“You’re free,” Constance said.

They were barely an inch apart from one another, so close that their breaths mixed and became one.

All sorts of things were going on inside of James. Things he couldn’t understand or unravel. Things he felt it best not to examine.

“Not hardly,” he murmured, more to himself than to her.

Constance’s heart jumped up into her throat and made itself a home there just beneath the oval of the cameo.

And then everything stopped.

For all she knew, the world had abruptly stopped turning on its axis. Because she felt the room tilting.

James placed the crook of his finger beneath her chin and raised her head a fraction. Placing her lips just within reach.

Their eyes met and held. Seconds were knitting themselves into eternity.

She wasn’t sure who cut the tiny distance between them to nothing….

Her Special Charm
Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To everyone who’s ever believed,

against all odds, in the power of love.

MARIE FERRARELLA

This USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author has written over 140 books for Silhouette, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide.

October 8, 1861

My dearest love,

I hope this letter finds you and that you are well and whole. That is the worst of this awful war, the not knowing where you are and if you are. I tell myself that in my heart, I would know if you are no longer among the living. That if you were taken from me in body as well as in spirit, some piece of my heart would surely wither and die because it only beats for you.

Each evening I press a kiss to my fingers and touch the cameo you gave me—the very same one I shall not remove until you are standing right here beside me—and pray that in the morning I will rise and look out my window to see you coming over the ridge. It is what sustains me in these dark hours.

I miss you and love you more each day.

Your Amanda

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Prologue

July 1, 1865

Amanda Deveaux paused to wipe her forehead with the back of her hand. The sun was merciless today. As merciless as the war that had engulfed them all these long years, turning all their lives into ashes.

She paused and looked to the north. To the road that led onto her property. She hoped to see some sign of Will. Like every day since he had left her to fight and be brave, there was no sign of his approach.

Amanda sighed. Each day her hope grew a little thinner, her despair a little heavier.

Squaring her shoulders, she wrapped her fingers around the hoe she’d been using to coax life from the garden that sustained them.

The War between the States had come to an end three months ago, but not her ordeal. That continued to stretch out endlessly before her, each day no different than the one before. No different than the one after.

Everything had changed since Lt. William Slattery had ridden away, leaving her behind to wait. To pray. To each day slip a little further into her own personal living hell. The war had taken her brother Jonathan. He was one of the many who had fallen at Chancellorsville. And it had taken her father as well. Not on the battlefield, but here, where each day she watched him grow more distant, more lost. Eventually, Alexander Deveaux had faded away from life because his oldest born was no longer in it.

A year ago, her younger sister, Susannah, had married Frasier O’Brien. Frasier had come home early from the war, nursing a wound, and had just forgotten to return. He’d taken over his father’s emporium, sustaining the town at a large profit to himself. Savannah had become his wife and avarice his mistress, which suited her mother just fine. Belinda Deveaux admired a man who worshipped money. Which was why her mother had never liked Will. His family’s wealth had never met her standards.

And now, no one but Frasier had money.

She knew her mother had been secretly glad when Will’s name had appeared on that awful list of men who were missing. That had been almost two years ago. Right after Gettysburg had broken their backs and their spirit.

Many had left the area, but even after her father had died, Amanda continued working the plantation with the few emancipated souls who had chosen to stay in the only home they had ever known. She couldn’t pay them. They remained anyway, saying that when there was money to be had, they would collect.

And all the while, she watched the road, praying for some sign of the man she had never stopped loving. The man whose cameo she wore around her neck, the one she had promised never to remove until he returned to claim her for his bride.

The ivory image of Penelope against the Wedgwood-blue background had been worn down from her constant fingering. She touched it whenever she thought of Will. And whenever she prayed for his safe return.

She touched it a great deal.

In town, they called her “the widow woman who had never been a wife” behind her back. They said she was a little crazy, waiting for a dead man to come back to her.

She didn’t care what people said. All she cared about was getting from one end of the day to the other, holding on until Will returned to her. Because he had given his word that he would and he had never broken a promise to her.

Amanda got back to work. There were mouths to feed and people depending on her.

Chapter One

Present Day.

James Munro liked to come out early in the morning, when the city that never slept dozed a little. At five-thirty in the morning, New York City was a little less. A little less noisy, a little less traffic and, the elements willing, a little less sweltering. So far, July had been merciless.

So he and his dog Stanley went out to jog earlier and earlier, trying to find some kind of happy medium between exercising and melting in the heat of the morning. It was the only time of day when he could make his mind a blank. To focus on nothing. To keep away the demons that populated his world.

