MURDER at the ALTAR (The Wedding Planner Mysteries Book 3) Read Free

stone terrace out back,” Kitty added, pointing out the options the Downey’s guests would have available to them.
                  “Lovely,” Roberta remarked. “Does Gretchen love it?”
                  Does Gretchen love anything? Was the real question…
                  “I think she’d appreciate your input,” said Kitty not wanting to color the bride’s mother with the bride’s attitude, which hadn’t been favoring the estate in any way, shape, or form.
                  Mother and daughter looked extremely similar, Kitty noticed as Roberta exclaimed when she saw her polished daughter turn from the afternoon light that was streaming through the glass doors and smile. Other than being a tad overweight and having thick bands of gray hair pulled neatly into her slick bun, Roberta looked just like her daughter, albeit decades older.
                  “This is the place,” Roberta announced, influencing her daughter to lighten up.
                  “Father? Do you like it too?”
                  Cliff held his breath and turned three-hundred-and-sixty degrees, sizing up the entire room before he confirmed. “I think we have our location.”
                  Just then overlapping voices billowed from the entryway.
                  “I hope David brought Marcus,” said Gretchen, hurrying out of the ballroom to meet her fiancé and his parents.
                  “Can I offer anyone tea or coffee?” Kitty asked. She got a few nods and smiles so she rushed off to the kitchen, pulled a silver tray from the cabinet under the isle, and set out the tea, carafe, cream and sugar jars, and several teacups on top, and then made her careful way back to the ballroom where she set the beverages on a mahogany bar at the south wall. The Cartwright’s were milling about the ballroom as David conversed with his bride, expelling her concerns no doubt. 
                  “Help yourselves,” she announced, and then padded back into the kitchen to fetch the teakettle.
                  As she rounded back, she heard a confident knock at the front door.
                  “Coming!”
                  Kitty made quick work of traversing the marble entryway, pulled the door open and was met with the dark eyes of a handsome gentleman, whose tall stature and easy smile told her he could be none other than Marcus Joseph, the ordained non-denominational minister.
                  “Mr. Joseph?”
                  “Please, call me Marcus,” he said with a lilt that made his sexual preference clear to Kitty.
                  “I’m Kitty Sinclair, the wedding planner,” she said, allowing him entry. “We’re hoping you approve the mansion.” She kicked herself for sounding desperate, but that’s what she was.
                  “I certainly love it from the outside,” he said, as they walked to the ballroom. “Can’t wait for the grand tour.”
                  “Of course,” said Kitty.
                  As soon as Gretchen saw Marcus she bounded over and gave him a big hug, urged him back—her eyes pained with anxiety—and asked in a horrified whisper, “Does it feel religious in here? Jewish?”
                  Kitty wasn’t sure how Gretchen had made the leap from Christian to Jewish, but tried to mind her own business as she set the hot teakettle on the silver tray.
                  “Darling, this room couldn’t be more agnostic!” he said, and then shot Kitty a sly wink, which helped her sigh with relief.
                  “Oh, thank God,” Gretchen exclaimed, then broke out into satisfied laughter.
                  “See, my love?” said David, stepping up beside his fiancée. “I told you it was perfect. Wonderful job, Kitty!” he called