French Silk(27)

Claire silently counted to ten. When Yasmine was upset with herself, she picked fights in order to redirect her anger. It was a character flaw that Claire, over the course of their friendship, had learned to tolerate. Nevertheless, recognizing it didn't make it any less exasperating. Tomorrow morning Yasmine would be gushing sincere smiles and apologies, calling herself a selfish bitch, and begging Claire's forgiveness, but Claire wasn't up to the exhausting exercise tonight.

"Think what you want to. I'm tired. Good night."

"That Cassidy—does he have a first name?"

"I don't know." Claire switched out the lights on the way down the hall toward her bedroom. Yasmine didn't take the hint. She was on Claire's heels, like a pesky puppy.

"Did you go all cool and haughty on him?"

"I was hospitable."

"Did he realize he was being buffaloed?"

Claire came to a sudden halt and spun around to confront Yasmine. "What are you talking about?"

"You're damned good at equivocating, Claire, but based on my first impressions of Mr. Cassidy, I doubt he takes crap like that from a woman."

"I'm sure he wasn't regarding me as a woman in that sense. He was here in an official capacity."

"He stayed an awfully long time."

"He had a lot of questions to ask."

"Did you have answers?"

Again, Claire gave her friend a hard look. "Only a few. He wanted to connect me to Jackson Wilde's murder, and there is no connection."

"Did you think he was sexy?" Yasmine asked.

"I assume you're referring to the assistant district attorney and not to the evangelist."

"You're equivocating, Claire. Answer the question."

"I didn't give Mr. Cassidy's looks much thought."

"Well, I did. He's sexy in a dark, intense way. Don't you think?"

"I don't remember."

"I'll bet he f*cks with his eyes open and his teeth clenched. Makes me hot just to think about it."

Yasmine was trying to provoke her. Refusing to be baited, Claire stepped into her bedroom. "I thought you were in love."

"I am. But I'm not blind. And I'm not dead." Through Claire's closed bedroom door, Yasmine added, "And even though you'd like for Mr. Cassidy and every other man to think your drawers could form icicles, neither are you, Claire Laurent."

As she listened to Yasmine's withdrawing footsteps, Claire glimpsed her reflection in the mirrored door of the armoire. Quite unlike herself, she looked agitated, confused, and afraid.

And Mr. Cassidy was the reason.





* * *



Chapter 6

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Andre Philippi finished his dinner and neatly placed the silverware on the rim of his plate. He blotted his mouth on the stiff linen napkin, folded it, and laid it aside. He then rang for a room service waiter to retrieve his tray. The roast duck had been a trifle dry and the vinaigrette on the fresh, cold asparagus had had a trace too much tarragon. He would send a memo to the head chef.

As night manager of the Fairmont Hotel, New Orleans, Andre Philippi demanded optimum performance from everyone on staff. Mistakes simply weren't tolerated. Insolence or slip-shod service was grounds for immediate dismissal. Andre believed that hotel patrons should be treated as pampered guests in the finest home.

In the small washroom adjacent to his private office, he washed his hands with French milled soap, gargled with mouthwash to guard against halitosis, and took pains to dry his pencil-thin mustache as well as his lips. He smoothed his hands over his, oiled hair, which he wore combed straight back from his receding hairline, chiefly because that was the neatest style he could derive, but also to combat the natural tendency of his black hair to curl. He checked his nails. Tomorrow was his day to have them clipped, filed, and buffed. He had a standing, weekly manicure appointment, which he religiously kept.

Always with an eye on the hotel's operating budget, he conscientiously switched off the light in the washroom and reentered his office. Ordinarily his position wouldn't have warranted a private office, but Andre had more seniority than anyone else, including the upper-echelon executives.

And he knew how to keep a secret.

Over his tenure, he'd been granted many favors because often his discretion had been required by his superiors. He'd kept secrets about their vices ranging from one's predilection for young boys to another's heroin addiction. The private office was just one expression of appreciation that Andre's confidence had earned him.

Other tokens of appreciation from hotel personnel, and from guests who had required his special services, were earning compound interest in several city banks, making Andre a wealthy man. He rarely had occasion to spend money on anything other than keeping his wardrobe up to snuff and buying flowers for his maman's tomb. Elaborate bouquets of flowers as exotic as she were delivered to the cemetery twice weekly. The floral arrangements were more elaborate than the ones his papa had sent her when Andre was still a boy. That was important to him.

He wasn't tall, but his rigid posture gave him presence. Although he wasn't given to vanity, he was meticulous. He checked his appearance in the full-length mirror on the back of his bathroom door. His trousers still had a knife-blade crease. The red carnation in his lapel buttonhole was still fresh. The collar and cuffs of his starched white shirt were so stiff that a tennis ball would have bounced off them. He always dressed in an impeccably tailored dark suit, white shirt, and conservative necktie. He would have felt comfortable wearing a morning coat and spats, but that might have attracted his guests' attention to him rather than to the excellent service they were receiving. And that would have been tantamount to failure. Andre Philippi considered himself a servant to the guests of the Fairmont Hotel, and he took his job seriously.