“It’s possible something happened to them, I suppose, but far more likely that they took off.” Grotto seemed torn between the desire to throw her out and a need to talk about the missing girls.

“Without a trace?” Kristi questioned skeptically.

“Ms. Bentz, even in today’s world, if someone wants to disappear, it can be done. Maybe not forever, but for a while. I think all of the girls will turn up. When they want to.”

“That’s such bull,” she said.

“Easy to say. You had a loving family, right? Father and mother who doted on you?”

She didn’t respond, didn’t want this turned on her. She refused to mention that her mother had died years ago in a single car accident and that her father, after pouring himself into a bottle, finally pulled himself together. Neither did she mention that she was adopted. The less Grotto knew about her, the better.

At that moment, his phone rang. Lucretia.

“Excuse me,” he said. Into the receiver, “Hello? Oh, yes…I’m on my way…sorry, running late. I’ll be there in”—he checked his watch—“fifteen minutes…yes…bye.” He hung up and stood, signifying the interview was over. “I really do have to go.” He picked up his briefcase again, walked to the door and held it open.

She’d pushed it as far as she could.

And had come up with nothing.

“Say ‘hi’ to Lucretia for me,” she said as they walked out, “and tell her I’d appreciate it if she’d return my calls.”

He glared at her and in that second she witnessed the paling of his complexion. Had she hit a sensitive spot? But the blanching went further than just a moment’s shock. Grotto’s entire face bled of color and she had the distinct hit that he, like so many others she’d seen on campus, might soon be dead.

“What?” he asked when he found her staring at him.

“Be careful,” she said, and saw the questions in his eyes. “I don’t know what you’re into, Dr. Grotto, or how deep, but it’s dangerous.”

He half laughed. “You’ve made up your own myth, haven’t you?”

Had she?

She could tell him that he’d turned gray—a signal, she was certain, of impending death or doom. But he would just laugh at her some more, think she was a real whack job, just like Ariel had.

What had she expected? That he would turn over and spill his guts, tell her about some dark, demonic cult? Admit that he killed the girls and what—drank their blood? Or drank it first and then killed them?

Grotto locked his door. If she’d thought she was going to get some soul-cleansing confession from him and break the case wide open or even gain information for her damned book, she’d been sadly mistaken.