“No, I haven’t heard from the prosecutor.  Is it a competency hearing or something,” Lane asked as she scrolled through her e-mail in-box.

“Yeah, something like that.  I can’t believe Ben hasn’t mentioned it.”  Please, Lord, let her tell me they’ve broken up. Mick thought.

“Ben hasn’t said a thing about it.  He’s been pretty busy with that trial, you know.”

That sounded like an opening to him, “How about I pick you up and we talk about it over lunch?  Can you get away?”

Lane looked at her calendar.  She was the Chief Privacy Officer for Telco Unlimited; most days it felt like she spent 10 hours a day in meetings, but today her afternoon was free, and maybe some fresh air would make her feel better.

“I could do lunch.  I’m free for the rest of the day.”

“Great.  I’ll be there in ten,”  Mick said, and not waiting for a response, he ended the call.

Lane laughed.  When they first met, Mick had shown up for lunch three days in a row.  That was when she had been sure she was his prime suspect.  She remembered thinking that you knew you were in trouble when Columbo started showing up all of the time.  The other thing she remembered was that Mick McGuire had trouble estimating time.  If he said he’d be at her office in ten minutes, chances were good that he was calling from in front of the building.

She hoped she’d have time to stop in the ladies’ room.  All of that tea was just running right through her.  She told Meg that she was heading out for lunch.

“Meeting Detective McGuire,” Meg, who had a tendency to be all up in Lane’s business, asked.

Usually it didn’t bother Lane, but since Ben had begun their hiatus it seemed like everything bothered her.  “Yes, I’ll be on my cell if you need me,” Lane replied as she picked up her purse and headed out of her office.

When Meg had first met Mick, who was six feet four inches tall with dark hair just turning silver around the temples, she had thought he looked a bit like Pierce Brosnan.  Meg had called him tall dark and handsome and then she’d met Ben.  She had called him tall dark and oh my god gorgeous.  Ben was also six feet four inches tall, with dark hair minus the silver.  He could be George Clooney’s taller, younger, much, much better looking brother.

Lane stopped in the restroom before taking the elevator to the lobby.  As she suspected, she found Mick sitting in front of the building.  He quickly got out of his Explorer and opened the passenger door.

Lane had her strawberry blonde hair in a French twist, diamond hoop earrings sparkling as she walked.  Mick recalled that she always wore her hair up when she was at work.  She wore a red wool suit with a cream colored silk shell and three inch red heels.  She was gorgeous.

Mick walked around and got into the SUV as Lane buckled her seatbelt.  “How does the Cheesecake Factory sound,” he asked.  He noticed she was still wearing the boulder of an engagement ring Bellini had given her.

Lane smiled. “I could stand a little cheesecake.”

They talked a bit about the weather and politics during the fifteen minute drive.  Mick could barely keep his eyes off Lane and focus on the traffic as he drove.

They were seated quickly, and the looks the other patrons gave them as they walked to their table wasn’t lost on him.  It reminded him of the first lunch they’d shared. He smiled.  She’d been wearing red that day too.  They’d met at J. Alexander’s. Mick hadn’t recognized Lane that day as she had approached him, but he remembered how the crowd in the waiting area had separated for her like Moses parting the Red Sea.  People noticed her and she was oblivious to it, and it was sexy as hell.

The waitress quickly came and took their drink orders.  Lane had ordered iced tea when they had lunched together in the summer, but today she ordered hot tea and Mick looked quizzically at her.

She smiled. “I’ve been feeling a little under the weather.”

If this is how she looked when she wasn’t feeling well, he’d like to see her when she was feeling great.  He thought about last summer, she’d been suffering from migraine headaches when he’d first met her.  He shook his head.  It didn’t matter; she was gorgeous even when she wasn’t feeling well.  Lane was five feet ten inches tall and his cop eyes would put her at about 175 pounds. She had big blue eyes and didn’t appear to have a single wrinkle on her face.

The waitress brought their drinks and took their order.  Lane ordered the Shepard’s pie.  How can she eat like that and keep her shape?  Mick wondered as he ordered a Caesar Salad.  Lane waited for Mick to say something about the Rochelle Jones case, so far he hadn’t mentioned it.

She filled the silence. “Tell me about your kids.  When is Michael’s baby due?”  Mick’s oldest son, Michael was a pharmacist, married and expecting his first child, but Lane couldn’t remember when.

“Close to Christmas.  They’re pretty excited.”  Mick was in his early fifties and talking about being a grandfather made him feel old.

“What about Shane?  I think I’ve seen him on the news a couple of times.”  His middle child, Shane was a sports reporter for the local Fox affiliate.  Lane was pretty sure she’d seen him reporting during one or two of her son Jamie’s football games.

“You probably have, he’s been getting a lot of on-air time lately. He’s fine.”

“What about your daughter, Kiley?  She’s a nurse, right?  How is she?”

“Yeah, she’s doing well, still living at home.  She’s working at Shawnee Mission Medical Center.  She works in the NICU, the neonatal intensive care unit.  You know, for premature babies.  She loves it.”

He had met Lane’s daughter last summer at Lane’s birthday party.  What was her name? “How about your daughter, how is she?”

Lane smiled.  Her daughter, Jess, was fine.  She’d been a student at UCLA when she’d been cast in movies being made from a book trilogy.  Harts in Time, which was the first book and movie, would start filming soon in Europe.  “Jess is doing well.”  She smiled, thinking, “Where has Mick been that he doesn’t know about Jess’s movie role?”

“She was cast in a movie and she’ll start filming next month in Europe.”  Maybe Mick didn’t pay any attention to entertainment news.  She wasn’t sure that she would, if Jess weren’t in the business.

Their lunches were delivered and they continued to talk as they ate.  She knew Mick was a widower.  She wondered if he dated and thought about some of her book club friends.  Maybe she could introduce him to one of them.

When the check came, Mick grabbed it thinking this went far better than their last lunch together.  He drove her back to the office, and as she walked into her building, she shook her head.  Mick hadn’t said a single word about Rochelle Jones.

Chapter 2

Trial of the century

Ben was exhausted.  He was defending a state senator, who had gone out before dawn for his daily run, and had come home to find his pregnant wife dead in their bed.  The baby had been cut from her abdomen, and to his amazement was lying on the bed; and she, the baby, was alive.  Senator Harold had called 9-1-1 as any good citizen would have done; and in doing so, had become the prime suspect.  Partially because of the heinousness of the crime and partially because he was a state senator who was rumored to be exploring a move into national politics, the major networks had picked up the story.  Every day was like running a gauntlet to get past the cameras and the news crews as Ben made his way into or out of the courthouse.  Thank God there were no cameras in the courtroom.

It didn’t help that he was having trouble sleeping.  He’d finished jury selection on the Friday after Labor Day, with opening arguments starting the following Monday.  Because he had a crazy woman break into his house and threaten him, and because Lila Crane, an obsessed ex-girlfriend, had threatened Lane; Jess had convinced Ben the only way to keep Lane safe was to step away from her.  So before the trial began, he’d told Lane he needed some space.  That was six weeks ago and only four days after he’d proposed.  It was the worst decision he’d ever made in his life.  He was drowning in space.