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most of her acquaintances clearly, if silently, despised.
    In theory, only close friends of the family should have been present, but in actuality the guests were a hodgepodge assortment ranging from a few of Riley’s coworkers to Jeff and Riley’s onetimecouple friends to high school students to members of some of Houston’s wealthiest clans. A pair of security guards at the door—they worked weekends at the Palm Room just like she did and Riley was paying them out of her own pocket for tonight—were charged with keeping out undesirables, such as media and law enforcement types. Catty, gossipy socialites were harder to defend against, and Riley had little doubt that the Cowans’ reduced circumstances would, like Jeff’s death and George’s arrest, be an endless topic of conversation among the country club set for the foreseeable future.
    â€œDid you eat?” Riley asked.
    â€œYes,” Margaret replied. Riley knew Margaret was lying but she also knew that there was no point in calling her on it. None of them had been able to eat more than a few bites at a time since it had happened. “I don’t think Emma has.”
    Emma had a troubling tendency not to eat when she was under stress. She’d always been slender, but since George’s arrest she’d lost weight until now she was almost too thin. Riley hated to think what kind of long-term impact Jeff’s death might have on her.
    â€œShe’ll be okay,” Riley said, both because she wanted to comfort Margaret and because she wanted to believe it was true.
    â€œI hope so.” Margaret glanced toward the dining room table, where several guests were at that moment loading their plates.
    Earlier she’d overheard one of Margaret’s couture-clad friends whisper to another, as she’d picked up one of the coated paper plates and looked down at it with distaste, “Honestly. This is just embarrassing. Even if you didn’t have a dime, don’t you think you could do better than this ?”
    While it was certainly true that the spread was a far cry from the lavish opulence customary at Oakwood—where the table had been polished mahogany that seated twenty, the plates were fine china, the silverware was real silver, and at least two uniformed maids would have been hovering over a repast prepared by Houston’s finest caterers—Riley’s blood had boiled, but for the sake of Margaret and Emma, she hadn’t said a word.
    Grimly she’d reminded herself, Class, baby. Class.
    â€œDid you eat?” Margaret countered, looking at Riley again.
    â€œYes,” Riley lied in turn.
    The savory aromas that hung in the air should have made her hungry, should have been appetizing, especially considering how little she’d eaten over the past few days, but under the circumstances, to Riley, they were the opposite of appetizing. She’d had a knot of dread in her stomach since finding Jeff’s body, and just the thought of food, much less the smell of it, made her feel queasy. Which was why, having refilled the potato salad, she had been hurrying out of the room with an empty bowl in her hand when Margaret had entered, catching her just short of the doorway.
    â€œRiley. You need to.” Margaret clearly didn’t believe Riley any more than Riley had believed her.
    Riley sighed. What was the point of pretending?
    â€œWe all do,” she said, including Emma in that. “We will, once . . .”
    Her voice trailed off.
    We’ve gotten used to Jeff being gone, was how that sentence was meant to end. But she couldn’t say it aloud, and Margaret didn’t need to hear it.
    But Margaret apparently understood, because she nodded, then glanced away. “It’s getting dark out.”
    The beige, discount-department-store curtains were drawn to keep out curious eyes, but in this room they didn’t quite meet in the middle. Through the gap it was