She leaned down and her voice softened. “Make sure you wash your hands after, and don’t you talk to nobody. You just go in that bathroom and do your business and come right back here.”

Wendy hesitated, then took a plastic card from the lanyard she wore around her neck. “Here. This is the key to our private bathroom. You hold that up to the round pad on the door, and the light will flash green, and it’ll unlock and let you in. Can you do that?”

“Yeah, I can do that,” Aliyah said.

“You mean ‘yes, ma’am,’” Yvonne put in.

Yvonne walked to the door, held it open and watched as the girl scampered out to the hallway.

Then she turned to Wendy and Drue. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of Aliyah, but there was bad stuff going on at that hotel. One of the bosses, he was always coming around, Jazmin said, grabbing at her and touching her. She never said his name, just that he was a married white man, and he was old enough to be her daddy!”

“You told us that before, but the investigator couldn’t find anybody who could corroborate that,” Wendy said. “So it was her word against hotel management.”

Yvonne’s dark eyes flashed angrily. “And everybody knows a white man’s word is always worth more than what some trashy little colored girl says, right?”

“I didn’t say that,” Wendy said. “I don’t think that way. Neither does Brice.”

The office door opened and Brice Campbell strode inside, his briefcase tucked under one arm. His face was sunburned, and he was dressed in jeans and an untucked dress shirt.

“What’s going on?” He looked from Wendy to Drue, and started to say something else, but stopped when he caught sight of Yvonne Howington. He wrinkled his brow, clearly trying to place the face.

“Oh hi … uh, Ms.…”

“Yvonne Howington,” the client said, looking him up and down. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“I know your face,” he said, untroubled by her glare. “Wrongful death suit. Your daughter, isn’t that right? One of the beach hotels?”

Yvonne Howington’s clenched fists rested on her hips. “Her name was Jazmin. Jazmin Mayes. It shoulda been a wrongful death suit. Would have been, but nobody cares about another dead black girl.”

Brice looked stricken. “The Gulf Vista. Of course.” He glanced at Wendy. “You explained to Ms. Howington about the worker’s comp statutory limits?”

“I tried,” Wendy said.

Brice touched Yvonne’s elbow. “I’m sorry. The matter is out of my hands. The hotel can prove that your daughter was on the clock when she was killed. The law says—”