“Of course.”
The sergeant left his desk and went into another room. A moment later, he returned with a printout of the report. “I need you to fill out and sign this form, so we have a record.” He pushed a clipboard toward her.
She wrote her name, address, and purpose for her request, then signed.
“Merritt—your dad wouldn’t by chance be Sheriff Merritt?”
“He would.”
“Thought the name was familiar.”
“Do you have a record of who else pulled this report?”
“Sure.” He sat back down at his computer and typed. A moment later he said, “Three people. The troopers pulled it from their system, a lawyer in Phoenix—that was probably for the family. And a criminology student.”
She didn’t have to ask who, but she did anyway.
“Name?”
“Lucas Vega.”
“Do you know when he asked for the report?”
Click, click. “Three and a half years ago. First-year student, stated it was for a class.”
Regan thanked the sergeant and stepped out. Lucas was staring at his phone in the passenger seat. Standing under the overhang outside the campus-police building to avoid the rain, she opened the report and read it under the outdoor light.
It was standard: the Overton family had called the campus police when they couldn’t reach Adele, campus police followed up, learned she was supposed to have left for home. Adele’s roommate had left before her, and Adele’s car wasn’t in her assigned parking lot. Someone in the dorm said she had left the evening of November 30—the last day of finals—but that witness didn’t know if Adele was leaving campus or not.
The campus police had sent out an email to all students asking if they had seen Adele Overton on or after November 30 while also alerting the state troopers to be on the lookout for Adele and her vehicle.
On the last page of witness statements, one student had responded to the campus-police inquiry:
Taylor James.
Ms. James, a nursing student who was in two classes with Ms. Overton, said that she and another first-year student, Candace Swain, had lunch with Ms. Overton at the student union on November 30. Ms. James stated that Ms. Overton told her and Ms. Swain that she was leaving that evening for home and would see them after the break. Their lunch was around 1:30 p.m., which was confirmed through a review of the campus meal-plan log system. Ms. James, Ms. Overton, and Ms. Swain all used their meal-plan cards between 1:20 and 1:25 at the student union on November 30. Per student records, that was the last time Ms. Overton’s student card was used.
From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain
In my philosophy class last year the professor had us consider a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. I had never heard it, though the sentiment has been expressed by many. “It’s always the right time to do the right thing.”
I’ve never been into politics, but I care about people. That’s why I want to be a nurse. And at that moment I realized why I had never come forward before about what happened to Adele.
I was scared. Then I thought it was too late. And maybe the more time that passed, the more trouble I would be in. Then a year passed. Two years. Now three years, and Adele is still gone. What can I do to change it? Nothing. And if I say anything, my life will be ruined. My life and others. What would that accomplish? So I buried it, convinced myself it was okay.
But it wasn’t okay.
Lucas walked into my life at the writing lab. Right away I felt uncomfortable around him. He personally knew Adele, and I thought, Does he know what happened? But of course he doesn’t. I couldn’t lie to him if he asked and say I didn’t know her, because what if he found out that I lied? So I admitted that Adele and I had a biology class together and said it was so sad about what happened. I expected him to agree and move on, drop the conversation.
But he didn’t.
I’ll never forget what he said.
“Her mother is still looking for her. She barely sleeps, she barely eats, she wants to know what happened. Her dad didn’t even want her younger sister Amanda—my girlfriend—to go to college at all because he feared something would happen to her.”
Lucas told me all about the Overton family. How Amanda went to college anyway, out of state, against her father’s wishes. He told me how what happened to Adele tormented her family. That all they wanted was the truth, peace, a body to bury. Well, his girlfriend wants to bury her body, but her mother still thinks she’s alive.
All I could think of while he talked and talked was that Adele was dead. She was dead, and I knew it, and I could be the one to help give her family peace.