French Silk

by Sandra Brown

  “It’s not so farfetched.”

  She gazed up at him with incredulity. “Do you ever think before you spout this nonsense? Listen to what you’re saying.”

  Now that he had spoken the theory aloud, it did sound ridiculous, but he pursued it so he could assure Glenn that he’d done so. Besides, you never knew where a blind alley might lead.

  “Yasmine has men in general on her shit list. She told me so herself.”

  “So that makes Jackson Wilde her lover?” she said. “He was Yasmine’s enemy as much as he was mine.”

  “On the surface.”

  “You think they were carrying on in secret?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Ludicrous. Anyway, she was in New York the night he was killed.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I picked her up the following morning at the airport.”

  “Could be she was acting out a charade.”

  “You’re grasping at straws, Cassidy.”

  “Does she have a current lover?”

  “I don’t see what—”

  “Does she?”

  “Yes,” Claire snapped.

  “Who? What’s his name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “I swear I don’t!”

  He looked at her hard and decided that she was telling the truth. “Why the secrecy? Is he married?”

  “All I know is that she’s devoted to him,” she said evasively. “So that shoots your harebrained theory about her and Jackson Wilde all to hell. They never even met.”

  “You’re sure about that, too?”

  “Absolutely. She would have told me.”

  “Right. She doesn’t lie and keep secrets, like you.” He stepped closer to her. “Maybe you had a thing going with Wilde.” The features of her face became taut with anger. She tried to stand, but he placed his hand on her shoulder and pushed her back to the railing. “A well-publicized skirmish would be mutually satisfying for him and you. Maybe you got together and cooked up this little scam.”

  “Who thought of this, you or Detective Glenn?”

  Ignoring her question, he pressed on. “You gave Wilde a cause to crusade against, a cause that created a groundswell across the nation and made him a celebrity preacher.”

  “In exchange for free advertising for French Silk, I suppose.”

  “Exactly. You admitted to me that his sermons were actually good for your business, not the other way around.”

  “Then why would I kill him and put a stop to such a good thing?”

  “Maybe you found out you weren’t the only one he’d worked a deal with. Maybe he had a whole legion of women—a different broad for every sin.”

  “You’re sick.”

  “Maybe the love affair went sour. Was your ‘offering’ to him a blackmail payment? Did you arrange to meet him while he was in New Orleans and work out a payment schedule? Only you decided to end it then and there.” She managed to stand and tried to go around him, but he sidestepped and blocked her path. “Where’d you meet Jackson Wilde?”

  Flinging back her head, she glared up at him. “I’ve told you. I met him only once, during the invitation he extended following his sermon in the Superdome.”

  “And you lied about that. While he was laying hands on you and granting eternal life, did he whisper his hotel-room number in your ear?” He took her arm in a firm grip. “You had a collection of clippings, Claire, documenting his whereabouts for years. He didn’t fart without you knowing about it. That’s obsessive behavior.”

  “I explained those clippings.”

  “It doesn’t wash.”

  “Well I certainly wasn’t his lover.”

  “You’re not sleeping with anyone else.”

  “How do you know?”

  Her question hung between them like the reverberation of clashed swords. The air crackled with animosity and suppressed passion.

  Finally Claire said, “Excuse me, Mr. Cassidy.”

  She went around him and slipped through the screen door.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ariel collapsed during the prayer service being held in Kansas City’s Kemper Arena.

  For half an hour she had held the capacity crowd spellbound. Garbed in white and spotlighted in the otherwise darkened arena so that her hair looked like a shimmering halo, her arms raised beseechingly toward heaven, she had created the illusion of a forsaken angel pleading to be called home.

  One moment, her voice had been raised in supplication, her body quivering with fervency; the next, she lay crumpled on the stage. At first Josh thought she had taken her act one step beyond her usual theatrics. Mentally he congratulated her on her thespian instincts and skill. The audience, as one voice, gasped when her small form was swallowed by the voluminous white robe that mushroomed around her like a deflating parachute.

