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there wasn’t a thing there. She don’t do nothing for nobody ’less something’s coming her way. Still, I feel sorry for her. Miss High-and-Mighty is about to bite the dust, and if you don’t stop Kellie right now, she’ll be right down there in the dust with her mother.”
    He heaved a sigh and shook his head as would one perplexed. “I know Kellie has some bad habits. She wants everything Lacette has, and when Lacette gives it to her, she throws it aside or destroys it. She’s been that way since they began to crawl. As soon as she’d see Lacette’s toy, she would throw hers away and demand Lacette’s identical one until Lacette gave it to her.”
    Nan rolled her eyes. “It’s not just things. Don’t you remember when she stole Lacette’s high school prom date, and Lacette couldn’t go to her senior prom?”
    He put their dishes in the dishwasher and patted his pockets for his car key. “I punished Kellie for that, but it did no good. She was eighteen then, and fifteen years later, she’s going to die trying to get that brooch from Lacette. Thanks for lunch.” He wrote something on a card and handed it to her. “You can reach me at this number.”
    He ambled across the street, got into his car and headed for the funeral home to make arrangements for the woman who had mothered him as his own hadn’t had an opportunity to do. Kellie’s antics troubled him. She had refused her grandmother’s offer to send her to college and didn’t attend, but she resented the fact that Lacette had a university degree and that Mama Carrie financed it. She would be determined to get Lacette’s brooch, and he’d be just as determined to prevent her having it.

Chapter Two
    Lacette raced to the phone hoping that the caller was the buyer for Beauty Serums, Inc., which had engaged her to demonstrate its products at a fair in Baltimore’s Lord Calvert Hotel. She prospered financially through her work as a product demonstrator, but concentrated on her goal to have her own marketing firm. She hadn’t worked hard for a degree in marketing just to stand at a table and praise the work of whoever invented the product she demonstrated.
    â€œHello. Lacette speaking.”
    â€œMiss Graham, this is Lawrence Bradley. The brooch your grandmother left you was not in the effects that she stored with me. It’s possible that it may be in her house, so I suggest we get your father’s permission to search for it. However, neither you nor I can do that until he takes formal possession of the place. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait.”
    â€œThanks, Mr. Bradley. I’m not worried about it; as soon as Kellie sees it, she’ll want it and she’ll plague me about it until I give it to her.”
    â€œReally? She got an exquisite diamond ring; that ought to satisfy her.”
    The bitterness of her laugh embarrassed her, and she tried to eradicate its effect with the softening of her voice. “You don’t know Kellie.”
    â€œI’m getting an idea. I’d appreciate it if you’d go with me to the bank. You’ll remember that Ginga Moore’s twenty-five thousand dollars is in the account Mrs. Hooper willed to you. She needs the money.”
    â€œWe can go today, if you’d like. Suppose we meet there at one.”
    â€œI’ll pick you up at your house around twelve-thirty, if you don’t mind.”
    â€œThanks. I’ll be ready.”
    She spent the remainder of the morning telephoning prospective employers and received three offers to demonstrate products. She turned down an offer to pitch condoms to women at a conference on child care and another one to stand in the window of a department store demonstrating brassieres. She had a nice top and was proud of it, but wouldn’t consider using it for an advertisement. She dressed in a royal blue suit and her standby, a