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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

She didn’t have to ask who, but she did anyway.

“Name?”

“Lucas Vega.”

“Do you know when he asked for the report?”

Click, click. “Three and a half years ago. First-year student, stated it was for a class.”

Regan thanked the sergeant and stepped out. Lucas was staring at his phone in the passenger seat. Standing under the overhang outside the campus-police building to avoid the rain, she opened the report and read it under the outdoor light.

It was standard: the Overton family had called the campus police when they couldn’t reach Adele, campus police followed up, learned she was supposed to have left for home. Adele’s roommate had left before her, and Adele’s car wasn’t in her assigned parking lot. Someone in the dorm said she had left the evening of November 30—the last day of finals—but that witness didn’t know if Adele was leaving campus or not.

The campus police had sent out an email to all students asking if they had seen Adele Overton on or after November 30 while also alerting the state troopers to be on the lookout for Adele and her vehicle.

On the last page of witness statements, one student had responded to the campus-police inquiry:

Taylor James.

Ms. James, a nursing student who was in two classes with Ms. Overton, said that she and another first-year student, Candace Swain, had lunch with Ms. Overton at the student union on November 30. Ms. James stated that Ms. Overton told her and Ms. Swain that she was leaving that evening for home and would see them after the break. Their lunch was around 1:30 p.m., which was confirmed through a review of the campus meal-plan log system. Ms. James, Ms. Overton, and Ms. Swain all used their meal-plan cards between 1:20 and 1:25 at the student union on November 30. Per student records, that was the last time Ms. Overton’s student card was used.

From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain

From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain

In my philosophy class last year the professor had us consider a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. I had never heard it, though the sentiment has been expressed by many. “It’s always the right time to do the right thing.”

I’ve never been into politics, but I care about people. That’s why I want to be a nurse. And at that moment I realized why I had never come forward before about what happened to Adele.

I was scared. Then I thought it was too late. And maybe the more time that passed, the more trouble I would be in. Then a year passed. Two years. Now three years, and Adele is still gone. What can I do to change it? Nothing. And if I say anything, my life will be ruined. My life and others. What would that accomplish? So I buried it, convinced myself it was okay.

But it wasn’t okay.