Looking For Trouble by Trice Hickman Page A

returned to the porch, she handed John his lemonade and watched him as his lips drank from the exact same spot where she had sipped. It was the first time in days that she had felt any relief. From her lips to John’s, she was wrapping him in the protection that only pure and honest love could provide.
    â€œNothing bad is gonna happen to my grandson. Not on my watch,” Allene spoke in a determined voice. “Not on my watch.”

Chapter 12
    F urious was a mild emotion to describe how Madeline felt. She was out-of-her-mind mad that John had the nerve to leave her all alone at a podunk hotel that she could barely stomach. She went into the bathroom and flipped on the light switch, surveying John’s toiletries, which were neatly arranged on the counter. She twisted her mouth into a frown, picked up his toothbrush, walked over to the commode, dunked it down in the water, and swirled it around the bowl several times. “Bastard!” she snarled. “Chew on this!”
    She’d wanted to run out behind John and ask him where he was going before he’d practically slammed the door in her face, but she instinctively knew his destination. No doubt, he was headed to his grandmother’s house.
    Madeline knew he loved his parents, but his grandmother . . . Well, she was John’s heart. Although he didn’t talk about his family in great detail, whenever he mentioned Grandma Allene, Madeline noticed how his face would light up with the glee of a little boy. And that was all the more reason why she wanted to meet the woman so bad, especially since her meeting with his parents had been a complete disaster.
    â€œA bumpkin and a belle,” Madeline said with a smirk, thinking about Isaiah and Henrietta Small. “But I can’t blame her for marrying that old bama, because at least he’s got money, and lots of it. And if John will just act right, I can get my hands on it all.”
    Madeline studied her slender face in the mirror and smiled with approval. She knew her beauty was her ace in the hole—that, and the fact that her sexual expertise had reeled John in like a fish on a hook. Since childhood, she’d had a knack for using her beauty and brains to get what she wanted.
    Her parents, Samuel and Gloria King, had adopted Madeline when she was six months old. They’d had one son, and had always wanted to round out their small family with a sweet little girl. But their hopes were dashed when the doctor told Gloria she couldn’t have any more children. After their son graduated from high school, their empty nest intensified Gloria’s desire to have a daughter. Given that Samuel wanted to make her happy, they decided to adopt. They didn’t have the money or the patience for the red tape and length of time it would take to go through a New York adoption agency, so they decided to look into orphanages down south, which were much more lenient and overflowing with babies, who all needed a home.
    When Samuel and Gloria walked into the Children’s Home of Beltsville, Kentucky, they thought Madeline was the most beautiful little brown baby either of them had ever seen. The way she cooed and smiled at them with precious dimples on each side of her chubby cheeks had made them fall instantly in love. It only took a little over a month for the paperwork to be approved before Madeline became their little girl. Samuel and Gloria had been thrilled. They pampered little Madeline with whatever she wanted, spoiling a child who, unbeknownst to them, was already naturally rotten to the core. Her smiles, even as a child, hid the real mischief behind her motives.
    After Gloria and Samuel were killed in a tragic house fire, when Madeline was eight years old, she was shipped from their modest two-family flat, where they’d lived in Queens, to a two-room apartment with her aunt Betty, on her mother’s side, in Harlem.
    Betty was a grocery store clerk from nine to five, and a taxi