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Back The Sorority Murder
Chapters (61)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain
  18. Thirteen
  19. Fourteen
  20. Fifteen
  21. From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain
  22. Sixteen
  23. Seventeen
  24. Eighteen
  25. Nineteen
  26. Twenty
  27. Twenty-One
  28. From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain
  29. Twenty-Two
  30. Twenty-Three
  31. Twenty-Four
  32. Twenty-Five
  33. Twenty-Six
  34. Twenty-Seven
  35. Twenty-Eight
  36. Twenty-Nine
  37. Thirty
  38. Thirty-One
  39. Thirty-Two
  40. Thirty-Three
  41. Thirty-Four
  42. From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain
  43. Thirty-Five
  44. Thirty-Six
  45. Thirty-Seven
  46. Thirty-Eight
  47. From the Journal of Candace Swain
  48. Thirty-Nine
  49. Forty
  50. Forty-One
  51. Forty-Two
  52. Forty-Three
  53. Forty-Four
  54. Forty-Five
  55. Forty-Six
  56. Forty-Seven
  57. Letter Found in the Journal of Candace Swain
  58. Forty-Eight
  59. Acknowledgments
  60. Booklist
  61. Excerpt

Regan:

You won’t answer your phone. You don’t respond to your emails. I haven’t seen you since you left Virginia. I feel your pain. I wish I could take it away from you, that I could go back in time and protect Chase. I loved that kid, but that is nothing compared to you. Losing a child is the worst thing a parent can suffer. I never expected you to bounce back. That’s why I insisted on the sabbatical.

You are one of the best marshals our service has to offer. You are dedicated, well-trained, experienced, and your instincts are better than anyone I have ever worked with. I want you back. I want you here, in Virginia, but I get that you can’t be here. For a lot of reasons. I respect that. Hell, I respect you. And more. You know it.

But don’t leave the service. I just got the message that you didn’t fill out your returning paperwork. I got you an extension, but they have to receive it by the close of business Friday. Then a week at FLET-C to requalify with your weapons and take your psych test. I know neither will be difficult for you.

I can get you into any office you want. Any division. If you want to stay in Arizona, there’s a place for you there. I know the director: he would be over the moon to have you. Or Texas. Florida. California. If you want the wide-open plains of middle America, I can make that happen. Anywhere.

You’re too good to walk away.

Please call me. I miss you.

Tommy

Dammit. She didn’t want to call him. For lots of reasons, but mostly because he was the only person on earth who might be able to talk her into going back to the Marshals.

She couldn’t go back.

It was both complex and simple. She grieved for her son. Her focus wasn’t one hundred percent on the job after Chase was killed, and she didn’t know that it could be. A marshal needed to be completely clearheaded. They couldn’t risk a mistake when other people’s lives were on the line. She felt as if she’d been split in two, and without her sharpness, without being whole, she wouldn’t survive. She didn’t want to die on the job. Marshals took daily risks. That’s what they signed up for. But Regan knew herself too well—without her family, without a foundation, with her grief clawing at her soul, she would make mistakes, possibly putting other people’s lives at risk.

She wasn’t going to do it.