From the moment he’d spotted her following him three days ago, she’d had his attention beyond the obvious professional concerns. It was personal, although he hadn’t yet figured out why. Maybe he liked the idea of being tailed by a beautiful amateur. Or maybe he just hadn’t had enough tail lately. How long had it been?
“You’re good,” the security guard said, glancing up at him from her kneeling position at his crotch. “To go,” she added with a wink.
“Sorry to hear that.”
He was now free to enter the club itself. Provisional members were subjected to full body pat-downs until they’d been approved. No one seemed to object especially since the pat-down crew were all women. But Sam knew it was a serious search. If he’d resisted, she would have called for backup, and he would have been escorted out by several hulks in tuxedoes.
The anteroom, where he’d been detained, was octagonal, gilded in gold and adorned with erotic murals. Sam smiled inwardly at the thought of Micha Wolverton’s reaction to the orgiastic scenes. Legend had it that Micha roamed the grounds of the club, trying to reclaim the mansion—and the wife—that had been stolen from him a century ago by a forebear of Jason Aragon’s. Aragon took great care to keep that information under wraps.
A set of ornately carved mahogany double doors opened into the main foyer. The attractive pat-down artist slipped around Sam and placed her hands on the gleaming brass doorknobs. “Enjoy,” she said.
“How could I not?”
“Ah, Mr. Sinclair, how nice to see you again.”
Angelic Dupree, the club’s manager, greeted him as the doors opened to a huge, breathtakingly beautiful foyer. The slight, sweet-faced young woman, gowned in chiffon and feathers, ran the club herself, and apparently with dainty fists made of iron. She’d been the manager when Aragon had taken ownership, and he’d kept her on. She oversaw everything from the finances to the mint julep toothpicks used at the bar.
Sam took her extended hand. As was the custom at the club, he bent and kissed it. He thought he heard her purr, knowing it was simply for effect. Angelic might look like a wide-eyed kitten, but a man would be wise not to casually turn his back on her.
Her long, flowing white slip of a dress complemented the caramel latté tones of her skin. No one knew much about her background, except that she’d been raised in poverty in a shanty not far from where they now stood. Sam didn’t know the details of the history between Angelic and Aragon. He imagined it would make one hell of a story. He wondered what price she’d paid for Aragon’s kindness. Aragon did nothing for free.
“Thank you for the warm reception,” Sam replied.
“Our pleasure. Mr. Aragon will be with you soon. He’s looking forward to meeting with you tonight. In the meantime, please accept our hospitality. I believe we have your favorite drink on the way. Beefeater on the rocks with a twist, isn’t it?”
Sam smiled, and she inclined her head slightly, her golden eyes never leaving him. “I’m told you’ve been asking about our ghosts.”
Interesting that it had gotten back to her so quickly. Sam made a mental note of that. Evidently all roads here led back to Angelic.
He decided to come clean. “On a tour of the club, one of your hostesses warned me about the master bedroom in the east wing. She said it was original to the house, and the woman who died there haunts the room.”
Angelic smiled. “Not just the room. The White Rose haunts the entire house, though that’s where she does most of her mischief. Her real name was Rose Wolverton. Those who’ve glimpsed her say she wears the same sheer white nightgown she wore when she took her own life in that east wing bedroom.”
“Took her life?” Sam probably knew the story better than Angelic did, but he had reasons for keeping that to himself. He also had reasons for wanting to know how the White Rose supposedly haunted the place now. Her “mischief” could prove to be an excellent cover for some of his plans.
“It’s really quite sad,” Angelic said, though the sparkle in her eyes revealed she enjoyed the scandalous gossip. “Rose and her husband, Micha, had two children. She wanted more, and for some reason he didn’t. They say she was unstable and so outraged at his refusal that she allowed herself to be seduced by his business partner, hoping to become pregnant anyway.”
She raised her lovely eyebrows, as if to suggest that the good part was coming. “Only Rose didn’t get pregnant, and the partner used blackmail to force her into more sex. She became extremely distraught. It was Micha she loved, and she knew it would kill him if he ever found out, so she killed herself—in quite a horrible way.”
Sam didn’t need Angelic to tell him how horrible it was—or what had happened after that. Rose had stabbed herself in the chest—in the heart, to be exact. Micha had found her that way, and had never recovered. Despondent, he drank and gambled everything away, eventually losing even the house and the business to his partner in a poker game.
“His business partner sounds like the real villain,” Sam said, curious how Angelic would react.
Her eyes gleamed. “Yes, Jake Colby. He actually told Micha about the sex, gloated over it. Micha tried to kill him and was sentenced to ten years in prison. It was terribly sad. The children were sent away to live with an aunt.”
Sam nodded. Angelic was well-informed, but apparently even she didn’t know that Colby’s only daughter had married an Aragon, and that was how The Willows had come to be a gentlemen’s club, decadent and corrupt to the core.
Angelic’s sigh sounded sincere. “That’s why Rose weeps. I’ve never heard her, but people say you can, if you listen. And you can always tell when she’s near by the rose-scented perfume she wears.”
“And the icy cold breeze?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
Sam shrugged. “Don’t all ghosts usher in icy cold breezes?”
“This one also slams doors on fingers and drops light fixtures on your head. Rose isn’t a happy ghost. And neither is Micha. People say the pounding is him, trying to get back in the house to her.”
The way Sam had heard it, Micha had tried to break into The Willows when he was released from prison, and he was shot by Colby in the graveyard, which was just under the bedroom window where Rose looked out.
“I’ll stay clear of the east wing,” Sam promised.
“Please.” Angelic glanced at her jeweled watch. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you to await Mr. Aragon.”
The sparkle was gone from her voice as she said goodbye and glided off in the general direction of the club’s ground-floor lounge, chiffon fluttering behind her.
Sam would almost have thought she believed the ghost stories. He hoped she did. The more people who believed them the better, given what he had in mind. Tonight though, his primary concern was making Jason Aragon believe that he was the perfect candidate for membership.
Sam had made several visits to the club in the two weeks he’d been in New Orleans. He’d known there would be extensive background checks that included his finances and anything else they could dig up, but “Sam Sinclair” looked good on paper. Of course, it was all fake documentation, a cover, but an impenetrable one. The people he worked for didn’t miss a trick. His real surname wasn’t Sinclair.
He was well-prepared. Nonetheless, the wild card in the deck was Aragon himself. It didn’t matter how well-prepared you were. If you didn’t pass muster with Aragon personally, you weren’t invited into the inner circle.
Tonight he would meet the man, face-to-face. Meanwhile, he would