THERE WERE TIMES when Josie Villefranche felt like the French Quarter hotel she owned and ran was still a brothel of legend.

Maybe it had something to do with the timelessness of her surroundings. Could be her mixed-race heritage was to blame. She was one quarter African American, like many of the women who would have run or worked in the onetime bordello over the past 150 years. Or perhaps her assistant manager was right in that one of her ancestors' ghosts still haunted the place, an ancestor who was rumored to have been one of the most successful madams in the Quarter's history.

Whatever the reason, this hazy Sunday afternoon was one of those times. She sat behind the check-in counter fanning herself with a starched lace fan. She'd found it among her granme's things in the fourth-floor room Josie had left untouched since Josephine Villefranche's death nearly a year ago.

Josie fingered the tattered edge of the fan, wondering where her namesake had picked it up. Was it a gift from a male admirer? Had she bought it herself at a local shop? And had she once sat right where Josie was sitting now, fanning herself, longing for someone, anyone, to walk through those front doors? Or thankful that all was quiet so she could catch a few moments to herself?

She released a long sigh. Of course, in the here and now, those quiet few moments were adding up, which was the reason Josie's mind now traveled to times long ago. The hotel had been doing very little business since the murder of that girl in 2D two weeks ago.

She glanced idly toward the winding, wooden staircase leading to the room in question. A sense of unease wound through her veins. Yesterday she'd been forced to cut her only maid, Monique, back to part-time. A temporary measure, she'd called it, until she could generate some business that would give the young woman more rooms to clean and more resources with which Josie could pay her. So as owner and operator, she, herself, had taken over some of the cleaning duties.

Merely being in room 2D earlier this morning had made her feel out of sorts. As if somehow the dead woman's soul remained behind, reluctant to leave until her killer was brought to justice, although all physical traces of her had long since been washed away.

Claire Laraway, that had been her name. Her one-night lover, and a onetime frequent customer of Hotel Josephine, Claude Lafitte, had been accused of her murder and arrested, then ultimately released. But not until after he'd taken a female FBI agent hostage and had shot off a round at the check-in desk to ward off New Orleans police officers. The bullet was still embedded in the front of the counter, just another part of the history of the old building. A building in dire need of repairs and sweeping renovations Josie couldn't afford.

If she didn't find a way to drum up some business, and quick, the hotel would become the property of the U.S. government by way of her overdue tax bills.

Then, of course, there was the matter of the killer still out there somewhere, on the prowl. A killer Monique half feared would strike at the hotel again. A view apparently shared by Josie's regulars, if the current vacancy of the rooms was any indication.

Josie caught herself waving the fan too quickly, kicking up a breeze that did nothing to cool the moisture that coated her skin. On the shelf under the top counter lay the latest of several offers made by a large national hotel chain to buy the Josephine. Offers she routinely refused to consider. Offers that offended her. Not because of the generous amount offered, but because Hotel Josephine was her birthright and it wasn't for sale. What would she do if she didn't have the business to run?

For as long as she could remember, the hotel had been a part of her life. It was included in one of her earliest memories, when her mother used to bring her there for brunch every Sunday after church. They'd sat with her grandmother in the courtyard restaurant in their best clothes — even now she could remember the delicate white gloves and hat she'd worn — enjoying café au lait and toast with jam.

Later, when her mother had met what she'd called "the one," the man who would change her life, there'd been no room in the picture for a girl whose black heritage was apparent, while her mulatto mother had been blond and blue- eyed. So Josie had been dropped off in front of the hotel with a plain paper bag holding her meager belongings, left staring at a grandmother who had been just as surprised to see her as she'd been to be there.

Josie smiled faintly. Of course, Granme had made the best of the situation, as she always had.

And Josie couldn't imagine how her life would have turned out had her grandmother not raised her.

Some may have viewed the work she'd done around the hotel beginning at a young age as an abuse of the child labor laws. Josie had seen it as inclusion. She'd preferred being around the adults, dragging a mop along the floor or stripping the beds and washing towels, to being on the street playing with other children her age. It had made her feel as if she were an adult. Someone in charge of her own life. She realized now that much of that desire to be older than her years stemmed from her never having known her father and from abandonment by her mother, but back then she'd only known a desire to be in control, however illusory that control was.

And now? Now that she'd inherited Hotel Josephine and was one missed tax payment away from losing her?

Often in past days she'd wondered what her grandmother would have done. Surely, she, too, had experienced tough times, and she'd obviously managed to come through them okay.

Josie would find a way, as well.

Footsteps on the banquette outside the hotel. She looked up to find a tall, wide-shouldered man in a suit considering the exterior of the place, then glancing inside. One of the few buildings loyal to French influences in the Quarter after the fire of 1794, the structure boasted double doors, a marble-tiled lobby with high ceilings and ornate cornices that spoke of glamorous times past. Her granme had loved plants, and they stood in every corner, giving the illusion of coolness to compensate for the lack of air-conditioning and insufficient ceiling fans. Josie squinted at the would-be customer, noticing his weathered yet expensive brown leather suitcase and his hat. Somewhere in his early thirties, he was an attractive man. But it was more than his good looks that made him that way.

"He's got that zing, that it," Granme would have said. "You stay away from men like that, Josie. Not a one of them is worth the heartbreak they'll bring."

Despite her advice, men seemed to break Josie's heart on a regular basis. While the city and its atmosphere of casual sex and impermanence might be partially to blame, she'd only ever found herself in the role of lover, but never partner. Never had she been referred to as someone's girlfriend or enjoyed the title of fiancée. It hadn't helped that four out of the five men she'd had temporary relationships with had been guests at the hotel. But since so much of her life revolved around the hotel, it was understandable that the majority of the men she crossed paths with would be guests, people just passing through. And leaving her behind without a backward glance when it was time to check out.

The visitor looked at something in his other hand. Josie realized it was one of the flyers Philippe Murrell, her assistant manager, had talked her into making up a couple days ago to distribute at the airport. She hadn't expected anything to come of the endeavor. Yet here was someone obviously brought to her doorstep as a result of Phil- ippe's idea.

She rose to her five-foot, three-inch height and pretended busyness, praying for the man to come in.

When he finally did, she had to suppress a breath of relief, even though it would take a lot more than this one handsome man to save her hotel.

DREW MORRISON HADN'T REALIZED how far he'd fallen until he stood outside the run-down Hotel Josephine convinced he had the wrong address.

"The Closer." That's how he'd once been almost reverently referred to. He was an independent contractor who'd brokered multimillion-dollar deals on behalf of clients who were running out of options to obtain what they were after. From the employee-run window manufacturer putting a dent into a neighboring corporation's profits, to the stubborn casino owner who wouldn't give under pressure from his competitor, Drew eased his way into people's lives, became their friend, their confidant, and ultimately convinced them that selling would not only alleviate their worries and make them independently wealthy, but that it was also the brave, almost honorable thing to do.

Nowhere was it mentioned that it was the only thing to do.

Now he was reduced to penny-ante jobs like this one. Jobs similar to the type he'd taken on ten years ago when he'd been a wet-behind-the-years business grad, compliments of three years in the military serving overseas and the G.I. bill.