Chapter 32
THIRTY-TWO
Then, Lacy caught my eye and lifted a finger to remind me we needed to proceed as soon as possible. I reminded myself that Charlie was at the door, ready for whatever might happen in the next few minutes, and I took a deep breath. I’d taken one semester of theater in high school. I could do this.
I rang a bell, stretched out a hand to settle the room, and spoke. “Let’s begin, everyone.”
I closed my eyes and placed both hands on the table where we’d put all the things that I could pretend to use to contact Brett Brinkley.
There was a notebook and pen, a Monopoly board, the UNO deck, and one of Brett’s watches that Presley had lent us.
Even with the oddities in front of me, no one laughed or said a word.
Maybe it was curiosity or maybe it was actual belief, but all fidgeting stopped.
Even though I hadn’t personally felt much grief over Brett’s death, a somber mood overcame me too.
Not that I’d wanted him to die, certainly, and not that I would wish the strange fate of being choked—and, worse, internally torn up and effectively strangled—by a diamond on the worst person I knew, but up until that moment I hadn’t felt much in the way of Brett’s absence.
I realized, however, that Presley must have felt something as I heard faint crying coming from the direction of where she was seated a few yards away.
I touched the watch and began to speak. “Brett, we are here to listen.” I paused, uncertain but trying not to show it. “We want to know you are with us.”
Lacy tugged at a thread connected to a card in the center of the UNO deck, and half of the stack tumbled onto its side.
Gasps sounded and a mumbled, No.
Okay. This was real to some of them, which meant our plan might actually work.
I picked up the watch and raised it above my head, letting my eyes flutter in a way that I’d seen in movies. “He’s here,” I said softly. “He’s with us now.”
Presley, her voice shaky but free of tears, asked, “Are you okay, Brett?”
I stole a glance at her and noticed that she wasn’t the one who’d been crying.
It was the person next to her. Mina Davis.
I supposed that made sense. The two of us had, after all, tried and failed to save his life.
When Mina caught my eyes on her, she looked down, and Miss 1962 placed a wrinkled hand on her granddaughter’s.
I cleared my throat and did my best Brett impersonation, which had to be all kinds of disrespectful to the dead. But this was where we were at.
“I’m good,” I practically growled in an effort to mimic Brett’s deeper register.
“Where are you?” Valerie asked, obviously expecting me to say something that fit with her worldview. Heaven or hell, it probably wouldn’t matter to her. Because of Aunt DeeDee I was ready for this one.
“At The Rose,” I said, in a vague enough way that no one could contradict the statement.
Valerie moved as if to stand, but Will whispered something to her and kept her from leaving.
“Brett,” Presley said, as she stood. I could feel the shift in her tone as she spat out the next words: “Don’t you have anything to say to me? To Lacy?”
I scrambled for the best response. I needed to say something that sounded like her boyfriend but that would also invite her to confess to killing him—if that was indeed what had happened.
I tried to channel my best narcissist, keeping my eyes closed. “I know you both miss me. Terribly.”
When there was no response, I opened my eyes and looked directly at Presley, who had a sad smile on her face.
Then, she began to laugh. Or, perhaps cackle might be a better word.
She pointed a finger at me as the conduit for Brett.
“You have no idea how glad I am that you’re gone, that I don’t have to keep up this silly charade anymore. ”
My eyes widened, and I wasn’t sure I could keep up the Brett pretense in the face of her obvious disdain.
“You trapped me,” Presley continued. “You threatened me. You said that if I left you, I would lose everything I’d built.
It’s the only reason I stayed with you for as long as I did when I have someone who”—Presley looked at Joe, her anger melting—“someone who actually loves me.” She sniffled and let Joe pull her close, burying her head in his shoulder before seeming to remember something.
“Brett Brinkley, I hope you pay for everything terrible you’ve done. ”
Her last words took me by surprise. I’d only glimpsed one layer of Presley, the supposedly grieving girlfriend, and I was now seeing that she, like the rest of us, contained multitudes. She could love and hate Brett at the same time, though it seemed like hate was currently winning.
“Is your killer in the room?” Joe asked, likely wanting to take the attention off Presley. Though he obviously wanted to protect her, to keep her from looking even more guilty, I appreciated that he was getting right to the point.
I took a chance, opened both eyes super wide, and pointed at the Go to Jail spot on the Monopoly board. I figured that was a yes if there was one.
Though I was staring straight ahead, I could tell in my periphery that the attendees were looking at one another. Even Lee Frank seemed to be concerned as he squirmed in his seat.
“Tell us who did it,” Aunt DeeDee called from the back, just as we’d planned.
“I need to speak with the one who got away,” I growled. After all my investigating, I was more and more certain that this would point me in the right direction.
“Is it me?” Lacy asked, right on time.
I took a few beats as if Brett might be considering, and then felt the table for paper and pen, scribbling NOT YOU in large letters.
A gasp, or perhaps a hiccup this time.
“Is it me?” Presley asked, briefly lifting her head from Joe’s shoulder.
I hadn’t expected a question like that from her. Of course she wasn’t the one to get away. She’d met him on the show after he’d written the song, right? I took a guess and scribbled a giant NO on the opposite page.
I let my eyes flit back again in a way that I hoped was frightening enough to a potential lover or killer—or both.
“Is it me?” asked a faint voice, that younger mirror of Miss 1962’s, that faceless voice that had traveled into households across America as Small Town, Big Romance aired each week in the fall of 2023.
Mina Davis’s words left her mouth, swirling and rising above me.
My eyes flew open to see Mina silhouetted by the candles, and that’s when I recognized the woman from the video, hidden in shadows.
I suddenly knew why that form and figure were so familiar.
It wasn’t just her voice I knew. It was all of her.
She was the woman in the music video, the one that the Rose Diamond may have once been intended for.
Mina Davis was the one that got away.
I took a chance, sensing that a revelation was on the horizon.
YES, I scribbled, staring straight at her.
“I miss you, Brett,” Mina mumbled, as she cried into her hands. “I always will.”
Her words contained longing and wistfulness and… love? Whatever the mixture, Mina Davis and Brett Brinkley apparently went way, way back.