Kalina’s pulse quickened as they made their way back into the fray. Knowing that there might be a motive behind Tasha’s attack was making her head spin a little. They had a limited window to figure out what really happened before their presence would be questioned. It wasn’t like they could stick around until the next day. After all, the festival was set to end around 9:00—three hours from now—and Kalina had promised to get AJ home before midnight.
“Aunt K., slow down!” AJ called from behind her.
She stopped and waited for him to catch up. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to walk so fast.”
“It’s cool. So how are we supposed to find these Kappa girls?”
“The same way we found Melody. We check to see what parts of the festival they are volunteering with and ask.”
“To Facebook!” said AJ with a dramatic fist pump in the air.
Kalina shook her head at her nephew’s nerdy tendencies and pulled up the event page again and found the information they needed.
“This way. They’re handling the children’s events.”
“Goodie.”
It wasn’t hard to find the Kappa girls. Unlike the Sigma girls, they could get away with being in jeans and T-shirts with their Greek affiliation emblazoned on them. A pretty girl with caramel skin and tightly curled hair approached them.
“Are you here to pick someone up?” she asked.
“No, actually we were hoping to talk to you and your sorority sisters about something.”
The girl pressed her lips into a straight line. “That sounds serious.”
“Not really. My niece is heading to college soon and I promised her I’d scope out some of the sororities to see what they’re like.”
“Well, if you can hang around for like fifteen minutes, we should be ready to pack up and we can probably talk to you then.”
“Sure thing.”
The girl walked away to tend to a little boy digging in the dirt by himself. AJ leaned on the edge of the barrel that had once held a collection of apples for bobbing.
“I can’t believe you lied to her!”
“I couldn’t tell her we’re investigating a girl being attacked, especially if they could potentially be involved.”
“You really think they’re going to talk to us?”
“I think so.”
“I hope the cops figure out what’s going on, too. I mean even if we solve the case, we can’t do anything to whoever hurt Tasha.”
“I know. We’ll figure it out. Just be patient, kiddo.”
The tips of his ears burned bright red when one of the sorority sisters walked by and gave a little giggle at his pet name. “Could you maybe not call me that? It’s embarrassing.”
Kalina couldn’t help but laugh too. “They are so out your league. Not to mention it would be illegal.”
Time passed quickly and soon the last of the kids had been retrieved by their parents or older siblings and Kalina and AJ were left with the sisters of Kappa Kappa Rho. In an effort to keep up the charade that she was interested in assessing the sororities, Kalina approached the girl she’d talk to earlier and helped gather chairs and stack them beside the picnic tables.
“So you’re getting a jump on things, huh?” the girl said.
“Yeah.”
‘I’m Amber, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Why don’t you tell me about your niece?”
“Well, she’s curious about Greek Life but shy. And she didn’t want to come today so I figured, since so many of the activities were run by sororities, I’d take a look. So what kind of girls are your target pledges?”
“Oh, we want girls who are smart and academically minded.”
“That sounds like Sigma Beta Epsilon.”
“We do tend to attract the same girls. We usually end up splitting them each pledge class.”
Kalina nodded. “What would you say is the biggest difference between your organizations?”
“I think they do more national-level philanthropy work and we focus more on community. A lot of our sisters are going into the education field so we do a lot of tutoring for elementary school kids. It’s a lot of fun.”
“Sounds it.” Kalina looked around in search of AJ. “This may sound a little weird but is there any tension between you guys over specific pledges?”
“Not really. I mean it’s really up to the pledges to decide which organization to join.”
“So they never get rejected?”
“They could be asked to de-pledge if their grades slip or if they reveal sisterhood secrets to people who aren’t supposed to know them.”
“Has that ever happened since you’ve been a member?”
“With us, not very often. I thought I heard that one of the girls pledging Sigma Beta got kicked out but I’m not sure what for. You’d have to ask one of them.”
“Thanks. You’ve been really helpful.”
She finally spotted her nephew chatting with a young girl not wearing sorority letters. She looked a little like Tasha from where Kalina stood. She tried to brush off the thought and waved to get his attention. They needed to find Melody and ask a few more questions.
“Oh, one more question,” Kalina said as AJ jogged over to join her.
“Sure,” Amber said and shoved her hands in her pockets.
“Was anyone from your sorority working out by the maze today?”
“We weren’t running it. One of the frats was doing that. But I think a couple of the girls were out that way in the afternoon just to take a break.” Amber glanced around and pointed out a couple people, including the girl AJ had been talking to. “Elena and Jocelyn were there.”
“Thanks.”
Amber gave them both a smile and headed off to deal with corralling the rest of her sisters. AJ’s cheeks were flushed and he clutched his phone tightly to his chest.
“What happened?” Kalina asked.
“I got that girl Jocelyn’s number. She’s a pledge.”
“And did you find anything else out about her?”
“She’s a sophomore and is really hoping she gets inducted.”
“Anything that might help us figure out who went after Tasha.”
“Oh”—his cheeks burned brighter—“not really.”
“Come on, Romeo.”
“Don’t you want to see if she saw anything?” AJ asked when they turned and headed away from the group.
“I want to ask Melody a couple more questions first. But, yeah, I think talking to Jocelyn is a good idea when we’re done.”