Her Special Charm

James opened up a can of dog food for Stanley, took out a bottle of beer from the refrigerator for himself and settled into his recliner with a pad and pencil to return the calls.

The claims were all bogus, down to the last number on the answering machine. A great many of the stories had been creative as to how the cameo had been lost, but no one could tell him about the faint inscription etched on the back of the cameo.

A couple of the people he called back had figured out that it wasn’t an inscription but initials, but as to what those initials were, they claimed to draw a blank, saying it had been so long since they’d looked at the back, they couldn’t remember. He told them to call back when they regained their memory.

“Incredible city we live in,” he murmured to the dog as he hung up on the last caller. “Give them a crisis and they all pull together. Dangle a piece of jewelry in front of them and it’s every man or woman for themselves.”

James sighed and shook his head. He’d never been a great believer in the nobility of man to begin with, but he hated being proven right. Getting up, he took his empty bottle to the garbage.

As he dropped it in, he saw the dog eyeing him. “Yeah, yeah, I know, I should be recycling, but I don’t have the time. If you’re so hot on the issue, you go and recycle them.”

Stanley just continued looking at him with his big, soulful brown eyes.

James blew out a breath, dug the bottle out of the garbage and put it on the side. “C’mon, I need a jog. Maybe it’ll clear my head.” And then he grinned. “Maybe we’ll trip over a diamond this time. Or a ‘hot babe.’” He used Santini’s words for the experience. “If we do, we’ll put her on Santini’s doorstep, see what his wife has to say about it. You with me?”

Stanley barked in response.

“Good dog.”

He went to change out of his clothes and into his jogging shorts and shirt.

Forty-five minutes later, he was back, dripping. The humidity that held the city hostage seemed to have gone up a notch as the sun went down instead of relinquishing its grip. It was like trying to run through minestrone soup.

Throwing his keys on the table, he saw the blinking light.

Another call.

“Well, it can keep,” he told his dog, pouring fresh cold water for him into a bowl. Stanley began to lap as if he hadn’t had a drink in seven drought-filled days. “I need a shower.”

The light was still blinking seductively at him after he came out of the shower.

And while he ate a dinner comprised of a ham sandwich. He eyed the hypnotic light as he chewed, toying with the idea of just deleting it without listening, or at least putting it off until morning.

Greed always left a bad taste in his mouth and the slew of people he’d encountered this evening, all wanting something for nothing, had put him off. Bad enough he encountered it every day on the job, people stealing the sweat of someone else’s brow, absconding with someone’s dream when they had no right to it. But he damn well didn’t have to welcome it with open arms right here on his own turf.

But he knew that wasn’t strictly the case.

“Wrong, Munro. You put the ad in, you opened the floodgates. Now take your medicine.”

Mercifully, there was only one message on his machine. He pressed down the button, bracing himself.

The voice that slipped into his humidity-laced third-floor apartment reminded him of warm brandy being poured over honey. It was soft, with more than a hint of a Southern accent.

The voice made him sit up and listen.

“My name is Constance Beaulieu. I believe you’ve found my mother’s cameo, sir.”

Chapter Two

James shifted on the sofa, moving a little closer to the coffee table—and the phone—as he listened to the woman on his answering machine.

“The cameo has great sentimental value, sir, especially now that my mother’s passed on. Please call me at your earliest convenience. I’ll be on pins and needles until I hear from you.” She left her number and then offered a melodic, almost inviting, “Bye,” before the connection was broken.

He didn’t realize that he’d been holding his breath until he was compelled to release it. Listening to Constance Beaulieu had the same effect as walking through a field filled with honeysuckle blossoms. His head felt as if it were spinning.

James glanced at Stanley. Sitting at his feet, the dog gave every indication that he had been listening just as intently as James had. He cleared his throat. “Lays it on rather thick, doesn’t she?”

Stanley turned his head in his master’s direction. For once, there was no response from the animal.

James blew out a long breath, shaking himself free of whatever it was that had just transpired. Undoubtedly a reaction to the long day he’d put in and the heat that was lingering over the city like a heavy, oppressive hand pushing its citizens down to the ground.

