“I told you, you owe me nothing,” Lizzy said. “This helps me, too. I’ll have to put together a capstone myself next year, and I’ve learned so much more about audio engineering even in the short time we’ve been doing this.”

Lizzy was in the Engineering and Technology Department and one of the smartest people Lucas knew. He was a forensics major and knew he wouldn’t have been able to pull off this podcast without her, as he’d told her more than once.

“Humor me, okay?” he said and bit into a fry. McCarthy’s had the best burger and fries in town, but that wasn’t the only reason Lucas wanted to come to this place. “Do you think I should be worried that we’ve only had those two callers? And no other leads?”

“No,” she said. “It’s a new program, and we’ve only aired two episodes. Give it time.”

“Time is one thing I don’t have,” he said, sipping his beer.

“It’s not only about you solving the cold-case murder, right? Because that’s an incredibly high bar. You’re doing this for your capstone, so it’s the paper you write after the podcast finishes airing that you’re going to be graded on. What you learned from researching the cold case, whether a podcast can help—or not—in solving the case, all that stuff. And if no one calls in, so what? That tells you something right there, doesn’t it?”

He shrugged and nodded at the same time. “I know you’re right.”

“But you want to solve the crime, too. I get it.” She stole one of his french fries and leaned over, said quietly, “Isn’t it the next episode where you’re going to drop the bomb that Candace wasn’t killed at the lake?”

Lucas shot a glance around the pub, to make sure no one heard Lizzy. The music was loud enough to cover their conversation, but he couldn’t take a chance. They were at a high top against the window, but a large table in the middle was filled with sorority girls. He couldn’t be certain one or more of them weren’t from Sigma Rho.

“You think that revelation will prompt listeners to call in?” Lucas asked. “Even more than the last episode where I presented evidence that Candace was alive for the week after she initially went missing?”

“Well, yeah, because no one knows it. I mean, publicly. It’s going to hit hard, and yeah, people will call, even if only to speculate.”