The Sorority Murder (Regan Merritt, #1)(55)

He turned into her neighborhood, narrowly missing a Jeep driving with only the fog lights on. He flashed at the driver—they were going to get someone killed. Glancing in his rearview mirror, he saw that the driver flicked on his lights.

Lucas drove slowly past Taylor’s house. One light was on in the back of the house, but that didn’t mean she was home. Lucas’s mom didn’t like coming home to a dark house and always left the stove light on. He turned around in a gravel driveway down the street and looked for a place to park where Taylor might not be able to see him when she came home. Then he saw a car in her carport, behind the house. Dammit, she was home; would she even answer the door this late?

He had to try.

Lucas parked in front of her house and got out. He’d been thinking about how to approach her on the drive over, and thought he should tell her who he was and then tell her everything he knew about Candace and why he thought she’d been killed.

What are you hiding, Taylor?

Maybe if he came clean with her, she’d be honest with him. He’d show her the letter. Ask what they were arguing about. What was really going on between her and Candace the night she disappeared. Maybe even tell her his theory, the one he hadn’t yet shared with anyone. If she slammed the door in his face, then he was back to where he was now, so it was worth trying.

Having a plan helped bolster his confidence.

There were few streetlights out here, it was dark, and the only sound was a television turned too loud in a house across the street.

He stopped pacing in front of his truck and walked to Taylor’s front door and knocked before he could chicken out, then rang the bell for good measure. It wasn’t as cold as last night, but it wasn’t warm, and he immediately put his hands back in his pockets.

No answer.

Dammit. Maybe that car wasn’t hers. Maybe she was asleep.

He went back to his truck and rummaged around for his notebook. He wrote out a note.

Taylor: We need to talk. You can remain anonymous—I promise. But I have information...and I know you do, too. Lucas Vega.

He didn’t want to say anything too specific in case someone else read it, but he wanted Taylor to know that he knew a lot more about why Candace was killed so that she might agree to talk to him. If she’d come clean and tell him the truth, he would help her stay anonymous. There were ways to disguise voices on the radio: he could help her hide her identity.

Once he could get a confirmation of his theory, then he would share his story.

The entire story.

Without outside confirmation, he couldn’t say a word.

Before he changed his mind, Lucas folded his note and was about to walk back to her door but then decided it was more likely that she would see the note if he left it under her car’s windshield wipers.

He walked down the packed gravel-and-dirt driveway. When he saw Taylor’s back-porch light on, he hesitated. Maybe he should knock on the back door.

Then he froze.

A covered patio, large enough for two lounge chairs and a small table, was illuminated by a sickly yellow light. Someone was lying on one of the chairs.

This was it. Now or never.

Lucas stuffed the note into his pocket and stepped out of the dark.

“Taylor? Hey, Taylor, it’s Lucas Vega.”

The woman didn’t move. Was she sleeping? Passed out?

Dammit, Lucas, just leave the note and go!

Even though she was thirty feet from him, she didn’t look right. Maybe because the porch light was yellow, but her coloring was strange and her arm was hanging over the lounge. Even though it was chilly, she wasn’t wearing a jacket; she didn’t have a blanket or sleeping bag. Her head slouched at a strange angle, as if she were in a deep sleep, her mouth partly open.

Lucas stared at her arm. Then he saw the needle on the ground.

“Taylor?” Still cautious, he approached her slowly. “Taylor, are you okay? Do you want me to call someone?”

No answer. He reached her body and stared. Her eyes were half-open. He didn’t want to touch her, but he had to wake her up because something was wrong.

He shook her gently. “Wake up. Taylor? You need to wake up.”

Her body rocked under his hand, but she didn’t move.

He jumped back. She was unconscious. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”

Was she dead? He leaned over, tried to find her pulse. Was it there, on her wrist? Or was that wishful thinking?

“Taylor? Can you hear me?” He gently shook her body to see if he could wake her, but she was limp.

“Don’t die. Please don’t die,” he said. “Dammit! you’re the only one who knows what happened to Adele!”

He pulled out his phone and called 9-1-1.

Regan arrived twenty minutes after the paramedics. Taylor had been declared dead on scene, and she heard rumblings about an overdose because they found drug paraphernalia but knew there would be an autopsy to confirm.

Lucas stood next to a sheriff’s patrol car because they were outside the city limits. A plus.

Regan walked up, put her hand on Lucas’s arm for support, and said to the deputy, “I’m Regan Merritt, a friend of Lucas.”

“Merritt—John’s kid?”

“One of them.” She looked at the badge of the young deputy. “Deputy Prince? I don’t think we’ve met.”

“I started two years ago. But everyone knows the old sheriff. I’m just getting Mr. Vega’s statement.”