“That doesn’t mean a thing,” Aunt DeeDee crooned empathetically. “Remember that four months ago the sheriff had me behind bars at the local jail even though he knew I was innocent. I just had to be patient until he had enough evidence to clear me.”
I thought that was a pretty generous interpretation of Charlie’s actions, but I also knew she wasn’t wrong. The sheriff was nothing if not meticulous in his investigations, so if he’d let the information about the diamond slip, then he had a reason for not holding those cards close to his chest. Besides, there wasn’t any particular reason to keep people from knowing Brett’s cause of death, and perhaps it would put the killer on alert that Charlie was hot on their tail. Maybe it would even pressure them into coming forward with a confession.
“What I can’t figure out is how the diamond would get inside his drink. I made it. I used the ice from the bucket, and I would’ve noticed just by the weight of the tongs if I was accidentally slipping something heavier into a glass.”
I closed my eyes, trying to recall both my memory of the order of events as well as the video I’d watched multiple times. Frustratingly, I kept getting stuck on one central image: that of Lacy’s hand hovering over his drink as she whispered in Brett’s ear. But no, that was a mere distraction. It had to be.
“Was anyone else behind the bar with you?” Aunt DeeDee asked.
“No, and I handed the glass directly to…”
“To Brett?” Aunt DeeDee asked, after a few seconds of silence.
I knew that was wrong. I could picture exactly who he’d handed it to.
“No, no, that’s what I thought, but maybe it was to…” He took a long pause. “I handed the glass to Presley, and she took it over to Brett at the edge of the dance floor.” Joe finally breathed out.
I tried to remember exactly where Presley had been in Brett’s death tableau. She’d handed the drink to Brett and then her figure had disappeared off-screen for a moment. Jenna’s microphone had fed back, and I thought I’d caught a glimpse of Presley heading toward the sound board. Had she been going for the back door of the ballroom instead? Had Presley been deciding whether or not to flee the scene of her crime?
But no, that didn’t make sense, right? Because as soon as I was on the ground, starting CPR, Presley was next to me. But what had she been doing? Crying, yes, but what else? I couldn’t remember, and she’d been out of the view of the camera’s angle. I knew this, though: Presley had not been helping me try to save Brett. However she’d appeared or acted, she’d been the closest one to me, but I hadn’t even asked her to call 911.
Presley. My mind circled the name. She and Brett weren’t engaged, but surely he’d been planning to propose, especially after Mr. Finch died and he knew he would inherit the Rose Diamond. If nothing else, he would want to bask in the publicity the engagement would bring both of them.
My mind began to merge clips of the past twenty-four hours together as it also stretched to include the longer history of Brett and the women he’d known—and exploited. Lacy and Savilla had both, directly or not, been victims of his blackmailingtactics, his attempt to exploit their intimacy with him. Lacy had been emotionally and physically close to him, but Savilla’s relationship with him had been a brief, mostly physical fling. Still, Brett had kept tangible pieces of their moments together—in photographs and on camera—and later used these to threaten both women.
Brett seemed to have a pattern, but certainly it hadn’t extended to another one of his victims, had it?
Presley’s rise to fame followingSmall Town, Big Romancehad come right after she and Brett had won the show, but it just so happened that within a month of winning, Presley had supposedly also released a sex tape of her and Brett together. She’d then used the momentum to start her own empire, which included fast-fashion for women with curves, and a beauty line specifically marketed to the middle-class woman.
Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian were part of her day-to-day world, and though I much preferred theAmerican Veterinary JournaltoUS Weekly, even I’d heard infamous stories of Presley: How she’d rented an island and invited Beyoncé to perform for the weekend, how she’d appeared before Congress to argue for women’s rights, how she’d met the pope and told him that birth control should be provided for free to women across the globe. Presley was not only gorgeous; she was strategic and smart.
In the media, the assumption had always been that Presley was the one to leak the video online, particularly since afterward she hadn’t filed a lawsuit or chided anyone publicly for the indiscretion. Instead, she had figuratively leaned into the moment, going on late-night shows where she led the hosts in yoga poses as she joked about her sexual flexibility. I’d barely watched all of this, of course, but it had been so commonplace to see her on magazine covers next to my former classmate that I’d noticed.
I had no problem with a woman choosing to do whatever she wanted with her body, but after discovering Brett’s way of using women, I suddenly wondered if Presley might have been one of Brett’s unwitting victims. Perhaps he’d been the one to release the video, and instead of hiding, Presley had found a way to use it to her advantage? If that was true, it would certainly have sown seeds of animosity in her relationship with Brett early on.
“It couldn’t have been her,” Joe said quickly, even though Aunt DeeDee wasn’t accusing Presley of anything. “I know her. We’ve become… friends. She didn’t do it.”
This seemed as good a time as any to make an entrance. I knocked, and after a few seconds of silence, Aunt DeeDee came to the door, her eyes lighting as I entered the room.
“I couldn’t help but overhear you talking about Presley,” I said, trying not to indicate how long I’d actually been listening outside the door.
Aunt DeeDee stood between Joe and me, looking back and forth a couple of times before her eyes landed on Joe. “You should tell her,” Aunt DeeDee prodded.
I raised an eyebrow as I studied this man in the same black slacks and white shirt he’d worn last night, but now they were crumpled and stained.
Joe hesitated before speaking. “I know you took the CD I made of Brett on the show,” he said, surprising me. It was embarrassing to be caught, yes, but more than that, I wasn’t sure that my filching of a CD warranted the accusatory tone. “I mentioned it going missing to DeeDee, and she told me that you think I had something to do with Brett’s death.”
I glanced at my aunt, frowning. She could read me, knew that I didn’t appreciate her sharing anything with Joe, much less that I’d borrowed something that belonged to him. But her lifted chin said it all—she trusted people, and maybe I should learn to do the same.
“I know it looks like I’m obsessed with Brett,” Joe said. “But the CD was something I was hoping to surprise him with this weekend, though I’m not proud of it.”
“Why wouldn’t you be proud of surprising Brett?” I asked.
Joe’s eyes darted to Aunt DeeDee, and she signaled for him to continue.
“I was planning to do a little viewing party of Presley and Brett’s best moments on the show, and then we were going to tell him in front of everyone, including his cameras, that Presley and I…” He cleared his throat. “That the two of us are in love.”
The news wasn’t exactly shocking, but I realized that the plan smacked of what Brett had been planning to do to Presley by being caught on camera with another woman—Lacy—in order to boost the drama in his show. Except in this version, Brett would’ve been the lovelorn boyfriend cast aside so Presley could be with a man less rich, less famous, less everything. A huge embarrassment, and one that might’ve doomed his show before it had even aired.
