Fatal Affair: 1 (Courthouse Connections) (2 page)

* * * * *

So close, yet so far away.

JD followed Lanie’s Honda as they made
their separate ways home after the conference ended on Sunday morning. It
amazed him that she occupied his mind so fully that he didn’t think to miss
Miriam sitting on the seat beside him, talking a mile a minute about everything
and nothing as she’d done before becoming ill.

Instead he replayed sex on the beach with
Lanie in his head, growing hard as he recalled her eager but inexperienced
response. She had beautiful breasts he could practically taste even now, pert
pink nipples that he found intriguing because they’d been pierced but she wore
no jewelry in the delightful nubs.

The inconsistencies about his lover
intrigued him and he could hardly wait to explore her fully, inside as well as
out.

He understood why Lanie wanted to keep
their relationship quiet until her divorce was granted. He didn’t blame her but
damn it, he wanted to shout out to the whole world that he’d rejoined the land
of the living, that he was alive and in lust and looking forward to a future
that for so long had seemed incredibly bleak.

Lanie, married for eight years and almost
thirty years old, had an innocence about her that made JD eager to teach her
all the kinky pleasures he’d practically forgotten—ones to which she had
apparently never been exposed.

He had a court appearance scheduled for
tomorrow, or he’d have tried harder to persuade Lanie to extend her stay by another
day. For the first time in longer than he could recall exactly, he’d
rediscovered a passion for something other than the law.

Lanie had said she’d meet him tomorrow at
Bennie’s Place, the bar and grill across from the courthouse where attorneys of
all varieties gathered during breaks in trials. Not that JD did trial work all
that often. Since he limited his practice to corporate law, he performed most
of his work for clients in Winston-Roe’s offices in a high-rise building. He
couldn’t complain. The breathtaking view of the Hillsborough River and
University of Tampa’s famous minarets was a nice job perk.

Fortunately from a personal standpoint, an
executive of one of his corporate clients had run afoul of state regulations.
He had involved his employer in civil litigation that might drag on for months
before a settlement was reached. Hence JD would be spending considerable time
in the courthouse for the foreseeable future.

He’d get to see Lanie often, because from
what she said, he gathered that her solo practice consisted mostly of low-level
criminal defense cases, with a few wills and personal injury cases tossed into
the mix. That meant she spent a lot of time in the seat of the Thirteenth
Circuit Court.

She beeped and waved when she turned off
I-75 toward Plant City, where she still lived in the senator’s house, while he
headed in the opposite direction, toward downtown. He could hardly wait until
he could be with her again.

Not just for sex, although the sex had been
incredibly good. Maybe he’d see about renewing his membership at the exclusive
Cigar City Club. He hadn’t had the heart to visit after Miriam had become too
ill to enjoy the BDSM play they’d both enjoyed. After her death he’d avoided
the place because it only exacerbated his sense of loss. Now, though, he could
imagine taking Lanie there, tutoring her in the fine art of submission in a
place where discretion was the watchword.

He had a feeling that once initiated, Lanie
would love the kink that had been so important to his sex life. The club could
give them freedom to play without being afraid of showing up in the tabloid media
the next morning.

“You’re doing what?” Bert Davies’ shrill
voice rang out from Wayne’s study as Lanie came in from the garage. “Are you
fucking insane?”

Wayne cleared his throat, speaking as
though he were explaining something he thought even a child should understand.
“Lanie wants a divorce. I think she’s right. Both of us are damn tired of
living a lie.”

Damn you, Wayne. Put it all on me.
The warm glow Lanie had enjoyed all the way back from Key West
suddenly turned chilly. She’d tried not to think about the reaction Wayne’s
campaign manager would have to the news that she was not only leaving Wayne but
also intended to abandon the role she’d been playing for the past eight years
to persuade his constituents that he was a happily married man whose wife was
his chief political supporter.

She stepped inside the room to deathly
silence. Only Bert’s ragged, heavy breathing gave her an indication of just how
pissed off he was. “What’s going on?” she asked as if she hadn’t heard the
angry exchange of conversation between Wayne and his manager. Hell,
puppet-master would be a more accurate description of Bert’s job description,
because as long as she’d known the two men, Wayne had never done so much as
take the simplest of political positions without getting an okay from Bert.

“You’re not walking out on us now, sugar,”
Bert said, giving her a look that made her want to dive under Wayne’s desk and
hide. “Not if you know what’s good for you.”

Lanie didn’t have to guess what would
happen if she got on Bert’s bad side. She’d seen enough of Wayne’s political
enemies destroyed on the other man’s say-so. Bert had no compunction about
spreading lies about his enemies.

In her case, though, he wouldn’t have to
lie. He could simply unearth parts of her distant past that she wasn’t proud
of—things that would probably make people who mattered think less of her.

You’re worried about JD. Admit it.
It wasn’t as though she’d lied about where she’d come from during
those long walks along the beach, but she hadn’t exactly revealed the whole
sordid story of how Lanie Trudell had suddenly become Mrs. Elaine Winstead.
Admit
it, Lanie, you picked and chose what you told JD about your childhood. You
deliberately failed to mention you came from a long line of poor white trash
and you certainly didn’t explain how you managed to save up for a third year of
college before Wayne came along to rescue you.

