“Do you want me to find out more?”
She nodded. “I’d really like to know if there is any chance that the overdose was intentional.”
“Suicide.”
“Or homicide.”
Twenty-Nine
Friday
On her way to town Friday morning, Regan stopped by Lucas’s apartment to check on him. She wasn’t positive that the notes he received were a prelude to a physical attack, but she was cautious by nature.
She also wanted to give him an opportunity to talk more about his motives. She didn’t think he was being deceptive, but she kept going through all their conversations, and there was just a little niggle of a doubt that he hadn’t been completely up-front with her about his motivation.
“I’m meeting with the sorority advisor and president in an hour,” she said.
“Ask if Vicky will let me interview her for the podcast,” he said. “Maybe come on live. She can say anything she wants—talk about how Candace mentored her, how her death impacted her. And I can ask about the last time she saw her.”
“I’ll do my best,” she said.
“They won’t even talk to me, so you’re my best hope.”
“I was going through all my notes last night and listened to the podcasts again, trying to wrap my head around a few things.”
“I went through my notes, too. Great minds,” he said with a laugh.
“Yeah, well, one thing you said about the last time you saw Candace. You were at the sorority to go to the party—”
“No, I went to talk to Candace. She’d quit tutoring, and I really needed her help for my English class.”
“When I was talking to Richie, he said that she quit tutoring before spring semester.”
“Yeah, so?”
“The party was in April.”
“I used her in the fall, and I wanted to use her again. She helped. She said she was too busy. Why does it matter?”
“I’m trying to determine what was going on in her life, what might have led up to the argument with Taylor. Richie implied that she was irritated with someone she was tutoring. I thought you might have known something about it.”
“No. We weren’t friends, just friendly.”
It wasn’t what Lucas was saying, it was his tone and the way he averted his eyes.
Did she press now? Or wait? Would he come around on his own? He was a smart kid, and she had grown to like him quite a bit. He pushed when warranted, listened when he didn’t know something, and assessed information critically. She liked that.
She wanted him to tell her everything, even if it wasn’t important to Candace’s murder. Because if his motivation was personal, it might cloud his judgment if there was an actual threat to him. She didn’t want anything bad to happen to him.
She decided to wait. Maybe it was nothing.
“I also found out Alexa Castillo teaches in Flagstaff. Let’s go pay her a visit this afternoon, okay?”
“How’d you do that?”
“Lots of patience and false leads, but she’s a teacher, and there are public records. So I went down a rabbit hole and got lucky.”
“What time?”
“I’ll pick you up around two thirty? We’ll head over there, catch her right after classes end.”
“This might be it.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” she told him, “but it’s a good lead.”
When Regan drove to the campus, she kept looking up at the gray sky. Yep, it was going to rain. Not a little drizzle like earlier in the week but a hard, pounding rain that might last most of the weekend. By the time she arrived at campus ten minutes later, the first raindrop fell.
She pulled on the hood of her Gore-Tex jacket. She loved the rain and didn’t mind getting wet, but she didn’t relish the idea of sitting around damp for the rest of the day.
She headed directly to Rachel’s office. The door was open. She rapped on it, and Rachel looked up with a smile. Like yesterday, she was dressed both impeccably and trendy. “Thank you for coming to campus,” she said.
“It’s not out of my way.”
“Vicky will be here in a few minutes. Come in, sit. Would you like some coffee?”
“I’m good.”
Regan took off her jacket and hung it on a hook by the door, where Rachel had her own coat hanging. It was quiet, but it was Friday. Fewer classes in session, many students leaving campus for the weekend.
Rachel took a bottle of water from a minifridge under the table behind her desk, and offered one to Regan, which she declined.