His family was barely speaking to him, which made things especially difficult since his Uncle Salvatore Luciano was co-counsel and in the courtroom every day.  Everyone in his family was tremendously fond of Lane, and they were all furious that she was conspicuously missing and Ben wasn’t talking about why.  Ben was notorious for going through women faster than some people changed underwear, and they were sure he’d screwed up.  They were right.  He had.  Just not the way they thought.  It was true that Ben had been quite a player before he started dating Lane, and the whole family was certain that he’d cheated on the lovely Angel of the Valley (Lane had been born Angelique Valle).  He’d rather cut off his left nut than cheat on Lane.  He planned to be faithful to her for the rest of eternity.  But he’d still made up some stupid excuse about needing space because Lane had mentioned a prenup.

The truth was the day after Lane mentioned the prenup, he’d had his cousin, Daniella Luciano, a partner in the law firm, draw one up.  It gave Lane everything she had before the marriage, everything she earned during the marriage and half of everything he earned during the marriage.  Daniella had told him it was the worst prenup she’d ever seen, and she was ashamed to have her name associated with it.  It didn’t matter.  He knew that a prenup would never be needed.  Still, if Lane wanted a prenup to assure her, then she’d have one.

Lane had been married twice before, both times to idiots of different varieties.  Her first husband, Gus, had been a musician who couldn’t or wouldn’t keep away from the groupies.  He’d come home after having spent months on the road and given her a case of the clap, courtesy of one of his little friends.  Her second husband, Phillip, had come home after a business trip, and made love to her before coming out of the closet and walking out the door, leaving her for his boyfriend Ralphie.

Her son Jake was five years old and Jess was 18 months. To make the situation even more complicated; shortly after Phillip left, Lane had found out she was pregnant.  Lane had raised her three children alone and Ben didn’t blame her for wanting some kind of assurances.  He also suspected her real motivation for asking was to ensure that if anything happened between them, her children were taken care of.  What she didn’t know was that he’d already set up a trust fund for each of her three children.  In fact, he’d done it nearly a year before he’d proposed. He just hadn’t had the opportunity to broach the subject with her yet.

He’d met Lane three years earlier, when she had first moved to Kansas from Omaha.  They had become friends, hanging out together, seeing movies, going to dinner and even going to church together every Saturday night, but he’d kept Friday night open for his date night. He’d spent most of the last three years dating (and screwing) every wrong woman he could find, while the love of his life stood right in front of him.  He’d finally figured it out four months ago.  It took him another three months after that to get Lane to the place where she could tell him she loved him.  He had proposed the next day, giving her a ring from a little blue box from Tiffany’s that he’d been holding onto for weeks.

*****

Uncle Sal had agreed to do an interview with some Kathleen Greene wanna be and he was dragging Ben along.  Uncle Sal was perfectly capable of skirting questions and charming the interviewer, so Ben knew it was punishment.  Ben and his uncle were Italian; Italians are all about retribution.  Sal hadn’t asked about Lane.  That’s the thing about lawyers, in the courtroom and often outside it, they don’t ask a question they don’t already know the answer to. That’s why a criminal defense attorney almost never asks his client if he’s guilty.  Sal wasn’t going to ask and Ben wasn’t going to tell, but Ben suspected that Sal had their investigator, Roy Tanner, looking into the Lane situation in his spare time.  Thankfully, Tanner, who was a retired Kansas City, Missouri homicide detective, was pretty busy investigating for them on the Harold case.

Chapter 3

Feeling sick

Lane had been feeling sick for days now.  She didn’t want to think that it had anything to do with the separation from Ben.  For heaven’s sake, she was forty-nine not fifteen.  They were dating, not married.  She’d decided that if she didn’t feel better by the end of the week, she’d go to the doctor.  Lane had also been having trouble sleeping.  She fell asleep just fine, but she was having weird dreams and she’d wake up with a start, and some nights this pattern repeated more than once.  She could never remember what she’d dreamed, but it was strange.  Normally, she was a fairly sound sleeper.

She got up, showered and dressed.  Years ago, she’d started a rotation method for organizing her closet.  She put on the suit that was furthest to the left.  When she took it off at night, she’d hang it on the far right.  After the second wearing, she would send it to the dry cleaner.  It ensured that she didn’t wear her favorite three or four outfits every day, and it took the decision making effort out of getting ready in the morning.  She found it shaved off at least fifteen minutes from her morning routine and since she wasn’t a morning person, she needed all the help she could get.

Lane usually got into the office around nine o’clock.  She’d started going into the office late when her kids were young so she could put them on the school bus herself.  Besides, you couldn’t always control what time you left the office at night, but you could control when you got in.

She was so happy that she’d hired Meg Kelly.  Meg always had Lane’s office and appointments organized, and today was no different.

“Any calls,” Lane asked, as she walked in and docked her laptop.

“Just one. Mick McGuire called.”  Meg handed Lane the message.

Meg could see the disappointment on Lane’s face.  She knew that Ben had been conspicuously absent for the last few weeks.  Jake either didn’t know what was going on or just wasn’t talking about it.  Lane hadn’t said anything either.  God, thought Meg, who was nearly a foot shorter than Ben, I could just get up on a chair and slap him.

Two dozen deep red roses continued to be delivered to Lane each Tuesday.  The 24 roses were symbolic, to say Ben thought about her every hour of every day, but he hadn’t called since he’d told her that he needed a break.  The roses were in Lane’s office.  The fragrance hit her as she talked with Meg.

Lane looked at the printed calendar Meg had laid on her desk.  Only a couple of meetings today, both were this morning, a 9:30 and a 10:30.

She picked up the phone and dialed Mick’s cell phone.

“McGuire.”

“Hi, Mick.  It’s Lane.  Meg said you called.”

“You know, I completely forgot to talk about Rochelle Jones yesterday.  I was wondering if you were free for lunch or maybe dinner tonight and we could talk.”

Lane smiled.  A dinner could be misinterpreted as a date.  She ran a finger over the engagement ring she wore.

“I could make lunch if you could do eleven-thirty or even noon.  Where shall I meet you?”

“I can do noon.  I’ll pick you up.”

Lane hung up and had Meg put Mick on her calendar.  She and Meg had agreed years ago that only one of them would be in charge of her calendar and Meg had won the battle.

She got through her meetings and at noon on the dot, she took the elevator to the lobby.  Mick’s SUV was parked in front of the building.

He looked up as Lane walked out.  Today, she had her hair in a French braid and wore a black and cream suit.  As he opened the door for her, he thought, “She looks like she could have walked out of a fashion show.” 

“Where to?  Lady’s choice.”  He noticed that she still had on that damn boulder.