Her Special Charm (3 page)

“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, un
less 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.

James realized that his powers of deduction were shot to hell.

F
or a moment, he felt as if he couldn't take his eyes off her. The woman's smile was warm, inviting. Radiant. Standing in its aura, a man could almost believe that people were naturally good instead of desperately in need of redemption.

No one had ever accused him of being talkative, but his mind never went blank—except for now. It didn't help matters any that every single person on the floor was looking at him with unabashed surprise, as well as a touch of envy.

His lack of visitors was a known fact. In his seven years at the precinct, he hadn't received so much as a personal phone call. Stanley didn't know how to dial the
phone and there was no one else, if he didn't count Eli Levy. Which he didn't because Eli would never call here despite all the years they had known one another. Theirs was a one-on-one, eye-to-eye kind of relationship.

“Detective Munro.”

On her lips, his name sounded almost like a song. Which was fitting because she moved toward him like a melody, her hand outstretched, her manner as welcoming as if this were her turf, not his. As if they were old friends instead of strangers.

After a beat, James realized that some sort of reciprocation on his part was necessary. Rousing himself, he took her hand and shook it. Soft, speculative murmurs were beginning to rise all around them.

Maybe it was a bad idea after all, meeting here. He should have suggested the diner on the corner. The coffee was weak, the pastry usually well on its way to stale, but at this time of the day, they would have been able to avoid prying eyes. Nothing he hated more than an invasion of privacy.

“Yes,” he answered almost reluctantly.

Santini looked from one to the other, a bell belatedly going off in his head. “Then you two don't know each other?” There was audible disappointment attached to every syllable.

“Not yet,” Constance replied at the same time that James uttered an emphatic, “No.”

Ordinarily it was hard to hear himself think in the squad room. The constant hum of voices, computer
keys clanking and phones ringing created a constant, annoying, sometimes almost overpowering din. All that had died down. All eyes were still on them, hungry now for a little action, a little amusement and diversion to momentarily make them forget about the harsh, seamy parts of life.

Annoyed by the lack of privacy, by the clear invasion he was being forced to endure, James took the woman by her arm and turned her toward his cubicle. “Why don't you come this way?”

It wasn't a suggestion. More like a command. But she wanted her mother's cameo and would have talked to the devil himself for it. Though gruff, this man didn't look as if he had a tail or cloven hooves. She figured she could easily put up with him.

Constance smiled a little wider. Mama had always told her that a woman's most effective weapon was her smile and she'd found that to be pretty accurate. Being determined and graduating at the top of her college class didn't hurt things either.

“Anything you say, Detective.”

A smattering of barely concealed laughter echoed in the wake of her words, adding to James's annoyance. He brought her over to his cubicle, belatedly releasing his grip on her arm. Not for the first time, he wished he had a ceiling to go along with the walls, or at least walls that couldn't be visually breached by anyone measuring over five and a half feet.

“Have a seat.” He nodded toward the chair that was butted up against the side of his desk. The chair was too
close to him, but there was nothing he could do about it. He would have rather put her on the other side of the desk directly opposite him to gain more breathing room.

He watched her as she seemed to drift onto the chair rather than just sit down. She never broke eye contact, which he found a little unsettling. It seemed as if she were putting him on his guard instead of the other way around.

The best con artists had the same trait. It made them seem more trustworthy. As far as he was concerned, the woman wasn't out of the woods just yet.

Clearing his throat, he reminded himself that he was first, foremost and single-mindedly a detective. It was time he began acting like one. “Do you have any proof that the necklace—”

“Cameo,” she corrected.

“Cameo,” he echoed with a short nod of his head as his irritation mounted. James began again. “Do you have any proof that the ‘cameo' is yours?”

“You mean like a sales receipt?” She pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. That would have been impolite.

“That would be good.” The words were out before he remembered that she had said the cameo had once belonged to a family ancestor. James felt like an idiot and he was none too happy about it.

Especially when he watched the smile she was attempting to keep from her lips creeping out along her mouth anyway. “It would also be impossible. It was my great-great-great—”

“Times seven, yes, I remember now.”

She was digging into her purse. For a handkerchief to dab delicately at the corners of her eyes? he wondered, a wave of cynicism getting the better of him.

But it wasn't a handkerchief. The cool Southern belle with the drop-dead legs pulled a photograph out of her purse. When she held it up for him, he saw a woman with a small girl. Though the clothes appeared somewhat out of date, he saw that the woman in the photograph was the same one sitting beside his desk. Around her neck was the cameo he'd picked up from the sidewalk.

“That your daughter?” he asked, taking the photograph from her. When she laughed, he looked up at her sharply.

“No, that's me. The little girl,” she prompted when he gave her a quizzical look. “The woman wearing the cameo is my mother.”

“She looks just like you,” he couldn't help commenting. He handed the photograph back to her.

“She did.” Unable to help herself, Constance lightly ran her fingertip along her mother's image. Time didn't help. She still missed her like crazy. “She's gone now.”

That's right, he remembered. She'd said as much to him on the phone. He felt a tiny pinprick of guilt for thinking it was a ploy to get him to lower his guard. The woman at his desk looked genuinely sad as she spoke about her mother.

Uncomfortable in the face of her sorrow, James cleared his throat. “I'm sorry.”

Constance inclined her head. “Everyone who ever knew her was sorry.” And that had added up to a great many people. Her mother had friends everywhere. It made Constance proud.

She roused herself before the sorrow could pull her under. “And they were furious when her things were stolen.” Uncle Bob had put men on it immediately. Everything was recovered within twenty-four hours—except for the cameo. It was almost as if the cameo needed to be set free for a time. There were too many strange things in the world for her to laugh away the thought when it had occurred to her. But she was glad to have the piece back. “There was a robbery at the house the day of the funeral,” she explained.

