3.5–4 years total in Hawaii
Nikki's entire Hawaii chapter — from college arrival to arrest — spanned only 3.5 to 4 years, one of which she spent homeless as a drug-addicted sex worker.
Snapshot · The Hidden Third
She Was the Crystal Meth Queen of Waikiki. Then She Became a PTA Mom in New Jersey.
Explore episode
Jun 10, 2026
Where this was said
The Machete Incident: Two Women with Guns and a Night That Could Have Ended Everything
At 31:57 · chapter starts 29:30
The drug world's violence arrived suddenly and specifically. A crew that wanted to rob Nikki's dealer tracked her movements and used her visit as the entry point. A man sitting on the couch produced a machete and told her to sit down. She had a cell phone — still unusual enough in the late 1990s to be overlooked — and she used the excuse of a bathroom break to call her dealer: 'Don't let me in.' Her dealer understood. They arrived at the door; the dealer held it. The crew eventually gave up and left. But Nikki still had to walk back inside. She counted ten different routes, paranoid the crew was watching. Inside, with the door locked, both women were armed. They took turns sleeping for what felt like a day or two, clutching guns, waiting. The crew never came back. But having a bodyguard teach her to shoot — at her insistence, at her own terror — is how Nikki knows just how far from her original plans she had wandered.
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