French Silk (41 page)

The congressman screamed.

He scrambled to his feet, thrashed through the shrubbery, and stumbled up the front steps. Once safely inside, he slammed the front door and slid home the bolts. Frantically he punched in the security alarm code on the panel.

Belle, having recovered from her initial shock, demanded an explanation. "Who made that disgusting mess on our front window? Do you realize what a chore it will be to get that stuff off?"

He wanted to shake her until her perfectly straight, white teeth rattled. "Don't you understand what this means? She wants me dead."

"Who?"

"
Her
."

"Your former lover?"

He nodded, stuttering, "She … she's put a curse on me."

"For heaven's sake, Alister, get a grip on yourself. You're being ridiculous."

He shook his head furiously.

"This is a matter for the police." Belle, ever cool, headed for the hall telephone.

"No!" He lunged for the phone and yanked the cord from the wall jack. "No."

"Alister, you're not behaving rationally. What's got you so scared?"

He croaked a single word. "Voodoo."

Chapter 20

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Y
asmine barged in on them a few minutes before six o'clock. She flung the bedroom door open, stomped in, then skidded to a halt when she saw Claire snuggled against Cassidy between the sheets of the twin bed.

"Oh, shit!"

The expletive woke Claire from a sound sleep. She sat up, shoved her hair out of her eyes, and groped for the corner of the sheet to raise against her breasts, which were rosy and tender from a night of lovemaking.

At her sudden movement, Cassidy rolled onto his back. "What's the matter?" He followed Claire's stunned stare to Yasmine, who looked down at them for several awkward seconds before turning on her heel and marching out, closing the door soundly behind her.

"Something's wrong." Claire reached for her chemise, which was draped over the footboard of the bed.

"What do you mean? What's wrong with what? What time is it?" Cassidy propped himself on his elbows and shook his head groggily.

"Something's wrong with Yasmine."

"Claire?"

She had pulled on a housecoat over her chemise. As she swept past the bed on her way to the door, his hand shot out and caught her arm. He gazed up at her from hooded eyes. She knew what the look meant, and it created flurries of delight in her tummy. "I can't," she whispered soulfully. "Yasmine needs me."

"I need you."

"You had me," she reminded him with a shy smile.

"Not nearly enough."

Torn between loyalty and desire, she glanced toward the door, then looked back at him. "I've got to check on her, Cassidy."

"Okay," he growled. "But I'm a sore loser." He raised her hand to his mouth and provocatively kissed the palm. "Hurry back."

"I promise."

The hallway was shrouded in the gray-violet light of dawn. She moved quickly to the staircase and tiptoed down, not wanting to rouse anyone. She gave the double parlors a swift glance but didn't see Yasmine. She was about to bypass the dining room when she noted movement near the wet bar. Reversing her direction, she joined Yasmine there.

The former model held up a decanter. "Want a drink?"

"Yasmine, what's the matter?"

"What do you care? By the looks of you, I'd say you had one hell of a night in your little twin bed. All cozied up nekkid with the detective, weren't you? Hmm-mmm. Imagine that."

"He's not a detective, and you're not being fair. Why should it matter to you if I sleep with Cassidy?"

She came around, holding a highball glass filled with vodka. "It doesn't. In fact, I don't give a fat rat's fart who you fuck."

"Whom I fuck," Claire corrected. "If you're going to insult me, at least be grammatically correct."

Yasmine set her drink on the bar with a hard thump. She tried to sustain her anger but couldn't. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "Claire Louise Laurent. Always so bloody prim and proper." She grinned at Claire fleetingly, then her face crumpled like a soufflé. Lowering her head, she covered her face with her hands and began to sob.

Claire placed an arm around her and guided her down to one of the padded barstools. "What's wrong, Yasmine?" she asked, smoothing back her hair. "For you to be so nasty, something dreadful must have happened."

"The asshole dumped me."

Claire had been afraid of this. The inevitable had finally happened. She had believed all along that it was only a matter of time before Yasmine was jilted by her married lover, and she had dreaded this day. She drew her friend's head to her shoulder and let her use it as a cushion while she cried.

"The son of a bitch has been lying to me from the start," Yasmine said, her voice congested with tears. "He never intended to leave his wife. He never planned to marry me, or for us to have a life together. I've been so stupid, Claire. So goddamn stupid." She pounded the edge of the bar with her fists. "How could I have been played for such a fool?"

"Love distorts our judgment. It makes us do things we know are bad for us. We do them anyway."

Yasmine sat up and wiped her nose on the hem of her blouse. "He even made love to me last night before he broke the news. Can you believe the gall? When I got there, he practically fell on me. He told me that I was beautiful, that the days he spent without me were pure hell. We screwed like rabbits, hard and quick." Twin tears spilled over her lower eyelids and trickled down her flawless cheeks. "I loved him, Claire."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Looking back, I can't believe lever fell for his lies. Even though I fantasized about it, I can't see him actually flaunting me in Washington."

"Washington?"

Yasmine snorted a laugh. "This might cost him a vote, but what the hell. Why shouldn't you know now? My mystery man was Congressman Alister Petrie."

Claire exhaled slowly. "Alister Petrie."

"Do you know him?"

"No, I never met him. But I know his wife, Belle. I made some things for her trousseau when they got married. I was doing commission work then. One of her friends recommended me to her."

"What's she like?"

"Oh, Yasmine, forget—"

"For God's sake, Claire, indulge me. What's she like?"

"Pretty. Blond. Slen—"

"That's not what I meant. I know what she looks like."

"You've met her?"

