Her Special Charm

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 seat. “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.”