Free Death on the Family Tree by Patricia Sprinkle Page A

paid the young man and sent him packing. Rowena got a divorce, took her baby to her parents, reclaimed her maiden name, and changed Brandon’s last name to Ivorie.”
    “Bad precedent,” said Lamar from the next table, lathering a biscuit with butter. “Shows young men that sex before marriage can pay off real good.”
    Katharine wished he’d stop eavesdropping and butting in uninvited. She lowered her voice as she continued. “After high school, Rowena went to Bryn Mawr, graduated summa cum laude, and came back to Atlanta. Her second husband was old and died not long after Amy was born. Since then, Rowena has devoted herself to politics and good works. And as much as I deplore what the Ivorie Foundation stands for, she would make an excellent director. She’s more human than either her daddy or her son, and might moderate its politics a little—or its ferocious pursuit of them.”
    “Which may be why the old man is leaning toward Brandon,” Hasty suggested. “We can’t have women running things. You know that. You all aren’t capable.” He grinned, to show he was joking. “Did you ever forgive me for what I did back in Miami? I was a pig.”
    “You were,” she agreed, “but I wasn’t exactly a saint myself.”
    “All square?” When she nodded, he held out one hand and motioned with his fingers. “Then let me see that book. Please? I read German. Fluently.”
    “I read it, too.” She put one protective hand over the tote bag, which was still in her lap. Hasty could probably read the diary in a day, but she wasn’t about to let him take it away.
    “You have no right to those things,” he protested. “If that diary is what I think it is, it ought to be in a museum. So should that necklace. Heaven only knows how they got among your Aunt Lucy’s things.”
    “Heaven only knows and I intend to find out.” She stowed the bag under her chair. “Besides, Aunt Lucy was a history teacher. She’d have known if these things ought to be in a museum. The diary’s probably unimportant and the necklace a copy or something.”
    His voice hardened. “Marked Hallstatt 1850? I don’t think so. I know about these things. You don’t.”
    “Aunt Lucy wouldn’t have stuck them in a box if they were really valuable.” It was amazingly easy to fall back into adolescent patterns with Hasty.
    “Unless she was in the habit of pilfering.” His expression was stony, and his eyes darted to the floor and back like he was measuring the distance to the tote bag and calculating whether he could grab it and run.
    “Aunt Lucy was not a thief!” Katharine looped one of the handles over her right foot. She wouldn’t let it go without a fight.
    The waitress set food before them, but they didn’t pay any attention.
    “Come on, Kate. History teachers don’t make enough to buy things like that. She had to have stolen it—or maybe her brother did. In either case, you don’t have any right—”
    “Neither do you!” She buttered a biscuit and reminded herself they were both past forty-five and ought to be able to conduct a civilized conversation, even a disagreement, without resorting to rudeness or raised voices. “I’ll keep it safe,” she promised, trying to mollify him. But his temper was up.
    “You don’t know the first thing about storing valuable artifacts. If anything happens to that necklace and that diary—”
    She glared at him. “Are you threatening me?”
    He pushed back his chair. “Not yet, but if anything happens to either one of them, I’ll make sure somebody sues you for everything you’ve got.” He flung his napkin onto the table and took out his wallet. He selected a fifty-dollar bill and dropped it beside the napkin. “Happy birthday. Keep the change.” He strode from the restaurant, followed by the gaze of every woman in the room.
    Katharine heard a low chuckle from the man at the next table.

Chapter 6

    During the rest of her meal, Katharine felt other women’s eyes sliding her way.