by Sandra Brown
When they reached the freight elevator she slid open the heavy double doors. “Second floor.”
“Thank you.”
The doors clanged shut, sealing him in an elevator larger than his apartment’s bathroom. On his way up, he rolled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows.
He stepped into a corridor that ran the width of the building. Branching off it were other hallways and offices, from which he could hear sounds of clerical activity. Directly in front of him was a set of wide double doors. Instinctively he knew that he would find Ms. Laurent behind them.
Indeed, the doors opened onto a carpeted, air-conditioned office that was exquisitely furnished, complete with a smiling receptionist behind a desk made of glass and black lacquer. “Mr. Cassidy?” she asked pleasantly.
“That’s right.” He hadn’t expected so plush an office above an ordinary warehouse. He shouldn’t have removed his jacket and loosened his tie. However, he didn’t have time to correct that before the receptionist escorted him to another set of double doors.
“Ms. Laurent is expecting you. Go right in.”
She opened the door for him and stepped aside. He went in and received the next in a series of surprises. He had anticipated a glamorous office that lived up to the lavish reception area. Instead, this was a work space—space being the operative word. There seemed to be acres of it. The room was as wide as the building and half as deep. A wall of windows offered a panoramic view of the Mississippi River. There were several drawing tables, each outfitted with a vast assortment of implements, and three headless dress forms, and easels, and a sewing machine, and swatches of fabric… and a woman.
She was seated on a high stool, bending over one of the drawing tables, pencil in hand. As the door closed behind Cassidy, she raised her head and looked at him through a pair of square tortoiseshell eyeglasses. “Mr. Cassidy?”
“Ms. Laurent?”
After removing her glasses and leaving them and the pencil on the table, she came toward him with her right hand extended. “Yes, I’m Claire Laurent.”
Her face, figure, and form weren’t at all what he had expected. For a moment, while he clasped her hand courteously, his head went a little muzzy. What had he expected Claire Laurent to look like? Another Tugboat Annie? Another petite doll like the receptionist? She was neither. It hardly seemed that she and the doorkeeper belonged to the same species, much less the same sex. For while Claire Laurent was wearing wide-legged trousers the color of ripe tobacco and a loose, tailored silk shirt, there was certainly nothing masculine about her. Nor was she pert and cute like the secretary.
She was tall. Slender. She had fashionably wide shoulders. Her breasts were compact but definitely discernible. Supported by lace, he guessed, because he caught glimpses of it between the soft lapels of the ivory shirt. Her eyes were the color of expensive whiskey, and if whiskey had a voice, it would sound like hers, like a blend of satin and woodsmoke.
“You wanted to see me?”
He released her hand. “Yes.”
“Can I offer you something to drink?”
She indicated a sitting area comprised of a divan with deep cushions and a low table between two upholstered chairs. In one of the chairs was a basket overflowing with what appeared to be crochet or knitting. On the table were several crystal decanters reflecting the late afternoon sunlight and casting rainbows on the white plaster walls and hardwood floor.
“No, thanks. Nothing.”
“May I hang up your jacket?” She reached for it.
He almost passed it to her before thinking better of it. “No, thanks. I’m fine. Sorry to be so casual, but downstairs is a sweatbox.”
Because she wasn’t what he’d expected, it had cost him a few seconds of control. Cassidy liked always to be in control, and somehow he wanted to pay her back for stealing that from him. Feeling ornery, he had spoken the statement innocently, but he’d intended it as a dig, which she’d have to be a real airhead to miss. She wasn’t. Not by a long shot.
Her eyes flickered defensively, but she obviously decided to let it pass. “Yes, it can sometimes get uncomfortably warm. Please, sit down.”
“Thanks.”
He moved to one of the chairs and sat down, draping his jacket over his knee. She sat on the divan, facing him. He noticed that her lipstick was wearing off, as though she’d been pulling that full lower lip between her teeth while deep in concentration. Her hair was a light shade of auburn that shimmered like fire in the sunlight. She must have been raking her hands or her pencil through it because the curls and waves were tousled.