She’d come a long way from that tumbledown
shack where she’d grown up. She’d scratched and clawed and finally got herself
in a position where she didn’t have to be ashamed anymore.

I’m not helpless. I can hurt Bert and
Wayne just as much as they can hurt me.
But she
knew deep down that she didn’t have that sort of power.

Lanie looked first at Bert, then at Wayne.
“Wayne, you don’t want to hurt me, do you?”

Wayne refused to meet her gaze, but then
she’d often noticed how rarely he looked anybody directly in the eye. “Of
course not,” he said. “I just told Bert I want out of this farce as much as you
do. Maybe more.”

“Wayne, you can’t just tell the folks who
keep you in office to fuck off and rub their faces in who—what sort of
pervert—you really are.” Bert shook a fist in the air and his fat face turned
purplish-red—almost a match for his ugly checkered tie. “Lanie, you gotta talk
some sense into him. Give up on this crazy notion of gettin’ divorced. You know
damn well you never had it so good as you’ve got it as the senator’s wife.”

That was true, as far as material things went.
She hadn’t missed what she’d never really had in the way of affection until
she’d started observing the easy relationships enjoyed by her office mates, her
clients, even strangers she saw on the streets and at the courthouse.

She hadn’t missed sex, either, because what
little she’d had before marrying Wayne hadn’t been good enough to make her
yearn for more. If she’d had any idea eight years ago what great sex could be
like, she never would have agreed to this arrangement.

She couldn’t keep on the same lonesome
path, not now that JD had given her a glimpse of passion. Of lust. Of desire
that was real, not faked.

Lanie looked straight at Bert, trying hard
not to let him see how scared he made her. “I appreciate everything Wayne has
done for me. But things change. He and I agree that it’s time for us to go our
separate ways.”

“He and you? Ha! What about good old Bert?
What happens to me when Wayne throws away the political career I built for
him?”

“Times are different now.” Lanie doubted
her argument would change anything but she had to try. “Wayne’s no pervert.
There’s nothing shameful about being gay. For more than eight years now he’s
tried to act the devoted husband, just as I’ve tried to play the loving wife.
He met someone, though—a person he loves—and he’s tired of pretending to be who
he’s not. Let us be ourselves. Who’s to say the voters won’t respect him more
if he comes out?”

Bert laughed out loud but it wasn’t a
humorous sound. “I say it. Maybe if he was representing some bleeding heart
liberal district like Miami’s Gold Coast, he could flit about with his
boyfriend all he wanted and nobody would think anything of it. But his fucking
district is rural Hillsborough County, where some folks still think queers
should be tarred and feathered and most of the rest of them would gladly run ’em
out of town on a rail—that is if the trains were still running. Forget it.”

Bert riddled Lanie with a malevolent stare,
as if he could see through her conservative slacks and sweater all the way
through to her skin and didn’t much like what he saw. “You damn well think
about what it would do to your fine reputation as an up-and-coming lawyer if it
got out that you spent one summer making your living in a strip joint out on
I-4, conning hard-earned bucks out of truckers every night.”

“You wouldn’t do that, would you? If you
did, wouldn’t you also have to let folks know just how you and Wayne found out
I was working in that strip club? How you brokered this arrangement between us
for your own benefit and made up all the pretty lies about how we fell in love
at first sight? Think about it.” While she could still resist the temptation to
attack Bert with the nearest heavy object, Lanie shut her mouth and walked out
on him and Wayne.

The pleasure she’d held close to her heart
on the trip back from the Keys and the anticipation of meeting JD casually at
Bennie’s Place gave way to despair as she locked herself in her bedroom,
undressed and choked back the warring emotions that were tearing her apart.

* * * * *

As soon as he got out of court the
following Thursday, JD stepped through the heavy oak doors at Bennie’s Place,
looking around for the third straight day in the hope of finding Lanie there.
He’d called her office and tried her cell phone several times each day without
managing to connect, and he’d begun to wonder if he’d imagined the two amazing
days they’d shared the weekend before.

When he saw her return his smile and wave,
his doubts disappeared. It hadn’t been his imagination. Trying not to appear in
too much of a hurry, he made his way back to the booth where she was sitting
and slid onto the seat opposite her.

If she’d tried, she couldn’t have found a
place where she’d be more difficult to spot. That annoyed him at first, because
it stuck in his craw that she wanted to keep their relationship under wraps.
But then he got close enough to see her features and he could tell she was
distraught. Barely acknowledging his presence, she sat and played with an
uneaten bread bowl that had apparently held her lunch.

“What’s wrong?” He assumed she’d lost a
case or come upon some unexpected snag with a potential witness. “You look as
though you’ve just lost your best friend.”

“Getting a divorce, even when there are no
kids involved, is proving to be much more complicated than the professor in my
family law class led me to believe.” She smiled at him but the smile didn’t
reach her beautiful dark-blue eyes. “At any rate, this divorce is.”

“Are you representing yourself?”

