But the reason she had chosen the Marshals Service was complicated. Partly ego, partly to do something different from the rest of her family, partly to escape Flagstaff. She loved her hometown—hiking, skiing, kayaking, camping—there was no more beautiful place in the country than northern Arizona. The staggeringly tall mountains, the deep Grand Canyon, the rivers for kayaking, the land for hunting, the clean air and down-to-earth people. But it could also be claustrophobic. Being a Merritt in a long line of service-oriented Merritts, you always had to be on your best behavior.
Yet here she was, back home for a while, wanting to make changes in her life and licking her raw wounds...wounds she doubted would ever heal.
After Regan provided no answer to Lucas’s question, Henry filled in the awkward silence.
“Regan, what if I make a suggestion?” he said. “Listen to the first two podcast episodes. See if your curiosity is piqued. If so, lending your expertise would help Lucas in his project. One evening, one interview—it might help steer the direction of the case. Because I must admit, I have been curious about where Candace Swain was before she died, as well as who killed her. Was it a crime of opportunity? Passion? Revenge?”
“You read too many mysteries,” Regan said, grateful that he’d lightened the mood.
“She was a student here, after all. Her unknown whereabouts was an outlier in the case at the time, one the police never sufficiently explained.”
“Now you’re sounding like a lawyer,” she said with a slight smile. “You know the police don’t always share the information they have, especially with the public.” Yet Henry was right: the case was more than a little intriguing. She’d always been a sucker for cold cases. Some of her most memorable evenings growing up were spent talking to her dad and older brother about unusual crimes and missing persons, trying to come up with ideas about what happened. She wondered if Henry knew about that. It wouldn’t surprise her if her dad had told him, or if he just remembered her inquisitive nature from college.
“No promises,” she said, “but I’ll listen. Do you have a number where I can reach you tomorrow?”
Lucas pulled a page out of a college-ruled notebook and scribbled his name, phone number, email, and the name and URL of the podcast. “I live in an apartment off campus, the other side of downtown. We record here at the campus radio station, a studio in the communications building. Lizzy handles all the equipment and stuff, and the idea was that she would screen callers—but we’ve only had two. We have numbers—people are listening. Not a huge number live, not yet, but we’ve had several hundred downloads. If you would, maybe come thirty minutes before we go on? Then I can run through the program, answer any questions you have, get you comfortable.”
“I said no promises.” She finished her drink and put the glass on the Coconino County coaster. She’d said she wasn’t committed, but she had a lot of questions. She’d never been able to let questions like this go. A cold case? Here, at NAU? There was a lot of mystery surrounding Candace Swain’s murder.
“Henry, thank you for everything. Surprisingly, I enjoyed lecturing today.”
“And the class...?” he asked hopefully.
She just laughed.
“Lucas, I’ll let you know either way, okay?”
“Thank you. I really appreciate your time.”
Lucas watched Regan Merritt leave Professor Clarkson’s office. He put his head in his hands. “I didn’t do that right. I was all over the place, trying to convince her to help.”
“You did just fine, Lucas. Just fine.”
He stared quizzically at his advisor. Had he been part of a different conversation? “I should have told her more, about the police reports, the argument that night, how no one in the sorority will talk to me, about—”
“You told her enough to interest her. The rest she’s going to learn in the first two episodes. She’s going to do it.”
“Really? You think?”
“I’ll bet a bottle of Macallan.”
“I’m broke, so I’ll just take your word for it.” He hoped his professor was right, because he feared—like he’d told Lizzy last night—that no one would call in with clues and he’d never find out what really happened to Candace Swain.
Four
When there is no place to go, you go home.
Regan was grateful that her childhood home in Flagstaff, west of the city limits off Naval Observatory Road, hadn’t changed much over the years: the wide, eastern-facing covered porch where beautiful sunrises could be viewed; the clearing to the south where her dad and older brother had put in a brick barbecue and firepit, where they’d had more family-and-friend gatherings than she could count. It looked unused—remnants of her youth, because her dad lived alone.
The house had been in her family since her grandfather built a two-room A-frame with a loft more than seventy years ago. He’d added on, each room a testament to his attention to detail and carpentry skills he’d inherited from his own father. It was a good house, a mostly happy house. Built largely from pine and stone that had been locally harvested, the house had grown over the years, and shortly after she was born, the second of four kids, her grandfather gave it to her father.
“You have a growing family. You need the roots.”
When her grandfather wasn’t working—he worked near every day until he died—he lived in the small two-room apartment above the barn. He died when Regan was ten, and she still missed his ornery wisdom.
And now, home was a refuge as she tried to figure out what to do with the rest of her life.
Regan had seen every facet of human life and death during her years as a marshal, but one thing surprised her: even when people had an awful childhood—even when their parents were physically or emotionally abusive—they almost always went home when they hit bottom. Four out of five times, they showed up exactly where Regan expected, and she took them into custody. Usually without incident.
Sometimes in a body bag.