“No.”
I said it firmly.
“I’m not going to become one of those paranoid husbands who tracks his wife’s every move.”
Beth sighed and mentioned that Mom had asked about me. She thought I should talk to her. I shook my head. My mother had once defended the idea that cheating was normal, and after what she had done to my father, I had no patience for that kind of wisdom. Beth was protective of Mom, especially after our brother Daniel went to prison, but I was not ready to let anyone soften betrayal into ordinary human weakness.
“I just don’t want you to make a decision you’ll regret,” Beth said.
“I’ll make sure I have the answers first.”
After Beth dropped me off, I went to Steven and Joe’s place and gave Steven Joy’s laptop. He immediately started digging through it. After I caught him up, he asked to keep it for a day or 2.
Joe tried to lighten the mood by joking that he could set me up with his cousin. I laughed and gave an answer crude enough to make him call me a prude. It was stupid, and it worked. For 5 seconds, I almost felt normal.
Steven remained glued to the laptop. I eventually went home, let Piper out, played a quick game of tag in the cold, and crawled into bed with her beside me. Joy had always hated when Piper slept on the bed.
I did not care anymore.
The next morning, I drank coffee and distracted myself with the sports section until 8:00 a.m. By 9:00, I was in Bernie Jags’s office. Bernie was Joy’s boss, though he always called me Brian.
“What can I do for you, Brian?” he asked cheerfully.
I ignored the wrong name.
“Can you tell me why my wife would leave the Houston convention and go to Vail?”
Bernie looked puzzled.
“Vail? I didn’t send her to Houston. That meeting was for newer agents, not managing agents like Joy.”
Something hot and ugly rose in me.
“What about training meetings in Indianapolis?”
“Only a few days long. We leave Sunday and return Thursday.”
The structure of my life rearranged itself again.
“Has she been taking 2 weeks off and staying somewhere else?” I asked.
Bernie looked uncomfortable.
“Roger, sometimes people make choices that are hard to understand. I’m sorry if this news hurts.”
“Who was she with?”
He hesitated.
“Promise me no one gets hurt.”
I stared at him.
“My wife is in a coma. I won’t hurt anyone.”
He sighed and gave me the name.
My heart sank.
That little weasel.
An hour later, Hugh called.
“We found out who rented the room Joy was staying in,” he said. “We’ll invite him in for questioning. If he refuses, we’ll arrest him.”
“Can I be there when you question him?”
“Jeb’s already agreed. I’ll call when it’s set.”
I spent the next hours at the hospital meeting with Joy’s brain injury team. Part of me wanted to abandon her completely. But I did not have all the answers yet. Jim and Ivonne arrived before Joy’s transfer from Vail, and I told them what I had learned. Jim was shocked. Ivonne begged me not to make any final decisions. I promised I would not hurt Joy, but I was not sure waiting would change anything.
When Jim asked if I could get through it, I answered honestly.
“I don’t know. I can’t trust her anymore. I saw what mistrust did to my dad, and I don’t want to become him.”
Ivonne tried to hold on to hope.
“You’ve taken her back before.”
“Yes,” I said. “But we weren’t married then, and she wasn’t lying like this.”
Later, while waiting at the hospital, Hugh texted that Cal Davis would be interviewed at 4:00 a.m. I told Jim and Ivonne I had an appointment and left. At home, I dressed in a suit and tie because Sheriff Jeb Hannibal would expect professionalism if he was letting me sit in.
At the sheriff’s office, Hugh met me and told me Vail police would join by video. I would sit out of view. I was not to speak.
“I know,” I said. “I won’t attack him either.”
Inside, I spotted Katherine Shepard, a woman I remembered from high school as being entirely out of my league. She was still stunning. Deputies escorted her into the building, and Hugh muttered for me to stop drooling.
In Jeb’s office, the sheriff grinned like a man about to fulfill a private dream. He pulled out a badge and deputized me so I could remain in the room as law enforcement. Then he hugged me and told me my dad had been a great cop and that I would be too if I ever finished my degree.
I had heard that before.
We entered the interview room. Hugh pointed me to a chair out of camera view, then sat at the table and set up the video conference. Soon Detective Phillips and Detective Albert from Vail appeared on screen.
A deputy brought in Cal Davis.
He was slick-looking, with a salesman’s smile, the sort of man who kept smiling even in a room full of cops. Joy’s mentor. Her lover, though I did not yet know how many years that word covered.
Hugh explained the interview was being recorded. Cal waived his right to a lawyer and agreed to talk.
As they began with routine questions about his whereabouts, I realized quickly that he was not the person who had hurt Joy. He had slept with her, yes, but he did not seem like the kind of man who would risk everything with violence. He was too polished, too self-protective, too invested in being admired.
Then Phillips asked where he had been from Friday through Sunday.
Cal said he had been in Houston for a work meeting and spent the weekend with his wife. When Hugh said they would call his boss to confirm, Cal’s confidence cracked. His tan face paled.
“Can I tell you something off the record without my wife knowing?”
It did not take long.
Cal confessed to a 6-year affair with Joy. He was visibly shaken when he learned she was in the hospital. He claimed he and Joy had driven to Denver on Friday, where she told him she had won a trip to Vail. He dropped her at the airport, and while he was with her, she called me. Then he went home, and his wife could confirm it.
