But these were just facts, numbers and dates and events. There were still so many other things that she didn't tell me. Not because she didn't want to, but because she couldn't. Because she didn't even know them herself.
I, however, was able to spot them instantly. Almost like magic.
Benjamin Connors once lived a picture-perfect dream life. It was effortlessly sold to him without the slightest forecast of buyer's remorse at the age of twenty-four. His marriage came a year after that, along with a monthly house payment, a barbecue in the backyard, and the promise of children someday.
This was what life was about. And he was fine with that. After all, if it had been good enough for his two brothers who settled down before him, it was good enough for him.
And then he turned thirty.
And something changed. At first, he didn't even know what it was. A feeling. A constant buzzing in the background that was tolerable but not silenceable. Over the next few weeks, the buzzing got gradually louder, eventually making it hard to concentrate at work, while watching TV, even during sex. And the talk of babies and adoption and picking out a crib for the nursery only made it worse.
He found himself often waking in the middle of the night in a panic, beads of sweat appearing across his forehead, breathing shallowly. He couldn't understand what was happening to him. He considered seeing a doctor. Or maybe a shrink.
Until one night he woke in his usual anxiousness, gasping for breath, and he looked over at the woman sleeping next to him, the only woman he'd ever loved. And that's when he realized what the buzzing sound was. It was a question. And it demanded to be answered:
Is this really what I want out of life?
He assumed the feeling would eventually pass. He wrote it off as being some strange rite of passage that comes to all men who enter their third decade of life.
And he's right.
He certainly isn't the only man to turn thirty and feel the sudden urge to take inventory of his life. There are many men in the world like Benjamin Connors, who have, at one point or another, wondered what else is out there.
Some of these men resolve to find it. Others just continue to wonder.
And now it was up to me to determine which category Benjamin Connors fit into.
I peered into my purse and checked my financial situation. I had approximately three hundred dollars in cash left over from the ATM withdrawal I'd made before we left for Cabo. I hoped it would be sufficient to keep me in the game long enough to make that determination.
I took a deep breath and one step forward. Then another deep breath and another step. Until I found myself standing directly behind Benjamin Connors at the craps table.
It's just one time, I told myself repeatedly. Just this once.
This was it. One year of retirement, and I was back. Unofficially, of course. And only out of necessity. I tried desperately to remember what I was supposed to do. The way I was supposed to act. Deep down, there was a small fear that after being out of commission for nearly a year, I would be rusty and out of practice. And an even bigger fear that it would show and blow my cover.
But I swallowed down both of them and squeezed my way up to the table, claiming the space directly to the right of my first subject in over a year.
The minute his eyes acknowledged my presence, it all came rushing back to me. The flirtation tactics, the charm, knowing how much of my hand to show and how much to save for later. Almost as though I had never left.
It was just like riding a bike. And I immediately realized that mine was a skill that was not so easily forgotten. I guess there's just something about being an undercover fidelity inspector that stays with you. That never leaves.
And honestly, I couldn't figure out if that was a good thing or not.
I glanced casually in his direction, meeting his eye and flashing him a shy smile.
"Welcome to the table," he said, giving me a quick yet not-so-subtle once-over.
"It sounds like a lucky one," I remarked, keeping my voice light and playful.
The only direction I had given Shawna for this assignment was to sit next to him at the blackjack table and act as though she'd never played before. Clearly the game itself had changed, but I figured the approach was still valid. Plus, I had no idea how to play craps, so it wouldn't take much pretending on my part.
Benjamin Connors nodded. "Yeah, it's been pretty hot for the last ten minutes. You chose wisely."
I giggled in response, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. As I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth, I leaned over the edge of the table, taking in the length of the playing field. It was covered in hundreds of various-shaped boxes and rectangles, all labeled with some type of cryptic, craps player secret language. My eyes skimmed over words like "Pass," "Field," and "Hard Way." And I couldn't help but marvel at how this long, complicated stretch of green felt seemed to be narrating my life. There I was, at nearly four in the morning, fresh out of retirement and back in the "field," trying to determine whether this man would "pass" or fail my reluctant inspection. It was pretty safe to say I had taken "hard way."
"And it looks like you came right on time," Benjamin commented, and motioned toward the table in front of me. I looked down to see six red dice staring back at me. The uniformed casino employee standing across the way had pushed them toward me with a long, hook-ended stick.
And suddenly all eyes at the table were on me. I felt a knot form in my stomach. Apparently, playing the role of the naïve and inexperienced craps player was already off to a believable start.
I looked to my neighbor for help. He chuckled at the bewildered look on my face. "You have to select two of the six. It's your roll."
"Oh no," I replied, snapping my body upright and holding out my hands in surrender. "I don't know how to play. I was just going to watch for a little while and see if I could learn."
"No way," he replied, motioning to the dice. "You can't learn craps by watching. You can only learn by doing. And don't worry, I'll help you."
I bit my bottom lip as I pulled my wad of cash out of my bag and placed it in front of me. Within seconds, my money had magically transformed into three equally sized stacks of red Palazzo-monogrammed chips.