The air was particularly hard to draw into his lungs this morning. Just a little farther, he promised himself as he sprinted from one curb to the next, and then he and Stanley could turn around and go home.

He’d turn at the newsstand on the next corner. The way he always did. Raul, the man who operated the tiny stand, was usually just opening up as he’d make his turn. They had a nodding acquaintance. More than once, Raul looked as if he wanted to say something. But the ex-vet, as the sign over the newsstand proudly proclaimed, could save it for one of his customers, James thought. He wasn’t out here to talk to anyone. Except maybe Stanley.

He didn’t see the woman until he’d almost tripped over her.

Which was highly unusual, given that, as a robbery-and-burglary detective, James was pretty much aware of all his surroundings, even when he was tuning things out. But one minute, there was no one in front of him, and the next, he had to come to a skidding halt to avoid colliding with the short, rounded woman in the soft-blue sundress.

Reflexes honed to a sharp point, James just narrowly avoided running straight into her. Stanley, his five-year-old German shepherd, looked disgruntled as he shifted from side to side, wanting to continue.

The jog was placed on hold. Thrown off balance, the woman sank to the sidewalk right in front of James. His arms went out to break her fall, but he was too late. She was already down. For a second, James was convinced he was going to have to summon an ambulance. People around the woman’s apparent age didn’t fall like that without suffering consequences.

A startled, small cry escaped from the woman’s lips as she met the concrete, but there was no scream, no cry of anguish. There wasn’t even a look of horror flashing across her cherubic face.

Stanley tossed his noble head, barking once, as if to bring James’s attention to the woman on the sidewalk. The dog’s keen brown eyes darted around. Stanley had obviously appointed himself the woman’s guardian until such time as his master helped her to her feet and they could be back on their way.

The woman attempted to rise. “No, wait,” James cautioned, placing a hand on her shoulder, “don’t try to get up.”

She gave him a kindly, if reproving, glare. “I can’t just sit here all day, young man. At my age, it isn’t dignified. Besides, in half an hour I’ll be in everyone’s way.” She extended her hand to him, a patient expression on her face.

He had no choice but to help her up. Placing one arm around her shoulders, he all but lifted her to her feet and was surprised at how light she felt. She gained her feet a little uncertainly, but seemed determined to stand.

James had his doubts about what she was doing. She had to be seventy-five if she was a day. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

The woman waved away his concern. “I’m fine, young man, really. Just a little bruised and winded. And embarrassed,” she added in a lowered tone that ended in a small chuckle.

James stifled the urge to brush the woman off. The last robbery victim he and his partner, Nick Santini, had interviewed was about this woman’s age. The interview had been conducted in a hospital because the woman had suffered a heart attack during the robbery. “No reason for that. I came up on you suddenly.”

She smiled warmly at him. “That you did. I was counting out my change for the newspaper.” She nodded toward the stand at the end of the block, then her bright blue eyes turned toward the German shepherd standing beside him. Stanley was panting audibly, his tongue almost touching the sidewalk. “He won’t bite me, will he?”

For a dog whose mother had been a guard dog, Stanley had turned out to be incredibly docile. “Not unless you’re committing a felony.”

“Oh my, no.” The woman covered her mouth with her steepled fingers, as if to keep her smile from widening too much and splitting her face. And then her eyes took full measure of him. He could almost feel her thinking. “You’re a policeman, aren’t you?”

Since he was wearing sweats that proclaimed a popular line of clothing rather than tying him in with any particular precinct, he was a little taken aback by her question. “How would you know that?”

Her smile was disarming. “Just something about your bearing.” Her eyes swept over him. “I can always tell.” And then, after a beat, she added, “My son Michael was a policeman.”

She said the words with pride. But she’d used the past tense. Though when he was outside the job, he didn’t usually possess any curiosity, James still heard himself asking, “Was?”

She nodded. “He retired.” And then she frowned slightly, but it wasn’t the kind of frown that bore malice or any ill feelings at all. She shivered, as if to throw off her earlier words. “Makes me feel old, saying that. Thought it was bad enough when my husband retired, but now I have a retired son as well.”

Her eyes seemed to delve into his as she spoke. Being a good detective had taught him how to listen, even when there wasn’t anything worth listening to, as this clearly wasn’t. It had no place in the small world around him.

“He lives out in Arizona. Don’t see him and his family nearly as much we both would like. If Michael were here, I would give this to him to take care of.”

