The Sorority Murder

by Allison Brennan

Genres: Thrillers; Crime Fiction; Suspense

Synopsis

“The 10 Best New Mystery and Thriller Books of December are Giving Us Literal Chills”—E! Online


“10 Books to Cozy Up With This December”—PopSugar


 A popular sorority girl. An unsolved murder. A campus podcast with chilling repercussions.  

Lucas Vega is obsessed with the death of Candace Swain, who left a sorority party one night and never came back. Her body was found after two weeks, but the case has grown cold. Three years later while interning at the medical examiner's, Lucas discovers new information, but the police are not interested.

Lucas knows he has several credible pieces of the puzzle. He just isn't sure how they fit together. So he creates a podcast to revisit Candace's last hours. Then he encourages listeners to crowdsource what they remember and invites guest lecturer Regan Merritt, a former US marshal, to come on and share her expertise.

New tips come in that convince Lucas and Regan they are onto something. Then shockingly one of the podcast callers turns up dead. Another hints at Candace's secret life, a much darker picture than Lucas imagined—and one that implicates other sorority sisters. Regan uses her own resources to bolster their theory and learns that Lucas is hiding his own secret. The pressure is on to solve the murder, but first Lucas must come clean about his real motives in pursuing this podcast—before the killer silences him forever.

"Fans of Jeff Abbott and Karin Slaughter will find this crime novel hard to put down." —Publishers Weekly on The Third to Die

"Downright spectacular… [A] riveting page turner as prescient as it is purposeful." —Providence Journal on Tell No Lies

Regan Merritt Series

Book 1: The Sorority Murder
Book 2: Don't Open the Door

Don’t miss SEVEN GIRLS GONE, the next page-turning thriller from New York Times bestselling author Allison Brennan!

Release date: December 28, 2021

Publisher: MIRA Books

Print pages: 400

Sample

One Three Years Ago
Friday, April 10

Candace Swain forced a smile as she walked out of her dorm room.

Smiling was the last thing she wanted to do, but Candace had an image to uphold.

She was going to be late for the Sigma Rho Spring Fling—the last big party before the end-of-year crunch. Studying for finals, capstones and senior projects, stress and more stress, and—for some of them—graduation.

The mild April weather was perfect for an outdoor gathering. Candace had led the sorority’s social-events committee with setup, and they’d included heat lamps along the perimeter. The Mountain View dorm—which housed all campus sororities, each with their own wing—was on the northeast corner of campus, adjacent to the football field. The Spring Fling was held on the large lawn that framed the north entrance, where they had the most room. It was open to all students for a five-dollar admission, and was one of the biggest moneymakers for the sorority, more than covering its cost. Any profit was donated to one of several charities. Candace had fought for—and won—giving the profits to a rescue mission that helped people get back on their feet. She volunteered weekly for Sunrise Center, and it had changed how she viewed herself and her future. She now planned to be a nurse in the inner city, working for a clinic or public hospital, where people deserved quality health care, even if they were struggling. She even considered specializing in drug and alcohol issues, which were unfortunately prevalent among the homeless community.

She used to think of her volunteerism as penance for her failings. She wasn’t religious but had had enough preaching from her devout grandmother to have absorbed things like guilt, penance, sacrifice. Now, she looked forward to Tuesdays when she gave six hours of her time to those who were far worse off than she. It reminded her to be grateful for what she had, that things could be worse.

Candace exited through the north doors and stood at the top of the short flight of stairs that led to the main lawn. Though still early in the evening, the party was already hopping. Music played from all corners of the yard, the din of voices and laughter mingling with a popular song. In the dusk, the towering mountains to the north were etched in fading light. She breathed deeply. She loved everything about Flagstaff. The green mountains filled with pine and juniper. The crisp, fresh air. The sense of community and belonging felt so natural here, something she’d never had growing up in Colorado Springs. With graduation on the horizon, she had been feeling a sense of loss, knowing she was going to miss this special place.

She wasn’t close to her parents, who divorced right before she started high school and still fought as much as they did when they were married. She desperately missed her younger sister, Chrissy, a freshman at the University of South Carolina. She’d wanted Chrissy to come here for college, but Chrissy was a champion swimmer and had received a full scholarship to study practically a world away. Candace had no plans to return to Colorado Springs, but she didn’t know if she wanted to follow her sister to the East Coast or head down to Phoenix where they had some of the best job opportunities for what she wanted to do.