Immediately, he knew several things about her. First, Claire Laurent was a working woman. She wasn’t hung up on feminine affectations and vanity. She was also a woman trying to hide her nervousness behind hospitality. Only the pulse beating at the base of her elegantly smooth throat gave her away.
From her throat, his eyes moved to the trinket hanging from a black silk cord around her neck. She followed his gaze down and said, “It was a gift from my friend Yasmine.”
“What’s in it?” The small vial lying against her chest contained a clear liquid. “A love potion?”
His gray eyes connected with hers with an almost audible click. Suddenly Cassidy wished that he hadn’t gone to bed last night with a semi-hard-on. He also wished that his errand here today weren’t an official one.
She removed the stopper from the vial. At the end of the short wand was a minuscule spool. She raised it to her lips and blew through it. Dozens of tiny, iridescent bubbles burst from it and drifted up and around her face.
He laughed, partly because the bubbles surprised him and partly to release some of the energy building inside him.
“A whimsical distraction for when work gets me down,” she said. “Yasmine frequently gives me gadgets like this because she says I take myself too seriously.” Smiling, she recapped the vial.
“Do you?”
She met his direct gaze. “Do I what?”
“Take yourself too seriously.”
He knew from her reaction that he’d overstepped his bounds. Her smile congealed. Still cordial, but with a hint of impatience, she asked, “Why did you come to see me, Mr. Cassidy? Is it regarding that hot check I reported to the D.A.’s office?”
“Hot check? No, I’m afraid not.”
“Then I’m at a loss.”
“Reverend Jackson Wilde.” He tossed out the name without preamble. It lay like a gauntlet between them. She didn’t pick it up but merely continued to gaze at him inquisitively. He was forced to elaborate. “I assume you’ve heard about his murder.”
“Certainly. Didn’t you see me on TV?”
That took him aback. “No. When was that?”
“The day Reverend Wilde’s body was found. The day before yesterday, wasn’t it? Reporters came here to get my statement. It must not have been as dramatic as they wanted, because I didn’t make the evening news.”
“Were you relieved or disappointed that you were cut?”
“What do you think?” Her smile had disappeared.
Cassidy took another tack. “What do you know about the murder?”
“Know?” she repeated with a shrug. “Only what I read in the newspapers and see on television. Why?”
“Were you acquainted with Reverend Wilde?”
“Do you mean had I ever met him? No.”
“Never?”
“No.”
“But he knew you.” She remained silent, although she didn’t look quite as calm, cool, and collected as she had a few moments ago. “Didn’t he, Ms. Laurent? Well enough that your opinion was sought by the media when he was found dead.”
She wet her lips with a dainty, pink tongue that momentarily distracted him. “Reverend Wilde knew me by name, as the owner of French Silk. He condemned me from his pulpit as a pornographer. ‘Smut-peddler’ is how he referred to me.”
“How did you feel about that?”
“How do you think I felt?” Suddenly giving vent to the
agitation he’d sensed behind her calm facade, she stood up and rounded the divan, so that it was between them.
“I’ll bet you didn’t like it one damn bit.”
“You’re absolutely right, Mr. Cassidy. I didn’t. The term smut doesn’t apply either to my business or to my catalog.”
“Did you know you were on Wilde’s hit list?”
“What are you talking about?”
Cassidy removed a sheet of paper from the pocket of his jacket, which still lay across his knees. He shook out the folds and handed it to her, yet she made no move to take it from him.
“Among Wilde’s personal effects,” he said, “we found this handwritten list of publications. Playboy, Hustler, all the girly mags you’d expect. Along with the French Silk catalog.”
That morning when he and Howard Glenn had discussed the few facts they had on the case, Glenn had expressed little interest in this list. The veteran detective was focusing his investigation on Ariel and Joshua Wilde. To his way of thinking, they were the most likely suspects.
