Текст книги "Family Secrets"
Автор книги: Kate Kane
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Ben had introduced her to his maternal grandparents six months ago when they were visiting from the old country as his Mother called it. His grandfather just kept hugging her and talking in Italian. When she asked Ben what Nonno had said, Ben just told her his grandfather adored her. At the time he didn’t know how to tell his best friend that his grandfather actually said, “Just friends, ha! You’d be a fool to let that beautiful red haired woman get away.” Of course, Ben and Lane had finally started dating a couple of months ago and now he had to admit that Nonno was a very wise man.
“They’re fine. They did ask about you, and of course, they were glad to see me, I’m their favorite. You know, it really is a beautiful place, maybe someday I’ll convince you to come along.”
The waiter delivered a bottle of merlot and poured a little for Ben. It was from Ben’s private reserve, so there was no question about whether or not it would be good. Ben nodded and the waiter poured a glass for Lane.
“So, that was your basketball buddy Mickey. You never mentioned that he was a homicide detective.”
“How did you know that?”
“The short version is I found a body last night when I was at the movies. Detective McGuire’s investigating and I think I’m a murder suspect.”
Ben shook his head slowly. He’d only been gone four days, what was she saying? “Let’s not jump to conclusions here.”
Between ordering and eating, she told him the whole story beginning with finding the body and ending with Detective McGuire’s morning visit when he’d told her the name of the victim. She told Ben about the car accident when she was four and that because of who the victim was she was sure Detective McGuire thought she’d killed the man.
“I know it’s easy for me to say, but I don’t want you to worry.” He reached across the table and held her left hand in both of his. “Let me talk to Mickey. I’ll find out what’s going on.” He gave her hand a little squeeze.
She hadn’t pled her innocence to him. It wasn’t necessary. She knew he believed her to be innocent. What she didn’t know was that it didn’t matter to him whether she was innocent or not.
“No matter what, remember I’m on your side and I’ll do everything in my power to protect you.” He paid the check and walked her outside. He ran his hand down her left cheek and cupped her chin in his hand. “It’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Follow me home. I think a little swim, a little sun, and maybe a drink will do you good. Besides, I brought you something from Italy.”
Ben knew how much she loved to swim. She’d often told him that the pool was the only thing she missed about her house in Omaha. Besides, he thought, he enjoyed seeing her in a swimming suit.
She agreed and soon was floating in the lovely warm water, listening to Frank Sinatra singing in the background. Ben stood at the shallow end of the pool, a 1-gallon Coleman thermos in one hand, martini glasses in the other. He held them up.
“They’re here when you’re ready.” He turned and put them on the table between the lounge chairs.
He walked to the deep end, dived in, and started doing laps. Luckily for her, his pool was a 20-foot by 40-foot lazy L, and his swimming didn’t disturb the raft on which floated. She paddled toward the shallow end, got out of the pool, and headed toward a chaise and the daiquiris.
Ben continued doing laps and planned his call to Mickey in the morning. He and Mickey had been playing basketball every Wednesday night at the gym for just over five years. He knew Mickey as well as men ever know one another. It struck him now that although Mickey was a detective and he was a criminal attorney, they’d never encountered each other professionally before. He hoped this professional encounter was going to be brief. He was as sure that Lane hadn’t murdered anyone, as he had ever been sure of anything.
Lane felt rain, and opened one eye. Ben was bristling his wet hair over her. She moved her sunglasses down her nose and glared at him.
“Hey Sleeping Beauty, don’t you think it’s time to turn over?”
Tony Bennett was singing in the background. Lane pushed her sunglasses back in place. “How long have I been out,” she asked as Ben slathered sun block on her chest.
“Maybe half an hour.” He handed her a new drink.
“Mmmm, maybe I’ll take another dip.” As she dived in, Ben’s landline rang. When she had her own pool, she’d do at least 50 laps a day, but after her second lap, she decided it might be something she needed to work back up to. Ben waved her in and held the phone up.
“For you.” He held his hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s Jess.” He draped a towel over her shoulders and handed her the phone as she stepped out of the pool.
“Jess, honey how’d you track me down here?”
