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Back The Sorority Murder Save as PDF
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

At that moment, an older woman approached holding the hand of a little girl, two and a half or maybe close to three, with curly brown pigtails. “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” The girl ran full-speed toward Alexa with a huge grin on her face holding a paper with bright colors in what Regan suspected was a rainbow.

Alexa stared at Regan, then she grimly shook her head before turning to the girl and plastering a smile on her face. “Bella! How is my angel?”

“See my pit-cher? All the colors!”

“It’s so pretty, it is definitely going on the refrigerator when we get home.”

Alexa barely looked at Lucas and Regan when she said, “I need to go. Thank you for your time.” She ushered Bella and the older woman into her classroom and closed the door.

Everything Alexa said—and didn’t say—confirmed what Regan and Lucas suspected.

She was the anonymous letter writer.

She was terrified of someone.

And now Regan understood why Alexa hadn’t wanted to come forward. She had a little girl, and she was scared. Fear was powerful, especially when you had more than yourself to protect.

But if she feared Taylor, why would Alexa still be scared after learning she was dead?

Thirty-Two

Regan let Lucas talk about his impressions of Alexa Castillo, which were very similar to hers: yes, she wrote the letter; yes, she knew more than she said; yes, it was most likely her that Candace visited in Kingman. He was excited about their discovery and wanted to brainstorm ways to convince her to talk.

“She’s scared,” Regan said simply when Lucas took a breath.

“I know, but—”

“There are no buts. She’s scared because she has a young child to protect. That little girl was between two and three. Want to bet Alexa was pregnant three years ago when Candace visited her?”

“So?”

Lucas didn’t understand what she was trying to say, maybe because he wasn’t a parent himself.

“She said in the letter that she’d been at the party, and based on that little girl, she was very likely pregnant—maybe very pregnant. She never came forward after Candace’s disappearance or her murder. She wasn’t living in Flagstaff, maybe she didn’t hear immediately, but she would have sooner rather than later.”

“Why didn’t she? Was she involved?”

Good questions, but Regan didn’t think so. Alexa had become more fearful after she’d heard that Taylor James was dead. Concerned, maybe worried, when Lucas was talking about Candace—but absolutely terrified that Taylor was dead.