“I never heard Josephine mention either of those names,” Delphine said. Her blue T-shirt had a motif of dancing dolphins, and her wire-rimmed glasses had blue-tinted lenses.
“When was the last time you ladies saw Josephine?” Brooke asked.
The two women exchanged glances. “It’s been some years now,” Dorcas admitted. “Josephine had become such a shut-in late in life, you know, but Delphine and I made several attempts to contact her.”
“It was my understanding that she refused to see you,” Brooke said. “She was still furious at you for selling your land to the state.”
“That’s all water under the bridge now,” Dorcas said, pressing her narrow lips together. “I must say, it was very upsetting for both Delphine and me to learn about Josephine’s death through a newspaper article.”
“Horrifying,” Delphine said. “We had no idea Josie had even been sick. It breaks my heart to think of our cousin spending her last months so ill and then dying here, all alone, with none of her family around. If only somebody had had the decency to notify us…”
“Oh, she wasn’t alone that night,” Lizzie said cheerfully. “I was here, Brooke and her mother, Marie, were here, Varina and Felicia were here, and of course, Louette, the housekeeper, was here too. And her other lawyer. We had dinner together.”
Dorcas favored Lizzie with a withering stare. “I find it hard to believe that a dying woman would have hosted a dinner party.”
“More like a house party,” Lizzie said. “We all spent the night.”
“And why would she have invited a bunch of strangers to a house party?” Dorcas asked.
Lizzie gestured around the library. “She was going to leave—”
“She was feeling nostalgic,” Brooke said, deliberately cutting Lizzie off. At this point, there was no need to let the cousins know of Josephine’s intent to create a trust to protect Talisa. She would let Gabe Wynant deal with all that. Maybe there was still hope that he would find some loophole to prevent the dreaded Ds from inheriting.
“We should have been notified that she was sick,” Dorcas said. “We would have come immediately. We were her only living family, you know.”
Brooke shrugged. “No offense, but I think Josephine would have contacted you herself if she’d wanted to see you. She was by no means a shut-in. She was making regular visits to her doctors in Jacksonville, and she knew the cancer diagnosis was terminal. That’s why she reached out and asked me to gather these women together. She wanted to meet them and make amends.”
“So you say,” Delphine said.
“Amends for what?” Dorcas asked. She glanced down at Lizzie’s work space, with the scattered file folders, yellowing newspaper clippings, and stacks of old correspondence. Brooke realized that Lizzie, the journalist, had begun digging into Josephine’s past, delving into the secrets she’d been so reluctant to share.
“Old slights. Fractured friendships. It was Josephine’s story to tell, not mine,” Brooke said.
“Very touching,” Dorcas said. “But none of that explains what this woman”—she pointed at Lizzie—“is doing here, trespassing in our family’s home, meddling with our cousin’s private papers.”
“Just some genealogy work,” Lizzie said with an impish grin. “I’m harmless, really.”
“By whose authority?” Delphine asked.
“Mine, actually,” a man’s voice said.
Gabe was standing in the doorway, with Louette and Felicia right behind him.
Gabe was dressed in a somber gray business suit. “Gabe Wynant,” he said, extending a business card to each of the cousins. “I’m the court-appointed administrator of Josephine Warrick’s estate. Mrs. Warrick had mentioned that she had some distant cousins, but we had no names or addresses, since it seems you were estranged. I asked Lizzie here to search Mrs. Warrick’s papers for your contact information.”
“We certainly were not estranged,” Dorcas said, bristling.
“Never mind,” Delphine said, reading the business card. “Mr. Wynant, is it?”
“That’s right,” Gabe said.
“My cousin and I have hired a lawyer to see that our rights as Josephine’s closest heirs are protected. He’ll be in contact with you.”
“I look forward to speaking to him,” Gabe said. “Anything else I can do foryou ladies today? No? Shug is outside with his truck, and he’ll be happy to take you back to the ferry if you’d like.”
***
Lizzie waited until the women were out of earshot before offering Gabe a high five.
