In the Dark

  My darling Remy,

  I know some people might think me foolish for writing to you, but who else can I turn to? You’ve been gone for four years now, yet I still feel you with me every day. Remy, our beloved Hotel Marchand is in serious danger. It’s the beginning of Mardi Gras and we are deeply in debt. We suffered after the hurricane, and even before… But there is no point in looking back.

  The future should be bright. Because of my little health scare a few months ago, our daughters—Charlotte, Renee, Sylvie and even Melanie—are now at home, working for the hotel, just as we always dreamed. Remy, you would be so proud of them all.

  But word of our financial situation must have leaked to the industry because there is an offer to buy us out. Of course I refuse to sell. I may have lost you, Remy, but I will do everything in my power to ensure that Hotel Marchand will be here for our grandchildren. This, my love, I promise you.

  Ton amour,

  Anne

  Dear Reader,

  I was thrilled to be invited to write the launch book for the Hotel Marchand continuity series. The opportunity presented an abundance of pleasures: the chance to work with some wonderful editors and eleven dazzlingly talented authors, several of whom are good friends of mine; the chance to tell a fascinating story teeming with family intrigue, danger, love and passion; and the chance to write a book set in sultry, sexy New Orleans, the home of jazz and blues, beignets and po’boys, Mardi Gras and First Night.

  Within weeks of my having completed my manuscript for In the Dark, however, Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans. Along with the rest of the world, I watched in horror as televised newscasts showed the swamped streets of the city, the destroyed neighborhoods, the desperate evacuees and the courageous emergency crews who rescued stranded flood victims from balconies and rooftops.

  All around me, people mourned that New Orleans would never be the same. Of course they were right; Katrina has altered New Orleans. But as a native New Yorker, I know how cities can rebuild and recover from disaster. I know how, when people love a place, they will nurse and nurture it until it’s not just on its feet but dancing. I have faith New Orleans will once again fling a necklace of Mardi Gras beads around her neck and burst into song. No flood could ever wash away the city’s magic.

  I hope you find that special New Orleans magic within the pages of In the Dark and the entire Hotel Marchand series. Happy reading!

  Judith Arnold

  JUDITH ARNOLD

  In the Dark

  RWA Lifetime Achievement Award nominee Judith Arnold has published more than eighty novels, with over ten million copies in print worldwide, and she has received several awards from Romantic Times BOOKreviews magazine. Judith can’t remember a time she wasn’t making up stories. By age six, she was writing them down and sharing them with teachers and friends, and today she’s happily sharing her stories with the world. A native New Yorker, Judith currently lives in a small town outside Boston, Massachusetts, with her husband and two sons. Readers can find out more about her by visiting her Web site at www.JudithArnold.com.

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  PROLOGUE

  JULIE SULLIVAN HAD destroyed him. She deserved to be destroyed herself.

  No one could walk out of a prison after eight years and be the same person he’d been when he’d walked in. Before Julie had opened her mouth and ruined everything, he’d been an amazing man. Successful. Handsome. Generous.

  He’d made dreams come true. Pretty girls from around the country would come to New York City and he would turn them into fashion models. If they needed help with hair and makeup, he got it for them. Trouble keeping their weight down? He’d be there. Problems budgeting? He always had good advice. A shoulder to lean on, a mentor they could trust, someone who could get them through the stresses of their daily lives? Glenn Perry was their man.

  He’d been kind. He’d truly cared about all his girls—some more than others, but his heart had been open to all of them. Some he’d loved deeply. He’d been a good man, a gentle loving soul.

  Until Julie Sullivan had betrayed him.

  Now, eight long, difficult years later, he was finally back in New York, his old home, his old haunts. Maybe the world hadn’t changed in that time, but he had. His heart was scarred now, his soul shuttered.

  Julie would have to pay.

  CHAPTER ONE

  HE WAS WATCHING HER. Again.

  By the time Julie spun her chair toward her office doorway he was gone. She saw only his shadow chasing him down the hall, as silent as the man himself.

  Gerard, the former head of security, used to walk in a loud, lumbering gait. Julie and Charlotte would joke that his clomping footsteps were the secret to his success, because troublemakers would hear his approach and flee before they could do any damage. But Gerard had retired right after Thanksgiving last year, and his replacement, Mac Jensen, had a different way of doing things. Julie suspected that he’d prefer catching troublemakers to scaring them away. He moved with the graceful stealth of a panther sneaking up on its prey.

  Julie usually sensed his presence without actually seeing or hearing him. She felt his nearness, caught his scent and, if she was quick enough, glimpsed his shadow. On rare occasions she glimpsed him. And when she did, more often than not he was watching her.

  She rose from her desk, crossed to the open door and peered down the hallway. He was long gone, but his smell lingered faintly, a dark, woodsy, profoundly male scent that probably nobody else would have noticed. Julie was keenly aware of fragrances. And she was keenly aware of Mac Jensen.

  Sighing, she returned to her desk and settled in her chair. She didn’t have time to waste on the Hotel Marchand’s new director of security. Ever since Anne Marchand had handed the hotel’s reins to her daughter Charlotte, Julie had more than enough to keep her busy. As Charlotte’s second in command, Julie juggled two tasks for every one of Charlotte’s—and completing those tasks was more important than wondering whether Mac was paying too much attention to her. If he was, well, it wouldn’t be the first time she’d been stared at.

