Chapters (61)
- Cover
- Praise
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- From the Journal of Candace Swain
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Letter Found in the Journal of Candace Swain
- Forty-Eight
- Acknowledgments
- Booklist
- Excerpt
Lucas zipped up his jacket. Being early March, there was no more snow on the ground, though higher in the mountains they still had plenty and some people still skied. Tonight, it was freezing cold, already forty degrees. He missed Phoenix. It got cold there, too, sure, but a person did not have to endure months of twenty-, thirty-degree nights. The first week they were on campus after Christmas break, it had actually been ten degrees below zero. Who in the world wanted to live in a town where the temperatures dropped to below zero?
Lucas called Lizzy to see if she wanted to meet him. He should have driven. He had a truck but usually kept it at the apartment because he didn’t want to spend money on gas if he didn’t have to. But Lizzy didn’t answer. Probably had a date or something. She was cute and smart. She’d had a boyfriend for two years, but they’d split when he graduated. Lucas was pretty certain she had plenty of friends to hang with, and he was not really fun to be around these days.
He walked down to McCarthy’s, where he and Lizzy had dinner the previous night. He liked the place, and not just because Candace’s bartender boyfriend worked there. It was comfortable, and though Lucas wasn’t into sports, he liked the noise, and when he was alone he could pretend to watch. Baseball wasn’t too bad: at least he understood it better than football. It was a popular hangout for older college students as well as locals and was always busy.
Lucas had reached out to Richie Traverton, Candace’s boyfriend, via email two months ago when he was putting together his podcast project, asked if he would be willing to make a statement or be interviewed for the show, but Richie never got back to him. There was no reason the bartender would know him, and Lucas hoped to keep it that way.
He ordered a pint and sat at a table for two. He opened his laptop and brought up the outline that Professor Clarkson had approved for his capstone project. The podcast was only part of it. He also had to write a paper on the topic: methodology, interviews, procedures, outcomes, more. Updating the existing outline with details along the way would make it easier to finish his paper later, when the podcast was over, so he fleshed out several of the points and wrote a timeline about responses and problems he’d encountered.
He really, really hoped he could solve Candace Swain’s murder. Otherwise, all his efforts would be for nothing.