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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

She got out of the truck and grabbed an extra magazine of bullets for her .45 that she secured in its holster. She also retrieved her Kevlar vest. It wasn’t the protection issued by the US Marshals, but it was one of the best you could buy on the civilian market. She strapped it on and hoped she didn’t have to draw. She wanted to resolve this peaceably, but she feared Rachel wouldn’t allow it.

Regan came down the mountainside at an angle so she could control her descent. It was damp, but not too steep. She used the trees for both support and to hide her approach, glancing down into the valley to gauge where she was in relation to the mine and what Rachel was doing.

She was two-thirds down the hill when she heard a car door shut. She paused, leaned against a tree, and looked down. The Jeep was there, close to the entrance of the mine.

The mine was cut into the mountainside and had long been closed, like most of the mines in the area. Regan didn’t know the history of this particular mine, but either they had shut down because of the danger it posed to the miners, or they had gotten everything out they could.

An old federal sign, tarnished with age, warned that the mine was dangerous and to keep out. The area in front of it was overgrown with weeds and shrubs, and trees grew around, so high and thick that if you didn’t know the mine was there, you wouldn’t see it from any road or even the air.

Regan needed to give big kudos to Lizzy for identifying this based on very limited data.

It was cold, even though the sun had crept up ninety minutes ago. Partly cloudy with a wind that benefited Regan because it masked any sound she made.

Rachel was out of the Jeep and had a confused Lucas staggering in front of her. She held his arm tight, and she had a knife.

A knife could easily kill Lucas. Regan saw some blood on his shirt, but not enough to suggest that he’d been fatally stabbed.

Yet, if Rachel felt trapped, she would kill him just out of spite.

Regan half slid, half ran down the mountain as Rachel pushed Lucas toward the mine entrance. Regan hoped she made it to the Jeep before Rachel saw her, but no such luck. As soon as she emerged from the trees into the flat valley that fronted the mine, Rachel spun around, keeping Lucas between her and Regan.

“Leave,” Rachel said. She sounded more angry than scared. Her grip on Lucas was firm. She might not have a gun visible, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have one, in addition to the knife that Regan saw in her hand.