Obsession

3

LATELY, NIGHT WAS the worst time for Josie. It was when she most profoundly recognized the reality that there was nothing she could do to help what was going on with the hotel. When long, quiet hours stretched out before her devoid of hope.

It was when the ghosts came out to play.

The muted night amplified the panting sound of the ceiling fan turning lazily above her. She looked up from the papers spread before her on the front desk to gaze out onto Bourbon Street. The stream of tourists’ faces was occasionally interrupted by familiar faces from the neighborhood, some laughing, others drawn in thoughtful conversation. Some faces that were a lot more familiar up until recently, because they’d frequented the Josephine with their paying guests towed behind them.

She heard the creak of the stairs.

To conserve energy, she’d turned the dimmer on the lights down to low, the small banker’s lamp on the desk illuminating the papers before her.

There was only one guest, so she didn’t have to look up to know that Drew Morrison was coming downstairs, probably to add his face to the others flowing past her door.

Josie concentrated harder on her work.

“Evening,” Drew said quietly, his voice closer than she was prepared for as she made a note in the margin of one of the ledgers.

She looked up. “Evening.”

In the low light he looked like any one of a hundred attractive men capable of attracting any one of a hundred attractive women. Women who filled the bars and restaurants and Bourbon Street itself.

Why, then, was she wishing she were one of those potential females?

She absently rubbed the back of her damp neck, suddenly all too aware of how alone she was at the hotel. A fact that normally didn’t bother her. After all, she had been alone in the Josephine since Granme had passed away.

She swallowed hard and forced her gaze away from Drew and back to the ledger. Tomorrow she’d ask Philippe if he’d mind staying over for a night or two until she shook the uneasiness she’d been feeling lately.

Footsteps. She glanced up to find Drew walking toward the open doors. Probably to go on the hunt for one of those hundred attractive women. Instead, she watched him stop in the doorway and lean against the jamb, his legs crossed at the ankles as he slid his right hand into his pants pocket. His back was to her, so she felt safe in watching him without his being any the wiser. He seemed to be considering the foot traffic on the street much as she had earlier. A part of, yet separate from, the crowd.

“It’s quiet.” He cleared his throat and added, “At least it’s quieter than I would have expected.”

Josie lifted her brows. “Yes.” She fiddled with the curls pressing against her forehead then slowly closed the book in front of her, placing it under the desk. “Would you like some recommendations on where to go?”

He grinned at her over his shoulder. “No. I think I can find my way around.”

She had little doubt that he could. A man of his caliber could probably find his way around anywhere. And have a warm and willing companion in his bed for as long as he chose.

“That is if I was interested in going out.”

Josie would have been surprised to find herself walking toward the door had she taken half a moment to think about it. But the truth was, she was tired of thinking for the night. Tired of thinking about the hotel and her problems. Her mind clamored for a few minutes of peace. Of quiet conversation.

Drew moved slightly as she leaned against the opposite doorjamb and crossed her arms in front of herself. A couple strolled by, arm in arm. Newlyweds, maybe. Or perhaps in the beginning stages of love when there existed no flaws, only the need for the other’s company.

The reflection made her overly aware of the man next to her. Of how tall he was. Of the subtle scent of starch and fresh cologne.

“First time in New Orleans?” she asked quietly.

She felt his gaze on her. “Yes.”

She nodded, going silent again as a group of young men who stumbled by apparently weren’t holding their first beer. They hooted at a group of women half a block up, too young to realize the loud attention would get them nowhere. Too old to be indulging in such juvenile behavior.

“You?”

Josie looked at Drew. She wasn’t prepared for the intensity in his eyes.

“Are you from here or a transplant?”

She felt the man next to her so completely she nearly couldn’t draw a breath. “Fifth generation New Orleanian.”

“Where was your family from before then?”

Josie had never been asked that question before. She supposed because her answer was usually all that the other person needed.

“ Carrefour, Haiti.”

“Ever been?”

She shook her head, keeping to herself that she’d never really traveled outside the city and its surrounding bayous.

She considered him for a long moment, trying to ignore the slow thud of her heart at being this close to him. “Anyone ever tell you that you ask a lot of questions?”

His grin was slow and wide. “All the time.”

“Part of your job?”

There was an almost indistinguishable stiffening of his limbs although he hadn’t moved. “You could say that.”

It seemed that the man liked to ask questions, but he didn’t like answering them.

