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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

When Lucas had talked about Adele with Candace, she had flipped. Her reaction made Lucas suspicious. But until he found the photo, he didn’t have any hard proof that they were friends. Now that he had it, he didn’t know what to do with it.

Regan was staring at him. “Lucas,” she said, “I think we have a caller.”

He didn’t realize that Regan had been talking about witness statements and reliability; he’d zoned out.

“Sorry. Brain freeze,” he said and gave a little laugh. She looked at him oddly, so he turned away, glanced at Lizzy through the glass. She put up two fingers, and he pressed the second line on the studio phone.

“Hello, this is Lucas Vega with Regan Merritt talking about the reliability of witnesses. Do you have a comment?”

“Well, I’m sorry about your friend who went missing,” a female voice of indeterminate age said. “But really, is bringing all this up again helpful? That poor girl overdosed. Don’t you think that maybe your podcast had something to do with that? That you’re dredging up this tragedy and reminding Candace’s friends what happened? Maybe Ms. James couldn’t take it. Depression and drugs don’t mix.”

“I don’t know that Ms. James’s personal problems can be connected to a true-crime podcast,” Lucas said.

“Really? Well, if you think that, then maybe you’re not all that sensitive to other people’s situations. How do you think you’d feel if someone started dragging your friend’s name through the mud? If they started talking about it and making you feel sad again? You’re insensitive and sensational, throwing far-fetched theories out there. You have no idea what you’re doing, other than hurting people. It’s borderline evil.”

The caller hung up.

Lucas had no idea what to say.

Fortunately, Regan intervened. “The police are currently investigating the death of Taylor James. Preliminarily, as the newspaper said this morning, she died of a drug overdose, but they will conduct a thorough investigation to ensure that it was accidental. Sometimes a tainted drug hits the streets and they’ll want to track it to prevent more deaths. And we don’t know Ms. James’s state of mind. So that case needs to be left up to the authorities, as it’s an active investigation.