She hadn’t hit her head, but maybe the fall had jarred something loose anyway. James hadn’t the slightest idea what she was talking about. “‘This’?”

“The necklace.”

It was just getting stranger. He shook his head, wondering if she knew Raul. He could leave her at the newspaper stand and Raul could take care of her. He shifted his body, ready to lead her over to the man. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I don’t quite…”

She pointed to the ground. “Right there, at your feet. It’s what caught my attention while I was counting my change. I didn’t see you coming at all.”

Looking down to humor her, James didn’t expect to see anything.

But there is was.

An old-fashioned piece of jewelry from the looks of it. It was attached to a black velvet ribbon that was no longer tied together. Stooping down to pick it up, he held the cameo up to the woman.

“It’s not yours?”

A delicate hand fluttered to her ample bosom. “Oh my, no. Wish it was.” And then she smiled. “My memory’s not that bad, young man. Still remember what happened to me years ago. And minutes ago,” she added with a twinkle in her eye.

Leaning forward, the woman looked at the cameo she’d pointed out. Stanley came forward and did the same, sniffing the piece, or perhaps the black velvet ribbon that was attached to it. James was tempted to ask Stanley if he detected the scent of past owners on it.

“Lovely, isn’t it?” the woman suddenly asked him. “Exquisite, really. And expensive, I’d say. Probably has a history to it. Perhaps a family heirloom.” She raised her eyes to his. “Someone must be very upset about losing it.” She said it as if it were an emphatic statement that left no room for argument. “I’d say the best thing you could do would be to place an ad in the newspaper about it.” She put her hand over his. “It would be the kind thing to do, putting an end to someone’s unrest.”

It might be the kind thing to do, but in his line of work, there was no room for kindness, no time to stop and even notice the roses, much less attempt to smell one of them.

He opened his mouth to say as much.

James couldn’t explain it. If he tried, he was sure whoever he told would think he was crazy. Maybe he even entertained that notion himself, but when the old woman placed her small, soft hand on his, he experienced the oddest sensation of peace wafting over him. Something he was completely unacquainted with, but somehow still recognized.

It was fleeting, but it was there.

He cleared his throat, giving a half shrug. “Maybe I’ll do that.”

She beamed with pride, looking every inch the grandmother than he had never known.

“That’s just what I’d expect an officer of the law to say.” She glanced at the piece, than back at him. “It’s a cameo, you know.”

“No,” he admitted, “I didn’t.” Santini knew his way around jewelry, but he didn’t. The man’s wife demanded a decent piece for every occasion.

“Young men don’t usually,” the woman replied with a gentle laugh. Taking the cameo from him for a moment, she turned it around to examine. “And there seems to be an inscription on it.” Her eyes squinted. “But it’s very faint.”

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 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.”

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.

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.

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.”

The way she said it, he believed she meant it. From where he sat, the woman appeared to be pretty complete as it was. He watched her untie the black velvet ribbon and placed the cameo against her throat. She leaned her head forward just a touch as she tied the ribbon at the nape of her neck. Finished, she tossed her long, straight blond hair back over her shoulder, then raised her chin as she looked at him. Her eyes were smiling at him. Touching him.

Which was impossible.

But he still couldn’t shake the feeling.

“How does it look?” she asked.

He wasn’t one to notice jewelry as a rule. But this looked as if it belonged exactly where it was. Resting against the hollow of her throat. Moving seductively with every breath she took. The blue of the background made her eyes seem even more vivid than they already were.

He was mesmerized. It took him a second to get his bearings.

“Fine.” He bit the word off, wanting to get back to something that he knew his way around.

Constance touched the cameo, as if to assure herself that it was really there. Welcome back, she thought. Her gratitude felt boundless.

“Are there some papers I need to sign?”

James shook his head. “This wasn’t official police business, so no, there’s nothing for you to sign.” He certainly didn’t require anything. “You can just go.”

As quickly as possible, he added silently. Maybe if she went, the edgy feeling he was experiencing would leave with her. When she didn’t rise to her feet immediately, an uneasiness undulated through him.

“I can’t go without giving you some kind of reward,” she protested.

There were folders all over his desk, hard copies that went along with the series of robberies he and Santini were investigating. They had yet to make it into the computer. He nodded toward them. “Letting me get back to my work is reward enough.”

“No, really,” Constance insisted, leaning forward. Bringing with her a whiff of something sweet and stirring. And unsettling his gut, he noted darkly.

The sooner she was gone, the sooner he could grab something to eat. “Yes, really,” he insisted.