Josie cleared her throat and turned her attention back to the street. Most men she crossed paths with were the same. It was almost as if they wanted to adopt a different persona while in the decadent city. Live out some kind of anonymous fantasy. Many of them forgot that she and the natives were just like everyone else. That they hadn’t been placed there strictly for their amusement or as players in whatever fantasy they’d concocted on the plane ride down.

If it was disappointment she was feeling that Drew was just like every other man who visited the city, she told herself she was being stupid.

JOSIE VILLEFRANCHE WAS A RARE and unusual beauty.

And the faint line that marred her lovely brow told Drew he’d just said something to upset her.

The mellow almost longing sound of a saxophone drifted out of the open door of the club across the street, lending a certain moment-outside-of-time element to the atmosphere.

When he’d decided to come downstairs to try again to connect with the exotic hotel owner-both to further his business intentions and to combine a bit of business with pleasure-he would never have expected her to stand next to him, inviting conversation. During dinner earlier, she’d disappeared into the kitchen, sending out a dark-haired young man, who’d smiled at him too widely, to handle him for the rest of his meal.

Now…

Well, for a moment he’d been lulled into a false sense of normalcy. Into thinking for a dangerous moment that he was there for no other reason than to enjoy her company, instead of her company being a bonus on top of something more important.

He slid his hand from his pocket and gestured to the hotel. “You work here long?”

A faint smile that seemed inspired more by irony than by humor. “You could say that.” She looked at him.

It didn’t take a NASA scientist to know that she had just turned his words back on him.

Intriguing.

“Do you like it?”

That seemed to catch her off guard. As if perhaps she’d never really stopped to think about the enjoyment factor of her responsibilities. He, of course, knew she outright owned the place. He also knew she had a female cousin who was breathing down her neck trying to extort money from her. And that she had a tax bill that was accumulating more penalties and interest on a daily basis. Not to mention that she hadn’t had a full paying guest before him since the murder that had taken place in the hotel a couple weeks ago.

Now what was there not to like about that?

She gave a small shrug that drew his gaze to the golden, damp skin of her bare shoulders. “That’s like asking me if I like my right arm. Or my toes.” She turned her whiskey eyes on him. “It’s so much a part of me that I don’t much think about it beyond it’s always been there.”

Drew had to look away. Her words hit a chord with him he was loath to dwell on.

“So the place is yours, then.” It was a statement more than a question.

She lightly bit on her plump bottom lip and nodded. “My granme, my grandmother, left it to me when she passed away last year. It’s been in my family for generations.”

Drew knew that. He also knew that her grandmother had been a shrewd old woman who’d also refused to sell. He wondered if shrewdness ran in the veins of the Villefranche women. And he referred to women because as far as he could uncover during his extensive investigation, there were no Villefranche men.

Drew pretended to look around. “Is it always this quiet?”

“No. It’s been a bit less busy than usual lately.”

A couple walked by in front of them.

“Hey, Frederique,” Josie greeted.

The overly made-up woman with a stretchy, low-necked top and short skirt smiled at her. “Hey, yourself, Josie girl.” She looked between them to the hotel lobby beyond. “How’s business after, well-” her gaze flicked to Drew’s face “-you know?”

Josie smiled. “Fine. It’s fine. Back to normal for all intents and purposes.”

“They catch…the person?”

Josie said they hadn’t.

The Quarter Killer. That’s what the murderer of the woman two weeks ago had been called by the local paper, the Times-Picayune. Drew hadn’t thought much of it. He’d reviewed the info he could get his hands on and suspected that the police had arrested the right man to begin with, and that Claude Lafitte had been released only because his older brother had married the daughter of a rich New Orleans businessman.

The woman stopped, nearly causing her overweight male companion to run into her back. “I think we’ll stop here,” she said.

The man pushed up his glasses, a nearby streetlight glinting off his balding head. “I thought we were going to your place?”

The prostitute Josie had called Frederique smiled and smoothed back the tufts of hair over each of his protruding ears, giving him a loud kiss. “I can’t wait that long, baby. I want you now.”

She kissed him again, then edged him between Josie and Drew into the lobby.

“My regular room,” she whispered. “Oh, and he’s got money, so don’t worry about overcharging, if you get my drift.”

Josie’s gaze met Drew’s and he wondered if she would raise the room rate for the drunken john.

“A regular?”

“You could say that.”

Then he watched as Josie left him to go check in her latest guests, and just like that Drew lost his tentative connection with her.

“Mr. Morrison?”

He jerked to look at Josie, who had stopped halfway to the desk. He was so taken off guard that he didn’t think to tell her to call him Drew.

“Would you like a nice, ice-cold glass of tea?”

Drew smiled. “Yes. Yes, I’d like that.”