Hot Money by Sherryl Woods Page B

she took care of me in her will. She always promised me that. With that and the Social Security, I’ll do okay.”
    She opened the door to the garden room. “You ladies go on in and sit with Mr. Roger now. I’ll be bringing a fresh-brewed pitcher of iced tea shortly.”
    “Thank you,” Liza told her. “What’s your name?”
    “I’m Josiah, ma’am, after my daddy. Miz Tessa called me Josie.”
    Liza patted her frail hand. “Thank you, Josie.”
    Molly barely noted the housekeeper’s departure. She was too busy staring into the garden room, which had obviously gotten its name from the French doors across the back facing a garden lush with tropical foliage. The theme had been carried over in the white wicker furniture, which was luxuriously padded with chintz-covered cushions splashed with bouquets of pink cabbage roses.
    A large, glass-topped wicker table held silver trays laden with tiny sandwiches, painstakingly cut into rounds, along with a punch bowl filled with fresh fruit, and serving plates crowded with freshly baked tarts and petits fours. The spread might have been catered, but Molly suspected Josie had spent all day Sunday lovingly preparing the refreshments for the mourners who might stop by.
    As enthralled as she was with the room and the buffet, what really snagged Molly’s complete attention and had her scrambling for an explanation was the unlikely trio of men who sat stiffly in a row, like some sort of tribunal waiting to hand down a judgment.
    Perhaps it was no more than a fluke of available seating, but lined up side by side were Roger Lafferty, Hernando Viera, and Clark Dupree. Their presence together created something of a quandary, given what Molly knew of their respective relationships with Tessa. What would Miss Manners say under the circumstances? Molly wondered, glancing at the only other people in the room, the Willoughbys, to see how they were handling the awkward situation. There was no outward evidence that they were unnerved. Either they weren’t aware of the ties each man had shared with Tessa or they traveled in more sophisticated circles than Molly. Or perhaps, given their stiff, silent demeanor, they’d simply been struck dumb by the audacity of it.
    Molly finally settled for offering her condolences without looking any one of the men in the eye. Let them guess who she genuinely felt sorry for, she thought irritably. While they were doing that, she would try to figure out why they were engaged in this oddly polite charade of camaraderie.

CHAPTER
EIGHT
    Roger Lafferty’s dazed expression never changed as Liza and Molly recited all the appropriately sympathetic clichés. Molly couldn’t help wondering if he was on medication, though she supposed it was possible he was simply in a state of shock. Everyone else seemed to be. Only Hernando Viera actually looked healthy in all that basic black mourning attire, and even he looked stunned.
    In fact, the only person in the room to react visibly to their arrival was Mary Ann Willoughby, who determinedly latched on to Liza’s arm and dragged her away from Roger. Molly gathered she wasn’t pleased to see them. Molly traipsed after Mary Ann and Liza to be there in case tempers flared … or on the off chance that Mary Ann might let something interesting slip. Tessa’s best friend wasn’t known for censoring her tongue, despite her regular efforts to soothe feathers Tessa had ruffled with even less diplomacy.
    “How dare you come here?” Mary Ann demanded in an undertone. She practically shook with indignation. Obviously she took her new role as Roger’s protector quite seriously.
    “I need to speak with Roger,” Liza said, remaining amazingly calm in the face of the older woman’s self-righteous outrage.
    “Absolutely not. If you had a sensitive bone in your body, you would see that he’s in no shape to speak with anyone, least of all one of Tessa’s enemies.”
    Liza drew herself up to her full height. It was an unimpressive