She knew ahead of time that he wouldn’t accept money or a gift. He wasn’t that kind of man. It didn’t deter her. “There has to be something I can do. At least let me take you out to dinner.”

He remained firm, fully aware that other men in his position would have given in immediately. Having dinner with a beautiful, grateful woman, well, there were a great many worse things in life.

But one thing always seemed to lead to another, ushering in unwanted complications. Even this. It had begun as a reluctant good deed on his part and wound up turning him into the center of attention in the squad room, a position he couldn’t have hated more if he tried.

The adage about no good deed going unpunished whispered through his mind.

His eyes met hers. “No need,” he repeat with feeling.

Sensations rippled through her as she continued looking into his eyes. There was a need, a definite need, she thought.

Something in his eyes just beneath the surface spoke to her. Told her she was in the presence of one of the walking wounded. Her mother had always said she had a knack for finding lost spirits and restoring them.

Was that what had happened between her and Josh?

No, it wasn’t, she told herself. With Josh it had been different. She’d been the one in need.

But all that was behind her.

The end result was what mattered. She hadn’t made the mistake. She’d followed those unsettling instincts that had kept nagging at her, refusing to allow her to sit back and let Josh take full control of everything the way he’d kept first hinting, then suggesting, and finally insisting that he do. He’d claimed that she couldn’t love him if she didn’t trust him.

Truer words were never spoken.

Feeling somewhat guilty, she’d had Josh and her mother’s accounts checked out by an independent third party. That had brought the truth home to her. That she’s been nothing more than a walking bank account to Josh. A rather sizable bank account. Of course, it wouldn’t have remained large for very long because, as it turned out, Josh Walker had lousy business instincts.

She fingered the cameo at her throat. It already felt as if she’d worn it forever. Thoughts of Josh and the mistake she ultimately hadn’t made swiftly disappeared from her head.

Instead, she concentrated on the man who had reunited her with the cameo. One look at the determined set of his jaw told her that there was no arguing with the man. At least, not here. This was his terrain she was standing on.

Rising to her feet, Constance extended her hand toward him once again. His grip was firm. Like her father’s used to be.

The memory warmed her.

“I really don’t know how to thank you,” she repeated softly.

“Then don’t try.”

The way he said it, she knew he thought that put an end to it. She never liked being the one owing a favor. Her mother had raised her to believe that it was far better to give than to receive—and right now, she was on the receiving end. But not for long, she promised herself as she walked out of the squad room. She nodded at Detective Santini as she passed him.

“I see it’s still intact,” he commented.

She looked at him curiously. “What is?”

“Your head. Munro tends to bite people’s heads off—without meaning to,” he explained.

She turned her head side to side for his benefit. “Yes, still there.” And then she smiled at him as she left.

Santini sighed. If he didn’t have a wife and three kids… Glancing toward his partner in the distance, he shook his head. Some guys had all the luck. And didn’t even know it.

Chapter Four

Stooped beneath the weight of obvious disappointment, Santini dropped into the chair that Constance had just vacated and pinned his partner with a look of utter disbelief. “And that’s that?”

James shuffled through the files on his desk, trying to remember what he was supposed to do. He was in even less of a mood for what he knew was coming.

Santini rose, then sank down again. He gripped the armrests as if to provide emotional support for himself.

“You’re just letting a beautiful woman—a grateful beautiful woman—just walk away like that?”

James spared him exactly one glance. “Couldn’t think of anything to arrest her for.”

Santini snorted, shaking his head. “How about possession of gorgeous body with intent to make grown men humbly drop to their knees?”

A knowing half smile lifted the corners of James’s mouth as he continued his search. “Rita has you sleeping on the couch again, doesn’t she?”

Santini frowned. “We’re not talking about me, we’re talking about you.”

“No,” James said with finality, closing the last un-cooperative folder. “We’re not.” James shoved the folders into a haphazard pile. He far preferred being out in the field to dealing with paper anyway. “C’mon, let’s go. We’ve still got that last area to canvass.” He looked pointedly at his partner when the latter made no move to get up. “You know, that stuff they pay us for? It’s called detective work?”

Santini looked like a man whose hot air-balloon had been shot down before it ever had a chance to begin its journey. It was clear that he was hoping to experience a little vicarious thrill. “Well, at least you know that much.”

James pulled his jacket off the back of his chair, but didn’t bother putting it on. The two men walked toward the doorway leading out of the squad room. “Meaning?”

Santini moved fast to keep up. “Meaning you don’t know a good deal when you see one.”