  Her computer monitor displayed the menu the restaurant’s chef had come up with for the hotel’s Twelfth Night party. Robert LeSoeur was a wizard in the kitchen, and Julie would never try to outguess him when it came to hors d’oeuvres or a dessert buffet. She didn’t know much about food, except that eating was more fun than starving and that everything Robert prepared was delicious. However, she did need to review his budgets before passing them along to Charlotte. Charlotte’s youngest sister Melanie was now working under Robert as Chez Remy’s sous-chef, but she was more involved with the quality of the food than its cost. And left to his own devices, Robert would offer dishes featuring ingredients that could bankrupt the hotel.

  “Julie?” Charlotte called from the adjacent office. Charlotte’s office opened onto the hall, just like Julie’s, but an inner door connected the two rooms, and Julie kept both her doors open most of the time. She liked being accessible. Even more, she liked allowing the hotel’s Old World atmosphere to fill her workspace. Situated on the second floor above the hotel’s grand, elegant lobby, her office had the high ceilings, moldings and muted amber walls that defined the building’s classic French Quarter architecture, but the decor within her office was strictly utilitarian: industrial strength ca
rpet, L-shaped desk, file cabinets and extensive computer equipment. Because all the high-tech office gear was plugged safely into a multitude of surge protectors in Julie’s office, Charlotte could fill her own office with collectables and bowls of fresh flowers, a plush patterned rug and an antique sideboard adorned with photos of Charlotte’s loved ones: her three sisters, her niece, her mother, her grandmother and her father Remy, who had died four years ago but whose spirit wafted through the Hotel Marchand like a benevolent breeze.

  Thank goodness none of the hotel’s treasures—or Charlotte’s—had been lost to Hurricane Katrina a year and a half ago. Even Remy’s spirit seemed to have returned to bless the hotel and his beloved city.

  Julie rose from her chair, this time to cross to the inner door. The sunshine spilling through the tall windows in the adjoining office imbued Charlotte’s auburn hair with gold highlights and downplayed the worry lines that accented the corners of her mouth. At five foot ten, Julie towered over her boss, but in every other way Julie looked up to her. Charlotte had hired her when she’d been new to the city, armed with a degree from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, but absolutely no business experience or references. Julie had sent the last person she’d worked for to jail. He hadn’t been inclined to write her a letter of recommendation.

  “We’re still having problems with that guest in 307,” Charlotte informed her. “Alvin Grote. His latest complaint—” she held up several pink message slips “—is the shape of the ice cubes. He doesn’t like square ones. He wants cylinder-shaped ice cubes, with round holes in their centers. He says he likes his drinks to flow through them.”

  Julie rolled her eyes and extended her hand to accept the message slips. “The cylindrical ice cubes melt faster and dilute the drinks.”

  “I’m no expert when it comes to the physics of ice cubes,” Charlotte admitted, then sighed. “Mr. Grote is staying with us all this week and through the weekend, unfortunately, so we should brace ourselves for more complaints from him. He’s already whined about the temperature of the house Chardonnay in the bar. He thinks it should be three degrees colder.”

  “Three?”

  “He was very precise, according to Leo.” Leo was the hotel’s longtime bartender. Just as Julie trusted Robert with the menus, she trusted Leo with the temperatures of his wines.

  “Perhaps Mr. Grote should have dropped an ice cube into the wineglass,” Julie muttered. “That would have cooled it off. Better yet, he should stay away from liquor altogether. He’s so grouchy, maybe he’s still hung over from New Year’s Eve.” The new year had just begun yesterday. Anyone who’d welcomed the new year with robust partying—and that would be just about everyone in New Orleans—would likely still be feeling the aftereffects of that celebration.

  Perhaps Alvin Grote wasn’t dealing with the aftereffects of too much carousing. He might just be a whiny, grouchy idiot all the time. “Have you met Mr. Grote?” Charlotte asked.

  Julie had had that misfortune. “This morning in the lobby. He dragged me over to a window to complain about the weather. ‘It’s the first week of January,’ he said. ‘Where’s the snow?’ I had to remind him he was in New Orleans.” A laugh escaped her. “He wears his hair in a ponytail, even though he’s bald on top.”

  “Oh dear.” Charlotte chuckled. “Well, his credit card is real and he’s paying plenty for his suite. Perhaps we can find some cylindrical ice cubes for him. One of the local convenience stores might carry them. We do like to keep our customers satisfied.”

  “Even when they’re bald men with ponytails?”

  “Especially then. Also…” Charlotte crossed to her desk, a beautiful piece of furniture with hand-carved legs and an inlaid surface, the antithesis of Julie’s functional steel desk. “Given how hectic this period is—with the Christmas holidays, then New Year’s, the Twelfth Night party just four days away and Mardi Gras six weeks after that—I’ve been investigating the possibility of hiring a party planner.” She lifted a folder from her leather-trimmed blotter. “We’ve always planned our parties ourselves, but I thought I ought to be open-minded about this. At least we should think about it for future events.”

