Текст книги "Family Secrets"
Автор книги: Kate Kane
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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 13 страниц)
Ben stood and kissed Lane on the cheek before she left.
“Ben, Pauli was right, the lady is beautiful. You’re a lucky man.”
Ben laughed. “I have always known Pauli gossiped like an old woman.”
Lane returned to the table. “Well, did I give you guys enough time to talk?”
Both Ben and Tony laughed. Ben put his arm around Lane and kissed the top of her head. “I missed you every second you were gone.”
Tony took her hand. “Now that we’ve finally met, I hope to see more of you.”
Lane gave Tony a brief hug before he had to go back to the kitchen.
Ben pulled Lane into an embrace. “I’m not ready to say goodnight. Come to my house. We still have some things to talk about.”
Lane agreed to go to Ben’s and he insisted that he follow her.
Ben’s house was a sprawling ranch with a tennis court, basketball court, and a swimming pool and was nestled near a lake. In the years since meeting Ben, Lane had spent a lot of time at this house. She and the kids swam there frequently, and she had spent time there with Ben eating, watching TV, playing cards, and just talking. She’d even spent the night in a guest room once.
They sat on the couch in his great room, and between kisses, Ben made his case for her staying at his house until the murder was solved. Every time she opened her mouth to object to his suggestion, he kissed her.
“Earlier this week, someone got into your house and planted the murder weapon.” A kiss. “Under your bed.” Another kiss.
“I should have suggested then that you move in here until this is solved.” Another kiss.
“Then today someone set fire to your car.” Another kiss
“Jake and Jamie are out of town until Saturday.” Another kiss. “You’d be alone at your house.” Another kiss.
It was a good tactic while it lasted. But, every time their tongues mingled together, she moaned. When she moaned Ben’s brain fogged and soon all he could think about was kissing her, touching her, making love to her. He’d let her set the pace, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to move things along a little. He murmured her name as he moved his lips to nibble on her ear. She murmured his name as he moved to the sensitive spot behind her ear and worked down the side of her neck. He turned her so that she was facing him and draped across his chest.
There was a war going on inside Lane’s head. God, this man could kiss. There was absolutely nothing wrong with her libido. But, she’d known Ben for three years and during that time; she could have almost marked the calendar to predict when he’d stop seeing his latest girlfriend. The six-week mark seemed to be his limit. Only one woman had made it past the six-week mark before. Lane had just passed the eight-week mark. She’d told him Sunday that she was afraid of losing her best friend, and he had assured her it wouldn’t happen. She wasn’t sure what that meant. Losing him as her best friend would be awful, losing him after sleeping with him would be unbearable, and she was sure she couldn’t go back to being just friends after sleeping with him.
Sure, she’d been married and divorced twice. Sure, some women her age would have to remove their shoes to count all of their lovers. Lane could count hers on three fingers. It might be old fashioned, archaic, prehistoric, but for her, sex was something you shared with the man you loved not something you did because your hormones were out of control. And, make no mistake, her hormones were raging.
She pushed back on his chest and gasped for air. “Ben.”
He entwined the fingers of his left hand in her hair and stroked her cheek with his right hand. God she was beautiful. “Lane. Stay with me tonight. Let me make love to you.”
“No.” She twisted away from him and stood up.
His mind was reeling. He knew she wanted him. He could feel it in her kisses, in her touch and he could hear it every time she moaned when he kissed her, and each time she murmured his name. She was beautiful, she was smart, she was sexy, and she was infuriating as hell. Damn, how many times in his life had he wished that some woman would stop being so damn clingy, so whiny, so needy? Maybe karma really was a bitch. He stood and took a step toward her.
She held up her hand in the international stop sign and shook her head. “No. I need to think, I can’t think when you’re that close.” She turned her back to him and looked out over the lake.
“I see the wisdom in staying away from my house. But, I’m not ready to sleep with you. It’s too soon for me.” She turned back to look at him. She saw the passion, the disappointment, the confusion, in his hazel eyes.
“I’ll stay. Tonight.”
Ben took a step toward her.
“In the guest room.”
He reached her and took her in his arms. “I want to keep you safe. I need to keep you safe. The closer you are the better I can protect you. Stay in my room, in my bed.” He kissed the top of her head. “I promise not to take advantage of you.”
When had the need to protect her become the most fundamental need he had?
“You know, I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time. I admit this mess rattles me a little. It’s hard to give up control, but it’s nice to have someone to rely on.” She stretched until her lips met his. “It’s late, counselor. Let’s go to bed.”
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.
It didn’t take an expert researcher to find that his father, Vito Gardino had been accused of involvement in the bombings in Kansas City’s River Quay area in the 1970’s. A little more research threw a shadow over the Gardino family as possibly having mob connections. Vito Gardino had not actually been charged though which left some uncertainty about his possible mob connections. Vito got out of the nightclub business, and opened a car dealership. The same dealership that Paul Gardner owned at the time of his death.
Possible mob connections perhaps explained how a drunk teenager was able to serve so little jail time for killing her father and changing her life.
Her mother had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer before the accident, and it had taken her a year to wither away to nothing. Her mother was still alive when the accident had happened. The State Trooper had gotten their home address from the car registration and called the police in her hometown. It was a small town, and the local police knew her mother was home dying a slow and painful death. Her father lived for five months in that coma and two weeks after he died, Mama died too. Marta was her mother’s younger sister, and was just 20 when she inherited Lane and the house. That’s the way Lane always thought of it; Aunt Marta inherited her.
She and Aunt Marta had lived in her parents’ house until after Lane’s fall. That’s when Aunt Marta had met the young orthopedic surgeon, married him, and uprooted Lane from the only home she’d ever known. But, Marta had been a young woman when she had been saddled with a four year old. Marta had loved her, of that Lane never had a doubt, but she sometimes thought Marta resented her for stealing her youth. Then Marta met Dr. Johnson and married him. They’d had two children and Lane had sometimes felt like a built in baby sitter for the young family so when she started college, she’d gotten her own apartment and moved out.
