In the Dark Read online

  “What are you waiting for?” Mac asked as he settled into the swivel chair behind his desk.

  “I married her, didn’t I? Is it a crime for me to want a few more years of fun before I take on more responsibility? If anyone should understand, it’s you, Mac. You’re still a free man. You haven’t even figured out commitment yet.”

  “I’ve figured it out,” Mac said. “I just haven’t found the right woman to commit to.” A vision of Julie Sullivan spread across his mind, and he let it linger for a moment. She wasn’t the right woman. She was a damn Yankee, and she kept herself locked up emotionally…but man, she could get under his skin if he let her.

  If only he could figure out how to win her trust—which wouldn’t be easy, since his presence at the hotel was part of a huge deception. If she knew the truth—that her sister had hired him to protect her—she’d flay him and her sister both. He hadn’t even dared to bring Julie across the street that afternoon when he’d spotted his friend Reuben blowing his sax for spare change on the corner of St. Louis Street. Reuben might have asked why weeks had passed since Mac had last stopped by the club where Reuben usually played, and Mac would have had to answer that he couldn’t hang out at clubs listening to good jazz because he was spending his nights holed up at his office, trying to catch up on his real job—an answer he didn’t want Julie to hear. Or Reuben might have made some comment about Crescent City Security and Mac would have had to respond that he was now working for the Hotel Marchand, and Reuben would have demanded to know why Mac had walked away from the business he’d founded to work security at a hotel, and Julie would have smelled something fishier than the gulf at low tide.

  When it came to her, honesty was not the best policy right now.

  “Well,” Mac said, unwrapping his po’boy, “some of us have to work. And some of us haven’t eaten dinner yet.”

  “Work. Eat. Who’s stopping you?”

  Frank’s intense scrutiny from just a few feet away was almost enough to steal Mac’s appetite, but one bite of the thick sandwich, dripping with gravy and Cajun mustard, got his digestive juices flowing. He swiveled toward his desk and noticed a memo from Louise lying on his blotter. “Louise tracked down the creepy e-mail Julie got yesterday,” he said after skimming Louise’s note. “If I was going to fall in love, it would be with her.”

  Frank knew Mac was joking. Louise was a tiny woman. If she stood on tiptoe, her gaze would be level with Mac’s navel—which could make for an interesting juxtaposition, except that Louise was also shy and solemn and in a serious romance with a medical student from Tulane. Even so, Mac loved her for her technical wizardry, much the same way he loved Sandy for her organizational skills.

  “Louise couldn’t track it all the way to the user,” Frank pointed out. Evidently he’d already read the memo.

  Mac took another bite of his sandwich while he read Louise’s note more carefully. “The main branch of the New York Public Library, on Fifth Avenue. What does that tell us?”

  “Sandy talked to Glenn Perry’s parole officer today. According to the P.O., Mr. Perry is being a very good boy. He hasn’t left the jurisdiction since his release.”

  “In other words, he’s in Manhattan. On the same skinny little island as the New York Public Library.” Mac swiveled back to Frank. “He could have sent that e-mail.”

  “He could have,” Frank agreed.

  “Except you’d think he’d have his own computer. Why would he trek all the way to the public library if he could send the e-mail from the comfort of his home?”

  “So someone like Louise wouldn’t be able to trace it back to him.”

  Mac wasn’t convinced, but then, skepticism was an asset in his line of work. “How easy is it for a person to send an untraceable e-mail from his own computer? Louise might trace it back to Yahoo or Comcast, but could she trace it back to his specific computer?”

  “This is Louise you’re talking about,” Frank pointed out.

  “True.” Louise could probably trace it as far back as she wanted to. Mac didn’t pretend to understand how she performed her high-tech magic. He simply accepted her genius and paid her a hefty salary. “Conceivably she could tell us which computer in the library that e-mail was sent from. Maybe a librarian in the reference area saw who used it on the day in question. I’ve brought Louise another e-mail from Julie’s in-box,” he added. “Ten dollars says it was sent from a different computer.”