“You’re not buying this ‘my-mother-passed-on’ bit, are you, Stanley?” He snorted. “Oldest ploy in the world. And that accent—I’ll bet you a steak dinner she’s really from Brooklyn.”

This time, Stanley did bark, as if to tell him that they were on. James already knew that Stanley would do absolutely anything for steak. The dog was too damn spoiled.

“Right, and if I win, you have to try that healthy dog food you keep snubbing.” Stanley just looked at him with eyes that could have been either mournful or intuitive, depending on his own mood. “Okay, you’re on.”

Might as well get this one over with as well, he thought. Pulling the telephone over to himself, James began to tap out the phone number she’d left on the answering machine.

Part of him felt it was just another wild goose chase. But he was a cop through and through. Doing the right thing was what he was all about. Even if doing the right thing meant putting up with a lot of wrong people. Hitting the last number, he braced himself.

The phone barely rang once before he heard the receiver being snatched up on the other end.

“Hello?”

The single breathlessly uttered word echoed seductively in his ear. As it took the long way around to his brain cells, an image arose in his head of long, cool limbs, blond hair that moved like a silken curtain in the breeze and a mouth that was, to quote Goldilocks, “Just right.”

He cleared his throat, wishing he could clear his mind as well. Maybe Santini was right. Maybe what he needed was a woman. Not for a relationship or even any kind of a long-term companionship, but just for the most basic, mutual physical satisfaction. “Is this Constance Beaulieu?”

“Yes.” Another image flashed through his mind. A Christmas tree, standing in the middle of a darkened room, being plugged in and suddenly flooding the same area with light. “Are you James?”

He wasn’t too keen on the familiar tone her voice had taken. “I’m James.”

Honeyed words slowly poured over him, one following the other, giving him no opportunity to say anything beyond that.

“And you have my cameo. I can’t tell you how very relieved I am. I’d just about given up hope of ever seeing it again. It’s been missing for more than a year now. It was stolen—”

He thought he perceived her taking a breath. He took his opportunity where he could and jumped in with both feet before she got her second wind. “Well, before you get all relieved, Ms. Beaulieu—”

“Constance,” she corrected.

James suppressed a sigh. “Before you get all relieved, Ms. Beaulieu,” he repeated. He was aware of the old confidence trick aimed at disarming the would-be mark by creating a warm, friendly atmosphere. That wasn’t about to happen. Not if he was the so-called mark. “I’d like you to describe the cameo to me.”

He expected her to pause. Instead, she sounded pleased that he’d actually asked.

“Of course. It’s a profile of a lady. Her hair is all piled up on her head. She’s ivory colored and she’s up against a background of Wedgwood-blue. The same color of the original owner’s eyes,” she added just when he thought she was finished.

Nice touch, he thought. But the description just might have been a lucky guess. According to what Santini had told him, a lot of cameos had Wedgwood-blue backgrounds. She was going to have to do better than that if she wanted him to hand over the necklace to her. He turned it over in his hand, looking at the back.

“Tell me something that’s not in the ad,” he instructed tersely.

There was a pause on the other end. When it continued, he thought he had her. She was like the rest, an opportunist. Too bad. This one had imagination. And style. Not that he bought into the Southern accent, that was a little over the top, but—

“There’s an inscription on the back.”

Her soft voice, burrowing into his thoughts, caught him off guard. “What?”

“Well, not really an inscription,” she corrected herself. “More like initials. Faint ones. You might not even be able to make them out unless you hold them up to the light, just right. But if you do, you’ll see that it reads From W.S to A.D. The A.D. stands for Amanda Deveaux. She’s my great-times-seven grandmother,” she clarified.

He could have sworn he heard a smile in the woman’s voice. She had to be pulling his leg with this. But if so, how did she know about the initials? That wasn’t a lucky guess. “Excuse me?”

