“I didn’t say that. Like I said, I’m intrigued. He asks some good questions. Maybe he’ll find the answers. And maybe you can help.” Her dad looked at her pointedly. “I know you don’t like unsolved murders any more than I do.”
Her heart twisted into a knot so tight she didn’t know if she could breathe. She didn’t want to respond to him by lashing out, saying something she’d later regret.
Her dad didn’t apologize or backtrack; she knew he meant it. She knew he wanted her to face Chase’s death head-on. It didn’t matter that she knew who killed him: there were still a lot of questions—questions she hadn’t been able to ask because the shooter was dead.
Instead, she picked up her phone from the coffee table, grabbed her jacket from the back of the couch, the flashlight from the shelf by the door, and left the house for a walk.
From the Missing Journal of Candace Swain
“Everything in your life is a reflection of a choice you have made. If you want a different result, make a different choice.”
I stumbled on that quote while scrolling through my Instagram feed, and it stuck with me. For weeks, I couldn’t sleep more than a few hours. I couldn’t eat more than a few bites. Because as the quote dug deeper into my soul—if I still even have a soul—I realized that I couldn’t fix my life. I can’t make a different choice. I can’t go back in time and say no. I can’t go back in time and stand up. Fear? So easy to blame fear. Fear for my life? Maybe. Not my physical life, but my future. Because what life would I have if people knew the truth?
As time marches on, as my choice torments me, I realize that it wasn’t fear that drove my decision.
It was selfishness.
Six
As Lucas sat in his bedroom trying to focus on his homework, he kept thinking about his conversation with Regan Merritt. He figured it was fifty-fifty that she would come on his podcast. Maybe sixty-forty: she had seemed interested and hadn’t dismissed him flat out like Detective Young. Jerk.
He hadn’t admitted to her that he was stuck. He hadn’t even talked to his advisor about it. On paper, the podcast had seemed like a brilliant way to find out the truth about what happened to the victim. But he hadn’t received the feedback like he’d thought he would. He’d been so excited about the caller who saw Candace in Kingman, but then...crickets. No emails, no follow-up calls, no other contributors. Was he asking the wrong questions? Had he structured the show wrong? Should he have led off with his big reveal the Candace didn’t drown in the lake?
Lizzy kept telling him to stop second-guessing himself, reminding him that he’d structured the show to end with a cliff-hanger to entice people to talk about the show and tune in next time. The stats from the last episode showed a twenty-percent increase in people livestreaming, and they were getting steady subscribers to the podcast.
Some of the emails bothered him—people accusing him of exploiting Candace’s murder. No one in Sigma Rho would talk to him. He’d reached out twice to Annie Johnston, Candace’s roommate who was now a pediatric nurse in Phoenix, and she’d ignored him.
While the caller on Friday had been anonymous on air, Lizzy got her name and an email when she first called in. Her name was Abby and she currently lived ten minutes off campus in a large apartment complex near the interstate. A lot of college students lived there because it was cheaper than places closer to campus, and the city bus was free for students. He’d emailed her on Friday, thanking her for her call, and asked if he could ask follow-up questions. She hadn’t responded yet.
What if she’d lied? What if someone was playing games?
He pushed everything out of his mind and tried again to focus on his homework, but his mind wasn’t cooperating. He hadn’t been able to concentrate on anything these last few months except the Candace Swain murder.
Lucas had a theory he couldn’t share with anyone—not with his advisor and certainly not with Regan Merritt.
If he was right, he would solve two murders. If he was wrong...well, he’d worry about that later.
He didn’t think he was wrong.
“Hey, Lucas.” His roommate, Troy Thompson, rapped on the wall just inside his open bedroom door.
“Whassup?” he said, tearing himself away from his email.
“Would you mind disappearing for a couple hours? Denise is coming over and...” He winked.
“Sure.” Lucas generally didn’t mind letting Troy have the apartment to himself on occasion. They didn’t have a lot in common, but flexibility of this sort actually made their friendship work. They’d been roommates for a year and a half now. Lucas was the slight Hispanic scholarship kid from south Phoenix, and Troy the tall Black rich kid from Scottsdale with a dad whose claim to fame was that he pitched three innings in relief in a World Series more than a decade ago and had a 2.40 ERA over an eight-year career. Troy was real people, buena gente, as Lucas’s abuela would say. Lucas liked him, even though Troy only cared about football, girls, and physical training—which was his major. He planned to be a physical trainer in the NFL. Lucas knew next to nothing about football.
But tonight Lucas was in a mood, and Troy must have picked up on it because he said, “Hey, if you don’t wanna, that’s fine. Denise and I can watch movies and stuff. You’re probably studying.”
“Nah, it’s fine. Really. I’m just tired and frustrated.”
“I’m making her dinner, but I already started, so give me two hours?”
Lucas laughed. “I’ll get a beer at the pub, be back at eleven?”
“Perfect. Thanks, buddy. And I’ll have plenty of leftovers, so feel free to help yourself.”