Color drained from his face. ‘Man, why you trying to bust my balls like that?’

‘Truth be told, Chance, I don’t want to bust your balls at all. I have more important things to do, and right now, you’re wasting my time by forcing me to spin my wheels. So, you can either talk, or we can go about getting the information another way. Your choice, but you’d better choose fast before my patience runs the rest of the way out.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘One of the girls who was there Saturday night, Rachel Otis, never returned home from that party. What can you tell us about that?’

In an instant, his smirk returned. ‘I don’t know a Rachel Otis.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘Couldn’t say. I was with lots of girls that night, and other nights, too. Can’t remember them all.’

Maybe it was because she’d had to deal with Beau Cambridge and his father’s similar cocky attitude toward the female population, or maybe it was because she now knew about Cord’s sister, Shelley, but whatever it was, Alyssa was finding it more difficult to keep her patience in check.

Within seconds, Cord produced the picture on his phone that Angela Kazminski had sent them and held it in front of Chance’s face. ‘Rachel Otis.’

A count of ten passed before he said, ‘Yeah, come to think of it, I might’ve seen her. She barged in on me and her friend just as we were about to get it on.’ He gauged Alyssa’s reaction to his comment, but she kept her expression flat.

‘What was her friend’s name?’

‘Didn’t catch it.’

‘What happened when Rachel “barged in”?’ Cord asked. ‘Did that make you mad? Throw things off? Give the friend time to change her mind and back out?’

Chance threw his head back and laughed. ‘Dude, two hot girls in the same bedroom with me? Naw, man, that didn’t make me mad. I invited her to join us.’ After another shrug he admitted, ‘She declined, then laid down on the bed with her friend, and they passed out. I left them there to sleep it off and hooked up with someone else.’ He threw a pointed stare Cord’s way. ‘And before you ask, no, I didn’t catch her name, either.’

‘Listen, Chance, a girl is missing, could possibly be in danger, so if you know anything about that, you need to start talking now.’

‘I told you, lady, I don’t know what happened to her. She passed out. I left. End of story.’

‘What about the other people who were at the party that night? The least of my concerns is whether or not a group of university kids too young to be drinking were celebrating the end of the semester,’ she reminded him. ‘Unless, of course, you refuse to cooperate, in which case I can make that someone else’s focus. So, before you decide to claim temporary amnesia, I want the address of the frat house, and then you can start naming names before the rest of my patience disappears into the wind.’