He smiled, and stuck out his hand, forcing her to take it and not jump in for a hug, which he knew in his gut was what she wanted. “Mrs. Pallack.”
“No, no, it’s Charlotte, please, Dix.”
He nodded and they went in. They both ordered the blackened halibut.
“Very New Orleans,” he said as he handed the menus back to the red-jacketed waiter.
She only nodded, and immediately launched into questions, not about shared southern experience, not about the two sitting Virginia senators or the governor, but questions about him.
He went answer-lite, keeping things as impersonal as possible. She began asking the same questions again, phrasing them a bit differently. He’d give it to her, she was dogged. When, finally, she wanted to know how his wife had died, he knew Christie was who she really wanted to know about.
He looked into her beautiful eyes, eyes that didn’t have Christie behind them. He found himself watching her face closely as he said, “My wife suddenly disappeared over three years ago. She hasn’t been found.”
He stopped, swallowed, said nothing more.
Their halibut arrived. It was so hot and spicy Dix had to force himself to eat it. It roiled like nasty thoughts in his belly. He picked up a breadstick. It tasted like chalk.
“You don’t know what happened to her?”
“No.”
“You think she’s dead, don’t you, Dix? You don’t think she could have run away, nothing like that, do you?”
“No. She’s dead. Why are you so concerned, Charlotte?”
“I’m interested because it’s something that hurt you very much, Dix. I hate that.”
Maybe Evelyn was right—maybe she was interested in him. Why? Because it gave her a kick to flex her skills with a man who’d so obviously focused on her last night? She was another man’s wife, but evidently, at least on the surface, she had set her sights on him. He’d been an idiot to accept this lunch offer. But the cop part of him was curious. It was time to turn this around.
He asked her, “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“A brother.”
“Is he your only sibling?”
She paused a moment, then slowly nodded.
He arched a dark brow. So there was something about her brother. He let it go for the moment, and asked, “Where’d you go to school?”
“Boston. I fell in love with a German guy—big, blond, had a brick between his ears—and ran away with him to Munich. That didn’t work out at all. My parents were pissed, but at least I didn’t marry him.”
“Are your folks rich?”
She laughed, nodded for the waiter to pour her more of the smooth dry Chardonnay. She gave him a perfect Gallic shrug. “Rich, poor, what does it matter? Bottom line, one makes choices. One either regrets the choices or doesn’t.”
“Oh, money matters, all right. Don’t forget, I’m a cop. I’ve seen how many times money matters too much. Why’d you marry a rich man, one old enough to be your father?”
She actually looked like he’d punched her in the stomach. “That—that isn’t very kind of you, Dix. Why I married him is really none of your business.”
“What do your folks think of your husband?”
“My parents are dead. A long time ago. I’ve been on my own for a while now.”
“How long have you been married?”
“If you must know, three years.” Her voice sharpened. “Any more questions, Dix?”
“Yeah, let’s cut to it, Charlotte. Why did you invite me to have lunch with you?”
She wouldn’t look at him. With her eyes down, she looked so much like Christie he nearly lost his breath. She was wearing a wrap-around silk dress in a pale shade of blue that Christie had favored. It had a deep V-neck, and very long sleeves that fell nearly over her fingers. He saw that her breasts were bigger than Christie’s—but that could be simple surgery. What the hell was he thinking?
He wanted to leave. He didn’t want to know if she wanted to jump his bones. He never wanted to see this Christie look-alike again in his life. It didn’t matter that she probably had some issues with her brother. He didn’t care. He wanted to go home. He wanted to hug his hoys. He wanted to make love to Ruth and call her sweetheart again. He wanted Brewster to jump on him when he walked through the front door, his tail wagging furiously.
Charlotte leaned forward. “You want to know why I called you? Okay, Sheriff Noble, last night you couldn’t stop staring at me. You said I reminded you of someone you knew a while back, someone beautiful. I’m not stupid, I know it had to be your wife Christie. You said your wife’s dead, Dix. That means she’s gone. For a long time now. So, what’s wrong with me?”
So she wanted to amuse herself with him, nothing more than that. He rose, pulled a fifty out of his wallet and laid it next to his plate, realized it wasn’t enough, and tossed down two more twenties. “Nothing’s wrong with you, Charlotte. You’re a beautiful woman and you know it. Now, I’ve got to get to the airport.” He looked one more time at her face, couldn’t help himself. He tried to be a cop, dammit, he was a cop, good at seeing what was in a person’s mind, but he couldn’t get beyond Christie’s expression, one he’d seen on her face when she didn’t know exactly what to say to get what she wanted.
He forced himself to smile, to step back both physically and emotionally, and gentled his voice. “I have to go home, Charlotte. I have to forget your face, forget how you look so much like her it freezes my heart. Go back to your husband—your choice, your life.”
She rose quickly, grabbed his shirtsleeve. “Wait, Dix, wait!” The long dress sleeve fell back. He clearly saw the bracelet around her right wrist, the beautifully faceted diamonds glittering in their small circular settings.
Dix froze. It looked like the bracelet he’d given Christie in Rome on their second honeymoon, on the day of their eighth wedding anniversary, the bracelet she’d worn every single day since that magic drizzling afternoon they’d watched Pietro Magni himself meticulously etch in the words Dix wanted, so pleased with his creation he couldn’t stop kissing Christie’s hand.
CHAPTER 15
Dix picked up Charlotte’s purse and jacket, grabbed her hand, and pulled her out onto the sidewalk into a cacophony of noise, cars, and people thick on Lombard Street during the noon hour. He walked quickly with her close to his side, away from the restaurant, across Lombard, to the parking garage. He pulled her up the stairs to the second level. It was quieter up here, above the din on the street below.
She was trying to pull free of him, panting now. “What’s wrong, Dix? What’s going on with you? You’re frightening me!”
Maybe she was frightened, he wasn’t sure. He realized almost any woman would be frantic to get away from a man who’d dragged her into a garage without any people around. He saw questions in her eyes—not Christie’s eyes, hers—and something else. Excitement? He didn’t release her. He looked down into her face and said very precisely, “Tell me where you got that bracelet.”
Charlotte Pallack blinked. She was clearly surprised. “Bracelet? What—oh, this.” She shook back the sleeve and rolled her hand back and forth, making the individual diamond circles sparkle and dance. “Why ever do you want to know about this bracelet?”
“Where did you get it, Charlotte?”
“Oh, all right. My husband gave it to me as a wedding present. He said he got it in Paris. Why, for God’s sake? Why do you care?”
In that instant Dix the husband became Dix the cop. He smiled at her, released her wrist, stepped back from her, and managed, somehow, to smile. “Sorry about this, Charlotte.” He looked down a moment, felt his breathing hitch. He tried to shrug it off, but couldn’t quite do it. “Your bracelet—my wife Christie had a bracelet a lot like yours, and it shook me to my feet. She loved that bracelet, always wore it. Seeing it on your wrist—well—”