Vicky Ryan, a first year student who had aspirations of leadership, ran up to her.

“That weirdo is back,” Vicky said quietly. “Near the west steps. Just loitering there, freaking people out. Should I call campus police?”

Candace frowned. The man Vicky was referring to was Joseph, and he wasn’t really a weirdo. He was an alcoholic, and mostly homeless, who sometimes wandered onto campus and wouldn’t accept the help he had been repeatedly offered. He wasn’t violent, just confused, and sometimes got lost in his own head, largely from how alcohol had messed with his mind and body. But his problems understandably made her sorority sisters uncomfortable. He’d twice been caught urinating against the wall outside their dorm; both times, he’d been cited by campus police. He wasn’t supposed to be on campus at all anymore, and Candace knew they’d arrest him if he was caught.

“I’ll take care of it,” Candace said and made her way around the edge of the party.

She found Joseph on the narrow grassy knoll that separated the football field from the dorms. A small group of students approached her, but one in their group turned toward the grass, likely to confront Joseph.

Candace walked faster, caught up with the student, and smiled brightly. “I got this.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll handle him.”

“I said I will take care of this. I know him. But thank you anyway.”

Mr. Macho didn’t want to walk away, yet Candace stood firm. She didn’t want anyone to harass Joseph, and she knew he would listen to her. While he wasn’t violent, he could be belligerent, and being confronted by a jerk wanting to impress his girlfriend was a surefire way to trigger Joseph and have him dig in his heels. It would only lead to an arrest, and that wasn’t going to help him in the long run.

The group walked off, grumbling; Candace ignored them. She approached Joseph cautiously, so as not to startle him. “Joseph, it’s Candace,” she said. “Remember me? From Sunrise Center?”

He turned slowly at the sound of her voice. A tall man, nearly six foot four, he could intimidate people. But he was also skinny and hunched over from years of walking the streets and looking down, rummaging through garbage, with his hangdog face, ragged salt-and-pepper beard, and watery blue eyes. He was the kind of guy her grandmother would have called a bum—dressed in multiple layers of dirty, mismatched clothes, and smelling of dirt and stale beer. He looked about sixty, but she knew that he was only in his forties. She’d heard he’d been living along Route 66 for the better part of ten years. The people who ran Sunrise Center didn’t know much about his personal life, only that when he was sober (which was rare), he would talk about home being east, at the “end of the line.” But no one knew if that meant Chicago or any of the stops in between.

Candace wanted to know more about his story, how he came to be in these circumstances, why he wouldn’t—or couldn’t—accept help. Many of the homeless who came to Sunrise for shelter or food would talk to her freely. But not Joseph. When she’d pried once, he disappeared for a while, so she stopped asking. She would rather him be safe than riding the rails.

“Candace,” he said slowly after several moments.

“You can’t be here, Joseph. The campus police told you that. Don’t you remember?”

He didn’t say anything or acknowledge that he understood what she said.

“Would you like me to take you over to Sunrise Center? You can get a hot meal there, maybe a cot for the night.”

Again, silence. He turned away from her but didn’t leave.

She really didn’t want to call campus police, but if she didn’t do something, someone else would.

“Is there a reason you are here?” she asked.

“Leave me alone,” he said.

“I will, but you have to leave. Otherwise someone is going to call the police.” If they haven’t already.

He abruptly turned toward her, staggered on the slope of the lawn. His sudden movement startled her; she stepped back.

“No cops!” he shouted.

“You have to leave, Joseph,” she said, emphatic. Her heart pounded in her chest, not so much from fear but uncertainty. “Please go.”

Again, he turned abruptly, this time staggering toward the stadium fence. She held her breath, watching him. He almost ran into the fence, put his arms out to stop himself, then just stood there. A minute later, he shuffled along the field perimeter, shoulders hunched, without looking back.

She breathed easier, relieved that he was heading off campus. She would talk to the director of Sunrise on Tuesday, when she went in to volunteer. Joseph couldn’t keep coming here, but she didn’t really want to call the authorities on him. He needed help, not more trouble, and definitely not incarceration.

