Authors: Tori Carrington
J
OSIE FELT BLISSFULLY TIRED
. After slipping from Drew’s bed somewhere around dawn and going upstairs to her private rooms to take a shower, she went to the kitchen to put on some much needed coffee. She didn’t see the need for an exercise routine because she got enough physical activity from taking care of the hotel. But her thighs and butt and even some aches in the backs of her arms were letting her know that perhaps she should look into at least doing some stretching.
Today was Monique’s scheduled day off, and since Josie didn’t know if Philippe would be feeling well enough to come in, she figured she’d better see to cleaning room 2B before officially opening the doors for the day. All the materials she’d need were in a supply closet on the second floor, so she climbed the back stairs from the kitchen, collected fresh linens and the bucket of cleaning supplies, and used her master key to open the door after a
brief knock she knew wouldn’t yield any results. Frederique never stayed the full night.
Josie pocketed the key and used her back to open the door. Normally, at night she would hear every creak and moan coming from this room, mostly because she was two floors upstairs in her room alone with nothing else to do. But last night, she and Drew had given Frederique and her guest a run for their money, at one point earning a quiet knock.
“Hey, keep it down over there. A body’s trying to work,” Frederique had said.
Josie turned to let the door close behind herself and took in the condition of the room. Only her gaze never made it beyond the bed. Because Frederique was draped over the end, face up, her throat cleanly slit from ear to ear. Just as Claire Laraway had been two weeks ago.
Josie dropped the linens and the cleaning bucket and smacked a rubber-gloved hand to her mouth, a sob welling up from the tips of her toes.
It looked like Frederique wasn’t going to have to worry about working ever again.
D
REW HAD BEEN DREAMING
about Josie rubbing her breasts along the length of his rock-hard erection when a racket made him jackknife upright in bed. His gaze immediately swept the room. Josie was
gone. For a reason he couldn’t explain, he felt like something was wrong. He stripped back the sheet, put on his slacks, then pulled open the door to his room just in time to see Josie backing out of the room next to his, her dark eyes wide and damp, her mouth covered with a yellow-gloved hand.
“Josie?”
She jumped when he gently grasped her arms.
“Jesus, Josie, what’s wrong?”
He maneuvered her to get a look inside the room and that’s when he saw exactly what was wrong.
He kicked the door so that it slammed against the wall and then bounced shut.
“Come on.”
Still barefoot and shirtless, he led a shell-shocked Josie down the stairs to the lobby. She seemed to regain her wits, taking the phone he’d picked up and dialing 911.
“Detective Chevalier, please.” A heartbeat of a pause. “Find him…now.”
J
OSIE COULDN’T BELIEVE
it had happened again. But this time to someone she’d known.
Sitting at a wrought-iron table in the courtyard, she couldn’t seem to stop shivering, despite the heat, aware that Drew stood nearby in the lobby in case she should need him, while Detective
Chevalier loudly sipped coffee across from her. Police forensics teams were in and out of the place, trampling up the stairs and gathering evidence while she outlined the morning’s events to Chevalier.
“This guest,” he said, reviewing his notes. He looked even more rumpled than usual, his eyes bloodshot, his hair in need of a comb. Probably the department had woken him from a dead sleep—or a drunken stupor, by the looks of him. “Can you describe him?”
Josie shrugged, her own fingers wrapped so tightly around a cup of coffee she absently wondered if she’d ever be able to pry them free. “I told you, just like any other john.”
He stared at her.
“Look, Detective—”
“Alan, please.” He smiled at her. “I think we’ve known each other long enough now to move on to first names.”
Josie didn’t want to think of the reasons this man was in her life. Not when she couldn’t seem to get the expression of horror on Frederique’s face from her mind. “He looked like every other insurance salesman in town for a convention. Short. Paunchy. Balding. Glasses. With a couple of crisp, hundred-dollar bills to keep him happy.”
“What’s going on here?”
Josie looked up to find Philippe standing in the doorway to the courtyard.
