Hot Money by Sherryl Woods Page A

hastily developed and haphazardly planned sections of the county.
    Or there would have been if it hadn’t been for those newly erected walls with their security gates surrounding half a dozen houses within a handful of blocks. The decorative wrought iron gates to the Lafferty house stood open and a circular brick driveway was crowded with cars. An unobtrusive security guard, his uniform clearly distinguishing him from the visitors, stood in the shadows partway between the front gate and the door to the house.
    “Quite a crowd,” Molly said, smiling at him in the hope of starting a conversation that might reveal exactly what he was doing on the premises.
    He nodded, his expression unyielding. Definitely not the friendly sort, she conceded reluctantly. Maybe Liza would have better luck. She nudged her as they walked from the only available parking place at the end of the driveway.
    However distracted she might otherwise be, Liza was quick to catch on to Molly’s intention. She, too, beamed at the guard. “Lucky for you the rain hasn’t started, isn’t it?”
    The guard was neither so old nor so blind that a woman as stunning and vivacious as Liza couldn’t get to him. He sucked in his substantial gut and shrugged indifferently. “When it pours, I just wait it out in my car. I can see most everything from there.”
    “Is there much to see?” Liza asked. “Seems to me the neighborhood ought to be pretty quiet.”
    “Seems that way to me, too,” he confided, suddenly turning loquacious under Liza’s less than subtle encouragement. “Then again, if folks didn’t get paranoid, where would I be? Out of a job.”
    “What on earth did the Laffertys have to be paranoid about?” Liza prodded. “They were one of the nicest, most respectable couples I know. What happened to Tessa was a real tragedy. Do you think it had anything to do with whatever they were worried about?”
    Molly waited to see if Liza’s fishing expedition would turn up anything, but before the guard could answer, the front door opened and half a dozen people emerged, effectively destroying the moment as they went to their separate cars. The guard’s expression turned stoic again, and his eyes focused on some point in the distance. Apparently he’d seen how the guards at Buckingham Palace did it, Molly thought.
    An old black woman, her hair cut short, her uniform so starched it looked downright uncomfortable, admitted Molly and Liza and led them down the long tiled entryway toward the back of the house.
    “Mr. Roger’s seeing folks in the garden room,” she said with old-style formality. “It’s a sad time in this house, a sad time,” she added with a shake of her head.
    “I’m sure it is,” Molly said kindly, sensing the housekeeper truly was distraught. “Have you worked for the Laffertys for a long time?”
    “Worked for Miz Tessa since she was a girl. Her family hired me straight out of high school. Good people they were, too. Helped me educate my brothers and sisters. Miz Tessa had her flaws, but she did right by me. Ain’t nobody going to say otherwise,” she said in a combative tone.
    Molly wondered who she’d heard criticizing her employer and whether the remarks had been made before or after Tessa’s death. “Has someone said something unkind about Mrs. Lafferty?”
    “Those reporters,” she said huffily. “Looking for scandal, so they are. Asking about other men. I wouldn’t tell them a thing and I know plenty, believe you me.”
    Molly decided she didn’t want to be lumped in a class with the nosy media in the eyes of this prospective fountain of information. She already had sufficient clues about Tessa’s marital infidelities to keep her going for a while. “Will you stay on with Mr. Lafferty?” she asked instead.
    “We ain’t talked about it yet. If he wants me here, I’ll stay. If not, I’ve got me a little place to go home to. I’m seventy years old. Might just be time I retired and set a spell. Miz Tessa,