Candace was about to return to the party when she heard someone call her name. She turned and saw one of her former tutoring students, Lucas Vega, running toward her. She didn’t want to talk to Lucas tonight. How many times did she have to tell him to leave her alone?

She stopped anyway and waited.

“Candace,” he said, catching his breath. “Thanks.”

“What do you want?” she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry,” she said bluntly.

“I didn’t mean to upset you the other day. I am sorry about that.”

She blinked. He sounded so sincere. And truth be told, something he’d said to her a few days earlier made her think long and hard about herself, her life, and the time she’d spent as a student at Northern Arizona University.

A lie for a good reason is still a lie.

Lucas and his wide-eyed, good-natured innocence, his innocuous questions had her feeling guilty for no reason. He had picked up on that. And pushed.

No reason? Ha. Plenty of reasons. All these doubts and worries she’d been having this semester, the sleepless nights, all came from something she’d done as a freshman that she now had good reason to regret. But what could she do about it? What would come of the truth now?

Maybe there was no good reason to lie.

“All right,” she said. “Thank you.” It was easier to forgive Lucas than to hold on to this anger. None of what happened was Lucas’s fault.

“So will you tutor me again, for finals?”

“No. Afraid not.” She could forgive him for prying, but she really needed first to forgive herself. And she didn’t know if she could do that with Lucas around, reminding her of her failures and mistakes. He didn’t even know what she’d done, but seeing him now was like reliving the past, and her chest tightened. “I’m sorry, but I have too much studying of my own, too many tests. And I’m not working at the writing lab anymore.”

Because of you.

Was that even fair? Was it because of Lucas...or because of her own guilt?

He was disappointed, but that wasn’t her problem.

“Okay, I understand,” he said.

“Besides, you’re smart. You’ll be fine.”

He shrugged. “Thanks.”

“Uh, you want to come to the party?” She gestured over her shoulder. They could hear the music from where they stood. “I’ll get you a pass. Won’t even cost you the five bucks.”

He shook his head. “I’m fine. I’m not really one for parties. But thanks anyway.”

He turned to leave.

“Lucas,” she said. He looked at her over his shoulder. “I’m really sorry.”

Then she left him there, waiting for something she couldn’t give him.

It took Candace several minutes before she could work up the courage to return to the party. An idea she’d been thinking about for the last few months was now fully developed, as if something inside clicked after her brief conversation with Lucas. Everything shifted into place, and she knew what she needed to do; it was the only thing she could do.

No one was going to like her decision.

When she realized she no longer cared what anyone thought, a burden lifted from her heart. She was certain then that she was doing the right thing.

---

Everyone at the party was asking for Candace, and Vicky had become worried when her friend and mentor hadn’t returned after thirty minutes. She sought out Taylor James, the Sigma Rho president, and told her about the homeless guy. “I don’t know where Candace is,” she said. “I should have just called campus police.”

“Candace says he’s harmless,” Taylor said, frowning. “Sometimes she’s so naive. I’ll go look for her.”

“Thanks. The party is great by the way. Everyone seems to be having fun. How does it compare to previous years?” This was the first party Vicky had helped put together for the sorority, so she was eager to know how well she’d done.

“As good or better,” Taylor said with a wide smile.

Vicky tried not to gloat as she practically floated over to her friends chatting near one of the heat lamps. It wasn’t cold, but the warmth of the heat lamp and the glow from the string lights added terrific ambience to the place.

“Oh my God, Vicky, this is a blast,” her roommate, Nicole Bergamo, said. Nicole was a half-Black, half-Italian math major who could have easily been a model she was so tall and stunning. “Everyone is talking about how great it is.”

Vicky smiled, talked for a bit, then moved around, being social, doing all the things that she’d seen Sigma Rho board members do. Hundreds of people were dancing, talking, mingling, eating, drinking, playing games. Mostly, they were having fun, which was the whole purpose. When the new Sigma Rho advisor, Rachel Wagner, told her it was the best Sigma Rho party she’d been to ever, Vicky thought she’d never come down from cloud nine.

“I agree,” said the gorgeous woman who was with Rachel. “I’m Kimberly Foster, by the way,” she introduced herself. “I’m a sorority alum, and I’m so happy I came up this weekend. You’ve done a fantastic job. Rachel said you’re part of the social-events committee. Isn’t Candace leading the committee? I haven’t seen her yet.”