He heard a small chuckle. At his expense? “It’s easier saying great-times-seven than stretching it out and saying great-great-great-great—”

“I get the picture,” he told her gruffly. He looked at the cameo he’d placed on the coffee table. “I guess it’s yours, all right.”

He thought he heard a little squeal of joy, but that could have just been the phone line, crackling. Nonetheless, the sound zipped through him.

“I appreciate you taking such precautions, James. I can come over right now and pick it up. There’s a reward, of course. It’s not much, but—”

Again, he cut her short. “I don’t want any reward. I’m a cop.” Ironically, since he worked in R&B, robbery and burglary, this fit nicely into his job description. “This is all part of what I do.”

“A policeman.” This time, the little laugh that left her lips somehow managed to shimmy up his spine. And, much to his annoyance, move in for the duration of the phone call. “New York’s finest. I should have known.”

He frowned. She’d lost him. “Known what?”

“That if anyone would have reported finding it, it had to be someone honorable.”

He didn’t know how well that description fit him. There were times, when he and Santini were chasing down a so-called suspect, someone who took rather than earned and beat anyone who got in his way, that he found himself toying with the notion of taking the law into his own hands. Of going that extra step and making the felon pay for his crimes without dragging the court system and their endless delays into it.

At bottom, he knew that way was anarchy, so he had never acted upon his rare impulses. Still, it was exceedingly tempting to turn thought into reality….

“So,” the woman on the other end of his telephone was saying, “if you’ll just give me your address, I can be over within the hour, depending on where you live, if that’s all right with you.”

No, it wasn’t all right with him. It was so far from all right with him that there was no human way to chart it. Giving out his address was something he rarely did. The department knew where he lived. So did his ex-wife, although with her being in California, he doubted if that made a difference.

But aside from key members of the department, and Eli Levy, the old man who ran the mom-and-pop store he frequented, no one else knew where he lived. He was as private a man as possible in this age of information invasion. And it was going to remain that way.

“Why don’t you come down to the precinct tomorrow?” The suggestion was said in such a way that it clearly wasn’t a suggestion at all but an order. “I’ll have it for you then. Say nine o’clock?”

He heard a slight hesitation on the other end, as if she were torn over something. “I have to be in school at nine.”

“You’re a student?”

“No,” she laughed, ushering in another shiver. “I’m a teacher.”

He listened to his air-conditioning unit struggling. “But this is summer,” he pointed out.

“It’s an all-year school,” she told him. “Is four o’clock all right?”

Never would be better, he thought, but he’d gotten himself into this. The sooner it was over, the better everything would be. He and Santini had some canvassing to do involving the string of restaurant robberies they were investigating, but he could see to it that he was back at the precinct by four. Santini wouldn’t object.

“Four o’clock,” he echoed. “I’m at the fifty-first precinct.”

He began to give her the address but she stopped him. “I know where that is.”

He wondered if that meant she just passed it on a regular basis, or that she had firsthand dealings with one or more of the people there. Again, the thought of a confidence game came to mind. But if that was the case, she was one of the best scam artists he’d ever encountered. “Third floor. Ask for James Munro.”

“Like the president.”

Everyone said that. It took effort for him not to give in to irritation. Instead, he kept his temper in check. “Yeah, like the president. Except we spell the last name differently.”

She surprised him by apologizing. “Sorry, you must hear that all the time.”

There was that little laugh again. The one that sounded like bluebells ringing. The thought caught him up short. Since when did he wax poetic about anything, much less some stranger’s voice on the phone? He was getting punchy. That last outing with Stanley in this heat had done him in.

“It’s just that I’m so very excited.”

She obviously meant that by way of an explanation. Why the words would suddenly nudge things around in his mind, forming close to erotic thoughts about a woman he had never even laid eyes on, he had no idea.

Despite all logic, a feeling vaguely akin to arousal slipped through him.

Annoyed with himself and the caller, he banked his reaction down immediately. Maybe Santini with all his talk of available women and how he should be out there was seeping into his subconscious.

Whatever the cause, he didn’t like it. Didn’t like not having complete control over every part of himself. Especially his mind.