“So, Felix, whatcha doin at Ben’s?” Jess was Lane’s 20 year-old daughter. They were close, each listing the other in the top ten list of friends. A relationship like that was also a two edged sword. It was a better relationship than most mothers, and daughters had; but sometimes, Jess seemed to forget that Lane was the mother and didn’t answer to her. While Jess knew that Lane’s relationship with Ben had changed a few weeks ago, she didn’t need to know all of the details.
“I was just having a swim. What’s so important that you called me here?”
“Well, I called the house, your cell, and your office. When I didn’t get anything but voice mail all of those places, I decided to try Ben and see if he knew where you were, who you were with, what you were doing. Sunday is your day on the Plaza; I was worried when you didn’t answer.”
“My, aren’t you the little detective. You still haven’t told me why you called.”
They both laughed.
“Well, two things. I wanted to see what you thought about my debut on the big screen. And, I called to give you flight info. You do have a birthday coming up, don’t you? Wouldn’t want to miss that now. I know the boys will be planning something big.”
The Boys, as Jess called them, were Lane’s sons Jake 24, and Jamie 17. Jake, who had just graduated with a Master’s degree in Engineering, would start working soon; Jamie was just about to start his senior year of high school. Jess’s comment was suspicious. Jess knew the boys. They’d wait until the day before Lane’s birthday even to think about it. Then they’d call Jess expecting her to have made all of the plans. They’d ask what time they were supposed to be wherever Jess told them to be. It had been like that since they were children. Jess was the caretaker in the group. It wasn’t that the boys were irresponsible. It wasn’t even that they were inconsiderate. They just knew that their mother and their sister would make sure they were where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there.
On the other hand, Jess made plans in advance. Partially because she was a planner and partially because she was the one who had to make flight arrangements to get to Kansas City. Jess was at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) studying film making and preparing to be the next Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Jennifer Lawrence, or whoever the next hot young actress is.
“Okay, here’s the flight info.” She gave Lane the arrival time. “So, what did you think about the movie?”
Lane, who had walked into the house during the conversation, took the flight information and put it in her iPhone.
“Well, the truth is, I’ve seen better movies. But, you were the best convenience store clerk ever. Bar None!”
“Spoken like a true mother. Okay, gotta go now. Meeting some people for lunch. Love you. B-bye.”
“Love you too, B-bye,” Lane replied in the little family tradition of hanging up.
Ben had followed Lane into the house and now was coming out of the master bedroom carrying a bottle of Panama Jack sunburn aloe gel.
“You’re going to need this.” He said as he gently rubbed the green gel onto her suddenly burning shoulders. He steered her toward the master bathroom as she moaned and whined about her sore shoulders and chest.
“Lucky for me, I wear one piece swim suit,” Lane said as she pulled the left strap of her suit down slightly to assess the damage.
Ben knelt down, squirted more green gel into his hand, and began smoothing it on her legs. “You know what you really need is a cool soda bath; and then we can reapply this stuff.” He stood up, walked to the tub, and turned on the water. “No arguments; just do it,” he said as he walked out of the bathroom and closed the door.
Lane stood in front of the mirror shaking her head. Her upper chest was a lovely shade of pink. As she turned the water off and stepped into the cool water, there was a knock at the door.
“Hey, I have the baking soda. If you want it, I’ll close my eyes and bring it in.”
Lane smiled. While they’d been dating for several weeks, they weren’t intimate. “That’s okay. A cool bath and the Panama Jack and it’ll be tan by this time tomorrow. Just don’t let me fall asleep in here. If I’m not out in twenty minutes, call the paramedics.”
Several minutes later, Ben carefully put Lane’s clothes on his bed. Next to them, he put an oblong package wrapped in white with a red bow around it. Then he knocked on the door to the master bathroom. “Hey, are you all right in there or should I call the paramedics?”
“I’m okay. Give me a couple of minutes.” She got out of the tub, applied a liberal amount of Panama Jack on the sun-burned areas, wrapped a towel around herself, and cautiously opened the door. She found the bedroom empty. Next to her neatly laid out clothes, she found a small package with her name on it. She opened the package and found a beautiful diamond tennis bracelet. She held it in her right hand. It must have been at least 15 cwt. in diamonds, set in what she suspected was platinum. Aunt Marta’s voice echoed in her head. “You can’t accept that. It’s just too expensive.” She could also hear Ben’s rebuttal. “Expensive is relative to the giver’s ability to pay.” It was something she’d heard frequently since they’d started dating.