“Yes, she’s around,” Vicky said. “This is all her vision. We just implemented it.”

“I love Candace. Oh! I see her over there.”

Vicky looked to where Kimberly was gesturing. Candace was talking in a small group.

“I’m going to catch up with her,” Kimberly said. “Nice to meet you, Vicky.”

The two women walked away, and Vicky continued her rounds. She was having a blast as her worries that the party might flop were replaced with pride and satisfaction over its success.

Hours later it was midnight, and per city ordinance—because their dorm bordered a public street—they had to cut off the music. That put a damper on things, but it was fine with Vicky—she was exhausted after working all day prepping and all night making sure everything was running smoothly. She was a little miffed that Candace was hardly there: Vicky had only caught a glimpse of her twice. But whatever, she’d seemed preoccupied, and that would have been a party downer.

Vicky ran into the dorm to get extra trash bags—they had to clean up tonight so wild animals wouldn’t get into the garbage and create a bigger mess in the morning. She came back out and heard voices arguing near where the DJ had been set up. He’d already packed up and left. She couldn’t hear exactly what was being said. It seemed like a quiet, intense exchange between Taylor and Candace though Rachel and her guest Kimberly were there, too. Everyone, especially Taylor, seemed angry.

About sixty people were still milling around, mostly Sigma Rho sisters helping with the cleanup. Nicole came up to Vicky and said, “What are Candace and Taylor fighting about?”

“I don’t know. It’s probably nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” Nicole said. “I heard Taylor call Candace a selfish bitch.”

“Ouch. Well, Rachel is there. She’ll mediate.”

But Rachel looked angry as well; it seemed that Candace was on one side, and the other three women were yelling at her.

“You’re wrong!” Candace screamed, and Vicky jumped. She glanced at Nicole, who looked perplexed as well. Vicky handed her a garbage bag, and they both started picking up trash. She didn’t want anyone to think she was eavesdropping.

But she was. As she inched closer to the group, she heard Kimberly say, “Let’s talk about this tomorrow, okay? When everyone has had a good night’s sleep and we can all think more clearly.”

“I am thinking clearly,” Candace said. “I’m done. Just...done.”

She left, walked right past Vicky without even seeing her. There were tears in Candace’s eyes, and Vicky didn’t know if she was angry or upset, but probably both. Vicky thought about going after her to make sure she was okay, then felt a hand on her shoulder.

She jumped, then laughed nervously when she saw Rachel. Taylor and Kim had walked away in the other direction.

“Sorry. You startled me.”

“I’m sorry you had to witness that,” Rachel said.

“I didn’t, really. Just saw that Taylor and Candace were arguing about something. I didn’t want to intrude.”

“It’s going to be fine. Just a little disagreement that Candace took personally.”

“About the party?” Vicky asked, her insecurities rising that she’d messed up something.

“Oh, no, the party was perfect. Don’t worry about that.”

Relieved, she said, “Maybe I should go talk to Candace.”

“No, let her be. I’ve known her since she was a freshman and took my Intro to Bio class. She has a big heart, and sometimes you can’t help everyone.”

Now Vicky understood, or thought she did. Taylor had been the most vocal about the creepy homeless guy hanging around the dorms, and she’d been the one who’d called campus police last time, after Candace said not to.

“Let me help,” Rachel said and took a garbage bag from Vicky’s stash.

Rachel chatted with Vicky, who felt lucky to be able to spend so much one-on-one time with her sorority advisor. Rachel was so smart, an associate professor at just thirty-two, an alum of the University of Arizona Sigma Rho chapter. Plus she had such interesting stories to share. By the time they were done with the cleanup—it didn’t take long with so many people working together—Vicky had forgotten all about the argument between Candace and Taylor.

It was the last time anyone saw Candace alive.

Two Present Day
Sunday

Lucas Vega didn’t go out to eat often because he didn’t have a lot of extra cash, but he owed Lizzy Choi big-time for all the extra hours she’d put in helping him with his senior capstone project—a podcast called The Sorority Murder.

“I told you, you owe me nothing,” Lizzy said. “This helps me, too. I’ll have to put together a capstone myself next year, and I’ve learned so much more about audio engineering even in the short time we’ve been doing this.”

