuses or puts up a fight, kill ’em.

It had been her test.

Nina swore up and down that the first shot had been an accident. That she hadn’t wanted to kill anyone, but the gun had gone off in her shaking hands. Maybe that was true for the first shot. But twice? I wasn’t buying it. I think she’d panicked and killed Kennedy to save herself—not that my opinion mattered.

A judge and jury would decide her fate.

“I can’t believe all this.” Matt shook his head. “We should have found her in the bathroom.”

“Yeah.” I scoffed. “We should have.”

After she’d run out of the liquor store, Nina had disappeared behind the shopping complex. She’d stripped out of her sweatshirt and baseball hat and, just as I’d suspected, snuck into the loading dock at the grocery store.

She’d hidden in a cabinet under the sink in the women’s bathroom—a place very few men would fit, which is likely why no one had checked. She’d stayed hidden for two hours, only to come out when Samuel had texted her that the police had finished sweeping the grocery store.

Samuel—that fucker—had been sitting in the parking lot the whole time.

He’d come inside the grocery store, snatched a couple of plastic bags, then snuck into the bathroom. Then the pair had carried Nina’s disguise and gun through the front doors like they’d just bought steaks for dinner.

Being so young, I had dismissed Nina when I’d seen her on the video footage. Just like all of the cops had done that day as they’d watched the young couple walk to their black car and drive away.

Leaving ruined lives in their wake.

“How am I going to tell Poppy all of this?”

“I don’t know.” Matt stood from his chair. “But it’s good that you can be the one to break the news.”

I followed Matt out of observation to the hallway but stopped as the door to interrogation opened. With Simmons gesturing her through the door, Nina stepped into the hallway. Her eyes were aimed at her feet, but when she saw Matt and me, she looked up. Then with one hand, she brushed her hair back, holding it out of her eyes.

For the first time, I got a full view of her face. A face I recognized after all. A face I knew from years ago.

My feet faltered and my shoulder crashed into the wall.

Time slowed as Nina stared at me, recognition dawning on her face at the same time it did on mine. She held my eyes, unblinking, until Simmons shuffled her along, down the hallway to process her arrest.

No. No, it couldn’t be her. Nina Veras couldn’t be the young girl I’d caught six years ago one night on patrol. It couldn’t be her.

Except it was.



“Please. Please, Officer, please.” The girl clung to my arm. “Please don’t arrest me. I promise, I’ll never do something like this again.”

“Look, kid. I’m sorry. But you and your friends were vandalizing private property. Graffiti is illegal, even if that building is condemned. I can’t let you go.” Especially because she was the only one of her gang that I’d managed to snatch.