She dressed and went to find Ben. He was on the patio grilling salmon steaks.
“What’s this all about,” she asked as she held the bracelet in the air.
“It’s the present I brought you. And, don’t even try to tell me you can’t accept it. First of all, it’s for your birthday and secondly, I bought it in Italy and thirdly, it can’t be returned.”
He took it from her hand and put it on her left wrist. It was exquisite. He took her hand and led her to the table that he’d already set with china and crystal. Yes, china and crystal on the patio.
“Red, you know how I feel about you. It’s about time you decided what you’re going to do about it.”
They’d met three years earlier not long after she’d first moved to Kansas from Omaha. The church she attended was having a garage sale and since she was gutting and remodeling her kitchen, she had donated the appliances that had come with the house. Ben had come with a mini van and a helper to make the pick-up. Since Lane was donating an entire set of kitchen appliances – stove, refrigerator, microwave, dishwasher, along with a washer and dryer as well, it had taken more than one trip. Ben had seen all of the moving boxes around the house and had come back alone, after the last trip, just to see if she needed help with moving anything.
She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. No one believed that she was pushing 50. In fact, she would be 49 a week from today. And, except in the winter when she sometimes woke up a little achy and stiff, she didn’t feel her age. However, she still struggled with the thought of dating someone to whom she could almost have given birth. Ben was handsome, smart, witty, and self-sufficient. They’d been doing what she called “hanging out” nearly every weekend for almost three years. Eight weeks ago, over a long Memorial Day weekend, Ben had helped her find the kidnapped son of one of her oldest friends. Before the weekend was over, he’d kissed her and she had kissed him back and that was all it took, their relationship had turned romantic.
Ben served the salmon. Lane sat staring at the bracelet on her wrist formulating something to say. She didn’t think of herself as beautiful, and had difficulty reconciling the fact that this gorgeous thirty-six year old man wanted her.
Then there was her history with men to consider. She’d been married and divorced twice. A friend once told her that she was a slow learner. She preferred to think that she just didn’t choose wisely in love.
Her first husband, Gus was a longhaired rock musician. They met during her first year of college and married after knowing each other about three months. He was in a band that cut an album and even got some airtime on the local radio stations. The band spent a lot of time on the road trying to make it big. Lane divorced him 18 months into the marriage after he’d come home with a little communicable disease he’d caught on the road.
Three years later, she married her second husband, Phillip Parker. They met through friends and married after dating for four months. They’d been married for eight years when Phillip came home from a business trip to Chicago; made love to her and then told her he didn’t love her any more. He’d said that in fact he wasn’t sure he had ever loved her. He said he didn’t have a girlfriend on the side. He wasn’t lying. Then he told her that he was gay. Phillip left her with two kids, Jake who was nearly six, and Jess who was almost two, and because of the parting gift of pity sex, a third little surprise, Jamie, was on the way.
Then several years ago, she had met David Dixon at a charity auction. He was in pharmaceutical sales and seemed to be well established. After her earlier mistakes, she’d decided that short romances weren’t the best foundation for a happy marriage. They dated for over six months, and thankfully, before things had progressed too far, she discovered he’d forgotten to get divorced from his first wife.
She was still trying to figure out what to say when Ben bent down and kissed her. Not just a little peck on the cheek or a gentle mouth kiss. This was a kiss to curl her toes.
“There, think about that while I get the wine.” He said as he went into the house.
She sat there alone in the twilight, Frank Sinatra crooning I Could Write a Book in the background, and thought about it all right. She felt flushed. Maybe it was a hot flash. Ben came back out and poured the wine. They talked about the salmon, about her birthday plans, about her kids, about his trip to the homeland, about the case he’d be going to trial with next week. What they didn’t talk about was the bracelet, the kiss, or the murder investigation she’d become a part of.
Before Lane knew it, it was 9:30. Time to go. Her house was only a short drive away. She liked to be home before the 10:00 news. It was part of her routine. She’d turn on the TV in the bedroom, brush her teeth, and wash her face while she listened to the 10:00 news. Then she’d get in bed and do her devotional reading before moving on to whatever mystery novel she was currently reading.