"I've seen her." Claire's brows arched inquisitively. "Yes, I spied on them a couple of times," Yasmine admitted impatiently. "I did everything a nice little mistress isn't supposed to do. I whined. I made demands. I issued ultimatums. I pleaded. I threw tantrums. I called their house in the middle of the night just to hear his voice when he answered the phone. All that crap.

"Since he began campaigning for reelection, he's had less time to spend with me. The less time we had together, the more I hounded him. That's one reason Alister got pissed, I think. I was taking chances with us getting caught. He was afraid Belle would find out. Or maybe she did find out. Who knows? Now I wouldn't believe a word the lying prick says."

"I can see why he'd be attracted to you. You're so different from her."

"In what way?"

"Every way," Claire replied. "I didn't like her. She comes from aristocracy and makes certain everyone knows it. She's cool and aloof. Snotty. Bigoted. And, I would guess, passionless."

"Maybe he didn't lie about that," Yasmine murmured.

"It's premature to say this," Claire said hesitantly. "And you won't believe me, but it's true." She reached for Yasmine's hands and pressed them between hers. "The relationship wasn't good or you wouldn't have been so unhappy all the time. You're better off without him."

Yasmine shook her head. "No, Claire, you're wrong. I'm miserable. In fact, my entire life is in shambles."

"That's not true, Yasmine!"

"Obviously you've forgotten my financial straits. The money you'll pay me for those stock shares won't make a dent in what I owe creditors."

"That'll turn around. Give it time. You're beautiful and talented, Yasmine," she said, meaning it. "Thousands of women would trade places with you in an instant. Right now your heart is broken, but it will mend."

Yasmine's eyes narrowed and tilted up at the corners, giving her a calculating, feline look. "My heart is broken, but I'm not going to suffer alone." She withdrew her hands from Claire's grasp, reached into her shoulder bag, and withdrew an object that made Claire recoil.

"My God, Yasmine. What are you doing with that thing?" The voodoo doll was a grotesque effigy of the congressman. She held the doll up and looked at it proudly. "See that hair on its head? That's really Alister's hair. That makes the spell more powerful. And this," she said, pointing to the exaggerated red felt penis thrusting from the doll's crotch, "well, you know what that represents."

Claire was appalled. "You're not serious, are you? A few candles and talismans, okay, that's harmless. But you can't seriously believe in spells and black magic."

Yasmine turned on her angrily. "Why not? You believe in a virgin birth, don't you?"

To argue religion was a futile pursuit. Claire wasn't going to engage in it, especially now when her friend was emotionally fragile. She wisely kept quiet as she watched in horrified fascination as Yasmine lay the doll on the bar and reached into her blouse. She withdrew a silver charm suspended from a chain around her neck. The charm was a hollow, filigree sphere. It was filled with matter that Claire couldn't identify, but it had the odor of herbs.

"By wearing this close to my body," Yasmine said in a menacing voice, "I can control his thoughts. He won't be able to get me off his mind. I'll haunt him day and night. I'll drive him freaking nuts."

"Yasmine, you're frightening me."

She laughed low in her throat. "Yours is nothing compared to the fear Alister will experience before I'm finished."

"What do you mean 'finished'? Yasmine, what do you intend to do?"

Ignoring the question, she said, "Watch, Claire. Observe. Learn. In case you ever want to put a curse on someone."

Ripping back the collar of her shirt, she revealed a row of long, sinister pins. She pulled one from the fabric and laid it aside only long enough to strike a match from the matchbook lying on the bar. She ran the burning match along the pin until it became almost too hot for her to hold, then she plunged it into the repugnant red penis of the doll.

"Good morning, Alister," she whispered. "Sleep well? Don't even think of making love to your insipid wife. Even one of my famous blow-jobs couldn't get it up now, you limp dick." She lit another match, heated another pin, and jabbed it into the doll's torso.

Claire grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her hard. "Stop this! This is ridiculous. Practicing voodoo is dangerous and stupid and I won't have my best friend deluding herself with it." She shook her again. "Do you hear me, Yasmine?"

She blinked to clear her vision, as though Claire had snapped her out of a trance. "Of course I hear you." Smiling broadly, she asked, "You didn't think I was serious, did you?"

"I—" Claire began uncertainly.

Yasmine laughed. "I sure pulled one over on you, didn't I?" She dropped the charm back into her bodice and replaced the doll in her shoulder bag.

"Don't let Cassidy see that," Claire said. "He was interested in your Jackson Wilde doll, but I dismissed it as a gag. He might reconsider."

"Come on, Claire, relax. It's like having the gypsy lady at a carnival read your palm. You don't really believe in it, but it's fun."

Claire still wasn't convinced and her expression must have conveyed that. Yasmine shot her a retiring look as she picked up her drink. "This black magic hocus-pocus is all a hoax, but it's fun to pretend that I could really hurt Alister. Why should I be the only one agonizing? It makes me feel better to know that the bastard might be suffering a little, too." She sipped her drink. "Enough of my love life. Tell me how Cassidy sweet-talked himself into your pants."

* * *

Quietly, Claire reentered the bedroom. Since it was on the west side of the house, it remained in semidarkness. Cassidy was still in bed, lying on his back with his hands stacked beneath his head, staring at the ceiling fan as it slowly rotated above him. He had an arresting profile, strong, masculine, each feature well defined. She loved the shape of his lips, and looking at them now, knowing how they tasted and felt against hers, whether supplicant or demanding, made her mouth water.

His biceps were as round and hard as apples. Soft dark hair lined his armpits and matted his chest, which rose above a flat, taut belly. It tapered into a narrow waist and an even trimmer pelvis. His sex was full and firm, and Claire knew it by touch, smell, and taste.

She tried to suppress the erotic memories as she closed the door behind her. He turned his head. "Hi."

"Hi."

"Everything all right?"