It wasn’t a “good deal” he saw when he looked at Constance Beaulieu, it was trouble. Trouble with a capital T. He got enough of that on the job. “Maybe I don’t want ‘a good deal.’”

Santini halted just outside the squad room, looking at James as if he’d never seen him before. He lowered his voice as he asked, “Munro, you’re not…?”

James gave him a dark look. “No,” he said firmly, “I’m not.”

“Because it’s okay if you are.” Santini shrugged his wide shoulders. “It’s just going to take me some time to get used to, that’s all.”

James went to the stairwell, throwing open the fire door. He preferred taking the stairs to waiting for an elevator. It was faster. “The only thing I am is a man who’s getting really close to strangling his partner. And at this point, I don’t think any jury’s going to convict me.”

Santini followed him down. An huge sigh escaped his lips as he made it down three flights and then to the underground level behind James.

Holding the outer door open for him, James found his tolerance in short supply. “What?”

“Nothing.” They made their way through the underground parking structure to where James had left the car. “Just sometimes I wonder what God was thinking, wasting all those looks on a guy who doesn’t know what to do with them.”

Reaching the car, James got in behind the driver’s seat. The enclosed area felt stuffy. It didn’t improve his mood.

“I know what to do with them.” He jammed the key into the ignition and turned it. The engine hummed to life. “I wash them, I clothe them, and I get them over to a crime scene.” He glanced over his shoulder to see if the way was clear. It was, but he still didn’t back out. Instead, he gave Santini a warning look. “And if you don’t drop this, we’re going to have our own crime scene right here, right now. Except that you’re not going to be in any shape to investigate. Now am I making myself clear?”

“Yeah.”

Santini sounded more like a sulky child than a grade-A police detective, but he would take what he could get.

“Good. Now let’s see if anyone around Playa del Rio saw or heard anything yesterday that might be useful.”

For once, his partner didn’t hold out much hope. “Everybody’s going to have a terminal case of deafness,” Santini predicted.

James slanted a final look at his partner before he pulled out of the parking structure and onto the street. “They don’t know how lucky they are.”

It was the usual dance. The robbers had been quick, efficient and seemed to know exactly when to strike—when the register was fullest. After questioning dozens of employees, customers and people who lived and worked in the general vicinity of all five of the restaurants that had been hit in the last five months, they were still coming up empty. There were no leads, no clues.

In the winter, that kind of thing didn’t irritate him nearly as much as it did in the summer. Humidity always shrank his temper down to almost nonexistent, like a wool sweater thrown into the dryer set on hot.

The only good thing was that, confronted with the details of the case, Santini had finally stopped yammering about the woman who had come to claim her necklace.

Cameo, he mentally corrected himself. She’d called it a cameo. Him, he didn’t know the difference between a cameo and a camcorder. Things like that were Santini’s department. His partner had a keen eye when it came to possessions while James had the nose for something being out of kilter. For overlooked details and things that didn’t quite add up unless you tried using a different kind of math.

But not this time.

Leaving his car parked in the facility where he rented a monthly space, James crossed the street to get to his apartment. Heat rose almost like steam from the sidewalk, a testimony to the rain that had fallen earlier for a short duration. Not enough to cool, just enough to add to the stickiness of the night.

For the moment, the case had him stumped and he hated that. Hated feeling at a loss. There had to be something they were missing, some speck of a clue that by itself meant nothing but, in the proper light, made all the difference in the world.

The robberies were obviously the work of the same people. So far, though, he hadn’t been able to find the connection. The restaurant employees were different at each location. No one was related to anyone else. They ordered their meats and produce from different suppliers, used different employment agencies. Nothing was the same.

Yet something had to be. The robberies just didn’t have a random feel to them.

He tried to console himself by thinking that there would be a slipup. There always was. Someone got greedy, someone got sloppy. And when they did, he’d be there to catch them. It was as far into optimism as he ever allowed himself to venture.

Glancing at the number that registered above the elevator doors, he saw that the car was almost on the top floor. He didn’t have the patience to stand here waiting for it. Muttering a curse under his breath, he took the stairs.

The back of his shirt dripped with perspiration by the time he reached the third floor. After letting himself into his apartment, James dropped his keys on the small table next to the door. He deposited his weapon in a more secure place. On top of the single bookcase that stood with its back not quite flush against the wall. The floor was uneven. Located near the subway, the apartments in the building all showed the signs of wear that came from having several trains an hour rumble by not too far from its foundations.

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