“All right, Miss Villefranche. I suppose that’s all for now.” Chevalier sat back in his chair. “Send Mr. Morrison in on your way to the lobby.”
Josie grabbed Philippe’s arm on the way out, telling him a shorthand version of how she’d found Frederique that morning.
“Holy mother of God. What’s going on in this place?” he said quietly as they both watched Drew walk into the courtyard and take the seat opposite the detective.
“The voodoo’s got you but good.”
Josie swung around to find Anne-Marie in the middle of the lobby as if she had been there for some time, absorbing the atmosphere.
“Ma’am, I’m afraid you have to stay on the other side of the yellow tape,” a uniformed police officer said.
Anne-Marie stared at him. “You can’t keep the bad out with that flimsy piece of tape, Officer.”
The young man rolled his eyes and escorted her nearer Josie and Philippe.
The lobby had been split right down the middle with crime-scene tape, barring anyone access from upstairs or the front desk. Not that it mattered. Josie
didn’t think she’d be seeing any business today. Or any other day in the near future for that matter.
She suddenly felt dizzy.
“Whoa.” Philippe grasped her arm. “Are you okay?”
“Fine…I’m fine.” At least she was doing worlds better than Frederique and Claire Laraway were doing. “I just haven’t had much to eat since yesterday morning, that’s all.”
“Let’s go to the kitchen.” Philippe threw a glance at the officer standing with his arms crossed over his chest. “Unless they have that cordoned off, too.”
The officer swept his arm toward the back of the hotel but stopped short of saying, “Be my guest.”
Philippe led the way through the courtyard with Josie on his heels. Anne-Marie slowed her steps as they neared the detective and Drew. Josie grabbed her arm and towed her into the kitchen.
Her friend’s bracelets jangled. “There’s something not right about that man,” she said. “But I can’t seem to get a clear handle on what, exactly, it is.”
“You think he might have killed Frederique?” Philippe asked.
Josie sat on one of the stools, smoothing her hands unconsciously against the cutting board. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Why would it be ridiculous?” Philippe asked,
getting three extra-large mugs from a cupboard and going about making café au lait.
“Because he was nowhere near New Orleans when Claire Laraway was killed.”
“That doesn’t mean he couldn’t have killed Frederique.”
Anne-Marie had stayed silent during the exchange, her gaze on Josie’s face.
“Mr. Morrison couldn’t have done it,” she said quietly. “Mr. Morrison was otherwise occupied last night.”
Philippe gaped at Josie. “You didn’t.”
“I did.”
If she should have been surprised at how easily the admission of her relationship with Drew came, she wasn’t. She’d known what she was getting into: a temporary connection based solely on sex.
She shivered, thinking about just how very good that sex was.
“What do you know about him?” Philippe asked.
Josie regarded him from under lowered brows. “Aside from he’s hot and great in bed?”
He placed the three full bowl-like mugs on the cutting board and pulled up the stool next to hers. “You can start there. Is he as good as I think he is?”
Anne-Marie chose to remain standing. “Josie let him in her bed. That says enough.”
Actually, she hadn’t let him into her bed, per se. But she knew what her friend was saying.
Philippe gave a dramatic eye roll. “I want details.”
“He’s a car-parts salesman in town for a convention,” she said, dipping melba toast into her café au lait and biting down.
Philippe objected. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
“He doesn’t look like any car-parts salesman I’ve ever seen,” Anne-Marie said with a shake of her head, her bracelets jangling as she sipped out of her own mug and reached for a piece of melba toast from the package in front of Josie.
If the thought mirrored Josie’s own thought when she’d first met Drew, she wasn’t saying.
“Look,” she said after swallowing. “He’s just like every other guy who comes through the city on business looking for a little fun.”
The fact that she’d said the same words about Frederique’s “date” last night didn’t escape her notice.
“Just a hell of a lot sexier.”
“Killers can be sexy,” Philippe pointed out.
“Do you want another innocent man arrested in
connection with this hotel? Isn’t it bad enough that Claude Lafitte was wrongly accused of killing Claire Laraway?”
Josie suddenly lost her appetite.