Chapter 3
I really hate Mondays
Lane wasn’t much of a morning person. Her theory was that if Flex Hours meant you could come in between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. she’d aim for the latter and hope she didn’t have a nine o’clock meeting because she liked to have ten to fifteen minutes to get organized in the mornings. That was especially true for Mondays. The problem was that she suffered from what she called Anticipatory Anxiety. Translation: she didn’t sleep well on Sunday nights. So, when the alarm went off Monday at 6:30 a.m., she hit the snooze for an hour. Luckily, her office was only 15 minutes from home. She walked into her office at 8:45 a.m. and checked the messages her administrative assistant had left on her desk while she docked her laptop and turned it on. She used an iPhone and usually checked her calendar Sunday night so she’d know what to expect on Monday. She’d forgotten to do it last night and now she had only a few minutes before her first meeting. Her administrative assistant, Meg Kelly, had everything ready. All Lane had to do was grab her teacup, and open the door to the adjoining conference room. One of the benefits of being the CPO (Chief Privacy Officer) for a wireless telephony company is that her administrative assistant took very good care of her. A pot of hot water and a tray of bagels and fruit were waiting on the credenza in the conference room.
She sipped tea and listened, as the dog and pony show droned on. People selling new software they touted would help get a handle on the customer base and at the same time ensure the privacy of the personal information of and about customers. Privacy issues were near and dear to Lane’s heart, but she just didn’t believe everything that sales people promised.
Meg rapped on the door, opened it, and handed Lane a note. It read “Urgent call from Mick McGuire – holding.” She nodded and excused herself from the meeting leaving Bob Carlson, Director of Privacy Issues to listen to the droning. She had to be honest, she left not so much because the note read urgent as because she needed a break. She walked into her office, and grabbed a Diet Dr. Pepper from the mini fridge as she went to her desk. She made the connection between Mick McGuire and Detective McGuire as she picked up the phone. Family, friends, associates, and corporate foes will tell you that Lane didn’t scare easily. In fact, in a prior job life she’d helped negotiate Union contracts with the Communications Workers of America.
Still, a sense of dread crept up as she spoke. “This is Mrs. Parker.”
“Ms. Parker, Detective McGuire. I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”
“Catch,” why the use of that word,” she wondered. She couldn’t tell anything from his tone. “Actually, Detective, I owe you a debt of gratitude. You rescued me from a very boring meeting. What can I do for you?”
She hoped her voice didn’t reflect the roller coaster ride between concern and panic she was on. She really wouldn’t look good in an orange jump suit. It would not be good with her skin tone and it would clash with her strawberry blonde hair.
“There are a couple of things I’d like to discuss with you. I wondered if we could meet for lunch.”
Again, his voice, deep and thick like velvet, gave no indication of whether he was planning an interrogation, was merely on a fact-finding mission, or was just inviting her to lunch. She looked at her watch, 10:45 a.m. and checked her calendar. She was free until two o’clock. She asked where he’d like to meet. He suggested the Cheesecake Factory. She countered with The Bristol. They agreed on J. Alexander’s at eleven-thirty.
She was having an internal debate about calling Ben, still unsure if she needed a lawyer, when Bob Carlson stuck his head into her office. She held up a finger as she dialed Meg’s number. Meg and she had learned that it was best for only one of them to be in complete control of her calendar. Meg had won. Lane motioned Bob to a chair as she left Meg a message that she’d be out of the office between 11:15 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.
Bob shook his head from side to side, as he gave his evaluation of PROtect, the software package that they’d just seen. Lane was glad to hear she and Bob were on the same page. A lot of promises but not much experience or background. They didn’t even know what Gramm, Leach, Bliley was. She had to be suspicious of a company selling privacy software that didn’t know about the legislation passed at the federal level that had kicked off the whole privacy industry. Bob had told them, that Telco was talking with other companies and he’d reach out if they made the final cut. Lane grabbed her purse and keys, as she told Bob that she’d see him in the two o’clock status meeting.