He was probably right, but Cassidy hadn’t wanted to leave a single clue dangling. His offer to check out French Silk had earned him an indifferent shrug from Glenn, who obviously felt that he was wasting his time.
Having met Claire Laurent, Cassidy didn’t think so. She hardly fit a criminal psychological profile, but she was sure as hell intriguing and she had had a real ax to grind with the late preacher.
She stared at the sheet of paper for a moment, then gestured at it angrily. “I don’t know anything about this list. My catalog has nothing in common with those magazines.”
“Apparently Wilde thought it did.”
“He was wrong.”
“Ms. Laurent, your company was targeted for defamation and harassment until you were forced out of business. According to the date on this, Wilde made a holy vow a few weeks before his death and signed his name to it in his own blood.”
“Obviously he was insane.”
“He had thousands of devoted followers.”
“So did Adolph Hitler. Some people are sheep who have to be told what to believe because they can’t think for themselves. If they’re told what they want to hear often enough, they’ll follow anyone and adhere to any misinformation they’re fed. They’re brainwashed. I pity them, but they’re free to make their own choices. I only want to be let alone to make mine. That’s the only quarrel I had with Jackson Wilde. He presumed to impose his beliefs on everyone. If he didn’t approve of my catalog, fine. But who gave him the right to condemn it?”
“He would say God had.”
“But we only have Wilde’s word on that, don’t we?”
She was drawn up tighter than a guitar string threatening to snap. Her breasts rose and fell, disturbing the liquid in the small bottle hanging from her neck. Cassidy learned something else about Claire Laurent in that heated moment. Beneath her cool reserve beat a passionate heart.
He suddenly realized that he was standing, although he didn’t remember rising to his feet. “You had a real problem with the televangelist and what he might do to your business, didn’t you, Ms. Laurent?”
“He was the one with the problem, not I.”
“He had pronounced you his enemy and pledged not to let up on you until he won.”
“Then it was his own crusade. I wasn’t a participant.”
“Are you sure?”
“What do you mean?”
“Hadn’t open warfare been declared between the two of you?”
“No. I ignored him.”
“Where were you the night of September eighth?”
Her head snapped back. “Pardon me?”
“I believe you heard me.”
“September eighth was the night Wilde was murdered. Am I to understand that you’re implicating me?”
“That’s the general idea.”
“You can go straight to hell.”
With her succinct words still electrifying the space between them, the double doors opened behind Cassidy. He whipped his head around, almost expecting Tugboat Annie to come barging in with a bent to forcibly evict him from the premises.
The woman who came in looked too delicate to bend the wings of a butterfly. “Oh, my goodness!” she exclaimed when she saw Cassidy. Flattening her hand against her chest, she said, “I didn’t know we had a caller. Claire dear, you should have told me I’d be receiving this afternoon. I would have changed into something more appropriate.”
Composing herself, Claire moved to the other woman and took her arm. “You look as lovely as always, Mama. Come meet our guest.”
As he watched them approach, Cassidy wished to hell he had control of this situation. He’d lost it when the amazon downstairs had let him in, and he’d never fully regained it. The tenuous hold he’d been grappling for had slipped away with the appearance of the woman at Claire’s side.
“Mama, this is Mr. Cassidy. He’s… he’s here on a business matter. Mr. Cassidy, this is my mother, Mary Catherine Laurent.”
“Mrs. Laurent,” he said. Demurely she extended her hand. He had an insane impulse to bend at the waist and kiss it, for that seemed to be what she expected. Instead he gave her fingers a light squeeze and released them.
Soft brown hair waved away from her smooth, youthful face. As she looked up at him, she tilted her head to one side. “You’re the spit and image of your daddy, Mr. Cassidy. I remember when he attended the cotillions in his dress uniform. My goodness, we girls swooned over him.”
She laid her fingers against her cheek as though trying to stave off a blush. “He knew he was good-looking and shamelessly broke all our hearts. He was quite a rascal until he met your mama that summer she came visiting from Biloxi. The first time he saw her she was wearing an apricot organza dress and had a white camellia pinned in her hair. He was instantly smitten. They made such a lovely couple. When they danced together, they seemed to scatter fairy dust.”
