As she traded her stilettos for a pair of flats, she wondered how he’d react if he knew all her secrets. She prayed he’d never find out because the idea of him losing respect for her was too painful to contemplate.
She stepped from the hotel into the heart of the French Quarter. It was early April and Mardi Gras was over, but the streets still bustled with tourists, street performers, and fortune-tellers. She passed vendors selling postcard views of Bourbon Street and oil paintings of Jackson Square. The late-afternoon sunshine was warm, but she had to meet client buyers in less than two hours, so she hadn’t changed from her black sheath into something more casual.
Samorian Antiquarian Books sat tucked away in an alley not far from Rampart Street. The faded ocher exterior with its weather-beaten green shutters and dusty front window hadn’t changed since she’d last visited two years earlier. Even the pot of geraniums in desperate need of watering seemed the same.
The overhead bell rang as she entered the shop, which smelled exactly as a store that specialized in rare books, manuscripts, and other fine arts ephemera should—old and musty with a faint overlay of chicory coffee.
Arman Samorian still refused to wear hearing aids, and hadn’t heard the bell or noticed she’d entered until she stood directly in front of him.
“Madame Shore!” He rushed from behind the scarred wooden counter, grabbed her hand, and kissed it, his shrub of gray, Albert Einstein hair sprouting around his head like a mushroom cloud. “Such an honor to see you again.”
“You, too, Arman,” she shouted, patting his age-spotted hand.
“Are you performing? But why did I not know this?”
“Just visiting.” No need for a long, loud explanation of an advertising campaign that would undoubtedly bewilder him.
“Whistling? When did you start whistling?”
“Visiting!”
“Ah. Of course.”
She dutifully asked about his son, who lived in Biloxi, and petted his elderly cat Caruso, before she ventured into the dusty stacks. She found a long-out-of-print biography of the Russian soprano Oda Slobodskaya, then ventured up the creaky wooden steps to the store’s second floor. The last time she’d been in this cramped attic space, she’d discovered an autographed photograph of Josephine Baker costumed as La Créole in Offenbach’s operetta of the same name. Freshly framed, it was now one of her favorite possessions.
The attic was hot and windowless, the only light provided by three flyspecked bulbs hanging from the water-stained ceiling. She sneezed from the dust as she browsed the shelves, but unearthing a manuscript copy of Domenico Scarlatti’s Narcisso more than made up for her discomfort. Samorian’s store and its ancient proprietor might be relics of the past, but the store was a treasure house for serious musicians.
A slim volume entitled George Kirbye and the English Madrigal caught her attention, but just as she began to leaf through it, the overhead light bulbs went out.
Without even a window, it might as well have been midnight. She held on to the Scarlatti manuscript with one hand and used the other to grope her way along the bookcases in the general direction of where she thought the stairs were.
A board creaked from across the attic. And then another. Her heart jumped, as she realized she wasn’t alone. She told herself not to be so skittish. This was an old wooden building. Of course it creaked. Besides, it was broad daylight outside and she was in a bookstore, not a dark alley. “Arman?” she called out.
A figure rounded the bookcases, barely fifteen feet in front of her. “Arm—?”
The figure lunged at her, and she fell back against the shelves. A shower of books hit the floor. She cried out as the demon figure grabbed her and caught her by the arms.
Male or female, she couldn’t tell, but strong. She heard the rasp of their breathing, felt the bite of fingers digging into her flesh. It had to be a man.
He shoved her against the shelves as more books hit the floor. Her reflexes finally fired. All the classes she’d taken over the years—everything she’d learned in dance and yoga, fencing and weight lifting, trapeze, tai chi—all of it kicked in at once. She pushed hard against the demon’s bulk. Her strength took him by surprise, and he let her go, but only for a moment before he lunged at her again and wrenched her arm. As she tried to twist free, she jabbed her elbow into his gut. He gave a guttural exclamation and tried to capture her free arm, but she curled her hand into a fist and punched him in the chest.
The strength of her defense took him by surprise, and the pressure on her arm eased for a few seconds, but still, he didn’t let her go. Her shoulders hit the shelves as she torqued her body and kicked out, only to have her tight skirt imprison her. He released her arms to grab her around the chest, which gave her the seconds she needed to yank up her skirt and lash out again with her leg.
The blow from her knee landed with lucky precision. He yowled and buckled. She kicked again, aiming for his groin. This time she didn’t connect, but she got close enough that he began backing away. She targeted his knees. Connected with one of them.
The struggle must finally have penetrated Arman’s impaired eardrums because he called upstairs. “Madame Shore? Did you find the Scarlatti?”
Whether it was from the old man’s interruption or the struggle she’d put up, her assailant backed off. She went after him, following the thud of his footsteps until a shard of light from the stairs illuminated his shadowy silhouette.
Only then did she realize the old bookseller might still be standing at the bottom. “Arman!” she cried. “Get out of the way!”
“What did you say?” the old man shouted.
She got to the top of the stairs just in time to see the dark figure of the intruder hit the bottom steps and shove the old man aside. As Arman crumpled to the floor, the intruder ran for the bookstore door.
“Arman!” She flew down the stairs and knelt beside him. “Arman, are you all right?” If anything had happened to him because of her . . .
He sat up slowly. “Madame . . . ?”
Her cell was in the purse she’d dropped upstairs, along with the Scarlatti manuscript. She made a dash for the landline phone on the wooden counter and called the police.
*
Miraculously, Arman seemed to have been unhurt, but an ambulance took him to the hospital to be checked. Thad was waiting for her at the police station after she’d made her report. As soon as they were outside, he lit into her as if she were a wayward teenager who’d violated curfew. “We had an agreement! You weren’t supposed to go anywhere without either Henri or me. How could you do something so idiotic?”
Her hand hurt from the punch she’d delivered. She’d ripped her dress, bruised her shoulder. She was drained and too shaken by what had happened to remind him they had no such agreement, and he should shut the hell up. He finally seemed to realize she was in no shape for a lecture because he draped his arm around her and said no more.
Henri canceled the evening events, and Olivia slipped away to her room. After she’d reassured herself that Arman wasn’t harmed, she took a long soak in the tub and slipped into her yoga pants and a loose top.
When she emerged from her bedroom, she found Thad sitting on the couch talking on the phone with a baseball game muted on the television. However annoying his lecturing might be, she knew his concern was genuine.
He quickly ended the call. “This is a hell of a way to avoid another of those client dinners.”
“No more lectures, okay?” She sat on the couch, leaving one seat cushion between them.
“No more lectures. As long as you promise not to take off again until this is settled.”