The Sorority Murder (Regan Merritt, #1)(5)

The second episode focused on the basics of the missing-person investigation. Lucas revealed that Candace was thought to have been alive during most of the time she was missing. Per the autopsy, she was killed a week after her disappearance. He’d made a request on air during the last episode that if anyone could remember having seen Candace between the party and the time when her body was found, to call that detail in. With that critical new intel, he might be able to further piece together those missing days and solve her murder.

But only two callers had responded, and they hadn’t given their names. While they sounded authentic, he wondered if someone was playing a game with him and making things up. He couldn’t tell for sure, and that bothered him.

“Knock it off, Lucas,” Lizzy said. “You’re just feeling sorry for yourself. You’ve done a great job laying out Candace’s life and how the police handle missing persons on campus—and even how they changed some of their procedures after Candace disappeared. You are doing a public service, you know? Like a PSA or something, because you’re telling people how to report an incident, that it’s better to be embarrassed than have a friend or roommate hurt or worse. That’s common sense to me and you, but some people are dense.”

He appreciated her pep talk. “Maybe you’re right. Once people know her body was moved, they might start thinking more.”

“And aren’t you going to ask that friend of your department advisor for help?”

“Professor Clarkson wants me to. He says maybe I need to ask different kinds of questions to entice listeners to call in. And I was thinking, maybe having a conversation with an expert would be more engaging than just my talking, you know?”

“That’s a great idea,” Lizzy said with a wide smile.

Former US Marshal Regan Merritt, a graduate of NAU, was scheduled to be a guest lecturer the following afternoon. Lucas’s advisor was also the department chair. He offered to arrange a meeting for the three of them so Lucas could pitch his podcast, then ask Regan if he could interview her live on air. He could easily adapt his planned third episode to fit that format, and having an expert on with him when he provided his evidence that Candace’s body had been moved would give his statement more weight. He was just a forensics major; Merritt was a former US Marshal.

“See? Now you have a direction.” She reached out and squeezed his hand. “You got this, Lucas.”

He warmed at Lizzy’s touch, but she’d given no indication that she’d be receptive to being more than friends. They’d met when she was a freshman, he was a sophomore, in an advanced-math class he was required to take for his major. They’d been friends ever since. Back then, he’d been hung up on his high-school girlfriend who broke up with him right before they went off to different colleges. He was still kind of pining over his ex a year later. Maybe he had given off those unavailable vibes. Or maybe Lizzy just wasn’t attracted to him. He was an average guy. Smart, but not super smart like Lizzy. Whatever, he was grateful for her help and friendship.

“You ready to go?” he asked.

“You still have more fries.”

“Eat them,” he said.

She did and said, “Stop looking at that table.”

“What table?”

“The sorority table.”

“I’m not.”

“Are too.”

“The blonde keeps looking over here, and she looks angry,” he said.

“Maybe she has the hots for you, and you’re with another girl.”

He laughed, actually laughed out loud, because the idea of that was hilarious.

Lizzy ate the last fry. “Now I’m ready to go.”

Vicky Ryan, the current president of Sigma Rho, finally relaxed now that the student podcaster was gone. “What’s wrong?” Nicole, her best friend, asked.

“You didn’t recognize him? That was Lucas Vega, the jerk who’s running that podcast about Candace Swain’s murder.”

Nicole looked around, trying to catch a glimpse. “Really?”

“He’s gone.”

“I thought he did great,” Nicole said. “I mean, he said nice things and even had an interview with her sister. If the family is supporting him, why shouldn’t we?”

For someone as smart as Nicole, her roommate could be naive. Vicky once had been just as naive herself, but she had grown up real fast over the last three years.

“I don’t trust him. Just little things—like asking why we, the sorority, didn’t call in the missing-person report earlier. We told the police everything at the time—we didn’t know she was missing. She often spent the weekend with one of her boyfriends, and she was twenty-one. And he talked about the fight between Candace and Taylor as if it was a big deal, when it was practically nothing.”

“So he’s a bit sensational. What do you expect? I’m just happy that he didn’t harp on the fact that she was juggling two boyfriends, like the reporter who first covered her murder.”

Vicky remembered the news coverage after Candace had been killed. The local crime reporter had a big headline about Candace’s love life, which was totally inappropriate and irrelevant. You had to read the entire story to realize that the police had determined neither of the men in Candace’s life were involved in her murder. Vicky hadn’t known Candace super well, but she remembered that she wasn’t that into her love life. It wasn’t like dating two guys was unusual these days, anyway.