  But when several seconds passed and she didn’t move, Josh stood, scraping back his piano bench. The closer he got to her, the faster he moved. Either the spotlight was leeching all the color from her face or she was alarmingly anemic. He knelt beside her, anxiously calling her name. When he tried to lift her into a sitting position, she lay as limp as a ragdoll in his arms, her head lolling to one side. This was no act.

  “She’s unconscious! Somebody call 911! Get an ambulance here at once. Ariel! Ariel!” He slapped her smartly on the cheeks. She didn’t respond. He searched for a pulse in her absurdly slender wrist. He felt a heartbeat, but it was feeble. “Move back and give her some air,” he ordered those who had clambered forward to offer assistance.

  Everyone in the arena was on his feet, creating a din so loud that Josh couldn’t hear himself think. Some were praying, some were weeping, some were merely gawking. He told one of the program coordinators to order everybody to leave. “The show’s over.”

  All Josh’s efforts to revive Ariel failed. She didn’t respond until the paramedics arrived and began their preliminary examination. “What happened?” she mumbled as she began to come around.

  “You collapsed,” Josh explained. “The ambulance is here to take you to the hospital. You’ll be all right.”

  “Ambulance?” She weakly tried to fight off the paramedics when they strapped her onto the gurney. As they wheeled her to the waiting ambulance, she protested that she was fine and didn’t need to go to the hospital.

  “You have any idea what caused this?” one of the paramedics asked Josh, who insisted on accompanying them in the ambulance. “Is she diabetic?”

  “Not that I know of. I think she’s exhausted and depleted. She throws up everything she eats.”

  The paramedic took her blood pressure and reported his findings to the attending doctor in the emergency room of St. Luke’s Hospital. The doctor ordered an IV, but by the time they reached the hospital, Ariel still looked near death. She hadn’t regained her color, her lips were chalky, and her eyes were deeply sunken into their sockets. She was immediately wheeled into an examination room from which Josh was barred entrance.

  He had plenty of responsibilities to occupy him. Videotape of Ariel’s collapse had been broadcast as a news bulletin. Reporters, photographers, and sympathizers converged on the hospital in such numbers that a police barricade had to be erected. Unaccustomed as he was to public speaking, Josh made a moving, impromptu speech to the cameras and microphones.

  “Mrs. Wilde has been exhausting herself in her efforts to seek justice for my father’s murder. The doctors here have given me every reason to be optimistic. As soon as I know more, I’ll share it with you. Please pray for her.”

  As he sipped vending-machine coffee and waited for information on her condition, Josh tried to assimilate his feelings. Only a few days ago, he’d been angry enough with Ariel to try to kill her. Now, he feared she might not survive. What if she was no longer capable of ramrodding the ministry? What if it dissolved? What would he do with the rest of his life?

  He supposed he could get a job with a dance band and be con
demned for life to playing at bar mitzvahs and VFW dances. He could go on the lounge circuit and make the rounds of the Holiday Inns. On that dismal thought, he pushed his fingers through his hair and bent his head over his knees in a posture of prayer. “Christ.”

  He hated the circus the ministry had become, but he sure as hell liked the public exposure it provided him. Ariel was right about that. Even though he despised the hypocrisy of the ministry, it had given him an opportunity to play piano almost nightly. It was steady employment, and to a musician that was a luxury. His audience was loyal and generous. Playing for them, hearing their applause, had given him a self-confidence that he hadn’t found anywhere else. He thrived on that approval, even if it was token. Without it, he would die. Or wish to.

  What would he do if his showcase collapsed along with Ariel?

  “Mr. Wilde?”

  “Yes?” The doctor was young and attractive and looked like she should be teaching kindergarten students rather than working the emergency room of a large city hospital. “How is she? Is she going to be all right?”

  “Mrs. Wilde was beginning to develop an eating disorder called bulimia, but I think we’ve caught it in time. She seems to have been in good health before she began the binge/vomit cycle. With counseling and a proper diet, the trend can be reversed. I don’t believe it’ll permanently damage her health or that of the baby.”

