He looked again at Candace’s profile. She’d been so optimistic in her rush statement, but then seemed quite different as a senior.
Rush Statement: When I came to NAU, I was homesick. I have a little sister I love and miss so much that I thought about dropping out and going back home. Instead, I found Sigma Rho and knew as soon as I stepped in the front door that this was my place. The support and love from girls I just met sustains me and helps me overcome missing my own family. Now I have a house full of sisters, and I could not be happier. I hope to help create an atmosphere of volunteerism and community service, for the campus and our community at large. The future has never looked so bright and shiny, and I look forward to what it holds for both me and all my sorority sisters.
She sounded so happy, Lucas thought. But then as a senior...she sounded just like he felt, pessimistic. Aren’t you supposed to be happy, the world-is-your-oyster type of happy, when you’re on the verge of graduating from college with a degree in the field you love?
NAU Accomplishments: Volunteering and community involvement, including building homes for homeless veterans; working at Sunrise Center homeless shelter; reading to pediatric cancer patients; creating and maintaining the Greek Life Food Drive that last Thanksgiving bought four hundred and twenty turkeys for struggling families.
What do you plan to do when you leave NAU? Since I was little, I have wanted to be a nurse and take care of people. I have always wanted to give back, to help people, to do something more for my community, so I volunteered each academic break and summer to aid those who needed a helping hand. I want to continue a life of service.
What advice can you offer the incoming rush women? Trust yourself and don’t let anyone make you feel less.
Senior Quote: “The future influences the present just as much as the past.” * Friedrich Nietzsche
Odd quote, he thought.
Odd, and he feared he might have had something to do with Candace’s negativity. He hoped not, but he couldn’t help but think about his last conversation with her, and his suspicion about why she no longer wanted to tutor him.
He put Candace aside and turned to Taylor James. He looked at the photo of Taylor from first year and mentally juxtaposed that image with how he had found her, dead of a drug overdose. A pang of guilt overwhelmed him. He couldn’t help but think that he’d had something to do with her death. That because he was pushing the investigation into Candace’s murder, Taylor had gone back to using drugs.
Stop it, he told himself. Regan had reminded him that it was Taylor’s choice, which he understood intellectually, and he couldn’t figure out what he could have done different. But his heart hurt.
He believed that she knew more about Candace’s disappearance than she’d told anyone.
Could she have killed her?
“What?” Lizzy said.
“What what?” he asked.
“You just said something. Were you talking to me?”
“Guess maybe thinking out loud. What if Taylor James killed herself out of guilt? What if she killed Candace?”
“Whoa, slow down, Lucas. You’ve really jumped the shark.”
“Have I? Consider that Taylor and Candace fought about something. Everyone claimed it was about Joseph Abernathy, but then we get that letter that it was about something completely different, and the odd call. Maybe Taylor kills her accidentally, panics, moves the body, covers up the crime. But she feels guilty and starts doing drugs.”
“I can see it, but do you have any evidence?”
Of course he didn’t, and she knew it.
“Now she’s dead,” he said. “And if she did kill Candace, I’ll never prove it.”
“Stop with the fatalism. Breathe. Now, you wanted info on Vicky Ryan?”
“Find anything?”
“Nothing particularly interesting. She’s a nursing major, an overachiever. Loves planning parties, loves socializing, has her photo all over everything. Outgoing. Pretty. From a teeny-tiny town west of Phoenix, called Buckeye. No boyfriend now, though had one until the fall. Her best friend is Nicole Bergamo, a math major. I actually know Nicole. We’re not besties or anything, but I was in a couple classes with her. She’s super smart, totally like—who’s that guy?—the Beautiful Mind guy, she just gets math on a level most people don’t. I think she wants to teach, but I could remember it wrong. Anyway, they’re roommates, have been for all four years, so they must be tight. Oh, shit. I need to run. I can’t be late for my class.”
“I’m already late,” he groaned. “Go, I’ll wrap up here.” Maybe even skip his class. He had an A: he could get the notes from someone.
She leaned over and gave him a quick kiss. “See you later.”
Lucas watched Lizzy leave, thinking about her, them, what might be, then he shook his head to clear it. Thinking about the future wasn’t going to get the work done.
He finished going through all the sorority girls on his list. As he pulled down Alexa Castillo’s profile, something jumped out at him.
Hometown: Kingman, Arizona.
Was that a coincidence? That a sorority sister who graduated the year before Candace was from Kingman? Had she returned after graduation? Were they close?
Could Candace have been visiting her that weekend?
If so, why didn’t she come forward?
He did another quick search but couldn’t find Alexa Castillo anywhere on social media. It was a common name, but no one fit on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. He searched for alumnae news in the Sigma Rho newsletters: nothing. The only thing he could find was her senior statement, where she said she planned on teaching elementary school. Nothing about where she would be teaching, no follow-ups.
He looked at his phone and realized he was going to be late meeting Regan at Sunrise Center.
He quickly packed up his backpack and left.
Twenty-Seven