As she walked to the elevator, she thought about her position at Telco Unlimited. Lane often said that in the new “Information Age” there were no more secrets. She didn’t like the total lack of privacy, and was pleased that corporations were becoming aware of their responsibility to protect personally identifiable information for and about their customers. It was especially important for Telco who could boast high profile people from entertainment, sports, and politics among their customers. Lane knew that it was probably fear of litigation and not altruism, which resulted in the creation of her position.
She took the elevator to the underground parking garage and got into her car. It was a gorgeous day for late July. The temperature wasn’t too high, mid 90’s and the humidity was low. She put the top down. There was more traffic than she’d expected, making her arrival later than she’d have preferred. Lane had an almost obsessive compulsion to be everywhere early. Her comfort zone was ten minutes for meetings and at least two hours if an airport was involved.
All heads turned as the woman dressed in a silk suit the color of ripe strawberries walked into J. Alexander’s. It wasn’t just that she was striking with her red hair neatly twisted up at the back of her head; nor that she had great legs, nor that she stood at least six feet tall. It was the presence with which she entered the room that drew everyone’s attention. She moved slowly through the waiting area clearly not noticing the way the crowd parted as she made her way.
Mick McGuire stood in the waiting area taking in the scene. The way the crowd parted reminded him of Moses parting the Red Sea. The woman approached him and extended her hand. He took it, and hoped that Lane hadn’t noticed that he hadn’t recognized her until she stood right in front of him. During their other meetings, she’d been wearing jeans and sandals and had worn her long strawberry blonde hair in a ponytail. The transformation was a bit unnerving. She could have walked off a runway.
“Ms. Parker, I’m glad you could arrange your busy schedule so we could meet,” Mick said as he shook her hand. He nodded to the hostess who approached menus in hand and led them to a quiet corner booth.
Lane looked around the room cautiously. Her family often joked that she was always the most paranoid person in the room. She usually countered telling critics that just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you. Lane had never been involved in a murder investigation. But she did read between three and five murder mysteries a week, and she’d seen murder investigations on TV, and the one thing she remembered about Colombo is that when he starts showing up to chat, anyone with half a brain should know enough to worry. Lane had more than half a brain and she was more than a little worried. Detective McGuire who had abandoned his uniform of black, for a charcoal gray suit may not be a short, rumpled, seemingly absent-minded detective, but three chats in three days sure didn’t give Lane a warm feeling. And, the Detective was trying so hard to make chitchat.
The waiter came and told them about the specials. They both ordered iced tea and somewhere between “What do you do at Telco Unlimited?” and “What exactly does a Chief Privacy Officer do?” The waiter delivered two iced teas and took their order, Salmon Caesar salad for each of them. The chitchat continued.
“How long have you been with Telco Unlimited?”
“Three years.”
“What did you do before that?”
“I moved to Kansas City from Omaha where I was Vice President of Information Systems for one of the baby bells.”
The waiter delivered their salads. Lane hoped the inquisition would be over now so she could enjoy her salad in peace.
Lane wondered if Mick was a brave man, or a crazy man. Perhaps he just believed that the third time was a charm. She’d managed to send him to the dry cleaner on both of their prior meetings and now here they sat with two full glasses of iced tea and food to boot. She had begun to feel a slight throbbing behind her right eye. She looked at her watch and decided to see if she could move things along.
“Detective, I have a question for you. What’s the real reason for this meeting?”
He looked up from his salad. “Two things actually. Ben called me this morning. He said if you’re a suspect that he’s representing you. I told him you weren’t a suspect at this time, more like a person of interest.”
Lane felt a small sense of relief before she started to dwell on his last three words. “Person of interest” was cop code for suspect and anyone who had watched a crime show or read a mystery novel knew it. She took a drink of tea and waited for him to continue. Patience isn’t a virtue anyone would ever attribute to Lane, yet she waited patiently, well as patiently as she could as he ate half his salad.
“And the other reason,” she finally asked as she began rubbing her right temple.
Mick may not have recognized Lane as she approached him in the waiting area, but he did recognize the signs of the headache he was sure had begun to bother her again. “We have a preliminary cause of death,” he responded.
Lane looked at him quizzically, waiting as they say, for the rest of the story. Her cell phone rang. While the cell phone industry was the current source of her livelihood, and she wouldn’t go back to a time before cell phones, she sometimes wished she could be just a little less available.
