hopes took a sucker punch.
Detective Sergeant Sam Mason was Cass’s new boyfriend. Down-to-earth Sam was good for her flighty baby sister, and for that fact alone Morgan adored him. It was the first serious relationship Cass had ever had, and whenever Morgan saw the two of them together, she couldn’t help longing for the kind of fire-blazing passion they shared.
“In answer to your inquiry, no, I’m afraid the White Star amulet is no longer in the possession of the NYPD,” Sam’s voice spun out into the room.
Morgan had telephoned Sam that afternoon, before heading over to the Grand Duchess, in response to information she had received the previous morning from an archaeologist named Cate Wells. Several months ago Morgan had found an intriguing antique box in the basement of her antique shop, along with an ancient French text about an amulet that had belonged to star-crossed lovers.
At first, Morgan had found the box merely intriguing, but as time passed and she unearthed bits and pieces of the legend, she had become obsessed with finding out the truth about the box, the book and the White Star amulet, which had been stolen last April from the Stanhope auction house.
Sam had been assigned to the case and that was how he’d gotten involved with her sister. Cass had taken the book to him when she and Morgan had realized the stolen amulet was the same one pictured in the book. Morgan had found the tome among the antiques she’d purchased in a lot along with her shop.
Pieces of the puzzle had slowly started to come together, revealing a fascinating legend of star-crossed lovers and the magical power of true love.
Cate Wells had taken photos of the box and then shown them to an expert in the field. He had confirmed the connection, speculating that indeed the star-shaped design on the box correlated with a star-shaped key.
It was in that moment it occurred to Morgan that the White Star amulet was probably the key that opened the box. The key, that last Morgan had heard, was locked up in the evidence room at the Thirty-ninth Precinct, where Sam worked.
“No one knows where the amulet is,” Sam’s taped message continued. “There’s an investigation under way, but it’s looking like a dirty cop took a bribe to steal it for someone else. That’s all I can tell you right now. The station is in an uproar.”
Darn it. Morgan sighed and swallowed her second big disappointment of the day. Another dead end.
Still, she wasn’t a quitter. Once she sank her teeth into something, she hung on until there was absolutely no possibility of victory.
She belonged to an online message board for antique dealers, and there was a thread about stolen antiquities. What would it hurt to make a few discreet inquiries? She’d already posted about the box once before when she was trying to learn precisely what it might be and who its previous owners could have been.
All she would have to do was leave a message saying she’d discovered that a very unique key opened the box. She would try dangling the box as bait for the person who now possessed the amulet.
It was a long shot and she knew it, but Morgan was glad to have something to focus on besides her failed seduction.
She stripped off her sexy clothes—which seemed particularly pathetic in light of what had not happened at the Grand Duchess—scrubbed the heavy makeup off her face and slipped into her favorite pair of silk pajamas. Feeling more like herself again, she poured herself a glass of wine, padded into her home office and booted up her computer.
Logging on to the message board took a few minutes. Then she spent a long while getting the wording of her e-mail just right before she was satisfied enough to post it to the group.
She signed the missive Curious in Connecticut and entered “Special Gem” in the subject line. Satisfied, she depressed the send button, leaned back in her plush leather chair and took a long sip of Pinot Grigio. The slightly sweet liquid flowed warmly through her body, easing her tension.
A few minutes later her post popped up on the message board.
“It’ll probably be months before I get a response,” she muttered gloomily.
She searched through other threads, looking for posts of interest, but found nothing related to ancient amulets or long-lost boxes. Melancholy weighted her shoulders. She wrapped her sadness around her like a cloak, drank it in with the wine until her body pulsed, encompassed by the feeling.
Here it was again, the blue funk that whispered darkly to her in moments of doubt and shame. These feelings did not express who she thought she should be. What was wrong with her? She adored her husband. Why this desperate wish for something deeper?
Why? Because while she had transformed herself from an overworked, overachiever into a woman who was finally satisfied with her own life, it tortured her not to be able to share her personal growth with Adam. She wanted him to join her on this exciting path of liberation. She wanted him to understand how much more fulfilled he could be if he would just slow down and reconnect with the world around him. She longed for a more spiritual bond between them.
Picking up the box that she kept displayed on her desk, she studied it carefully as she had every day since she’d found it.
Intricate hand-carved symbols and designs that looked as if they could be some kind of hieroglyphics whiskered the box made from bubinga wood and darkened with age. The faint fragrance of some rich, exotic spice emanated from it. Morgan traced her fingers across the lid, over elaborate grooves where the expert archaeologist had said was the likely place to open the box with a star-shaped key.
Now that she had learned fresh details about the legend, she was even more fascinated than before. Between translating the old French tome with her new language skills and talking to experts in several disciplines, she had slowly pieced together the legend of the star-crossed lovers.
Three thousand years ago, in a now-vanished desert kingdom, Egmath and Batu had secretly been meeting every evening under the midnight stars near a grove of cypress trees. They shared their dreams, ambitions, lives and eventually their real feelings for one another. Theirs was a pure love, a true love. But alas, it could never be. In accordance with ancient custom, the kingdom’s bravest warrior, Egmath, was chosen to marry Batu’s older sister, Princess Anan, who had become queen.
Egmath spent the evening before his wedding to Anan with his beloved Batu, when she presented him with an amulet she had secretly commissioned. It was made of ivory and fashioned in the shape of a five-pointed star with a hollowed-out center.
With the amulet tightly pressed between their entwined hands, Egmath and Batu vowed their everlasting love to each other. That night, beneath the magic of the moon and the optimism of the stars, Egmath and Batu made love for the first and only time. The amulet blazed brightly. According to the fable, it now held the power of true love for whoever possessed it and was pure of heart.
The story was so sad. Soul mates destined to be together but torn asunder by their culture’s tradition and Egmath’s sense of honor.
Wasn’t that just like a man? Placing duty over love. Morgan snorted.
And poor Anan? What about her? Hadn’t the woman deserved a man who loved her the way that Egmath had loved Batu?
If Morgan closed her eyes, she could see Anan in her marriage, believing it was solid, knowing that she had a good man in Egmath. But somewhere in the back of her mind, as Anan went about her royal duties, she was bound to have
