Her Special Charm

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.

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

Chapter Three

For 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.