She put down the rest of the toast and wiped her hands absently on a paper napkin.
“Josie?” Philippe prompted, making her realize she’d lost track of the conversation.
She slid from the stool. “I need to get back to work.”
Of course it would have been nice if she actually had work to get back to.
D
REW LET HIMSELF
into the hotel room. Only it wasn’t at the Josephine; it was at the Marriott on the other side of the Quarter. The hotel hosting the convention he claimed to be attending.
His change in residence had nothing to do with his possibly being under suspicion for the murder of Frederique. No. He had work to do and that was virtually impossible at Josie’s. Aside from not having access to his room there after being escorted to collect his briefcase, the Josephine didn’t have the modern conveniences of this hotel. Namely Internet access and air-conditioning.
It also didn’t have Josie.
He placed his briefcase on top of the bed, took
out his laptop, then set it up on the desk in the corner. He flicked on a light, then went to stand at the window. The Marriott was worlds away from Josie’s place in the Old French Quarter, even though it was within walking distance. From up here, the short buildings and houses that made up the Quarter didn’t look quaint or even real. Instead they appeared crowded together and in need of repair, roofs slanting, wrought-iron railings chipped and broken in spots. In the light of day, the area looked like an old painted lady whose time had long passed, her lipstick cracked and out of place on her wrinkled face.
He ran his hand over his own face.
The homicide detective who had interviewed him had made no secret of his suspicions that Drew was involved in the murder of Frederique. Since he’d been the only other guest in residence, it was natural, he supposed. But should the detective start scratching beyond the surface of Drew’s story, his entire cover would be blown.
Suddenly filling his mind was an image of Josie’s beautiful face smiling down at him as she straddled his hips, her honey-colored skin glistening, her limber body spent.
How would she look at him when she discovered who he really was and what he was there for?
Muttering a string of profanities, he stepped to the desk and pulled out the chair. Moments later, his computer was booted and he was doing research on the area immediately around Josie’s hotel. He picked up the phone to call his client.
“Christ, Morrison, we want her out. We don’t want the place so damaged we can’t do anything with it.”
“Are you implying I had something to do with last night’s events?” he asked, sitting back in the chair as if pushed against it.
“Let’s just say that we’re familiar with your reputation.”
Drew fell silent. Sure, he was known to be ruthless, but not to the extent his client was implying. Did they really think he was capable of murder in order to force a target into selling?
“I’m a closer, not a killer,” he said evenly.
“Then close this damn thing.”
The client hung up on him.
Drew snapped his cell phone shut then sat staring at it.
Is that how he was really viewed in the professional community? As a white-collar hit man of sorts? The one they called in when someone needed to get his hands dirty, and they wanted to make sure not a speck of mud could be found on their person?
He realized with a fist to the gut that that’s exactly how he was viewed. And a month ago—hell, only a few days ago—he would have taken the comment as a compliment. Isn’t that what he’d spent the past ten years of his life doing? Building himself up as the kind of man who got things done, no matter what it took?
He gained access to the Internet and began typing in search strings.
It was time to redefine himself. Not only in his own eyes. But also in the eyes of those he worked with.
M
UCH LATER THAT NIGHT
, long after the police had finally left and Philippe had helped her clean up the mess they had made Josie sat at the front desk, going over the events. The front doors were open, the shotgun under the desk within easy reach. The back door was double locked.
She’d insisted Philippe go home. She didn’t want to risk his having a relapse. She needed him here as much as possible in the coming days. She’d be able to hold her own for the night.
At least that’s what she’d thought when she’d assumed Drew would be returning. But she hadn’t heard a word from him all day. Not since he’d left after talking to Detective Chevalier.
“Stay away from that guy, Jos,” Philippe had told her before leaving. “If I didn’t know you’d kick me out, I’d insist on staying tonight just to keep you two apart.”
“He doesn’t have anything to do with what’s
going on,” she’d insisted. “You’ll see that he doesn’t.”
But now that the hours were stretching, and he hadn’t bothered contacting her, she was beginning to think Philippe and Anne-Marie might be right.
