Although she was sitting in a car in close proximity to a witch and murderer, the question was made in a neutral tone. Minerva was more curious than afraid. At least for now.
“The factory.”
“Is that where you normally kill people?” Minerva folded her hands on top of her backpack. When no answer came, she spoke again. “You said you’d tell me the truth.”
“Yes, that’s normally the place,” Carolyn said. She didn’t sound anxious or agitated, either. It was a bit amusing, how they both were able to converse amicably.
“There was blood on the snow the night Ginny disappeared, though. And her ghost lingers at Joyce House. For a moment I thought you might have killed her there.”
“Most ghosts cling to the place where they died, that’s true. But a few may return to a spot of significance to them.”
She wondered if Ginny’s ghost had drifted back to Joyce House to be near Betty. What a sad thought it was that Betty, desperate to find Ginny, might have been next to her all along.
“What happened that night in December?”
“She’d gone downstairs to the phone, and attacked me with a pair of scissors when she saw me. The idiot. I still carry the scar,”Carolyn said, and Minerva looked at her fingers upon the wheel and the ugly line that ran down the back of her right hand. “Then she ran off into the snow. My father was waiting outside. We both chased her and caught up with her.”
That meant the blood in the snow had been Carolyn’s. She must have hidden her wounded hand under elegant gloves or warm mittens immediately after the incident. After winter break, the hand would have been healed, or an excuse would have been furnished.
“She didn’t last long,” Carolyn said, and she sighed. “It was a pity. We’d planned to keep her for a while. Pain and fear sweeten the blood.”
“Is that the way your magic works? You must drink blood?”
“It makes it more potent.”
“And the heart, it’s also potent.”
Carolyn smiled. It was a thin sliver of a smile, like a crescent moon.
“You seem to have learned a thing or two about witches.”
Ginny had learned a thing or two about witches as well, but it hadn’t done her any good. Her witch marks had been no match for the Wingraves; they’d caught her all the same. But that had been years ago. Carolyn had been younger, stronger.
“Not enough, it seems,” Minerva said. “Why did you kill Ginny?”
“She had the ability, she spoke with ghosts. Oh, you can cast a spell with the blood of any old fool, but the blood of someone with the ability, that is precious. It’s like wine. There are simply wonderful vintages and then you have your cheap table wine. Anyway, we needed her blood, needed the power. My father’s business was failing.”
“You killed her because of business problems?”
“Would it be better if I had killed her because I wanted Edgar for myself?”
“Did you?”
Carolyn looked ahead, her hands careful upon the wheel. The corners of her thin lips twitched into a smile.
“I met him before she did. We were part of the same social circles. We were much better suited to each other.”
“Yet he never forgot Ginny. He kept all those drawings of hers like a shrine to his true love,” Minerva said.
Carolyn’s reaction was, as she’d expected, a mixture of irritation and pride.
“No, Miss Contreras.Ikept her drawings and Betty’s manuscript. I could have disposed of them after Edgar died, but I didn’t. And you know why? They were never a shrine to Ginny. They were a trophy. A reminder of my success. I killed Virginia Somerset and no one ever suspected the truth.”
She remembered what Benjamin had said, that Carolyn had adored Edgar. He’d been wrong. She’dcovetedhim. He’d been another kind of trophy that she’d won. Another marker of Carolyn’s brilliance, her achievements.
The car slowly, gracefully, followed the bend of the road, slipping farther and farther from the college. Minerva clutched the backpack, felt its weight on her lap. She had the box cutter and her thermos inside it. Carolyn had not bothered going through it.
“What about Santiago? What happened to him?”
