“I know,” she sighed. “When COVID happened, it shut down almost everything for a year, and he’s been struggling to make ends meet ever since. He’s worked in the industry since he graduated high school, so I think seeing me get paid more onSmall Town, Big Romanceand then me being the one to get this gig for us to?—”
“Wait.” One line in particular stood out to me, and I interrupted her. “Why did you get paid more on the reality show?”
“I got a few lines – nothing that actually helped my acting career, but it bumped me up to a different tier.” Mina looked toward the house where the officer had taken Lee. “I think he feels like he’s losing his edge, that I’m just a kid getting him opportunities instead of the other way around. To him, it’s all… I guess, a load of crap.”
What I was hearing was that Lee was not only desperate for money, but he was also frustrated by the lack of control he had over his life, his finances. I understood the strain and the toll such a thing could take on one’s mental state. Even now when my phone lit with a voice message, I had flashbacks of demanding debt collectors.
“When the sheriff was speaking to everyone this evening, Lee said that Presley wanted us to keep recording, but it was really his idea,” Mina continued. “He was hoping we could make some kind of documentary out of all of this, but the sheriff shut that down real fast.”
Mina bit her lip as if contemplating her next steps. She started to speak again but then looked at me and hesitated, before finally saying, “Look, I don’t know if I should be saying this to you, but you seem to have some kind of rapport with the sheriff, am I right?”
I nodded once. “I helped him with the investigation at the summer pageant, and we’re… kind of… together.”
“Kind of?” Mina asked, studying me before she gave up. “Never mind, none of my business.” We started back through the garden and toward the house, pausing for a beat as we reached the stone steps. “Just… if you get a chance, tell the sheriff that Lee was freaking out, but really, he’s a decent guy.”
I couldn’t help but shoot her a questioning look. The way he’d shaken her hadn’t seemeddecent.
Mina put up both hands. “I know, I know, but I’ve never seen him violent before. I didn’t know he had that kind of fight in him.”
“Now that you do, do you think Lee could’ve been angry enough to hurt Brett?”
Mina squinted as if trying to see exactly what I was after. Finally, she shook her head. “What would be the point? He was hoping that Brett would pay us any day now. It wouldn’t make sense to kill the income source.”
Mina’s logic was sound, but as I told her to get some sleep and watched her walk away, other reasons Lee might’ve wanted to kill Brett leapt to mind.
Maybe Lee had planned to make some kind of documentary, like Mina had suggested. Or maybe he planned to wrest the back pay from Presley’s hands. Maybe he was just fed up and wanted to off his boss.
There were many reasons a desperate man might murder someone like Brett Brinkley.
TWENTY
It was well after 3 a.m. and I was moving like a zombie. I made it upstairs to the residential quarters, which were bathed in a soft yellow light that came from the sconces shaped like old gas lanterns along the wall.
As I neared my room, I took out the large key Savilla had given me. I fingered the cold brass, imagining that I looked like the Rose Palace warden as I stumbled down the hall with it in hand.
I struggled to slip the enormous key into the lock, jostling and wriggling it at various angles as I turned the handle on the door with a plaque reading “The Original”. I didn’t know exactly what an original room in this estate might mean. Feather mattresses? Wash basins? Chamber pots? Whatever. As long as there was somewhere semi-soft for me to lay my head, I’d happily take it.
I was still angling the key when I felt a movement behind me. In one move, I jumped, pulled out the key, swung around, and held it in front of me, my arm outstretched as if wielding the tiniest weapon known to man.
Charlie’s eyes were wide but his lips turned up as he threw both hands in the air. “I’m unarmed.” My eyes dropped to thegun holster at his side, so he clarified, “I won’t use any weapons on you.”
My head was starting to ache just behind my eyes, an effect of the combination of travel plus murder investigation. It was too much for one day. I put a hand to my head to ward off the lights that seemed to be coming at me rather than glowing warmly.
“I was planning to bunk with you,” Charlie said, before adding, “if that’s all right?”
I peered at him with one eye closed. “I thought you were all business this weekend.” I needed to find my footing here. Was Charlie planning to stay in this room with me as a… boyfriend? A partner? A bodyguard? Did he simply want to rehash the specifics of the case? Maybe these weren’t the questions I should be asking at the end of this interminable night, but I wanted to know where I stood with him right then. “What exactly are you doing here?”
“Sleeping. Very soon, I hope.” Charlie’s voice was husky with fatigue. For the first time I noticed that he too looked as if he might collapse if he didn’t find a bed soon, and I had sympathy.
He motioned to the key. “May I?”
I held out the so-far useless object to him but I hated needing rescue, even for something as simple as an old lock.
Charlie slid in the key and smoothly turned the handle before holding out an arm to invite me to go first. Of course it had worked for him.
The room was dark, and I felt along the wall to find… nothing. No switches or flips or chains to yank. I stepped further inside, pressing the light on my phone just as I ran into a piece of furniture – I grabbed at my shin.
“You okay?” Charlie asked, hearing me curse under my breath. He took out a flashlight and shone it waist high, and I spotted a lamp a few inches from me. I found a switch under the shade, and as I turned it on, I could see the bronze baseand green and blue stained-glass design reminiscent of peacock feathers. According toAntiques Roadshowepisodes I’d watched on repeat after Momma’s death, this was a Tiffany Studios lamp, and the light from it revealed an entire room that looked exactly how a room from the early twentieth century would appear.