Baffled, Cassidy looked to Claire for help. She was smiling as though what her mother had said made perfect sense. “Sit down, Mama. Would you like some sherry?”
Cassidy caught a whiff of Mary Catherine Laurent’s rose perfume as she sat on the chair next to his and decorously pulled her skirt over her knees.
“Since it’s coming up on five o’clock, I suppose I could indulge in a sherry. Mr. Cassidy, you’ll join me, won’t you? It’s quite improper for a lady to drink alone.”
Sherry? He’d never tasted the stuff and didn’t care if he ever did. What he could use right now was a solid belt or two of straight Chivas. But Mary Catherine’s inquiring smile was too much for even a jaded prosecutor like him to resist. God forbid that he’d ever have to put her on the witness stand. One smile from her and a jury would be convinced that the moon was made of Philadelphia cream cheese if she said it was.
“I’d love some,” he heard himself say. He cast a smile toward Claire; she didn’t return it. Her expression was a frosty contrast to her warm coloring, made even rosier by the hues cast by the late-afternoon sun.
“Tell me all about the naval academy, Mr. Cassidy,” Mary Catherine said. “I was so proud for your parents when you received the appointment.”
With the help of a basketball scholarship, Cassidy had attended junior college in his small hometown in Kentucky before laying out a year to work and raise enough money to attend a university. He sure as hell had never been a candidate for a military academy. A voluntary stint in the post–Vietnam army had helped him finance law school after his discharge.
“It was everything I’d hoped it would be,” he told Mary Catherine as he accepted the glass of sherry she had poured for him from one of the glittering crystal decanters.
“Claire, would you care for some?” Mary Catherine lifted a glass toward her daughter.
“No, thank you, Mama. I’ve still got work to do.”
Mary Catherine shook her head sorrowfully and said to Cassidy, “She works all the time. Way too much for a young lady, if you ask me. But
she’s very talented.”
“So I see.” He had already noted the framed designs hanging on the walls.
“I tried to teach her knitting and crochet,” the older woman said, pointing to the basket now at her feet, “but Claire Louise’s only interest was in making clothes. She started out with paper dolls. When the wardrobes in the books ran out, she would draw, color, and cut her own.”
The woman smiled fondly at her daughter. “The fashions she designed were much prettier than the ones in the books. She went from paper dolls to sewing. What year did you ask for a sewing machine for Christmas?”
“I was twelve, I believe,” she replied tightly. Cassidy could tell she didn’t like being discussed in front of him.
“Twelve!” Mary Catherine exclaimed. “And from the day she got it, she spent all her spare time sewing, making garments from patterns she bought or those she designed herself. She’s always been so clever with cloth and thread.”
Her cheeks blushed and she ducked her head coyly. “Of course, I don’t approve of some of the things Claire makes now. There’s so little to them. But I suppose I’m old-fashioned. Young women are no longer taught to be modest, as my generation was.” She took a sip of sherry, then gazed at him with interest. “Tell me, Mr. Cassidy, did your uncle Clive ever strike oil in Alaska? Such an unpleasant and risky business, petroleum.”
Before he could answer the question about his nonexistent uncle Clive, the door behind them opened again. This time it was accompanied by a rush of air, as though it had been thrust open from the other side. He was so startled by the appearance of the woman who entered that he shot to his feet, almost spilling his sherry.
“Thank God!” she exclaimed when she spotted Mary Catherine. “I was afraid she’d sneaked out again.”
The new arrival was at least six feet tall, with limbs as long and graceful as a gazelle. Her spectacular body was wrapped in a short, white terrycloth kimono that skimmed the middle of her thighs. Another towel had been wrapped like a turban around her head. Even without makeup her face was captivating—widely spaced agate eyes; a small, straight nose; full lips; a square jaw and a well-defined chin; high, prominent cheekbones. The haughty carriage of African royalty was in her walk as she came farther into the room.