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“He was the last person to see him alive—he said so himself. And I walked by while they were in there. Grady failed to mention that their conversation was heated. I saw Rex grab his arm.”
“His right arm or his left?” Sasha asked.
Chance wrinkled his forehead and tried to recall. “Right, I think. Grady tried to wrench his arm away. I kept walking because it wasn’t my business. But maybe Grady did hit him.”
“And then what? He was overcome with guilt and poisoned himself?” Daniel asked.
“Wait. Grady was poisoned?” Annette asked.
Leo nodded. “Dr. King said that Grady’s death has all the markings of a cyanide poisoning.” He waited for the murmurs of surprise to die, then continued, “So assuming for the moment that Grady didn’t commit suicide by cyanide in the middle of a toast, someone in this room brought cyanide to the party. We suspect that person brought it intending to kill Rex. But something happened to move their timetable up, and they had to kill him by striking him on the head.”
Joy raised her head from her hands and studied him with red-rimmed eyes. “I left something out when I talked to Sasha,” she said, hiccupping through her sobs.
“Of course you did,” Bethany snarked.
Sasha raised a warning finger. Bethany closed her mouth.
“What didn’t you tell us that you want to tell us now?”
“When Grady came upstairs, he was in a strange mood. I was worried that Rex had told him something personal about me.”
“That you’re paid talent on the Silver Spoon app?” Bethany said.
Joy sputtered, “I don’t … how did you …?”
“I used to work with Rex, remember? I was with the company when it owned Silver Spoon. I know he recruited models and actresses. The moment I saw you, I recognized you. I’m sure Rex did, too. I take it you didn’t want Grady to know you were being paid to date him.”
“I wasn’t being paid to date him. I was being paid to maintain a profile on the app. I was dating Grady because I liked him.” Her shoulders shook, and she cried harder.
Sasha gave Bethany a warning look, then rubbed Joy’s back.
“What did Grady do or say that struck you as strange?” she asked the distraught woman.
“He just kept saying he couldn’t believe it—he couldn’t wrap his mind around what Rex had told him. I freaked out and left the room so he wouldn’t ask me a question I didn’t want to answer. I was on my way to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea and try to calm down when I heard Annette screaming.” She shook her head. “But I guess that’s not what Rex told Grady. It had nothing to do with me.”
“Is there anything else you neglected to mention?” Leo asked her.
She sucked on her teeth while she considered the question. “Just one thing. When Grady and I went upstairs to pack our things up after we learned that Rex had been murdered and we were moving over here, I realized someone had been in our room.”
Leo and Aroostine exchanged a look.
“How could you tell?” he asked.
“They’d knocked my makeup bag off the nightstand. It was on the floor.”
“Probably when they shoved the candlestick under the bed,” Aroostine surmised.
“What candlestick?” Annette asked.
Aroostine explained, “When we searched the house, we found a candlestick under Grady and Joy’s bed.”
“The murder weapon?” Leeza asked, wide-eyed.
“I don’t think it is,” Roo told her. “We bagged it as evidence. But our working theory is someone planted it there to frame either Joy or Grady.”
“Who would do that?” Leeza breathed.
“The murderer,” Annette said flatly.