  “The guy is sending the e-mails from a public computer for a reason,” Frank concurred. “He doesn’t want to be identified.” He leaned back in his chair and jiggled one sneakered foot. “Do you think Sullivan is really in danger, or is her sister just paranoid?”

  “I’ve talked to her sister. She sounds pretty levelheaded to me,” Mac said. “She’s an investment banker in New York.”

  “So she got the brains and her sister got the beauty?”

  “Julie’s got brains,” Mac argued. “And for all I know, her sister is gorgeous.” He lowered his sandwich and pried open the lid of his cup. The heavy, slightly burnt aroma of coffee laced with chicory filled his small, square office. The smell alone was enough to jolt his nervous system. “Anyway, Marcie—Julie’s sister—said Perry made lots of threats when Julie reported him to the police. He made more threats when Julie testified against him in court. He vowed that once he was out of jail he was gonna get her. I don’t think her sister is being paranoid to worry that now the son of a bitch is out, he might make good on that promise.”

  “Except his P.O. says he’s a model citizen,” Frank reminded him. “He’s taking a real estate course, staying away from models and teenage girls, avoiding his old drug connections. He’s turned into a regular Boy Scout.”

  “Yeah.” Mac’s cynicism was as strong and bitter as his coffee. “I’ve dealt with guys fresh out of prison. So have you. Their haloes could blind a person—because they’re neon, Frank. They aren’t real.” He abandoned the coffee and returned to his sandwich. “And now she’s getting these scary e-mails from someone who wants to remind her of when she was working for Perry. I think the potential for danger is there.”

  Frank shrugged. “You’re the expert.”

  “Speaking of which, you’re the money expert,” Mac said, catching a drip of gravy with his thumb before it fell from his sandwich onto his lap, which was protected only by a cheap paper napkin. “Four years ago, a large amount of money disappeared from the Hotel Marchand’s accounts.”

  “How large?”

  “One million dollars.”

  Frank sat straighter and stopped jiggling his foot. “Tell me more.”

  “I don’t know much. Apparently Remy Marchand died right around the same time this money disappeared.”

  “I remember that accident. Got lots of press because he was Remy Marchand of Chez Remy. Celebrity chef, co-owner of Hotel Marchand, and his car plunged off the causeway and into Lake Pontchartrain. It was the stuff of tabloids.”

  “And also a tragedy for his family,” Mac said pointedly.

  “That, too.”

  “So, Remy’s wife, Anne, ran the hotel end of things while Remy was working his magic in the restaurant. He died four years ago, and now Anne’s daughter Charlotte is running the hotel. Another daughter works in the restaurant, and two other daughters are on staff at the hotel. Which is neither here nor there.” He devoured the last of his sandwich with some regret. It was delicious. He should have bought two. “Anyway, I’ve done some probing, and the hotel’s finances are pretty tenuous. I’m wondering if this vanished money triggered something nasty.”

  “You think Remy Marchand was embezzling?”

  “I don’t know.” Mac winced. “I do know that if anyone ever suggested such a thing, they’d be hogtied and hung upside down in the courtyard pool. The memory of Remy Marchand is sacrosanct at that hotel.”

  “But a million dollars disappeared and he died.”

  “In a car ‘accident.’” He shaped quotation marks in the air with his fingers
when he spoke the word accident. “What are the odds that it wasn’t an accident?”

  Frank held up his hands. “Let’s not slip into the Twilight Zone here. What does this have to do with Julie Sullivan’s safety?”

  “Nothing. But I’m also the head of security at the Hotel Marchand. And the hotel’s budget problems may have something to do with security.”

  “You’re the head of hotel security only so you can keep an eye on Julie.”

  “Yeah, but while I’m keeping an eye on Julie, I’ve also got to do the job the hotel hired me to do.” He gave Frank a beseeching look. “Surely you could spare an hour or two and see if you can dig up anything about this missing money.”

  “I can’t just make a million dollars miraculously reappear, Mac. You’ve got to give me something to work with.”

  “I’ll find out where the Hotel Marchand did its banking four years ago. Then you can go through the transactions and see what’s there. Okay?”

