BooksBarbecue
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

He continued up the hill, turned right, then walked up the stairs to his apartment. It was a nice place, eight units, and the owner–manager Mrs. Levitz lived on the first floor with her four cats. He and Troy fixed a few things for her, and she made them cookies at least once a month and left care packages for them. Her cooking was pretty good. Not as good as his mom’s, but better than what he could put together for himself.

Troy and Denise were on the couch watching a movie when he walked in. “Hey,” he said before going into his bedroom, not wanting to disturb them.

He sat down and checked the podcast email. A dozen messages basically calling him a jerk.

And then there was one that didn’t.

The subject line was can i trust you.

It had been sent through an anonymous address, maybe an email created just to communicate with him, a bunch of numbers and random letters at a Gmail account.

He opened it.

i listened to your podcasts. i almost called in, but i’m in sigma rho, and they would recognize my voice. i saw candace driving like a bat out of hell into mountain view parking. it was around ten at night, two days after the party, sunday night, and she almost hit me. i don’t know if that helps you, but i’d get in trouble if i called. call me a concerned sister.

p.s. i’m sure you’ve figured out that the sorority put a total lid on talking to you. they say they want to protect candace’s image, but it’s really more the sorority’s image they care about. but some of us listen to you, hang on every word, because we want to know what happened to candace as much as you do.

maybe even more.

Seven

Tuesday

Regan met her best friend, Jessie Nez, for breakfast Tuesday morning at Marcy’s Grill, a diner that had outlived the original owner by twenty years. Marcy’s granddaughter Susan ran the place now, and very little had changed—which suited Regan and everyone else who ate there regularly. She and Jessie had breakfast together at least once a week since Regan came back. Jessie ate here every morning because she hated to cook.

“You look like shit,” Jessie said as she sat down, adjusting her heavy utility belt and putting her radio down on the red-checked plastic tabletop.

“No tact, but to the point, I give you that,” said Regan. She had arrived early and was already on her third cup of black coffee.

“You’d better not fucking be canceling our hike on me.”

“I’m not canceling. Though, I think the weather is going to turn.”

“Shit.”