“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.