The Sorority Murder (Regan Merritt, #1)(37)

“Do you know how to reach Alexa?”

“No, I’m sorry. She was one of the few non-science majors, and we didn’t have any classes together or anything like that. She had her own group of friends, plus she graduated before I did.” She paused. “Candace was mentoring Vicky Ryan, a first year who, I saw from the sorority newsletter, is now the president. I’m not surprised. Vicky had that personality, that she wanted to be in leadership, and she was very organized and together. Everyone liked Candace, but no one was her confidante.”

Taylor James. Her name kept popping up. Regan wrote down the other two, Vicky and Alexa. But Taylor was definitely someone they needed to track down.

“When you returned on Sunday night, you noticed Candace wasn’t there.”

“I came in really late, she wasn’t in bed, but at the time I didn’t think anything of it, and I told that to the police. She was seeing two different guys at the time—I told her she should choose. She said that Tyler was a sweetheart and they had fun together, but Richie was someone who listened to her and had more life experience. I don’t think she was serious about either of them, to be honest.”

“Did the two guys know about each other?”

“Richie knew about Tyler; I don’t think that Tyler knew about Richie. Richie dated other girls, but the funny thing is I think he really liked Candace. If she had split with Tyler and wanted to be exclusive, Richie would have jumped at it.”

“You knew both of them?”

“I knew Tyler better because Candace had been seeing him on and off for two years. Very nice guy, the typical too nice, if you understand?”

Regan smiled. “I do know what you mean, Annie.”

“No backbone,” Annie said. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to date a guy who just did everything I wanted and never had an original thought on his own. It’s nice for a while, but it gets old fast.”

“According to the police report, you didn’t notice that Candace’s phone was in the room until you woke up the next morning.”

“I was exhausted when I got in. I unpacked and crashed. In the morning I saw her phone in the charger and thought she was around, but I didn’t see her. Her bed was made, it didn’t look like she’d slept there, but I didn’t really think much about it until I came back that afternoon and everything was the same. I called around to see if anyone had seen her—then I started to worry. I looked at her phone—I didn’t have her passcode—but I could see that she had a lot of missed calls and texts. That’s when I contacted campus police.”

“You were worried.”

“Irritated more than worried, but by Monday night I was worried. Candace wasn’t irresponsible. She didn’t skip classes. It was the last six weeks of school. If she needed to get away, she would have told someone.”

“Lucas has a statement from a sorority sister who said that she saw Candace speed into the sorority dorm lot around ten on Sunday night.”

“I heard that on the podcast. Which surprised me, actually, because Candace was usually a good driver.”

“Annie, based on what the police reports stated, and what we’ve learned from the callers, Candace left after the party and no one knows where she went that weekend. She returned Sunday night but didn’t stay in her dorm, and the police cleared both Richie and Tyler. Do you know what she might have been doing or who she would have stayed with?”

Annie said, “I—I really don’t know. If her car was gone, I could see her going to see family. She didn’t get along with her parents, but I could see her hopping on a plane and flying to South Carolina to see her sister if something was wrong. She was pragmatic, like I said, but she was also bold. When she made a decision, she jumped on it. No looking back. When her parents came down to clean out her dorm room after her body was found, they were devastated. They told me the police were looking for Joseph Abernathy, the weird guy who’d been lurking around. I don’t have any reason to think the police are wrong, but...I’ll admit, the podcast has made me think.”

Regan caught Lucas’s eye: that was exactly what they wanted to do, have people start to think.

“Candace originally met Abernathy at Sunrise Center, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Did she ever complain about him or anyone else from the shelter?”

“No. She wasn’t a complainer. One time I remember, and I told this to the police because they’d asked about Abernathy, she was frustrated. I asked about it, and she said that Joseph—she always called him by his first name to show that she saw him as an individual—wouldn’t stay in rehab. He didn’t want it. He didn’t want to be in recovery or do anything different, for whatever reason. He accepted shelter in bad weather, and he went there to eat a few times a week. She wanted to fix everything, and the fact that he wouldn’t take the help bothered her. I think he was somewhat fixated on Candace, which is why he kept showing up at the sorority.”

If Annie had told the police that Joseph Abernathy was fixated on Candace, that would definitely put him high up on the suspect list. A troubled, homeless alcoholic who Candace was trying to help, turning on her. It would check all their boxes, especially since she’d confronted him the night she disappeared.

Except she hadn’t been killed that weekend. And the police knew that.