Hot Secret
Page 19
Michael had taken two steps back toward the house, when she grabbed his arm. “Never mind. I’ll go for the flashlight. Give me your car keys. You stay here.”
His expression suddenly serious, he handed over the keys without argument, either to humor her or because his highly developed instincts for trouble had finally kicked in. “Don’t say a word to anyone, Molly. There’s no point in alarming everyone unnecessarily.”
She nodded, then took off across the lawn, oblivious to the stares she drew as she raced barefoot through the guests, across the central courtyard of the house and down the driveway to the parking lot. It could have taken no more than ten minutes, fifteen at the outside, but it felt like an eternity before she made it back to where Michael was waiting. She’d grabbed a glass of champagne and chugged it down on the way. She had a hunch she was going to need it.
Michael took the flashlight from her trembling grasp and shone it onto the water in front of where they’d been sitting. At first it seemed she must have been mistaken as the glare picked up no more than a few strands of seaweed, a tangle of mangrove roots, a curved arm of driftwood. As the light skimmed across the surface and back again, Molly’s heart suddenly began to thud.
“There,” she whispered. “Move it back a little. See?”
What at first seemed to be no more than seaweed moved sensuously on the water’s surface. It was a distinctive three-carat diamond that finally caught the light, broke it into a hundred shimmering rays, and removed any lingering doubts about the exact nature of Molly’s discovery.
“Oh, my God,” Molly whispered, her gaze fixed on the glittering ring that she herself had once coveted at a charity auction. Though her stomach was pitching acid, she forced herself to look again, just to be sure.
Michael’s arm circled her waist. The flashlight wavered in his grasp and the light pooled at her feet, instead of on the water. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“As well as anyone would be after discovering another body. For someone not even remotely interested in signing on for homicide investigations, I have a nasty suspicion I’ve seen almost as many murder victims as you have in the past few months.”
“Don’t you think you’re jumping to conclusions? We have no way of knowing whether the woman was murdered until we get the body out of there.”
“Trust me,” Molly said. “Tessa Lafferty would never willingly ruin her hairdo, to say nothing of her designer gown. If she felt ill, she would go home, send the dress to the secondhand store on consignment, and then climb between her two hundred dollar sheets and die. If she’s in that water, it’s because someone heaved her into the bay.”
“Isn’t Tessa Lafferty the woman Liza described as an idiot?”
She glared at him. “What are you suggesting?”
“Nothing. I’m just asking, purely for purposes of clarification, if it’s the same woman.”
“It is. But Liza would never kill her just because she didn’t want some Latin singer that Liza has the hots for to sing at this bash.”
“Did I say she would?”
“No, but I know how you think.”
“Do you really? How is that?”
“Like a cop.”
“Then I suppose you won’t mind obeying an official request.”
She regarded him warily. “Which is?”
“Go into the house and call the police.”
“Only if you promise that Liza will not be on the list of suspects you turn over to the Miami police.”
“Sweetheart, you and I are on that list of suspects. Now move it.”
Molly didn’t waste time arguing that they provide tidy alibis for each other. She was more concerned with warning Liza that inviting a homicide detective to a charity function was just about the same as inviting trouble.