Ben gave her one of his T-shirts to sleep in. She changed in the bathroom and she slept nestled next to him with her head on his shoulder. Ben kept his promise not to take advantage of the situation, but that didn’t mean he would be able to sleep.

From that first night, back in May, when they’d had to share a hotel suite, the moaning sounds she occasionally made as she slept had been his undoing.  For centuries men had been telling women that an unsatisfied erection could be life threatening.  Ben knew it wasn’t true and thanked God for it because if it were, he’d have been dead a hundred times over in the last few weeks.

Ben had lost his virginity when he was 16.  He remembered the guilt he felt after doing the deed when Fr. O’Connor told his religion class that every man wanted to marry a virgin and asked what his class of hormone enraged teenaged boys was contributing toward it.  He also remembered that his twinge of guilt was quickly forgotten when Friday night had come around and he was once again in the back seat with Mary Elizabeth Dinovo.  Mary Elizabeth was the first in a string of girls and women in the last 20 years.  During that time there had been only one he regretting losing.

Right now though, he only wanted one woman.  For three years, Lane had watched him work his way through a stable of women.  And as he lay awake next to her listening to her breathe, he began to lay out his case for making sure she knew he wanted her to be the last woman he’d ever make love to, just as he wanted to be the last man who would ever make love to her.

Chapter 10

Another day another secret

It was nearly midnight when they had finally gone to bed and Ben had spent much of the night lying awake.  Yet, he still woke before the five o’clock alarm.  He got up carefully so as not to wake Lane and dressed for his run.   He ran every morning choosing from one of two different routes, a five-mile run, or a ten-mile run.  Today he needed the ten-mile route and finished in close to an hour.  He returned home and stripped out of his running shorts, took a quick shower to wash off some of the sweat, put on his swim trunks, and headed to the pool.

The sun had risen and Ben was swimming laps when Lane opened the patio door and stepped outside.  Last night, he had told her that he and Mick were meeting a detective at the Overland Park Police headquarters at one o’clock.  She knew he had a trial starting next week, and she felt guilty about taking his time away from the trial preparation that she knew he would be doing if only she hadn’t found a body.  She had found his robe and wrapped it tightly around herself as she sat watching his beautiful muscled body move through the water.

She hadn’t understood the importance of what Ben had said last night about the murder weapon.  He had distracted her with his kisses, but now she remembered that he had said the ‘murder weapon’ was planted in her bedroom.  Surely that meant that Mick had confirmed that not only was it blood on the screwdriver, but also that it was Paul Gardner’s blood.  It was time for her to get her head out of the sand, and do some research on her own.  Ben didn’t want her alone and she had told him she would stay, but she’d be alone when he was at work.  Once he left for work, she would go home to get clothes and her laptop.

Once you cut through all of the extraneous crap, the internet could be a marvelous source of information.  Lane knew from all of the crime and mystery books she read, the answer to who committed the murder could always be determined if you uncovered enough information about the victim.  She intended to find out everything she could about Paul Gardner.

Ben emerged from the pool like Neptune rising from the sea and smiled when he saw her.  He rubbed his head.  “I could get used to this.” He said as he used his towel as a lasso to pull her close to him and brushed his lips against hers.  “I’m glad you’re up.  Let me get showered and dressed, and then I’ll drive you home so you can grab some things.”

And, that was it.  Ben was taking care of her and she was allowing it.  It was 7:30 a.m. when he dropped her back at his house.  She kissed him before she got out of his Jag and walked into the open garage.

Lane wandered through the empty house to the master bedroom.  She smoothed her hand across the duvet and wondered how many women had slept next to him in that bed.  She’d never been the jealous type. When she found out Gus had been unfaithful every chance he’d gotten, she had just walked away.  In her opinion, a man with fidelity issues wasn’t worth fighting to keep.  As far as she knew, Ben was at least serially monogamous. That in itself would be a vast improvement over her two ex-husbands. It was true that Phillip hadn’t slept with other women while they were married, but he had slept with that man from Chicago.  That was the reason that Lane had gotten a full battery of STD and aids testing done before Jamie was born.  While Phillip assured her he’d only had sex with the new love of his life, she didn’t know anything about his friend, Ralphie.

Lane had only had sex with three different men in her life.  Two she’d been married to; and to her shame, the third was a one-night stand just days after Phillip had confessed he was gay and left her.  At the time, she was feeling undesirable, and vulnerable, and lonely, and ugly and she had gone out with friends to the new casino in Council Bluffs.  They’d had drinks and danced with a bunch of younger guys who were there to celebrate someone’s birthday.  She was 32, the mother of two and had welcomed the attention of the younger guys.  She’d had her first experience with tequila shots and the next morning, she had woken up hung over, naked, and alone in a hotel room.  While the night before had made her feel sexy and desirable, the morning after had just left her feeling sick and confused.  She had been so drunk that she didn’t even know whether she had anything to be ashamed of.   She shook her head.  She hadn’t thought of that in years.

She was stripping out of her clothes and making her way to the shower when her cell phone rang.  It was her assistant Meg, just checking to see how she was doing.  She smiled as she ended the call.  In some ways, Meg was far more than an assistant, she was mother, friend, and jailer all rolled into one.  If Meg and her daughter, Jess, ever became friends, Lane would be in serious trouble.

She finished her shower then dressed in jeans and a sleeveless pink cotton blouse with tuxedo pleating.  She wandered barefoot into the spotless gourmet kitchen.  She opened her laptop and powered it on.  When she clicked the icon for internet explorer, she got a message that she had no internet connection.  Her computer found only one connection and it was password protected.   Of course, Ben’s Wi-Fi would be a secure connection.  She checked the time as she texted Ben “Wi-Fi pswd?”  She got a glass and filled it with ice then poured a Diet Dr. Pepper.  She found peanut butter and smiled because it was her favorite, Skippy.  As she put two slices of bread into the toaster, she heard the text message come in. “mieravuota”

Lane laughed.  Of course, his password would be some Italian jumble.  She entered it and wondered what it meant.  When she was connected, she found a translation website and pasted the password into it only to find that the same jumble of letters was spat back out to her.  Maybe it wasn’t Italian.

She went to her favorite search engine and entered Paul Gardener + Kansas. Soon the screen filled with possible matches including a partial obituary notice.  The obituary notice stated that he had owned a car dealership specializing in high-end vehicles.  Well, heck, she needed a new car, didn’t she?

She worked her way through several of the search results including a hit for a genealogy site that she had used herself.  She entered his name and got a hit.  It took hours, but eventually she built a family tree for the man she found dead nearly a week ago.  Wading through the genealogy hints seemed to take forever.  Getting a hit on Paul Gardner was easy.  She found that he’d been married twice, but couldn’t find anything about children.  It took some expert web research through other sites to discover that Paul Gardner was born Paolo Gardino.