Of course, the alternative was that he was done with her. He’d had his fun and was ready to move on.
What did it say about her that she preferred to think of him as somehow involved in the shady goings-on around the Josephine?
Given that there were now two murders that appeared linked together, both rooms 2D and 2B were blocked off, yellow crime-scene tape banning entrance. Not only couldn’t she enter them, she couldn’t scrub the room in which Frederique had been murdered, which bothered her to no end thinking that her blood still stained the mattress and the floor.
“You’re damn lucky I don’t just shut the whole operation down,” Detective Chevalier had told her. “The whole freakin’ hotel is a crime scene.”
The phone rang near her elbow. Josie jumped, not realizing how wired she was until that moment.
She snatched it up in the middle of the second ring, her heart beating wildly in her chest.
“Drew?”
She hadn’t realized that’s what she was going to say until the name was out of her mouth.
“Josie?”
A female voice.
She closed her eyes and forced a deep breath. Not just any female voice, but that of her cousin.
“Look, I heard what went down there today,” Sabine said. “Are you all right?”
It was difficult to believe in light of all that had gone on in the past year that she and Sabine had once been very close. Much more like sisters than cousins. She remembered times when they’d dressed up in white gloves and sat with their dolls, drinking tea in the courtyard, feeling a part of the adult world.
Josie looked at the dark and empty courtyard now, wishing for those times again.
“Yes, I’m fine. Thanks for asking.” And she meant it.
“So, does that mean you’re finally ready to give this hotel sale a shot?”
Josie’s breath was stolen straight from her.
She slowly took the telephone away from her ear, her fist gripping it tightly, and hung up. She had no more words to say to Sabine. They’d been over this so many times Josie couldn’t count.
When
Granme
had died, leaving everything to Josie—which was the Josephine and all her many problems—Sabine and her mother had balked, laying claim to half of Josie’s inheritance. They’d tried to obtain legal counsel to sue her for half, only they couldn’t come up with an attorney willing to take the case because Sabine and her mother had a long history of staged accidents and welfare fraud.
Until five months ago. Josie had been visited by a corpulent attorney in a white linen suit and straw hat hired by Sabine and her mother to threaten her with a lawsuit.
Josie had tried to make right from the beginning. She, as well, had been surprised
Granme
had left her the hotel and everything in it, giving her daughters and other living grandchild, Sabine, only pictures and mementos. Of course, her own mother had yet to surface to claim her sentimental inheritance. It still sat in a pink box in the corner of Josie’s closet upstairs just in case she did show.
She’d been brainstorming ways to work everything out in a way that wouldn’t involve selling the Josephine when her cousin had started calling, threatening to take the entire hotel away from her. Between trying to hang on to the hotel
and being on the defensive, she’d never really had a chance to come up with something that might work for all of them.
And at this point, she didn’t have it in her to care anymore. If Sabine was going to sue, she was going to sue. Only, Josie had never heard from that attorney again…
She stared at the phone. Could Sabine be behind the late-night phone calls she’d been receiving? How about the voodoo ritual she’d found in room 2D the other night? She wouldn’t put it past her cousin.
While
Granme
had always raised her to believe she had no one to take care of her but herself and that she should do so with integrity and pride, her cousin seemed to believe everyone owed her something. Government?
Give me money, I deserve it.
A woman with a nice car who made the mistake of going to the wrong supermarket?
You backed into me, no matter that I made sure you would. Pay up.
Josie didn’t think her cousin had ever worked an honest day in her life. And when she’d offered Sabine a job at the hotel, her cousin had laughed at her, apparently above toiling away at a menial job, no matter the pay. Of course, she’d also said that if she took a job that was on the books, she’d lose her government checks. The same applied when Josie had offered to put Sabine’s name on
the hotel’s deed. She’d lose her government benefits. Couldn’t Josie just sell the hotel and give her the money, real hush-hush like, so welfare wouldn’t find out about it?
