The Curse of a Single Red Rose (Haunted Hearts Series Book 7) (2 page)

Chapter Two

French Quarter, New Orleans

March 2015

Standing in the middle of the lobby of the Royale Chateau Hotel, Elsa Madsen breathed in the sweet aroma of the past and thrilled at the opportunity to be part of the hotel’s future. She had passed the green-painted plywood that had covered the front door and the high brick wall that enclosed the entrance to the courtyard a million times since she moved to New Orleans in 2013, but she hadn’t had any idea what a magnificent hotel hid behind the barrier.

When Les Wakefield had given her the tour, she hadn’t been able to restrain her enthusiasm for the renovation project. The fact that she’d earned a degree in civil engineering and had grown up around her Dad’s construction business hadn’t hurt her résumé at all. Les had assured her the job was hers on the spot. Of course, he had to go through the formality of asking for bids. All she had to do was submit hers.

Still, in the back of her mind, she wondered how she’d gotten the job instead of one of the three more-than-qualified men who had put in a bid. Construction, for the most part, was still very much a man’s world. She’d landed the contract, and she’d wanted the job, so she wasn’t going to argue with the owner’s decision to retain her.

With a sigh of contentment, she climbed the curving wrought iron staircase to the third floor, running her palm over the smooth mahogany handrail. At the top of the stairs, she pushed open a set of double French doors and walked down two exterior walkways. The hotel’s upside-down, L-shaped design allowed each guest room access to a covered walkway overlooking the central courtyard below. The courtyard was in shambles, but it wouldn’t be for long. Elsa had plans for the patio area. An outdoor bar with wrought iron tables for seating would mirror the charm of the French Quarter.

The pounding of hammers and the buzz of saws guided Elsa toward the center of activity. When she entered the room at the very end of the rear wing, she gave her ears time to adjust to the noise before approaching the only woman who worked for the subcontractor.

Elsa tapped her on the shoulder, and Lilly slid her noise-cancelling earmuffs off. “What?”

Work ceased as the other two workers slid their earmuffs off as well.

“Where’s Collin?” It was a waste of time to ask, but Elsa asked anyway.

She often caught him wandering around the hotel instead of supervising the work. When asked about his whereabouts, none of his employees ever had a reasonable explanation for his frequent absences.

The woman blinked and answered with an ultra-flat tone. “Well, he didn’t go back to Ireland.”

The two men who worked with Lilly burst into loud cackling.

Elsa propped her hands on her hips, tilted her head, and smiled at the woman. “So did he run away when he heard me coming?”

“Collin McVey does not run away from anything.” His voice rippled through her, and the lilt of his Irish brogue fell sweet on her ears.

She turned and stared at him a moment longer than necessary, drinking in the magnificent sight of the man.

He hit her with smoldering blue eyes. “Is there something you wanted, Elsa?” Her name rolled off his tongue and sent a shimmer of delight through her.

Stop it, Elsa. You act like you haven’t had a man in ages.

If she were being honest with herself, she hadn’t. But that didn’t matter. She didn’t want Collin to think she was starved for manly attention, his or anyone else’s. Desperation never looked confident, and besides, she didn’t want the hassle of being in a relationship. She’d opted for a career and a healthy dose of adventure rather than settling down for a mainstream life. She went where she wanted when she wanted, and she didn’t have to coordinate her movements with anyone else, unlike her step-mother who couldn’t seem to breathe without getting her father’s permission first.

“The vendor is sending the chandelier for the dining room by express freight. It should be here tomorrow.” She turned away from him, sighed, and absorbed the atmosphere of the hotel. “It will look beautiful in that room.” It was the largest space in the hotel and took up most of the downstairs, which wasn’t very big due to the limited square footage of the property. Yet even in its derelict state, the dining room had exuded an aura of spaciousness and elegant timelessness, just as the rest of the property did, the guest rooms included.

The tone of Collin’s voice revealed his irritation. “I’m not ready for it yet. There’s still plenty of work to do in the guest rooms.”

She turned toward him and smiled, replying as sweetly as she could manage. “You’d better find someplace to store it because I’m not sending it back.”

He leaned in close and whispered near her ear. “Where do you suggest I put it?”

She was sure she could come up with a few unpleasant suggestions.

Unwilling to acknowledge his negativity, she stepped around him and surveyed the progress his crew had made in the last few days. “You will be done in time for the grand opening, right?”

“If certain people would stop interrupting us, we might.”

She pointed to her chest. “You mean me?” She spun and headed for the door. Then she stopped and turned back toward him. “I can handle a tool, Mr. McVey. If you need an extra hand to make a deadline, just say so.” He probably wouldn’t dare ask her for help.

“I have all the hands I need, and I’m on schedule. But thank you for your kind offer, Ms. Madsen. I’m certain your skills would be better suited for something else.” The man could sound so formal, especially when expressing himself through gritted teeth.

She smiled and ignored his subtle implication that she was ill suited for her position as project manager, hitting him with a good dose of her boss attitude. “Okay, then. Back to work.”

“I would very much like to get back to work.” His grumbling followed her down the hall.

She’d made it all the way downstairs to her makeshift office behind the reception area when her cell phone vibrated. She glanced at the display and steeled herself for the call. Les Wakefield never said anything confrontational, but their conversations always vibrated with the hint of potential conflict.

“Mr. Wakefield, how are you today?”

“Will the hotel be ready in time for the grand opening?”

Okay, no pleasant greetings or small talk was necessary.

She wanted to ask him when he was coming to see the progress for himself, but she’d learned early on in the project that he didn’t appreciate the question. As far as she knew, the only time they’d been on the premises at the same time was when he’d given her the initial tour before she worked up her bid for the project.

