“I have no idea, because anytime someone would walk into a room, they’d stop talking. The night of the party, I heard Taylor call Candace a selfish bitch. I don’t know the context or anything, but it was harsh.”
“How long was this going on?” Lizzy felt like a detective, asking questions of a witness. It was kind of thrilling.
“I don’t know. They never really liked each other as long as I knew them, but they did things together.”
Lizzy considered her options. “What if you call in tonight and share what you know, except for the really personal stuff that someone might know you’d be the only one to know.”
“I told you, I can’t. They’ll recognize my voice, just like Nia.” Nicole put a hand to her mouth. “Dammit.”
“I won’t say anything. But I can disguise your voice. I can run it through a program so it’ll be totally distorted.”
“I don’t know.”
“You can pass my offer along to anyone else who wants to talk. I answer the calls during the podcast. All you have to do is tell anyone at the sorority that when they call, they can tell me they want their voice disguised. I’ll have it all set up. I promise.”
Nicole was thinking, but she didn’t commit.
Lizzy needed to push her. “Regan Merritt is coming back tonight. Lucas is going to detail everything about Candace’s death and everything he’s learned since Tuesday night. There’s a lot. And I think you might have information that you don’t know is important to put this all together. Regan said the police are listening to the podcast, and if we find something, they’ll investigate. Someone needs to answer for Candace’s murder, don’t you think? Don’t you think her sister would rest easier knowing what really happened?”
“Okay,” Nicole said. “My group and I will listen, and if we’re all in agreement, I’ll call. If you promise you’ll keep my name out of it. Because I don’t know if I can really help. I just came here to tell you that there are many of us who think the podcast is a good idea because we want to know what happened to Candace.”
Nicole walked out first, alone. Lizzy called Lucas. “Where are you? We need to talk, right now.”
Thirty
Lucas sat in his truck across from Taylor James’s house. Lizzy wanted to talk to him in person, said it was important, so he agreed to meet her at his apartment in an hour. He should have asked why—she sounded super excited about something—but he was preoccupied with what he planned to do.
When he ended the call, his roommate, Troy, said, “Lizzy? Wow, she can talk a mile a minute, can’t she?”
“Yeah,” he said, noncommittal.
He’d brought Troy along with him because he wasn’t an idiot: he knew there was safety in numbers. And Troy was built like a football lineman, which could be intimidating if you didn’t know him.
The neighborhood might have been nice if more houses had been fixed up. But most were falling apart, separated from their neighbors by tall trees and overgrown shrubs. A fire hazard, he thought.
He shouldn’t be here. He had wanted to tell Regan his full theory. He almost did earlier today because he had a feeling she was fishing around for something, but he didn’t know how she would take it. He hadn’t shared it with anyone, not even Lizzy—though Lizzy knew about his ex-girlfriend, Amanda, and she knew about Amanda’s missing sister, Adele.
Regan wouldn’t be happy if she found out he was here, even with Troy. But he couldn’t help himself and he’d been careful—no one had followed him. It was the middle of the day, overcast, drizzly, no one was around. He could do this.
He’d spent most of the morning going over all the files he’d downloaded about Greek Life. He hadn’t made any further connections between any of the sisters to Candace, and most of the newsletters were filled with fluff.
“Hey, buddy, are you sure you should be doing this?” Troy asked.
“I’m just going to walk around. I can’t really sleep, after finding her. I’m hoping, I don’t know, that I can just let it go.” He wasn’t being completely honest with Troy, and he felt bad about that, but it was true that he couldn’t get dead Taylor out of his head. When he did sleep, his mind replayed trying to save her life, hearing the voice of the 9-1-1 operator telling him what to do, but she still died. Over and over and over.
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“No, that’s okay. I’m just going to walk around the house, ten, fifteen minutes? Just let me know if anyone comes. I don’t want people to think I’m doing anything wrong.”