Her Special Charm

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.