Lizzy was in the Engineering and Technology Department and one of the smartest people Lucas knew. He was a forensics major and knew he wouldn’t have been able to pull off this podcast without her, as he’d told her more than once.

“Humor me, okay?” he said and bit into a fry. McCarthy’s had the best burger and fries in town, but that wasn’t the only reason Lucas wanted to come to this place. “Do you think I should be worried that we’ve only had those two callers? And no other leads?”

“No,” she said. “It’s a new program, and we’ve only aired two episodes. Give it time.”

“Time is one thing I don’t have,” he said, sipping his beer.

“It’s not only about you solving the cold-case murder, right? Because that’s an incredibly high bar. You’re doing this for your capstone, so it’s the paper you write after the podcast finishes airing that you’re going to be graded on. What you learned from researching the cold case, whether a podcast can help—or not—in solving the case, all that stuff. And if no one calls in, so what? That tells you something right there, doesn’t it?”

He shrugged and nodded at the same time. “I know you’re right.”

“But you want to solve the crime, too. I get it.” She stole one of his french fries and leaned over, said quietly, “Isn’t it the next episode where you’re going to drop the bomb that Candace wasn’t killed at the lake?”

Lucas shot a glance around the pub, to make sure no one heard Lizzy. The music was loud enough to cover their conversation, but he couldn’t take a chance. They were at a high top against the window,

, but a large table in the middle was filled with sorority girls. He couldn’t be certain one or more of them weren’t from Sigma Rho.

“You think that revelation will prompt listeners to call in?” Lucas asked. “Even more than the last episode where I presented evidence that Candace was alive for the week after she initially went missing?”

“Well, yeah, because no one knows it. I mean, publicly. It’s going to hit hard, and yeah, people will call, even if only to speculate.”

Lucas had loosely scripted out each of the eight episodes, but only the first four were in detail because the others he had planned to develop further after he gathered more information—from callers that hadn’t yet manifested themselves. Someone knew where Candace was that first week she was missing, he was positive. And he’d hoped that once he got that break, other clues and episodes would fall into place. If no one called in to crowdsource good information or viable clues, he could still run with some prerecorded interviews, but they’d be half as interesting.

His first episode was basic: Who was Candace Swain, and why should listeners care about her murder? He documented Candace’s childhood, her time on campus, even scored an interview with her younger sister, Chrissy, a senior at the University of South Carolina. He also had a clip from the director of Sunrise Center, where Candace had volunteered weekly for three years: it underscored her commitment to helping others. He had other interviews recorded to interject throughout the eight episodes. The only person who refused to talk to him was Steven Young, the Flagstaff detective in charge of the original investigation three years ago. Lucas only had a letter from the public information officer that gave the status of the investigation—open, inactive. At least the campus-police community relations officer had talked to Lucas and given him a lot of great background information on how Candace’s missing-person case had been handled. But ultimately, once the campus cops turned the case over to Flagstaff PD, they were no longer involved and thus could provide nothing new to Lucas’s podcast.

At the end of the first episode, Lucas revealed that Candace Swain had disappeared after a Sigma Rho party she’d helped organize, and wasn’t seen again until her body was found the following weekend in the lake on the Hope Centennial Golf Course.

The second episode focused on the basics of the missing-person investigation. Lucas revealed that Candace was thought to have been alive during most of the time she was missing. Per the autopsy, she was killed a week after her disappearance. He’d made a request on air during the last episode that if anyone could remember having seen Candace between the party and the time when her body was found, to call that detail in. With that critical new intel, he might be able to further piece together those missing days and solve her murder.

But only two callers had responded, and they hadn’t given their names. While they sounded authentic, he wondered if someone was playing a game with him and making things up. He couldn’t tell for sure, and that bothered him.

“Knock it off, Lucas,” Lizzy said. “You’re just feeling sorry for yourself. You’ve done a great job laying out Candace’s life and how the police handle missing persons on campus—and even how they changed some of their procedures after Candace disappeared. You are doing a public service, you know? Like a PSA or something, because you’re telling people how to report an incident, that it’s better to be embarrassed than have a friend or roommate hurt or worse. That’s common sense to me and you, but some people are dense.”

He appreciated her pep talk. “Maybe you’re right. Once people know her body was moved, they might start thinking more.”