Benjamin leaned in close to me—close enough that I could smell what was left of the cologne he had applied earlier in the evening— and told me to place four chips on the pass line. I immediately obliged. Then he instructed me to pick up the dice and throw them toward the other end of the table. I did as I was told, watching the swirls of white spots on red plastic as the dice floated gracefully in the air.
"Winner eleven," the man with the long stick called out as soon as they had settled on the far side of the green playing field. Everyone at the table broke out in another round of cheers and applause.
I didn't have to fake the confusion on my face as I asked what had just happened.
He laughed. "You won! We all won!"
I beamed. "You mean, I won for everyone?"
"Yeah, pretty much. Seven or eleven on the first roll wins all around."
I nodded, taking it all in. "Well, that sounds easy enough."
I proceeded to roll four more elevens in a row. The crowd gathered around the table was going crazy, and I was starting to understand what all the fuss was about in this game.
But the only reaction I was really interested in was that of Benjamin Connors. Because as much fun as it was to watch my stack of five-dollar chips grow exponentially before my eyes, I was here with a purpose. And I was determined to stick to it.
My next roll was a nine. Benjamin clasped his hands together and rubbed them fiercely. "That's all right, baby. Nine is good. Nine is easy."
"What happens now?" I asked, staring at the numerous piles of chips that were being placed around the table. "I didn't roll an eleven."
"Now," Benjamin explained, clearly enjoying his role as the craps master, "you have to roll another nine without rolling a seven. Think you can handle that?"
br /> I smiled deviously. "No problem."
"That's my girl!" Benjamin shouted, and pointed at me. "Right here, my Lady Luck. She's gonna make me a rich man tonight."
I smiled and pretended to blush under the attention. Then with a quick shake of my hand, I tossed the dice in the air. One landed on four and the other on five.
"Winner nine!" the stickman announced.
And with this, Benjamin actually picked me up off the ground and twirled me around in his arms. "What did I tell you?" he cried to no one in particular. "Lady Luck, right here!"
I giggled girlishly. My face was so close to his that I could smell the alcohol on his breath. And when he put me down, I could feel his fingertips pressed softly into my side as his hands lingered momentarily around my waist. My stomach flipped.
I was really doing this. This was really happening. Benjamin Connors's hands were really touching my body. And I was letting them. Because that's what I was here to do. To let them.
After a twenty-minute-long winning streak and several more fairly intimate moments celebrating my luck with the dice, Benjamin invited me to step away from the craps table and grab a drink. "You just won me five thousand dollars. I think it's time to quit while I'm still ahead."
The moment my butt hit the wooden bar stool, I could feel the fatigue setting in. I managed a subtle glance at my watch. It was close to five. I had been awake for nearly twenty-four hours and been running off pure adrenaline for the last seven. I worried that a drink might do me in. But alcohol has always been a part of this job. If they drink, you drink, too. If they have another round, you have another round. If alcohol impairs their judgment, you kiss back.
"So does Lady Luck have a name?" Benjamin asked after we had gotten situated with two martinis.
I pulled the olive out of my glass and placed it in my mouth, rolling it around on top of my tongue. "Yes," I replied with a teasing smile.
"And what would that be?"
I chewed my olive and washed it down with a sip of my martini. "Ashlyn," I replied coyly. The nostalgia of that name on my lips was staggering. She was back in full force, resurrected in all her glory. And the minute I felt her presence, it was almost as if she had never left in the first place.
As much as the Jennifer side of me wanted to fight her return, knowing how much trouble she had caused me in the past. I could feel my body slowly surrendering to her power. She had always found a way to simply take over, jump in the driver's seat, and seize control of the situation. This, after all, had always been her domain.
"Ashlyn," he repeated, sending chills of apprehension up my spine. "Pretty."
I shrugged, as if I had heard it a million times.
"And what brings you to Vegas?"
This was the part that I didn't have prepared. I would have to make up something. Or rather, Ashlyn would have to do what she did best . . . wing it. I decided the more generic the better. "Just here with friends," I replied nonchalantly.
He took a sip of his drink. "And where are these friends?"
"Ugh . . ." I sighed. "Totally passed out at like three. It was completely lame. I wasn't tired and I've always wanted to play craps, so I thought I'd come down here and learn."
"Well, you're a natural."
I smiled and took another swig of alcohol. "I had a good teacher."
It didn't take long for Benjamin's hand to wind up on my leg. He placed it there as casually as if he were simply placing an empty glass on a cocktail napkin. And the strangest part was, it didn't feel strange to me. As sinful and wrong as I knew it should have felt, there was an overwhelming sense of familiarity about the whole thing. The numbness in my entire body was back. The same numbness that had comforted me and carried me through a two-year career of letting men like Benjamin Connors touch me.
"What about you?" I asked, running my fingertip around the edge of my glass. "Why are you in Vegas?"
He shrugged, avoiding my eyes. "Just like to gamble." Then he nodded toward the glass in his hands. "And drink."
I laughed in agreement. "Vegas is always a good excuse to drink more than you should."