“Tomorrow, then,” he said. He was about to hang up, then a thought occurred to him. He didn’t exactly have a nine-to-five job where he could be found in a given place at a given time. Circumstances did have a way of intervening. Because of that, though it was against his better judgment, he added, “Let me give you my cell number, just in case you get lost.”

“I won’t get lost, James,” she said with the kind of confidence that came from self-awareness rather than bravado. “But I appreciate the offer.”

Everything the woman said appealed to him. It took effort not to allow himself to be drawn in.

James fairly barked out the number at her, then quickly hung up before she could say anything further that would cause him to linger on the phone. He shook his head, not in disbelief but to get his bearings back.

As he banished the residue of the strange sensations that were still milling around him like morning mists on the moors, he became aware that Stanley was eyeing him with what appeared to be satisfaction, if such an emotion could have been attributed to a four-footed animal.

He knew what that was all about. In his opinion, Stanley was smarter than a lot of people he had to deal with.

“Okay,” he sighed, “you win. Steak. Tomorrow.” Stanley came closer and laid his head on James’s lap. He could feel the animal’s warm breath on his thigh. “I’m not going to the store tonight so you can just back off, you hear me? Go stare down something else.”

It turned out to be a Mexican standoff. James did manage to hold firm about his resolution not to go to the grocery store to buy the dog the promised steak tonight. However, unable to endure the animal’s soulful, penetrating look for more than fifteen minutes, he’d wound up taking the chicken breast he’d meant for his own dinner out of the refrigerator and frying it up for the both of them.

The preponderance of the meal, as always, went to Stanley. The dog took it as his due.

It smelled faintly of cleaning products and the sweat of fear, despite the noble efforts of the less than powerful air-conditioning system struggling to make a difference against the oppressive weather outside.

Walking just inside the front door, Constance Beaulieu took a moment to absorb it all. She’d never been inside a police station before. Even when she’d called to report her mother’s cameo stolen, two policemen had been sent to her to take down the information.

Privilege did that, she thought with a hint of a smile playing along her lips. That and the fact that her parents had been friends with New York’s chief of police, the man she’d grown up calling Uncle Bob. The man who she believed, had her mother been so inclined, would have become her stepfather after her own father had passed away.

But her mother had been a one-man woman to her dying breath and Bob Wheeler had respected that, even as it killed him to do so.

Uncle Bob hadn’t wanted either her or her mother to come down to the same place where addicts, prostitutes and known felons passed through. He’d been very adamant about that. She’d eventually turned her curiosity in other directions. Uncle Bob would have been unhappy with her if he’d found out she’d gone against his wishes. Like her mother, she loved the man dearly. Maybe a little more so as she’d grown up and realized just how much he’d given up to be there for them. The man had never married.

“Can I help you?” a male voice behind her asked.

Constance turned around to see a short, squat, powerful-looking man standing directly behind her. He made her think of a tag-team wrestler and gave the impression that he might break out of his rumpled jacket if he took too much of a deep breath.

Grateful for his help, she smiled at him. “I’m looking for Detective James Munro.”

The man who was just a little taller than she was, but not by much, made no response. He looked at her as if she’d just declared she had come in from Mars and wanted to be taken to the leader of Earth for a conquering tour of the place.

Maybe he was embarrassed that he couldn’t help, she thought. Not wanting to be responsible for putting the man on the spot, she gave a small shrug of her shoulder, indicating that it was no big deal. “I can just ask the desk sergeant if Detective Munro’s in if you don’t know him.”

It took Santini a moment longer, but he found his tongue. It was right there, stuck to the roof of his mouth. He peeled it off, still struggling to absorb what seemed to be happening.

“Oh, I know him, all right.” His blossoming grin threatened to take over his entire face. “At least, I thought I did until just now. And he’s in,” he assured her. “Just.” They’d come back fifteen minutes ago. For no apparent reason, Munro had abruptly driven their vehicle back to the precinct, saying that he had to see about something.

This woman certainly qualified as “something,” Santini thought. He shook his head. It was always the quiet ones who surprised you.