Both the ring tone and the caller ID told her it was Ben. She excused herself and stepped away from the table to take the call.
“So, Red, how’s your day going? Got anything you want to tell me?”
“My day’s going fine. I’m having lunch with your friend Mick. He was just about to tell me the cause of death.”
“Really? I spoke with him earlier and he didn’t say anything about the cause of death, but he did assure me you’re not a suspect.”
“Uh-huh. That’s right,” she said, as she smiled at Mick who had looked up.
“Okay, I get it. You can’t really talk. I’ll call you later. Remember you can call me if you need anything.”
“Uh-Huh. Love you, B-bye,” she responded as she hung up.
The waiter came, cleared away the empty dishes, and offered them dessert. They declined and asked for the check. Lane looked back at the detective, still waiting to hear the cause of death. The waiter dropped off the check. They both reached for it.
“Detective, what if I pay the check and you tell me the cause of death.”
Mick smiled, flashing big white teeth and a smile that said he had been on a first name basis with an orthodontist at some point in his life. “As long as it’s not a bribe or anything.”
Lane took the cash from her wallet and put it with the check. The waiter came by. She nodded to him and told him she didn’t need change.
“Mr. Gardner was stabbed. One wound at the base of his skull.”
Lane looked at him in disbelief. “Wouldn’t a stab wound cause bleeding? A lot of bleeding? Remember, I shook the guy. I didn’t see much blood.”
She closed her eyes. Her mind was reeling and it was almost as if she could smell the acrid smells of the movie theater. Lane felt Mick take her arm as he helped her stand and then he guided her toward the exit. Mick couldn’t believe it. Three meetings with this woman, and she’d sent him to the dry cleaner twice. Clearly, she needed fresh air before she made it three for three.
“Breathe,” he said as he pushed her through the door.
He’d misread the signs she thought. She was not light headed, or nauseous. She was confused and her brain was processing the information she’d just gotten as quickly as it could. She closed her eyes against the bright July sun and took several deep breaths. She began rummaging through her purse. He led her to a bench in front of the restaurant and gently pushed her into a sitting position.
“Your headache’s back. Give me your keys. It’s my duty as a man sworn to protect and serve to keep you off the road.”
He was right. Stomp was back. She handed him her keys and continued her blind search through her purse.
“Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
Moving, she thought, was totally out of the question right now. Moments later, he pushed a bottle of water into her left hand and then dropped three tablets into her right hand. Ah, the god of headache remedies was smiling on her.
“Tylenol. Take them.”
She heard the deep velvety voice swimming through the noise and pain. She gratefully obeyed and then with eyes closed resumed rummaging through her purse.
“What are you searching for in there?” Swam the voice again.
“Sunglasses. I can’t open my eyes until I find them. The sun’s a killer when I have a headache.”
He reached over, pulled her sunglasses from the top of her head, and put them in her hand. “How often do you get headaches and just how debilitating are they?”
Lane donned her sunglasses and turned her head toward the direction of the velvet voice as she slowly opened her eyes to a squint. “Sometimes, I go a whole week without a headache. Some are worse than others,” Lane said slowly. “What time is it? I have a staff meeting at two o’clock.”
“It’s one-thirty. I’m not sure you have any business going back to work. I know you have no business driving. We’ll take my car.”
Mick took her arm and guided her to a huge black SUV. Lane’s head hurt too much for her to care what the make and model were. Mick unlocked the door, sort of pushed her up into the passenger seat, reached around her, and fastened the seat belt. She braced herself as he gently closed the door. Lane put her right elbow on the door ledge, closed her eyes, and held her head.
The swimming voice said, “Try to save the upholstery,” as he pressed a plastic bag into her left hand.
If she hadn’t felt so miserable, she’d have seen some humor in this, but as it was, she needed to concentrate on not losing her lunch. It had been a delicious lunch and she was sure it would be horrid coming up, not to mention that it would be extremely embarrassing. She heard the engine start and then felt the vehicle start to move. She squinted her left eye open and could see Detective McGuire eyeing her cautiously. Who could blame him for pushing the plastic bag into her hand?
