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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 drove slowly past his house. It was Saturday, and the weekends he had to work he usually had a babysitter for Wendy or took her to her friend’s house for a sleepover. Today maybe he took her there early. No one was home.

Feeling bold, she went inside. She had a key—he’d given her one more than a year ago—and looked around. Nothing seemed out of place. Yet...

She walked into Wendy’s room. She had a purple suitcase she kept under her bed for when she went to visit her bitch of a mother, visits that Wendy’s mom canceled more often than not.

The suitcase was gone.

Something was wrong.

Not necessarily. She could have brought the suitcase to the sleepover.

She sat on Wendy’s bed and dialed the kid’s cell phone. Wendy answered. Okay, that was good. If Steven had said anything to his daughter, she wouldn’t have answered Rachel’s call.

“Hey, Wendy, I came by the house to take you for ice cream, but you’re not here. Are you at Ginger’s?” Ginger was her weekend babysitter. “Maybe you can call your dad and ask if I can pick you up?”

“Oh, no! I love ice cream. But I’m at my grandparents’ house. My grandpa came to pick me up because Daddy has to work all weekend, and Grandpa got tickets to a baseball game, and I love baseball so I get to stay the whole weekend.”

“That sounds like fun.” Rachel forced her voice to be light and happy when she was awash with dread. Steven was never spontaneous. His life was orderly, and he kept Wendy’s life ordered as well because of her unstable mother. If Steven’s dad wanted to take Wendy to a ball game, he would have planned it days, or weeks, in advance. Something had happened... Something had forced Steven to change his habits. That couldn’t be good.

Rachel’s life was crumbling around her. She could practically see the pieces at her feet.

“Next weekend, okay?” Wendy said.

“Sure, we’ll make it a date. Bye.”

Rachel sat on Wendy’s bed for a long minute. She had to get in front of this. Fix it.

First, Steven couldn’t have any evidence. If he did, he would have already arrested her. Also, he couldn’t have evidence because she was too smart. There was no evidence for him to find.