Lane had been 15 when her cousin Stephen junior was born and 17 when his sister Hannah had come along. They’d never been close. Marta had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer a few years after Lane moved out and after Aunt Marta died, Lane hadn’t really kept in touch with the Johnsons.
Lane continued to search until she found the Kansas City Star web archives and the articles about the car accident that killed her father. She knew the story of the accident; her Aunt Marta had repeated it to Lane as a child. But, she wasn’t prepared for the photos. Even in black and white, she could see her father’s blood on the car seat, and the outline of her small bloody hand prints on the passenger window. “Eighteen year old Paul Gardner represented by Salvatore Luciano…” the image on the screen blurred. Salvatore Luciano, Ben’s uncle and one of the partners in Ben’s law firm.
Suddenly, Lane’s head was throbbing. She’d been doing research all morning, and it was just before noon when her cell phone buzzed. Again, as if he had ESP, Ben was on the phone. With a smile on her lips that went clearly through the ether, she answered the call putting Ben on speaker as she massaged her temples. She didn’t have time for a headache right now. She pulled a cosmetic bag from her purse and took a Sudafed and a BC powder.
“Ben, how do you always know when I need you?”
“I guess I just have a sixth sense when it comes to you, Red. What’s up?”
“Did you know that your uncle Sal represented Paul Gardner in the plea agreement for the car accident?”
“No. Uncle Sal would have been fresh out of law school. It must have been one of his first cases. I’m on my way to OPPD headquarters. Meet me at Papa’s. We can grab a quick bite and talk about this.”
Most people couldn’t get in and out of Bellini’s at noon and still make a one o’clock appointment, but most people didn’t eat in the Board Room. Besides, Ben suspected uncle Sal was having lunch in the Board Room today.
The big carved wooden doors that were the entrance to Bellini’s looked like they belonged in an Italian castle and Ben was waiting just inside when Lane opened them. He kissed her cheek, placed his hand in the small of her back, and escorted her to the Board Room. Ben pushed open the smaller version of the entrance doors that kept the riff-raff out of the Board Room. Ben led Lane to a table in a back corner where two men who sat adjacent to one another were deep in conversation. Ben approached the table and spoke to two men. The men were identical from their wavy white hair, to their very expensive Italian shoes.
“Ciao, Zio Sal, Zio Vinnie. LA presente Lane Parker.”
“Lane, my uncles Salvatore and Vincenzo Luciano.”
The men who appeared to be in their late 60’s each stood and extended his hand toward Lane. She reached out with her right hand expecting Sal or was it Vinnie to shake her hand; instead, in turn, each man took her hand and kissed her knuckles. With Italian accented English each said “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Parker.”
The one Lane thought was Sal looked at Ben “Nipote, Ella è la visione di un angelo.” The other, Vinnie (?) nodded. “Tu ci sarai?”
“Sì. Grazie.” Ben said as he pulled out a chair and guided Lane into it. Ben took the other chair. Immediately, glasses of water appeared in front of them quickly followed by the house salad. Lane bent her head quickly and silently saying grace before digging into her salad.
“Uncle Sal, Lane is a person of interest in a murder investigation. The victim was someone we think you represented a long time ago in a case of drunk driving that resulted in vehicular homicide. His name was Paul Gardner.”
“Sì, yes, I remember. One does not forget his first case. The boy was drunk and hit a car carrying a man and his little girl. As I recall, they were returning home from a family reunion in southern Missouri. The girl was uninjured, but the father died some months later from the injuries he sustained. The little girl, so young, so small. I remember her. I remember her name. It was so ethereal, Angelique Valle – Angel of the Valley, and even at four, she was the vision of an angel.”
Lane looked up to see Salvatore Luciano staring across the table at her.
“You remind me of the little girl, Miss Parker.”
She smiled. He knew. She could see it in his eyes; he knew she was that child. “Yes, Mr. Luciano, I was that little girl. It’s one of the reasons I’m a person of interest in the murder. The other is that I discovered the body.”
Ben reached out and took her hand. “Uncle Sal, she had nothing to do with it. A case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But, someone also managed to plant the murder weapon in her home. Yesterday someone set her car on fire. I’m meeting the Leawood homicide detective and an Overland Park detective as well as the fire captain when I leave here. Lei è sotto la mia protezione. She’ll be staying at my house until this is resolved.”
Vinnie Luciano looked at Lane. “Please pardon me, Miss Parker. I must speak to my nephew privately.” And, he began speaking in rapid Italian. Even if Lane understood Italian, which she didn’t, he was speaking so quickly that she wouldn’t have caught a single word.
“Prima di andare, dovete sapere che il padre di omicidio vittima mettere 1,5 milioni di dollari, per la bambina dopo l'incidente. Ora è possibile aggiungere un denaro per qualsiasi motivo la polizia.”
Ben nodded and looked at his watch. “Lane, I need to go now.”
Vinnie Luciano spoke. “Benito, leave the girl with us. We will see that she gets home.”
“Grazie, Zio. Mantenere la sua sicurezza, lei è il mio cuore.” He bent and kissed Lane’s cheek. “I’ll call you after my meeting. Please don’t run away with one of my uncles while I’m away.”
Ben walked out of the restaurant and pulled his cell phone from his pocket.
“Tanner, have you got anything yet? I just spoke to my uncle Vinnie. It seems that Gardner’s father put 1.5 million in trust for Lane when she was four years old. That was a lot of money 45 years ago. God knows how much it is now. See what you can find out. I’m on my way to meet McGuire and Hunter.”
