“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.”
Jessie swore as easily as breathing. Regan had never heard her parents utter a bad word, but Jessie had littered shit and fuck and damn into her speech from the day Regan had first met her in middle school. Jessie, born on the Navajo reservation to a Navajo father and white mother, had moved to Flagstaff with her mom when her parents divorced. Those teenage years had been difficult for Jessie, and she had her own way of coping with it.
She’d run away from home several times. She lived with her father for six months in eighth grade, then realized why her mother divorced him: he was sweet as molasses when he was sober, unpredictable and violent when he was drunk. In high school, she’d once dyed her long black hair bright pink. She later admitted that had been stupid. In college, she cut it off at her ears to get rid of the remnants of pink. Now, she wore it medium-length, which she usually pulled back into a ponytail.
“You look soft,” Jessie said. “Are you sure you’re going to be able to do this one? It’s the most difficult trail in Sedona.”
Her comment didn’t deserve a response, so Regan ignored it. “I wanted to pick your brain. Do you remember three years ago a sorority girl, Candace Swain, who was found dead at Hope Centennial Golf Course? In the lake.”
“Yep.”
“You answered quickly.”
“I listen to podcasts in my truck. You know how much I can’t stand driving, and that seems to be half my job now. I found the one about her death. The Sorority Murder. Kid from the college. I didn’t think you’d have the patience to sit still and listen to anything.”
“I spoke at the Criminology and Criminal Justice school yesterday, and Lucas Vega, the host, asked to interview me.”
“No shit. You doing it?”
She nodded. “The case is intriguing, and I think I can help. I’m just concerned about the directions of his questions, so I need to lay down some ground rules. I’m very private.”
“Ya think?” Jessie snorted.
The server returned with their food: three eggs over easy, bacon and toast for Regan, a loaded omelet for Jessie. She refilled their coffees and walked away.
“Do you remember the murder?” Regan asked as they ate.
“Sure, it was on my radar—FPD issued a BOLO for Candace Swain, missing person, so it was posted on our board and in my truck. Also a BOLO for some homeless guy, Abernathy—the Vega kid mentioned him. So you’re going on the podcast to help? Share your expertise?”
“I don’t know how much I can help, but I have some ideas on how he can frame questions and maybe have a better response. Someone knows something. They might not even know what they know.” For nearly half of Regan’s thirteen years in the Marshals Service, she’d tracked fugitives. She had often been called for cases outside her jurisdiction because she had an uncanny way of getting into the heads of those who didn’t want to be found. She also had a knack for getting people to remember details they thought they’d forgotten or never consciously knew. People saw and heard a lot, but remembering those details could be difficult.
The missing days in Candace Swain’s calendar intrigued her. It was virtually impossible to stay off the grid for that long unless you planned to. Money, food, shelter. But there was no clear reason this twenty-one-year-old student had any reason to go on the down-low. Regan was drawn to the challenge of helping Lucas re-create Candace’s whereabouts.
And she’d been in limbo for too long. Regan had to do something to keep her mind off her son and the man who’d killed him.
“You doing it tonight?” asked Jessie.
“Yes.”
“I usually download podcasts for the truck, but I’ll listen live tonight.”
“If you call in and embarrass me, I will get revenge.”
Jessie laughed. “No call-in. Promise.” She glanced at her watch and quickly finished her omelet. “I gotta bolt. Someone up on Schultz Pass Road reported a mountain lion near the trailhead. That’s getting a little close to population centers, so I’m going track it—if the woman is even right about what she saw. People will see a fucking deer and think it’s a mountain lion. Twice that’s happened to me.”
Regan believed it. Both fear and imagination could run wild.
“And then there was the idiot who thought she was helping by taking two cubs into her barn. She called in, was worried they’d been abandoned. Like a mama lion is going to abandon them? She was told twice to leave the cubs alone, that their mom was out hunting, but she didn’t listen. I loved writing her up and fining her the maximum, but those cubs are now in a fucking zoo instead of living their best life.” Jessie rolled her eyes. She put a twenty down on the table and got up, grabbing her radio and clipping it to her belt.