  “Which planners did you contact?” Julie asked.

  Charlotte named a few. Julie had heard of them. The hospitality business community in New Orleans was relatively small and close-knit. “Roxanne Levesque is on retainer with one of the Crewes, isn’t she?” When Julie had first arrived in New Orleans, she’d had no idea what a Crewe was. She’d soon learned about the powerful clubs that oversaw the Mardi Gras festival, built the floats, hosted galas and in many ways ruled the city’s social scene.

  “I believe she’s sleeping with one of the Crewes,” Charlotte remarked tartly, then laughed. “Her sex life is her own business. All I care is that she stages fabulous parties.”

  “How much does she charge?”

  “Too much,” Charlotte admitted. “None of these people come cheap.”

  “We’ve hosted wonderful parties without professional help in the past,” Julie pointed out. “Our staff is terrific. And Luc can iron out any snafus.”

  Charlotte’s smile relaxed. “He does have charm to spare. The guests adore him.”

  As far as Julie was concerned, being adored by the guests was a hotel concierge’s most important function. Luc Carter sometimes seemed a bit distracted, and he had a habit of straying from his station in the hotel’s lobby at inopportune times, but with his boyish good looks and his enticing blue eyes, he was able to smooth every ruffled feather and melt every chilly heart.

  That didn’t mean Julie would ask for his assistance with any aspect of the party planning. He was a man, after all. Most men she knew—at least the heterosexual ones—thought the perfect party should include potato chips and onion dip, abundant quantities of beer in disposable plastic cups, and a wide-screen high-definition TV set. The hotel’s Twelfth Night party was not going to involve poker chips, pretzel bits or any nationally broadcast sports event. Someone like Roxanne Levesque would be far better suited to oversee it, even if she was sleeping with members of every Mardi Gras Crewe in the city.

  “I’d love to hand over our future parties to a professional planner,” Charlotte said, “but the cost worries me. Would you crunch the numbers so we’ll have some idea about whether this would be feasible?”

  “Sure.” Julie took the folder from Charlotte.

  “Don’t spend more time on this than you think it deserves,” Charlotte added. “Again, we’ll be handling all of this season’s parties without outside help. I just think we ought to consider the possibility of hiring someone sometime down the road.”

  Julie nodded. She’d worked for Charlotte long enough to register not just what Charlotte had said but what she hadn’t said. Ever since Anne Marchand’s heart attack last September had forced her to step down as the hotel’s general manager and install Charlotte as her replacement, Charlotte had been overworked and overstressed. Handing off the hotel’s party planning responsibilities to a professional would remove one major burden from the many obligations pressing down on her.

  But handing off the events planning would mean handing over a generous fee. And despite its prestige, despite its celebrated position among the hotels of New Orleans, despite its ideal location just east of Jackson Square in the heart of the French Quarter, despite its multistar restaurant and its elegant accommodations, the Hotel Marchand was leaking money the way a damaged tanker might leak oil—not enough to pollute the entire Gulf of Mexico, but enough to cause its owner plenty of sleepless nights.

  “Anything else?” Julie asked as she backed toward the door to her office.

  Charlotte studied her for such a long moment, Julie glanced down to make sure her blouse wasn’t gaping open. All the buttons were closed and the tails were tucked neatly into the straight skirt of her suit. Julie loved clothes. Even though she’d gained a good fifteen pounds in the past ten years—fifteen pounds her too-thin frame had welcomed—she was blessed wit
h a body that was flattered by pretty much any garment she put on it. The suit she had on today carried an obscure label—big-name designers didn’t impress her—but it was beautifully cut and the fabric was the color of Lake Pontchartrain on a clear day, a mix of green and gray and reflected blue.

  She lifted her gaze back to Charlotte. “You had a look on your face when you came in,” Charlotte told her. “Is something troubling you?”

  “Besides the usual, you mean?” The usual would include the hotel’s financial health, her own finances, the fact that her sister lived in New York and they couldn’t see each other as often as they liked, and the squeaky noise her brakes kept making. She had other worries, too, specific worries that she wouldn’t discuss with anyone, not even Charlotte. She had thought she’d kept those worries well hidden.

  “It’s the oddest thing,” Charlotte observed. “Whenever Mac Jensen is in the vicinity, you get this look.”

  “What look?” Julie said, wincing inwardly at her defensive tone.

  Charlotte quirked an eyebrow. “Just a look.”

  “Do I have that look now? Is he in the vicinity?”

  “He was, a few minutes ago.”

  “What brought him up to the second floor?” Julie asked.

  “He was dropping off his report on that incident last night with the guest who swore she’d heard a ghost pacing on the third floor.”

  “Oh, God, not the ghost again.” One of the several town houses that had been joined to create the hotel had allegedly belonged to the lover of a seaman who had sailed with the famous pirate Jean Lafitte and had drowned in a storm that unexpectedly swept through the Gulf of Mexico. Guests often mentioned that they could hear the pirate’s lover pacing the floors, waiting for his return. Julie was too sensible to believe the legend, but if it brought more guests to the hotel, who was she to argue?