Her Special Charm Page 2

  He took it from her and looked at the back of the cameo. At first, there appeared to be nothing, but when he angled it just right, the early New York sun bounced off it in a way that managed to highlight very faint, thin letters.

  “From W.S. to A.D.,” he read out loud.

  He supposed she was right. This was more than just a piece of junk jewelry. Still, he would have paid it no mind if the woman hadn’t pointed it out to him. His field might be robbery, but his expertise was the criminal mind. When it came to things like jewelry, he didn’t know costume from the real thing. That was for someone else to ascertain.

  If he put an ad in the paper, phone calls would start coming in and he didn’t have the time or, more to the point, the desire to interact with the callers this would bring out of the woodwork. That kind of thing was for someone who didn’t have a life that went full throttle every waking minute.

  He turned to the woman, holding out the cameo to her. “I think that maybe you should be the one who places the ad in the paper. After all, you’re the one who really found it.”

  James fully expected her to take the cameo from him. So he was surprised when she placed both her hands over his, closing his hand around the piece of jewelry, and shook her head.

  “No, my dear, I think that you would be better suited for the task,” she pronounced softly, her voice carrying the kind of conviction he found very difficult to argue against.

  But he was nothing if not firm. He just didn’t have the time for this. “No, I—”

  “Trust me,” she said, her eyes on his. “I have an instinct about these things.”

  He frowned. Just what the city needed, another pseudo-psychic. Still, in his experience, people usually were quick to take what wasn’t theirs. That she didn’t was admirable.

  “If no one claims this, it’s yours, you know.”

  “Yes,” she murmured, looking down at the cameo in his palm. “I know.”

  Well, if he had to do this, he might as well get to it. Time and his early morning were ticking away. “Why don’t you give me your name and address and your telephone number—”

  There was pleasure in the woman’s eyes as she laughed. He was struck by the thought that she must have been beautiful at one point. And that time was a thief. “Anyone listening would say you were asking me for a date. My name is Harriet. Harriet Stewart. I live just over there, in those apartments.”

  She pointed vaguely toward a block that was comprised of two high-rise buildings standing elbow to elbow as they faced the early morning haze.

  Stanley was impatient to be gone. That made two of them, James thought. By now, he would have been more than halfway through his jog and back to his apartment for a quick shower and another regenerating cup of black coffee before he went to the precinct.

  This woman with her pleasant chatter was throwing everything off. “You’re going to have to be more specific than that.”

  “Wait, I’ll write it down for you.” Taking a piece of paper and a pen out of her purse, Harriet quickly jotted down the particulars, then handed him the paper. “And you’re with the fifty-first, right?”

  He looked at her, the hairs on the back of his neck beginning to stand at attention, the way they always did when something was out of sync. He’d never met this woman before. He would have remembered if he had. “How would you know that?”

  She gave a slight shrug of her shoulders. “Closest one here. A detective likes to live near his precinct. Makes rushing to the scene of the crime in the middle of the night easier.”

  When she said this, it sounded humorous, not suspicious. Probably something her son had told her at one time or another, James thought.

  “Yeah, right.” Because there was no other choice available to him if he wanted to get going, he closed his hand over the cameo.

  “You have to go,” she said with an understanding nod of her head.

  “Yeah, I do.” He muttered something that passed for “Goodbye,” then turned toward his dog. “Let’s go, Stanley.”

  “Don’t lose the cameo,” Harriet called after him cheerfully as he began to jog away from her.

  James sighed. “I won’t.”

  He could have sworn that Stanley sighed right along with him.

  “You mean she wasn’t hot?” Disappointment dripped from Detective Nicholas Santini’s every pore as he stared at his partner within their police vehicle.

  James had no idea why he’d said anything at all to Santini. It wasn’t as if he was one for sharing. That was Santini’s department. Santini shared everything with him, from last night’s fight with Rita to his concern with premature male-pattern baldness—something anyone looking at the man’s extremely full head of hair would have chalked off to paranoia. James was the closed-mouth one, but the woman he’d encountered had left a strange impression on him and he guessed he just wanted to sound it out loud.

  His mistake. Santini was like a dog with a bone. A starving dog.

  James sighed as he drove down the corner. The light had just turned red. He hated waiting for the light to change. “She looked to be about seventy-five, Santini. Maybe a seventy-six-year-old would have found her hot, but no, she wasn’t hot.”

  Santini shook his head. “First woman you trip over—” he slanted a glance at his partner of three years “—literally—in I don’t know how long and she has to turn out to be a senior citizen.” The dark, weathered face gathered around a pout. “Couldn’t you have run into a hot babe?”

  James thought of the cameo he’d left locked up in his desk drawer at home. He still had to place the ad and he was dreading the deluge of response he anticipated. “I wasn’t trying to run into anyone and if your wife catches you talking like that, you’ll be sleeping on the screened porch again.” The light turned green and he was off.

  Santini jolted, then settled back. After three years, he still wasn’t accustomed to the fits and starts of his partner’s driving.

  “Yeah, I know. But a guy can dream, can’t he? I can’t step out on her—won’t step out on her,” Santini amended, probably because the former sounded as if he were henpecked, which he had admitted in a moment laced with weakness and whiskey, but it wasn’t something he liked dwelling on, “but I can live through you—if you had a life, that is.” He frowned deeply, forming ruts around the corners of his mouth. “You owe it to me, Munro.”

  He took another corner, sharply. Santini moaned beside him. “Watching your back is all I owe you, Santini.”

  Santini shifted in his seat, his hand braced against the glove compartment. Another turn was coming up. “So, you putting in the ad?”

  It wasn’t something he wanted to do, but Harriet Stewart was right. Someone was undoubtedly upset over losing a piece like this. The more he looked at it, the prettier it became. He could almost see it sitting against someone’s throat, moving with every breath she took.

  He blinked, wondering if the heat was getting to him. Even the air-conditioning in the car was struggling with the air. “At lunchtime.”

  Patience had never been Santini’s long suit. “Why don’t you do it now?”

  James snorted. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve got a crime scene to cover.”

  Responsibilities had shifted when it came to locking up crime scenes. These days, the scientists seemed to be all over it before the detectives had a chance even to survey the scene. “Why don’t you let the CSU guys do our walking for us? Most of the time they get all huffy if we’re in their ‘way.’”

  It was a constant battle for supremacy. Each department felt they had dibs on solving crimes. It hadn’t been this way in his uncle’s day, when detectives were gods—or so his uncle liked to tell. “And what, hold on to this job with my looks?”

  Santini considered for a long moment, then shook his head. “Naw, couldn’t happen. You’d be let go in five minutes.”

  “Not before you, Santini,” he said, taking a quick turn and then pulling the car up short. Santini nearly bounced in his se
at. “Not before you.”

  Just as he’d predicted. One look at his answering machine and he saw he was drowning in phone calls.

  He glanced at the glaring red number. Fifteen. Fifteen callers since the ad had appeared this morning, each probably purporting to own the cameo. He sat down and played them all.

  Only one was a hang-up, signifying a telemarketer. The rest of the calls were from people who claimed that the cameo belonged to them. Didn’t take a Solomon to know that at least thirteen if not all fourteen were lying.

  He frowned as the last message ended and a metallic voice came on to say, “End of final message.”

  “Might as well get this over with.” The words were addressed to the dog who had come to greet him when he’d opened the front door.

  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 opportun
ity 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?”