He didn't believe in coincidence. Someone had to have known the house would be empty because of the funeral. “Inside job.”

He looked like a man who didn't trust anyone and she wondered what had made him that way. Something drastic, she felt, her heart going out to him. He also looked like a man who would resent any charitable feelings sent his way.

“Not technically,” she responded. “Turned out to be the cousin of one of the people working in the funeral parlor. He knew what time the funeral was taking place and broke in. The police apprehended him a day after the robbery.”

“Fast.” She heard a touch of admiration in his voice. “Was he that sloppy?”

“The police were that good,” she countered. He
couldn't help wondering if she was pandering to him. “He gave everything up, including his cousin. But he didn't have the cameo. Said he didn't know what we were talking about.”

He raised his eyebrow quizzically. “We?”

She flashed another smile, sending another salvo to his gut. “Sorry, I tend to lump myself in with the good guys,” she continued, moving forward on the chair. Moving closer toward him, he noted. “Anyway, it's been missing for over a year and I didn't think I was ever going to get it back.” She placed her hand over his, catching him completely off guard. As did the warm feeling that traveled through him, marking a path from her hand through what felt like every part of his body. “I don't know how to thank you.”

Her eyes were blue. Wedgwood-blue. So blue that if he looked into them long enough, he couldn't breathe right. That's what he got for not eating lunch during his break, James upbraided himself.

“There's no need,” he told her gruffly.

The man was incredibly modest. But then, she'd sensed that when she'd placed her hand on his. He was a man who preferred the shadow to the light. Preferred going his own way, unimpeded.

“Oh, but there is,” she told him softly. Firmly. “That cameo has a great deal of sentimental value for me. My mother wore it when she met my father.” She smiled. “As a matter of fact, that's in keeping with the legend.”

His brow had knitted together in a single furrowed line. “Legend?”

“That the first time a woman puts on the cameo, she will meet her own true love within twenty-four hours.”

Well, that was a load of garbage if he'd ever heard it. But the way she said it, the words sounded like gospel. She looked too intelligent to buy into something like that. And yet…

Not his business.

“That's bunk,” he heard himself saying.

That he'd even use a word like
bunk
seemed out of character to him. He wondered if his sleepless nights were finally taking their toll. For the last month or so, he'd averaged less than five hours a night. Part of the problem was that he hadn't been able to shake the feeling that he was waiting for something to happen.

What, he had no idea.

She smiled at him. “Yes, I know. But the cameo still has a lot of sentimental value for me.”

There didn't seem to be enough air in the cubicle. His head felt a little fuzzy. The sooner he gave her what she was here for, the sooner she'd leave. And the more air there'd be for him. “All right, then I guess a reunion is in order.”

James took a key out of his pocket and unlocked his middle drawer. The cameo moved slightly as he did so, coming to rest against the center. He realized that the blue background was exactly the same shade as the woman's eyes. Come to think of it, they were the same color as the eyes of the older woman who'd discovered the thing in the first place.

He didn't like coincidences when he couldn't explain them.

He dropped the cameo into her hand, avoiding touching her skin. He didn't know why, but he just figured it was less complicated that way.

About to say something along the lines of “that being that,” he found himself watching her eyes in fascination as they welled up. Damn, he hated tears. He hadn't a clue what to do when a woman cried, only that he was supposed to do something.

With a barely suppressed sigh, James looked around his desk for a box of tissues, knowing ahead of time that he wouldn't find anything.

She used the back of her hand to brush away the telltale marks. A smile returned to her lips and any tears that might have subsequently fallen held their positions.

The cameo felt warm in her hand, like something alive, connecting her to her heritage. “I didn't think I was ever going to be able to put this on.”

“You've never worn it?” Thanks to Santini's never-ending stories about his three girls, he was vaguely aware that daughters played dress-up with their mother's jewelry. That she hadn't seemed rather odd, given her feelings about the cameo.

Constance shook her head. “Mother was adamant about the legend. She firmly believed in it. I got engaged to Josh before she could pass the cameo on to me.” She smiled as the memory came back to her. “She told me the cameo would be there waiting for me if I discovered I needed it.” It was her mother's way of saying that
she didn't completely approve of the match. But then, her mother wouldn't have approved of anyone that the cameo wasn't responsible for “choosing.” Her mother had been very, very superstitious.

James glanced down at her left hand. He told himself that it was just an “occupational habit,” taking in as much about a person as he could, to be used later. Except that in this case, there wasn't going to be a “later.”

Her hand was bare.

She noticed him looking at her hand. Constance curled her fingers under her palm. “It didn't work out,” she told him quietly.

Looking up at her, he shrugged dismissively. “None of my business.”

An enigmatic expression played along her lips. “Wish he had felt that way. Unfortunately, he felt that everything about me was his business, especially my mother's money.”

She saw the look of curiosity enter his eyes. She wondered if he was aware of it. There was no question in her mind that he was trying very hard to maintain distance between them. Asking questions, verbally or otherwise, decreased that distance.

“Josh was my mother's financial adviser,” she explained, “and I discovered right after the funeral that he'd been playing fast and loose with my mother's money.” Which explained the bad feeling about him that had been steadily making itself more known to her, she added silently. “Marrying me would have given him a better claim to it.” Her tone became breezy, as if
she were relating just another story instead of something that had caused her a great deal of pain. “So I broke off our engagement and I fired him.”

“So now you need the cameo to help you find someone.” He tried unsuccessfully to keep the touch of sarcasm out of his voice.

She raised her eyes to his. “No, I
want
the cameo because it had been my mother's. And her mother's before that.” Her smile was warm as she added, “I don't need a man to make me complete, Detective Munro.”