Page 37 of The Anniversary Party

“We’re not sure. We haven’t talked to him yet. Leeza wanted to talk to us first because she’s convinced Paul’s going to lie so that we don’t find out about the gambling. She wanted to get ahead of it.”

“Interesting,” Daniel observed. “Did Annette and Brian drop any bombshells?”

“Not really. They did fill in how the group knows each other. Most of them went to college together, of course.”

“Everyone except Joy and Brian,” Sasha noted.

“But even since college, they’ve stayed close. Until recently, Bethany worked with Rex. Tessa and Grady are in business together. Paul borrowed money from Rex. There are a lot of overlapping connections.”

“Sort of like us,” Naya said. “What’s Joy’s story?”

“So far, nobody we’ve talked to knows Joy very well. Grady’s a player. His girlfriends don’t have a long shelf life.”

“So, what did you learn while you were playing the piano?” Sasha said, turning to Chris.

She scooped some hummus onto a cracker while he formulated an answer.

“They don’t think one of them did it becauseeverybodyhated Rex. He had a list of enemies a mile long. Business rivals he put out of business, men he cuckolded, women he dumped, tenants he evicted. You name it, he’s done it. He owns one of those cord blood banks, and he threw away some family’s stem cells because they didn’t pay the storage bill. No effort to collect or anything, just had it disposed of.”

“Whoever killed him probably did the world a favor,” Daniel muttered.

“Maybe so,” his husband agreed. “But because he’s so universally loathed, they’re back to the idea that the killer slipped onto the property, killed Rex, and is hiding out somewhere on the grounds, waiting for the storm to pass.”

“It’s a stretch, but I suppose it’s possible,” Sasha said. “But one thing’s for sure—the more we learn about Rex, the less likely I think it is that Connelly was the intended victim.”

“That feels right. Rex seems eminently killable,” Aroostine agreed.

“We should still keep the mistaken identity theory in the back of our minds, just in case,” Sasha said.

A look passed between Leo and Hank. She pretended not to notice.

CHAPTER15

They sat around the table, swapping memories from the wedding as they nibbled on the remaining snacks and polished off the second bottle of wine. Leo almost forgot that they were trapped in the middle of a blizzard, most likely with a murderer.

Then Tessa broke the spell by sticking her head through the doorway from the butler’s pantry to the breakfast nook.

“Hey, I don’t want to interrupt your dinner. Do you mind if we bring our dishes out and start cleaning up?”

“No worries,” Leo told her. “We were just finishing up. Would you like a glass of wine?”

“No, thanks. We had plenty of drinks with our meal.”

“On that note, we should get back to the interviews,” Sasha said. She stood and carried her wine glass out to the kitchen.

Leo followed her. “Why don’t we use the Carlisles’ office? It’ll be quieter. Sounds like there’s going to be a lot of activity in the kitchen.”

“Makes sense.”

Bodhi came in from the nook, his arms laden with dirty plates. “We can all knock out the dishes together while Sasha and Leo finish the interviews. Teamwork makes the dream work.”

Tessa grinned at him, “I like the way you think. The catering company sent an enormous cake with warming instructions. There’s more than enough for everyone. We’ll be happy to share when all the work is done.” She turned back to the hallway and called, “They’re good. Come on in.”

Leeza, Annette, Bethany, and Joy traipsed in carrying the remnants of their dinner.

“All the women in the kitchen,” Naya said in dismay. “Aren’t you young people supposed to be more evolved than that?”

Bethany rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to be anywhere near Chance right now.”

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