Obsession

11

JOSIE 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.

DREW 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.”

JOSIE 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.

DREW 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.