  “I’ve still got my hands full with the Garrick Insurance fraud case,” Frank muttered.

  “So, the next time you’re mucking around in the records of some off-shore bank, maybe you’ll stumble over a million U.S. dollars with Remy Marchand’s fingerprints on it. That’s all I’m asking.”

  “That’s all you’re asking.” Frank shook his head. “If I’d known you were going to dump this in my lap, I would’ve gone home and knocked Sandy up.”

  “Go home and knock her up now,” Mac urged him. “Tell her I expect to be named the godfather.”

  “Right,” Frank said as he rose from the chair. “Listen, pal, don’t work too late. I don’t want you falling asleep at your desk.”

  “With this coffee?” Mac gestured toward the jumbo cup beside his computer keyboard. “After drinking that, I won’t be able to sleep for a week.”

  Once Frank had left the office, Mac rotated his chair to face his desk. He turned on his computer, then wiped his fingers on a spare paper napkin and pulled the Sullivan folder from the walnut tray that occupied one corner of the desk. He opened the folder, flipped past pages of neatly typed notes and halted when he got to the first photograph.

  He had more than a dozen photos, collected as part of his background research into Julie’s modeling career. The top of the stack was one of her first jobs, a photo of her and two other girls in bikinis standing in front of the most bogus-looking beach scenery he’d ever seen. Julie’s hair was longer than she wore it now, and it was pulled into pigtails. The body on display in the skimpy blue swimsuit did nothing for him. She’d been just a child when that picture was taken, skinny and gangly. But her face…even then, even when she was smiling, her eyes were filled with mystery, with knowledge and longing. And her mouth looked—well, no, not kissable. The thought of kissing a girl as young as Julie had been in that ad gave Mac the willies. But he could see in her soft, full lips the potential, a hint of what she would become once she grew up.

  He flipped through the photos, some from old magazines, the paper starting to wrinkle, and others hard copies of images he’d downloaded from Internet archives. Incredible cheekbones, he thought as he studied another photo of her. Her face was a little fuller now, that emaciated look blessedly gone. What had she said last night about having to starve herself during her modeling days? Thank God she wasn’t doing that anymore.

  At last he reached her Symphony Perfumes pictures. She looked older in them, older even than she looked today. He ascribed part of that to the makeup slathered onto her face, her eyes circled in black, her lashes artificially thick, her skin pale and smooth and her mouth coated with a coral-hued lipstick. But part of what aged her in the photos was the way she stared directly into the camera, her jaw taut and her gaze almost accusing. Her expression was chilly, haughty. I want this perfume, she seemed to be saying. I want this perfume and I don’t want you.

  In the Glissando ad, she was framed against a nondescript cream-colored background, just her face and her bare, elegant shoulders and an enlarged bottle of perfume. Her lips were neither smiling nor pouting, her eyes were cold, her attitude inaccessible. In the Grace Note ad, her surroundings were midnight blue, which made her eyes look even darker and more inscrutable. In the Arpeggio ad, the backdrop was wine red and she looked…damn. She looked sexy as hell.

  But still aloof. Still chilly. Still communicating the message: You want me and you can’t have me.

  Unlike the photos of her as a scrawny, playful teenager, these photos mocked him. Yeah, he wanted her. And he couldn’t have her…although when she looked at him now, in real life, she didn’t appear quite so cold. Scrape off the cosmetics, add a few pounds, give her a sweet, rich dessert or a walk in the sunshine and she became a genuine human being, talking, laughing, knocking herself out for her job, plagued by worries but too proud to admit to them.

  Yeah, he thought as he studied the photo of Julie surrounded in seductive red. You guessed. I want you.

  THROWING FITS was not Mac’s style, but the next morning, when Carlos showed him the reservation list for the Twelfth Night party, he felt sorely tempted to kick and break things. “What the hell is this?” he roared as he scanned the list of more than a hundred names.

  “Those folks all reserved tickets to the party,” Carlos explained calmly. He clearly didn’t share Mac’s irritation.

  “These are just last names. Smith? That’s supposed to identify someone? Mr. and Mrs. Smith?”