She pushed up from the chair and walked toward the door. Outside on the street, the world continued to turn, people continued to live, and nothing stopped for anyone. She didn’t realize that she held the latest offer from the hotel chain that was aggressively pursuing her to sell the Josephine, until she was staring at it. She swallowed hard. She’d never once seriously considered the offer.
Until right at that moment.
After the first couple offers, she’d stopped opening the envelopes, merely stuck them in a drawer under the front desk. Now she ripped open the end and shook out the letter within, then unfolded the single piece of thick stock paper. The amount they were offering had gone up significantly. It was surely enough to cover her debts, give Sabine the money she was looking for and see to it Josie got a fresh start.
Fresh start where?
She looked over her shoulder at the lobby. She didn’t know anything else but the Josephine. What else could she do?
She held the letter tightly. Selling would mean
no more sleepless nights. No more eighteen-hour days spent doing nothing for stretches at a time. No more dealing with leering old men who insisted on thinking the right dollar amount would put her in their beds for the night.
No more fearing that a killer somewhere out there in the sea of faces had her name on his list.
A loud thud coming from the lobby behind her sent her pulse racing. Whipping around, she searched the shadows to no avail. She looked back over her shoulder at the crowded street filled with people who didn’t have a clue of the fear she felt, much less could care. She reached to shut the doors, then thought better of it. She didn’t want to close herself in should she have company.
Her pulse pounding in her ears, she crept slowly forward, her ears alert, her eyes wide. All the lights were off except for the dim emergency lights leading up the stairs and a small pool of light created by the banker’s lamp on the front desk where she’d been sitting. The farther away she moved from the door, the louder her heartbeat sounded. The more isolated she felt.
The lobby smelled of candle wax and furniture polish. The tall plants cast eerie shadows against the walls. Too many dark places for someone to hide. No one around to care.
That thought more than anything caused Josie’s chest to hurt.
No matter the warnings or how well
Granme
had tried to prepare her, there was no way she could have been ready for the sheer loneliness that would descend on her upon her grandmother’s death. She had no one. Not a single person she could turn to with her fears or for help.
No Drew…
She hadn’t realized how profoundly his absence was affecting her until that moment.
She’d taken her sandals off earlier and now her bare feet padded over the grit dusting the marble tile, the shells around her ankle quietly clinking together.
She was almost to the desk and the light there. More importantly, the shotgun she had hidden behind it was nearly within reach. She might not have anyone, but she had herself. She’d done a pretty good job of taking care of herself for the past year, and for some time before that when
Granme
had given her more responsibility at the hotel. She’d do the same now.
With a shaking hand, she reached over the desk and lifted the weapon with a minimum of noise. She tucked the butt between her arm and rib cage and pulled the cocking mechanism, metal scratching against metal as buckshot shells were loaded
into the gun, ready to be fired through the short barrel.
Fear no longer paralyzing her, she gave the lobby another quick scan, noticing a broom she had propped against the wall behind the desk had fallen over.
She dropped the gun to her side.
“You’re letting all this voodoo crap get to you,” she muttered to herself.
A loud shriek sounded at the same time as something launched in her direction. Quick thinking kept her from filling the black cat with buckshot.
Josie was convinced her heart hadn’t just leaped into her throat; it had catapulted from her body altogether.
“Jesus, Jez, what in the hell’s gotten into you?”
The cat wound around and around her legs, rubbing the side of her face against Josie’s ankle.
“Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry,” she said, putting the shotgun back behind the desk and scooping the old feline up into her arms. “I forgot to put food out for you today, didn’t I?”
Jezebel’s response was a loud purr as she licked Josie’s chin.
Scratching the cat behind the ears, she headed toward the kitchen.
She pushed open the door and Jez jumped from her arms, scratching her arm in the process.
“Ow.” Josie switched on the overhead light and checked the shallow scratch. Thankfully there was no blood, but it wouldn’t hurt to put some disinfectant on it.
She wondered how the cat had managed to get in.
A loud meow and a hiss drew her attention toward the back of the kitchen. The door she had locked and double locked an hour ago stood wide open, the screen door squeaking on its hinges.
And Josie was without her shotgun.