"I called and called yesterday," Clarissa exclaimed. "Never an answer. For all I knew you had fallen down the stairs, no one the wiser!" She tossed her head in scorn, but her poofed and spritzed hairstyle didn't allow any dramatic swish. "It's simply ludicrous that you insist on living alone!"

"I was out all day yesterday" Emily Kassell told her great-niece.

"At your age, so much can go wrong." Clarissa's pencil skirt made it difficult to plant an authoritative stance. "And then who would take you to the hospital?"

"I would!" chirped someone from the quilting bee circle sitting elbow to elbow in Emily's front room.

"Or I!" echoed another.

"Come sit," Emily said, scooting Clarissa out to the porch. "We haven't had a chat lately. How is your mother doing?"

Mouth set, Clarissa thumped her overnight bag down and plunked on the second porch rocker. Lower, perhaps, than whatever rigid chair she was accustomed to, it threw her off balance. She grabbed at the armrests as it rocked. "I keep meaning to ask you. What's your lawyer's name? After all, if something suddenly happened to you—"

"If something happened," Emily said, "my lawyer would get in touch. He's both my power of attorney and executor, and has a list of addresses and phone numbers. So all eventualities are covered. You're still at the same address in Enumclaw, aren't you?"

"No." Clarissa smoothed her narrow skirt over legs drawn elegantly together.

Beyond her, the notch-eared cat appeared like a black ghost on the railing, sniffed the air, curled a lip, sat and stared.

Emily gave him a welcoming blink, then turned back to Clarissa. "Ah. I'm sorry it didn't work out. What address shall I send my lawyer?"

"I don't know yet. I'd hoped it would be this one."

"As I said before," Emily drawled, "No."

"But if I'm inheriting the house, why shouldn't I live here now?'

"You're not," Emily said. "I haven't changed my will yet. I spoke to you once, feeling you out. If you'd had your heart set on New York, for instance, why burden you with property here in the back of nowhere?"

"But I thought—" Clarissa sputtered.

"You never showed any interest until you started having rent problems."

"Oh Aunt Emily!" Clarissa stood up abruptly. "Why are you being so difficult?" The rocker came swinging back and knocked her in the calves, making her skitter a step forward. Also starting a run in her nylons, no doubt.

Notch also stood, ears pointing toward the street, tailtip a-twitch.

A husky fellow in a dark suit came striding through the gate. His hat hung low over a surly brow. At the sound of his thudding footsteps, Clarissa turned, the movement catching his eye.

The black cat arched up on tiptoe, his fur poofed out like Clarissa's beehive hairdo.

Emily's thoughts leaped, all a-jitter, to the thug who had chased her with a threatening knife, but this man had a wider face, a jutting jaw.

Not much comfort in that. Her cat-sight showed streamers of muddy colors trailing in this guy's wake, just like with the knife-wielding crook. Just like the thin angry burglar she'd disturbed earlier, too.

"Lookin' for Missus Katz," he rumbled, sounding like her lawyer who hailed from Chicago. "She live here?"

"No, she doesn't," Clarissa snapped. "You have the wrong house."

He gave the two of them a long contemplating stare, then swung about and left.

Notch sank back to footpads, but his fur remained bushed out.

Emily felt her furless arms prickle, too, in a surge of unease. What if Clarissa had known her nickname?

.

prompt word : "difficult"