  Josh went very still and stared at her blankly. “Baby?”

  “That’s right,” the doctor said with a smile. “Your step-mother is pregnant.”

  Claire Louise Laurent had never experienced jealousy. During her childhood there had never been anything or anyone to make her feel jealous. She’d had no rivals for her mother’s love and attention.

  She had a healthy self-esteem, which was miraculous considering her unorthodox childhood. She had always been satisfied with her persona and never wished to be someone else. She competed only with herself, always striving for self-improvement without measuring her appearance, possessions, or accomplishments against those of others.

  So when this emotion crept up and encompassed her like a fog, she was shocked and shamed by it. Especially since the object of her jealousy was Yasmine.

  “This is positively marvelous.” Leon breathed the words reverently as though, through his viewfinder, he were witness to a holy miracle. “You’re the absolute best, darling. Always were. There’ll never be another Yasmine.”

  “You got it, sugar.” She spoke to him over her shoulder while sassily wagging her rear.

  The clouds that had threatened rain the day before had disappeared, and, while dark thunderheads were still silhouetted against the horizon, the sun was currently beating down on Rosesharon and the crew collected around the outdoor shower. The temperature was in the high eighties with a humidity to match. Claire blamed her foul mood on the unrelenting, muggy heat, but knew that wasn’t the real cause.

  Yasmine had kept her brainstorm a secret up to the hour they were ready to shoot. “I want to wear these.” She had produced a pair of white, sheer cotton pajamas.

  “I wondered what had happened to those,” Claire remarked.

  “I had them hidden.” The two-piece set of white boxers and top didn’t look like an item that Yasmine would ordinarily choose. She preferred to model the glamorous garments.

  “Aren’t they sort of plain for you?”

  “Not the way I’m going to use them,” Yasmine purred, flashing a wicked grin.

  “How’s that?”

  “Meet me at that old outdoor shower and I’ll show you.”

  Well, her secret is out now, Claire thought sourly as she watched Yasmine strike a series of poses while Leon clicked off picture after picture, keeping his assistant juggling cameras, lenses, and lights.

  Yasmine had discarded the pajama top altogether and rolled up the legs of the boxers until they fit tightly around her upper thighs at the crotch. She struck her first pose standing beneath the shower head with her back to the camera. Then she turned on the spout. Water sparkled on her mane of black hair. It glistened on her arms, which she used as gracefully as a ballerina to strike one stunning pose after another. Water trickled down her smooth back in silky rivulets. By now the boxer shorts were soaked and clinging to her taut buttocks. The fabric was plastered to hollows and curves that were sleek, sinuous, and sexy. She was in full command of her body. It was the machine she worked with and was conditioned to perform with optimum precision.

  Claire wanted to protest the overt sexiness of the shots, as she had done about the model’s prominent nipples the day before. But her motives for wanting to start an argument were different. The fact was, Yasmine looked like a work of art. Such perfection of form could never be labeled obscene. The image she created was erotic, yes, but not pornographic. It was a celebration of human sensuality, not propaganda for moral decay. And since a close-up of the pajamas would be shown in a small box photo beside the large one, Claire couldn’t complain that the item would be misrepresented in the catalog.

  Not everyone would look as spectacular as Yasmine did in the pajamas, but the fantasy of doing so would sell them by the thousands. Claire would no doubt be applauding Yasmine’s inspiration like the rest of the crew were it not for Cassidy, who was gaping at Yasmine like a star-struck, sex-crazed adolescent.

  Claire was hot, angry, nervous, distracted, and jealous, and it was all his fault. He was responsible for this unwelcome, juvenile resentment churning inside her.

  She should order him to leave the set. But he would demand to know why, and if she said that he was bothering everybody, all the others would deny it, and that would be tantamount to admitting that his presence was aggravating only to her.