“Yes. I know what you’re thinking, and
several people have already reminded me that a lawyer who represents herself
has a fool for a client. Wayne insisted that we handle this ourselves.”

“If you’re already looking down and out
because it’s not going well, I think you ought to take that sage advice.” He
hated to see Lanie upset, and someone or something had obviously placed
obstacles in her way. “I’ve never worked in the family law arena, but
Winston-Roe has a whole division full of attorneys who could take that burden
off your hands. I’d be glad to introduce you to one of my partners if the
senator’s giving you a hard time about the division of assets.”

“If only…” Her words trailed off. “I don’t
want anything from Wayne except my freedom. He can keep the house, his money
and whatever else he owns. I just want to walk away in peace.”

She looked around as though afraid someone
would overhear what she’d just said. When JD reached across the table to take
her hand she jerked it away. “We can’t…”

This wasn’t the same beautiful young woman
who’d spent the better part of the weekend before in his arms, looking forward
to being free from a marriage that obviously hadn’t been working for a long
time. “Have you changed your mind?”

It would kill him if she’d suddenly decided
she wanted to stay in what she’d described as an empty shell of a relationship.
As he watched her fiddle with the bread bowl he realized just how far his
feelings for her had grown over such a short time span. When she looked across
the table and met his questioning gaze, he realized he’d been holding his
breath.

“No. I haven’t changed my mind but I’ve
realized there’s more to ending my marriage than simply walking away.” She
glanced around the room again as though she expected someone to come up and
confront them. “I can’t talk about it here. Is there somewhere we can talk
without an audience?”

“Do you want to go over to my office? Or my
condo?” He imagined them on the couch in his office, or better yet in his
king-size bed. He’d strip her to the waist and suck her highly sensitive
nipples, then insert the small gold hoops he’d bought on Monday at the Cigar
City Club’s high-end toy store and ask her to tell him when—and for whom—she’d
had them pierced. He liked the idea of marking Lanie with jewelry that only he
could see, and he’d always enjoyed playing with his partners’ nipple jewelry
during foreplay.

“No. I mean, I’d rather meet you somewhere
other than here in Tampa where so many people may recognize us. I’m afraid this
conversation will take more than the time we’d need to have a meal.” When she
lifted her hand to grasp her wineglass, he noticed with some satisfaction that
she’d taken off the gaudy wedding set she’d still been wearing the weekend
before. He wondered if she had rings in her nipples now. She hadn’t worn any the
weekend before. When he’d asked the woman at the club’s toy store, though, she’d
told him that piercings would close if their owner didn’t wear jewelry in them
at least part of the time.

He shelved the idea of making love with her
tonight. “What about a restaurant that’s off the beaten path? I know a little
Mexican café up on Armenia Avenue. It looks like a dive on the outside but the
food is good. I assure you nothing we say will get back to the senator or his
people, because nobody there except the owner speaks more than a few words of
English.” He paused for a few seconds but went on when she made no comment.

“If you’d rather, we could meet farther
afield. I have a fishing cottage on Cedar Key. It’s too cool this time of year
for weekend visitors to flock up there, and the tourists don’t start coming to
town until after New Year’s.”

JD watched her as she weighed the options.
Finally she spoke, her voice hardly more than a whisper.

“I’d feel more comfortable if we met
outside Hillsborough County. There are a lot of things you don’t know about me,
things I have to tell you that I’m sure you won’t enjoy hearing.”

“There’s nothing you can say that will
change my mind, sweetheart.”

She looked as if she were about to cry.
“Saturday?”

Right now would work for him since he had
no pressing appointments set for tomorrow—but he wouldn’t push it. “Fine,” he
said, taking a napkin and drawing a crude map for her. “Meet me Saturday at
noon. Here.”

She nodded. Her gaze took another
surreptitious trip around Bennie’s as though she expected a confrontation at
any moment. When she snatched the napkin from his hand and stuffed it into her
briefcase, she whispered, “All right. Now I’ve got to go.”

What choice did he have? Lanie held all the
cards and she wasn’t relinquishing them here or now. Waiting a few minutes
after she’d left, he looked around for friendly faces of coworkers who
generally could be found at the bar or at one of the big round tables. There
weren’t any. Without Lanie, JD felt almost as lonely as he had before she’d
come up to him on that pier in Key West.

* * * * *

Back at his office, JD waited until his
secretary left before going to his desktop system to do some private research.
He felt a little guilty for his amateur spying but he had to know more about
her—more about the marriage that her husband, the ultimate self-serving
politician in JD’s estimation, had apparently wanted to end the week before but
now wanted to hold on to.

According to the senator’s website, he
served a very conservative district on the east side of Hillsborough County—a
district full of vegetable farms and orange groves, sprinkled with small bodies
of water and rife with dangerous critters like the ones depicted in photos on
the site. JD hadn’t spent much time in the area since coming into dangerously
close contact with a water moccasin during a Boy Scout trip out at the
Hillsborough River State Park. He’d been ten years old when his scoutmaster had
whacked off the serpent’s head just as it was about to strike, but JD’s dislike
for inland Florida’s natural assets had never quite left him.