“We’re ahead of schedule, so we should be finished in plenty of time.”

She would have never told Collin McVey that. Her father had taught her to keep the pressure on subcontractors, to never let them think you’re completely pleased with them, that a little bit of added stress kept them focused. Gunther Madsen had a reputation for being a hard ass that could get the job done, and she found herself emulating his management style more than she ever thought she would.

“Good. I’ll want a progress report by the end of today.” The man actually sounded pleased.

“No problem. I’ll email it to you.” Before her answer finished passing her lips, she was composing the report in her head.

“Meet me in the lobby of the Sherwood on Canal. You can give me the report then, and we can discuss the timeline for the remainder of the project over dinner.”

She didn’t want to meet him at the hotel. After all, how much did she know about him other than he was the owner of the Royale Chateau? No denying it. Les creeped her out. It was his eyes. The dark glint in them didn’t seem quite normal. Other than their first tour of the property, she’d managed to avoid being alone with him, but it hadn’t been easy. He’d made more than a few suggestions to meet that sounded more like a date than a business meeting. This time, she had no ready excuse why she was unavailable.

“Elsa, are you still there? Do you have other plans tonight?”

“No. What time is good for you?”

He told her and that was that.

“The lobby of the Sherwood. Seven. I’ll be there, Mr. Wakefield.” She confirmed the time and place in her most professional tone of voice.

When she disconnected the call, she dropped into her task chair and let her mind roll with an assortment of strange thoughts. She knew nothing about Les except that he’d just inherited a rather large estate, including the hotel, and he came from South Carolina. Whenever she asked questions that might be considered personal, he always changed the subject.

Yeah, something wasn’t quite right about Les Wakefield. What if the guy was a psychopath or a serial killer or both? She shivered at the thought and refocused on the report she had to write.

Stop freaking yourself out, Elsa. Les Wakefield isn’t a serial killer.
Maybe you should stop watching crime dramas late at night.

****

Collin stared at the door through which Elsa had just departed. “How can I get the job done if she’s always changing the work plan?” His bass tones boomed around the room, each syllable getting louder than the last.

Rick’s gravelly voice came at him from behind. “Well now, boss, she’s usually right.”

Collin crossed his arms over his chest, stared down at the sawdust beneath his feet, and grumbled under his breath. “Yeah, I hate that about her.”

Rick laughed. “I don’t think you hate her.”

He lifted his head to glare at his employee. “Who said I hated her? No, it’s just that she’s always so…” He couldn’t quite define what he didn’t like about her, other than the fact that she was usually right.

Lilly chuckled from across the room. “Every time she comes around you… I don’t know. You act different around her. That’s all.”

Chuck agreed with Lilly. “She gets to you, boss.”

“Shut up, and get back to work.”

The sound of power tools and banging hammers filled the room again. He was used to the high level of noise. What he wasn’t used to was how the whole world seemed to disappear whenever Elsa graced him with her presence. His crew was right. She did get to him. Elsa Madsen had the ability to suck the breath right out of him, which wasn’t a good thing because he didn’t want her to figure out what he was up to. Taking the job she had offered him was only a means to an end.

Once again, he had hired onto a project that involved a man who called himself Les Wakefield. When it had come about, and the way it had come about, he hadn’t been able to ignore the opportunity. Elsa had contacted him and offered him the job based on a referral, and Collin hadn’t hesitated. He had wasted no time telling Dylan Hunter and New Orleans Police Det. Nick Moreau about hiring onto the new Wakefield project.

He’d worked for Dylan on the Wakefield Manor restoration the previous year. When things went a little crazy on the plantation, Dylan had discontinued the renovation project. Dylan’s girlfriend, Sophia Cannon, had been contracted to do the interior restoration. The Sheriff of St. Denis Parish, where the plantation was located, had discovered the man who had hired them was not the real Les Wakefield. An imposter had stolen his identity and had tried to steal his inheritance. The fake had hung himself after he’d tried to kill Sophia. Somehow she had managed to come out of the horrible experience without psychological damage from the trauma she had endured.

The real Les Wakefield had acted suspiciously from the moment he’d been told he’d inherited the Wakefield property, which consisted of a hotel in the French Quarter, a plantation in St. Denis Parish, and a bed and breakfast located near Destrehan.

Collin’s intention had been to get close enough to Wakefield to keep an eye on him for the New Orleans cop. There hadn’t been anything to report since Wakefield had left the daily oversight of the project to Elsa Madsen. Collin had never met the man. Moreau had then asked him to find out how well Elsa Madsen knew Les Wakefield. That hadn’t been an easy task either.

Collin’s mind returned to the present, and then he wanted to clobber himself in the face. He’d failed to tell Elsa about the useless plumbing that had been installed. None of the oversized guest rooms had originally included an en suite bathroom. His crew had spent most of their time on the second and third floors constructing interior walls in the guest rooms to enclose the new bathrooms. Elsa had hired another subcontractor to install the necessary plumbing, but the blueprints had been off and so was the plumbing for the bathtubs.

The plumber should have noted the error before he completed the work, but he’d installed off-center pipe that would never connect to the faucets and showerheads. When confronted about the problem, the plumber had shrugged his shoulders and replied that it wasn’t his problem. That had been one more aggravation for Collin on a long list. Nothing about the project had gone smoothly, yet somehow Elsa never seemed to let the glitches bother her.

Collin needed to tell her about the problem and ask her to put some pressure on the plumber to move the water lines or hire another plumber to fix the mess. Otherwise, the hotel’s guests would be faced with non-functioning bathrooms.

He tapped Chuck to get his attention. “I’m going to talk to Elsa about the plumbing.”

“What’d you say?” Chuck shouted.