His eyes swept over her, issuing a silent compliment. The woman couldn’t have been put together better if she’d been made to order according to the specs of someone’s fantasy.

“This way,” he prompted, leading her to the elevator. “I’ll take you to him. And if you don’t mind my saying it, now I understand what all the hurry was about.”

She didn’t mind him saying it. She just didn’t understand what he was saying. “Hurry?”

They stepped into the elevator. The silver doors closed. “I’m Detective Nick Santini.” Pressing for the third floor, he then put out his hand to her. He had to hand it to James. The man could certainly pick them. “James’s partner. He might have mentioned me.”

She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but could see no reason why the detective she was meeting would have felt the need to mention his partner at all. “No, I’m afraid he didn’t.”

To which Santini nodded. “On second thought, that sounds more like James.”

Constance had no idea why the man who said he was James Munro’s partner looked so much like a cat that had just stolen a bowl of cream, but she pretended not to notice during their short ride in the elevator.

When the tarnished silver doors opened on the third floor, James’s partner indicated the direction she should take and then fell into step beside her.

“So, have you known James long?” he asked amiably.

Maybe the detective had her confused with someone else, she thought. “Oh, I don’t know him at all.”

Santini nodded sagely, or what he hoped would pass as sagely.

“Know exactly what you mean. Feels that way to me, too, sometimes. The man’s like a human clam. If you ask me, I think Stanley gets the best of his conversation.” Realizing that might just put her off, he quickly interjected, “But don’t get me wrong, Munro’s a good guy and a great detective. Nobody I’d rather have watch my back.”

They took a corner in the narrow hallway. Santini was aware that the two detectives they passed looked at him with renewed interest because of his companion. “My wife says the same thing. There’s none better, unless the only thing you’re after is some decent conversation.” And then he laughed as he opened the door to the squad room and held it for her. “But you probably already know that.”

He was talking so fast, he was making her head spin. Though she’d lived in New York since she was fifteen and thought she’d gotten accustomed to the pace in the city, she still had trouble when it came to having words shot at her at the speed of light. There was no doubt about it. Yankees talked too fast.

Except for the man she’d spoken to on the phone last night. He marched to his own drummer, and the beat was a slow one. She rather liked that.

“No, I…”

Her voice drifted off as she looked around the large room. The area was broken up into cubicles, with names affixed just outside each entrance. In actuality, she had no idea what the man she was meeting looked like. From the sound of his voice and the sparse exchange they’d had, she guessed that he had to be in his thirties, possibly his forties.

She smiled to herself as she scanned the area. The man had sounded distant. And tall. She could have spared herself the search. Her newly self-appointed guide was off like a bloodhound that had caught the scent.

“There he is, over there.”

He pointed to a tall, muscular man in a light blue shirt. The man’s sleeves were rolled up and he had a weapon and holster strapped across his chest and back with a perspiration stain forming along the rim of the leather. He made her think of a warrior waiting for his next battle.

Santini raised his voice to get James’s attention. “Munro, you devil, you’ve been holding out on me,” he declared before he ever reached James.

The latter turned around, about to demand to know what the hell his partner was babbling about now, but the words became stuck in his throat before he ever got a chance to utter them.

He’d made the mistake of looking beyond his partner to the woman in Santini’s wake.

The second he saw her, he knew.

This was the woman who’d called about the cameo.

She was the kind of woman who turned heads and now was no exception. As he glanced around the squad room, he saw that every set of eyes within the small space were firmly pinned to her as she made her way toward him.

Her smile was liquid seduction. He could almost feel every step she took vibrating inside of him, its tempo increasing.

He’d all but talked himself into believing that the woman with the silky voice undoubtedly resembled a troll-in-training. That kind of thing was nature’s way of playing a little joke on him. The silky voice made you conjure up images of an impossibly beautiful woman only to shatter those images with harsh reality. The smoothest male voice he’d ever heard belonged to a man who was five-seven and weighed in at three hundred twenty pounds on his lightest day. There was no reason to assume that the same wouldn’t be true for the cameo owner.