“Do you remember her major?”
“Chemistry, or maybe biology. Some sort of science. At least two-thirds of Sigma Rho were STEM.”
Regan glanced at Lucas to see if he had any questions to add. He shook his head.
“If you think of anything else, please reach out to me,” Regan said.
“Actually, I don’t know if this is important, but when I was listening to the podcast and Lucas said that tests proved she didn’t drown in the lake, I was stunned. I mean, that’s what we all thought. That’s where she was found, and the police didn’t tell us anything different. Anyway, Candace was very close to her sister, as I said. Chrissy is a swimmer, a huge deal, got a scholarship and everything. Candace was extremely proud of her. Whenever she was homesick, she’d go sit at the aquatics center and watch them practice. She told me it helped her decompress.”
That was valuable information. The aquatics center was a five-minute walk from the sorority. It wasn’t the only pool in town—in addition to private pools, there was a recreation center downtown that had both an indoor and outdoor pool, and there was a pool at the high school, not far from the college. But knowing that Candace regularly went to the aquatics center on campus seemed important. By the look on Lucas’s face, he thought it was significant, too.
Regan thanked Annie for her time and ended the call.
She said, “Well.”
“The police don’t have her journal,” Lucas said. “I don’t think her sister, Chrissy, has it, either, but I can ask her.”
“How do you know the police don’t have it? They might have kept it for evidence, not turned it over to the family.”
“I have a list of everything they collected from her car and room.”
She wasn’t certain he was legally allowed to have that information, but she didn’t comment.
“She drowned on campus,” Lucas said.
“You can’t know that.”
“It’s logical. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“Why would she disappear for a week, then go to the aquatics center and not her dorm? Or if she was scared, why not go to the police?”
“Maybe she felt safe there, or was thinking things through, whatever was going on with her,” Lucas said. “Haven’t you ever gone someplace because it gave you peace? Or to work through a problem? A place where you could be alone?”
Regan was going to deny it, but Lucas was right. She often went on long walks or horseback riding when she was upset. It’d started when her mother was diagnosed with cancer: Regan needed the time to just be without worrying about her family. When she was married, it had irritated her ex-husband, Grant, that Regan could walk out of the house on foot and disappear for hours. But there was something about those walks that instilled calm, focus, so she could think through her problems. For her, it wasn’t so much where she went as the activity—walking alone, especially in the woods or along a country road.
“Maybe she was meeting someone there,” Lucas pondered.
It was possible.
“I’m going to incorporate this into my podcast. But,” he said quickly, “I won’t let on that you let me listen to Annie. I can get a lot of this information from Chrissy.”
“I told Annie that I would be sharing with you, so you should be okay. She wants to help but feels like it’s either a lost cause or she doesn’t want to make waves with the sorority.”
“Why the questions about Sunrise Center?”
Regan told him about her father’s comment, that if Abernathy were innocent, someone at Sunrise might suggest that he be sent away for his own safety. Or, if they believed he were guilty, maybe send him somewhere to protect him—though that seemed far-fetched and would be obstruction of justice. Regan couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to help him, if he were in fact guilty.
“I found Taylor James,” Regan said. “Through a combination of social media, white pages, and people-finder databases, I learned she’s renting a small house just outside town.”
Taylor had an old social-media page that she hadn’t updated in months. Her profile picture showed a smiling young brunette with classy highlights; her background picture was her standing at the southern rim of the Grand Canyon, in a spot where millions of tourists had their photos taken. Her page wasn’t public, only a few posts she’d made public were visible—mostly motivational memes. Those had few comments.
“I have a confession to make,” Lucas said.