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.

Vicky glanced over at the bar, but Richie Traverton wasn’t working tonight. He’d been one of the two guys that Candace had been seeing three years ago, and he was super cute, but Vicky only knew him in passing. He wasn’t a student, and she thought she’d heard that he had another girlfriend now or something. Was that why the podcaster was here? To talk to Richie? Would Richie even go on that stupid show? Vicky hoped not: it would just make everything worse and further divide the sorority.

“Earth to Vicky,” Nicole said.

“Sorry. Thinking.”

“I think you should go on it,” Nicole said. “Drive the narrative. I think we should have agreed to help when he first came to the council. We need a voice.”