"It's a good excuse to do a lot of things you shouldn't." His eyes slowed down for a moment as they met mine with purpose and conviction. "Don't you think?"
I knew this was the turning point of the conversation. Every conversation of this nature has one. It's the moment when the night goes from innocent to something else. And it's a moment that every good fidelity inspector can spot like a black dot on a white page.
"I do," I whispered, knowing that the statement rang all too true . . . for both of us.
And then in one fluid motion, Benjamin Connors downed the remaining half of his martini, reached his hand around the back of my head, and pulled me toward him. As his lips met mine, I tried to fill my mind with nothingness. Empty space. It was my old tried-and-true trick for coping with the kissing part.
But as hard as I tried, the nothingness simply wouldn't come. Apparently, this was a skill that had managed to fade with time. Because all I could think about was Jamie. His face, his eyes, his hands. The fact that right now he was sleeping alone, in another country, with absolutely no idea that in one night, I had managed to revert to a person I had willingly abandoned long ago.
Or maybe I had never really abandoned her. Maybe she was just lying dormant inside of me. Waiting to be reawakened by the touch of a married stranger.
As Benjamin's tongue darted in and out of my mouth, I fought to block out the image of Jamie's face and replace it with the face of Darcie Connors, Benjamin's wife of five years. She was why I was here. I was doing this for her. She wanted answers to her questions, and I was going to give them to her. No matter what. That was the promise I had made when I opened the doors of the Hawthorne Agency. And that was the promise I made to every single woman and man who walked through them.
She had come to me asking for the truth. Asking if this was really the man she wanted to raise children with. And the next eight words that Benjamin spoke told me exactly what the answer would be.
"Would you like to come upstairs with me?"
I nodded. I knew I would never be able to get the "Yes" out of my mouth. It would be forever stuck there, trapped behind the emotional battle raging inside me.
But the nod was enough.
I followed him through the casino to the elevator banks. As we rode to the tenth floor, Benjamin's lips were on my neck and the sides of my face. Exactly where Jamie's had been less than seven hours ago when this runaway evening had begun.
I quickly pushed the thought from my mind and concentrated on pretending to enjoy this moment instead of being hung up in another. The last thing I needed tonight was for the subject to get suspicious. If he bailed out now, it would mean that everything up until this point had been for nothing.
And it couldn't be for nothing.
It had to be for something. For everything.
When we entered Benjamin's hotel suite, he didn't waste any time leading me straight to the bed. And believe it or not, I was grateful for his hastiness. Anything to make this night end faster.
We fell onto it, and I felt my mind start to leave my body as Benjamin's lips again met mine and his hands started to wander down the outside of my dress. His kiss was intense and tasting of vodka. It was a now-or-never kiss, the kind that married men use on women who are not their wives. If death row inmates were allowed a last kiss in place of a last meal, this is what that kiss would feel like.
I closed my eyes and reluctantly kissed back.
An intention to cheat. That's all I had to prove was there. That Benjamin Connors had every intention of having sex with someone other than his wife. And as soon as his hands started to slip under the hemline of my dress, I considered it confirmed.
I knew, professionally, I could have taken it further. The dress could have come off. That last PG-13 moment could have been reached. But I knew, emotionally, I would never make it that far. Not without vomiting, anyway.
&nb
sp; I placed my hand on his chest and gently pushed him away. "I'll be right back," I said with a flirtatious wink. "I just have to use the restroom."
He smiled and rolled off me as I stood up and adjusted my dress. "It's by the front door."
"Perfect," I replied sweetly.
And it was.
I walked softly to the bathroom and flicked on the light, followed by the fan, then I peered back into the bedroom to see Benjamin unbuckling his belt and unzipping his pants. I closed the bathroom door from the outside and turned ninety degrees until I was face-to-face with my escape. My end to this never-ending night.
As quietly as possible, I turned the handle and pulled the front door open a crack. The Palazzo tower was a brand-new hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. It hadn't even survived a full tourist season yet. Which, fortunately for me, meant that the hinges on the door hadn't yet inherited the ability to alert tenants of a possible runaway. As I slid the door a quarter of the way open, it let out no squeaking complaints. I squeezed through the small space and ever so carefully shut it behind me, keeping the handle fully engaged until the last possible moment to avoid the click of the closing door.
Once outside, I took a deep breath and made my way to the elevator, relishing in the conclusiveness of my actions.
The front desk didn't seem at all fazed by my request for a room at five in the morning. In fact, their reaction made it seem rather commonplace. With my new key card in hand, I dragged myself back to the elevator and up to the seventeenth floor, where my room was waiting.
I had to be back at the jail in four hours, but I was still overjoyed to climb under the white cotton sheets of the king-size bed.
I could finally go to sleep. I could finally close my eyes. This night had finally come to an end.
But I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that my mind would not rest.
13
guilt becomes her
"One Starfish hairclip. One pearl necklace, blue. One seaweed boa, green."
I watched as the morning security guard removed all of Shawna's costume accessories that had been confiscated the night before from a plastic box and placed them on the counter in front of us.