“This place really stuns.” She takes a breath as she steps deeper into the massive room, and about a dozen cats dart to the four corners of this haunted preserve. “I really need to come here more often.”
“Feel free to stop by anytime. I work at the café, I’ll gladly let you in.” I study her a moment. “Carol, the reason I asked to speak with you is because I know what Holly Wright had over you.”
She blinks back with surprise. “Holly?” Her brows touch in the middle. “What’s this about? Did they arrest the killer?”
“No,” I say. “But I think they’re getting close.” Or more to the point, I am. “You mentioned you went to Benton with Holly, is that right?”
“Yes.” She nods. “We were sorority sisters.”
“At Alpha Pi. You happened to graduate the same year there was a huge scandal involving girls from your sorority. I guess there were a handful of girls who thought they would get creative when it came to the ways they were paying for their tuition—there were videos involved. You were one of those girls, weren’t you, Carol?”
Her cheeks burn bright. “I remember that scandal, but no, I wasn’t one of them.” She swallows hard.
“You were one of them, and that’s what Holly held over your head all these years. You sold yourself for money, and there was digital proof. Holly had that footage, didn’t she?”
She closes her eyes for a few seconds too long, and it tells me everything I need to know.
“You worked for her uncle at the Dillinger Distillery for years,” I say. “And when she was ousted, you didn’t feel like following.”
“No, I didn’t.” Her voice is sharp and tight. “I wanted to stay. I was recently promoted. I was the CFO of the entire corporation. Holly’s uncle trusted me. It was his niece he didn’t trust.”
“But she wasn’t about to let you stay. You belonged to Holly. She owned you. She wasn’t about to watch you prosper while she burned.”
A dull laugh thumps from her. “It’s as if you knew her. She was content enough once I told her I’d work at the DoReMi as a waitress. But you know what they say—the cream rises to the top. I was the manager within a year.”
I nod. “And then her uncle passed away. Holly wasn’t in his will, was she?”
“Nope. She was left in the dust. And with the company grappling in the wake of his loss, they asked me to come back to the board. As soon as Holly found out about it, she was livid.”
“But why kill her?”
Her eyes flash like fire. “What makes you so sure I did it? I spoke to both Detective Grimsley and Detective Wexler. No one saw a thing, no fingerprints.” Her lips curve in a malevolent fashion. “There’s simply no proof.”
“That scratch on your arm—”
“Cat scratch fever. I went to the doctor the next day. She confirmed a bacterial infection common from the scratch of a cat. It’s well-documented.”
“Lucky.” I close my eyes as a thought comes to me. “The bank.” I blink her way. “You were across the street at the bank. You were standing under the sign, moving right to left, studying the tree the town was about to light up, but not because you were interested in any of the festivities going on. You wanted to make sure you stood out of the way of the security camera. You were judging to see the very best angle to get away with murder.” My mouth falls open as something she said to me early on comes to the forefront of my mind. “That day we talked about Holly’s Insta Pictures account, you said the killer and the hacker might just be two different people. You were sure of it—because you knew you didn’t hack into Holly’s account. It was Kaila.”
Her left brow arches into her forehead. “Kaila?” She ticks her head to the side. “Maybe she killed Holly?”
“No, that was you. Holly had you by the cookies, and you wanted out of that mess. You weren’t too interested in her leading you around by the nose for the rest of your life. You were putting an end to it that night. Nothing was going to stand in the way of you taking the helm at the distillery again.”
Her chest expands with her next breath. “That’s right.” Her shoulders give a hard bounce. “Not only was I invited back onto the board, but I was invited straight into a leadership position. Holly could go to hell for all I cared. I was through with her threats. She came after me that morning and told me she was going to make the footage she had of me public. She knew that would end any hope I had of getting onto a board anywhere. I wasn’t going to let her do it, Bowie.” She takes a step toward me. “I couldn’t. Don’t you see? Holly Wright had been terrorizing me for far too long. And do you want to hear something hilarious? I had tried to turn the table on her years ago. I pilfered thousands of dollars from Dillinger Distillery and made all arrows point to Holly. I wanted her gone from the distillery long before her uncle asked her to leave. She was already making me miserable. I was nothing more than a puppet on a string to her. I got her ousted, all right, but I didn’t foresee her taking me along with her for the unemployment ride. My God, she was a curse to deal with.”
She continues to step my way, and I take equal steps back.
“I knew I had one chance,” she pants. “It had to be that night. She was going to release everything she had the very next morning. I had to think fast. I knew those cameras at the bank were my biggest hurdle.