  “I guess the hotel should have gotten first names,” Carlos said, struggling to appear concerned.

  “That and credit card numbers. When someone reserves a room, the reservation clerk gets a credit card number. Why didn’t they get one for these people?”

  “Oh, they’ll pay,” Carlos assured him. “If that’s what you’re worried about. The hotel never gets stiffed for events like this. Folks show up, they pay and then they go in. If they don’t pay, they aren’t allowed in. Simple.”

  “Not simple.” Since Carlos was seated at the desk, Mac leaned against the door jamb and flipped through the computer printouts. “We have no way of identifying these people. No way of checking to see if any of them represent a security risk.”

  “Like their credit card numbers would do that.”

  Mac gave him a withering look. “Credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, phone numbers—first names, for crying out loud. Who are these people?”

  Carlos hesitated, as if unsure whether Mac wanted an answer. Hesitantly, he provided one: “They’re Mr. and Mrs. Smith.”

  Mac cursed and slammed the printout onto the desk. His gaze veered to the monitor. The security cameras revealed a couple chatting in the elevator; a woman who’d draped her legs in a hotel blanket as she sat in the sunlight of the courtyard, reading a book; the lobby teeming with activity, as usual; the bar empty at this early hour; a housekeeping employee pushing a cleaning cart down a third-floor hallway. Julie hadn’t been caught by any of the cameras, which meant she was probably in her office.

  He could storm upstairs and confront her, but he was too ticked off to inflict himself on her. Besides, if he saw her, he might blurt out his greatest concern: “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” or one of the other anonymous folks on this list might be the person behind her nasty e-mails. She was already unnerved enough about those messages; no need for him to add to her stress. Besides, she wasn’t ready to confide in him about what really had her scared. He had his own theories, based on what her sister had told him, but so far Julie hadn’t even admitted to him the existence of the second “4Julie” e-mail.

  He needed to know—not just for her sake but for the safety of all the partygoers—who the intended guests were.

  He lifted the phone and punched in her office number.

  “Julie Sullivan speaking,” she recited.

  “Julie, it’s Mac,” he said, refusing to close his eyes and picture her and think about her elegant beauty. “I’ve just seen the reservation list for the Twelfth Night party. It’s a disaster.”

  “A disaster
? Why?”

  “It’s completely lacking in ID. Just a list of names. Does the hotel have any sort of identification for these people?”

  “Of course we do. Why do you need it?”

  Because I’m the freakin’ head of security, he wanted to yell. “So I can make sure none of these guests represents a security risk,” he said as calmly as his impatience would allow. “This is important. Can I get a more comprehensive list?”

  He heard her sigh. “I can put something together for you, but everything would have to be cross-referenced. It could take awhile.”

  “Six o’clock tonight,” he said. “You’ll be done with your other work by then, and so will I. I’ll come by your office and we’ll straighten this out.”

  She sighed again, but when she spoke she didn’t sound upset. She didn’t even sound resigned. She sounded almost…expectant. “Six o’clock. All right, Mac.”

  SHE WASN’T SURE why he was in such a sweat about the party’s reservations list—except that everyone was in some sort of sweat or another about the Twelfth Night party. Anne and Sylvie were bickering over the decorations. Charlotte and Renee were worrying about whether Anne was overtaxing herself. Anne was irked at Charlotte and Renee for worrying about her. Leo was feuding with one of his suppliers regarding the liquor order he’d placed for the event. Robert was arguing with Melanie about the buffet menu. Nadine was worried about how big the housekeeping department’s overtime budget for the party clean-up would be. Alvin Grote in Room 307 wanted to know whether he could wear jeans to the bash.

  “There’s no dress code, Mr. Grote,” Julie had explained, “but it’s a festive event. People pull out all the stops.”

  “Great,” he’d moaned over the phone. “If I’d known, I would have brought my tuxedo. How am I going to rent a tuxedo down here on such short notice?”

  “You don’t need to wear a tuxedo,” she’d assured him. “But I think you might feel more comfortable in a suit and tie than in jeans.”