  Yasmine was undeniably gorgeous, but Claire had never been jealous of her before. Yasmine cultivated her image of savage sexiness, which Claire had always found amusing if she thought of it at all. It certainly had never sparked envy. Yasmine was merely being Yasmine as she stretched and postured for the camera. She was in her element. She wasn’t deliberately trying to entice Cassidy.

  “You like it, Claire?” Yasmine called over her shoulder.

  “Yes,” she said dispassionately. “It’s very nice.”

  Yasmine lowered her arms and turned around. She didn’t bother to cover her bare breasts. “ ‘Nice’? It’s not supposed to be nice.”

  “What’s it supposed to be?”

  “Well for damn sure not nice. It’s supposed to be attention-getting and arousing. It’s supposed to sell these goddamn pajamas, which, frankly, I think are the most lackluster design you’ve ever come up with. They’ve got no style, no class, no nothing. I’m trying to put some zing into an item that otherwise would be a major flop.”

  Yasmine’s speech was delivered with such antipathy that it silenced even Leon. A strained hush fell over the set. Even Rue, who collected sarcastic gems to toss out at the most inopportune times, smoked in silence while everyone else found something other than Claire and Yasmine to focus on. They’d heard them clash before, but never to this degree.

  Claire’s chest felt close to cracking from internal pressure, but she turned to Leon and asked calmly, “Have you got all the shots you need?”

  “I think so. Unless you think we need more.” He was being uncharacteristically obsequious and soft-spoken, as though afraid he might detonate an explosion.

  “I trust your judgment, Leon.”

  “Then I’m finished.”

  “Okay. Thanks, everybody. That’s it for today. See you at dinner.”

  Claire turned her back on them and headed for the house. She walked at a fast clip, wanting only to reach the cool, dim privacy of her room, where she could nurse her jealousy in solitude.

  She had almost reached the veranda when Cassidy intercepted her. “Why did you do that?” Sweat had made the hair around his face damp. He looked as hot and short-tempered as she.

  “I’m in no mood for one of your inquisitions, Cassidy.”

  “Answer me. W
hy did you let Yasmine get away with embarrassing you in front of everyone?”

  “Yasmine embarrassed only herself. Now, get out of my way.” She managed to get around him and made it up several steps before he blocked her path again.

  “You didn’t approve of erect nipples yesterday, but today Yasmine couldn’t have looked more naked if she’d been naked. I don’t get it.”

  “You’re not supposed to.”

  “Why did one set of poses bother you and not the other?”

  “Because there’s a fine distinction between sensuality and overt titillation. I’m looking for shots that will excite without being offensive.”

  “You know from experience that it’s purely subjective.”

  “Invariably. But I’m the first judge, and I’ve got excellent taste,” she stated boastfully but confidently. “I trust my judgment on what’s quality and what’s questionable.”

  “Did you like Yasmine’s poses?”

  “I said I did, didn’t I?”

  “But you didn’t sound as though you meant it, and everybody heard that, especially Yasmine.”

  “My job isn’t to stroke Yasmine’s ego.”

  “No, your job is to sell merchandise, and that shot will sell pajamas.”

  She blew a strand of hair off her forehead. “Is there a point to this, Cassidy?”

  “You were suddenly uncomfortable with Yasmine’s sensuality. Why?”

  “Did you think she was sensual? I don’t know why I’m even asking, when it was so apparent that you did. You were riveted.” He gave her a strange and quizzical look, which only made her madder. “Well, weren’t you?”

  “I wasn’t particularly mindful of my reaction,” he said softly. “But obviously you were.”

  Claire, realizing that she was dangerously close to revealing too much, averted her head. “Is that all, Cassidy?”

  “Not quite. What kind of relationship do you have with Yasmine that allows her to insult you like that? Anyone else would have come back with both barrels loaded.”

  “Yasmine attacks other people only when she’s upset with herself. I understand that.”

  “She attacked you yesterday with that crack about Wilde. What gives? What reason does she have to be upset with herself?”