“And aren’t you going to ask that friend of your department advisor for help?”

“Professor Clarkson wants me to. He says maybe I need to ask different kinds of questions to entice listeners to call in. And I was thinking, maybe having a conversation with an expert would be more engaging than just my talking, you know?”

“That’s a great idea,” Lizzy said with a wide smile.

Former US Marshal Regan Merritt, a graduate of NAU, was scheduled to be a guest lecturer the following afternoon. Lucas’s advisor was also the department chair. He offered to arrange a meeting for the three of them so Lucas could pitch his podcast, then ask Regan if he could interview her live on air. He could easily adapt his planned third episode to fit that format, and having an expert on with him when he provided his evidence that Candace’s body had been moved would give his statement more weight. He was just a forensics major; Merritt was a former US Marshal.

“See? Now you have a direction.” She reached out and squeezed his hand. “You got this, Lucas.”

He warmed at Lizzy’s touch, but she’d given no indication that she’d be receptive to being more than friends. They’d met when she was a freshman, he was a sophomore, in an advanced-math class he was required to take for his major. They’d been friends ever since. Back then, he’d been hung up on his high-school girlfriend who broke up with him right before they went off to different colleges. He was still kind of pining over his ex a year later. Maybe he had given off those unavailable vibes. Or maybe Lizzy just wasn’t attracted to him. He was an average guy. Smart, but not super smart like Lizzy. Whatever, he was grateful for her help and friendship.

“You ready to go?” he asked.

“You still have more fries.”

“Eat them,” he said.

She did and said, “Stop looking at that table.”

“What table?”

“The sorority table.”

“I’m not.”

“Are too.”

“The blonde keeps looking over here, and she looks angry,” he said.

“Maybe she has the hots for you, and you’re with another girl.”

He laughed, actually laughed out loud, because the idea of that was hilarious.

Lizzy ate the last fry. “Now I’m ready to go.”

---

Vicky Ryan, the current president of Sigma Rho, finally relaxed now that the student podcaster was gone. “What’s wrong?” Nicole, her best friend, asked.

“You didn’t recognize him? That was Lucas Vega, the jerk who’s running that podcast about Candace Swain’s murder.”

Nicole looked around, trying to catch a glimpse. “Really?”

“He’s gone.”

“I thought he did great,” Nicole said. “I mean, he said nice things and even had an interview with her sister. If the family is supporting him, why shouldn’t we?”

For someone as smart as Nicole, her roommate could be naive. Vicky once had been just as naive herself, but she had grown up real fast over the last three years.

“I don’t trust him. Just little things—like asking why we, the sorority, didn’t call in the missing-person report earlier. We told the police everything at the time—we didn’t know she was missing. She often spent the weekend with one of her boyfriends, and she was twenty-one. And he talked about the fight between Candace and Taylor as if it was a big deal, when it was practically nothing.”

“So he’s a bit sensational. What do you expect? I’m just happy that he didn’t harp on the fact that she was juggling two boyfriends, like the reporter who first covered her murder.”

Vicky remembered the news coverage after Candace had been killed. The local crime reporter had a big headline about Candace’s love life, which was totally inappropriate and irrelevant. You had to read the entire story to realize that the police had determined neither of the men in Candace’s life were involved in her murder. Vicky hadn’t known Candace super well, but she remembered that she wasn’t that into her love life. It wasn’t like dating two guys was unusual these days, anyway.

Vicky glanced over at the bar, but Richie Traverton wasn’t working tonight. He’d been one of the two guys that Candace had been seeing three years ago, and he was super cute, but Vicky only knew him in passing. He wasn’t a student, and she thought she’d heard that he had another girlfriend now or something. Was that why the podcaster was here? To talk to Richie? Would Richie even go on that stupid show? Vicky hoped not: it would just make everything worse and further divide the sorority.

“Earth to Vicky,” Nicole said.

“Sorry. Thinking.”

“I think you should go on it,” Nicole said. “Drive the narrative. I think we should have agreed to help when he first came to the council. We need a voice.”

“No. It wouldn’t be a good look for the sorority, and Lucas refused to share any details about the show in advance. We can’t go into something like this blind.”

“Maybe, but I think he would have been open to negotiation. ...