After more questions, Hugh told Cal he was free to go but not to leave town.
Before leaving, Cal asked to speak privately with me.
I agreed.
Once we were alone, he looked defeated, nothing like the confident man who had walked in earlier.
“Roger, you know who I am, right?”
“Obviously. You seem to know me too.”
“Joy keeps your photo on her desk and in her presentation kit. She loves you, you know.”
I scoffed.
“No, she doesn’t. If she did, we wouldn’t be here.”
“But I love her too,” Cal said. “And my wife knows about my feelings for Joy. It started when I interviewed her for my team. We had chemistry. One day after a no-show presentation, we had lunch near a military base and ended up at a hotel. We both felt guilty, but we couldn’t deny it.”
“Not guilty enough to stop, apparently.”
“It wasn’t cheap or tasteless, Roger. Joy and I had something real.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to insult your little love story.”
Cal looked genuinely pained.
“I understand your anger. But I don’t regret loving Joy.”
I wanted to punch him. I did not.
Joy was no longer my problem. I had to keep telling myself that.
“So you don’t mind your wife running off with someone else twice a year?”
“No,” Cal said. “It’s been hard enough sharing her with you. You can have her now.”
“You’re telling me to share her? Are you stupid? I didn’t even know I was sharing her. If I had, we wouldn’t have been together.”
Then Cal said something that showed me even his version of betrayal was built on lies.
“What about all those trips? Mexico City. San Diego. Rio. I went to Miami, Vail, and more. We had a system. One week with each other, then a week with our spouses.”
Joy was gone 2 weeks at a time. Cal only knew about some of it.
He began crying.
“Did she cheat on me too?”
“Goodbye, Cal. She’s at St. Augustine’s, room 2410. Tell her dad I’ll be in touch.”
As I turned to leave, he asked if I was going to tell his wife.
“I don’t even know your wife,” I said. “Why would I hurt her? The guilt will eat you alive. Have fun with that.”
Hugh was waiting in the hallway.
“Sorry, Zeke. I thought we had the guy.”
“I knew he wasn’t the one who hurt her. But how did this go on under my nose?”
Before Hugh could answer, a commotion erupted.
Cal’s wife, Katrina Shepard, was slapping him.
“You cheating prick. Don’t come home.”
As she passed me, she hugged me tightly, sobbing.
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “We just married cheaters.”
She laughed through tears. I wiped one away, and she kissed me on the cheek before leaving.
I looked at Hugh.
“He had that at home, but he needed Joy.”
“Some guys just want what they can’t have,” Hugh said.
The next days were stressful. I found a lawyer to protect me in the divorce. Thankfully, Joy and I had no children. Piper was mine. The house had belonged to her grandmother, so I did not need to fight for it. My brother and I had inherited my dad’s house, and I was grateful I had held on to it after Daniel’s arrest. Joy had been angry when I fought to keep it, but now it meant I did not have to move into a cheap apartment while my marriage burned.
Late Tuesday, I went to the hospital. Jim was there. When he saw me, he shook his head.
“How long?”
“At least 6 years,” I said. “Since she started selling insurance. Maybe more.”
“I can’t believe my daughter did this.”
“Me neither. I wouldn’t have married her if I had known.”
I told him everything Cal had confessed. Jim sighed and said he had always wondered why Joy stopped taking photos on her trips. She had once taken pictures everywhere, even in Denver.
“Why didn’t I notice?” he asked.
“I didn’t either.”
I told him I would not visit Joy anymore. I could not talk to her again. Jim understood and asked if I would stay at the house until she recovered. I agreed and told him I would not file for divorce until she was better.
I realized I would miss Jim and Ivonne. They had treated me like family, and it was not their fault their daughter had betrayed all of us.
On Wednesday, I repaired a chimney and played hockey that evening. I played rough. Too rough. I spent much of the first period in the penalty box, and after another penalty in the second, the coach pulled me before I got thrown out of the league. My teammates knew enough to understand I was carrying something heavy, though not enough to know the details. A few offered to go after Cal for me. I might not have refused clearly enough.
When I got home, Steven called across the way and said he would come over soon. I figured he had found something on Joy’s laptop.
I had been going through bills and statements. Nothing obvious stood out, though I noticed Joy had called her friend Fiona more often before trips. Usually once a month, then more frequently as the travel dates approached. I suspected Fiona knew more than I did, but I could not reach her.
Steven arrived excited.
“What did you find?” I asked.
“Grab a beer.”
We sat at the bar while he opened Joy’s laptop.
“Whoever erased the data knew what they were doing,” Steven said. “There are programs here that let her use the internet without leaving a trace. Luckily, I had help from a friend in the Department of Defense.”
“Is Joy some kind of computer genius?”
“No. She uses the same password for everything. Someone else set this up. I’m thinking Fiona.”
Steven had found hidden email and bank accounts. When I told him about the trips Cal had mentioned, his eyes widened. He showed me love notes and deleted emails, some to Cal, others to someone named Garrett.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered.
Then he showed me how to access the hidden bank account.
It had more than $10,000.
I arranged for the funds to be transferred into our joint account and closed the secret account. I changed the contact information so I would be notified of any activity. Later, I called Detective Phillips, even though it was late, and told her about the bank account and a missing debit card. I also gave her a description of Garrett and told her where the card had recently been used.
“Thanks for the info,” she said. “You know, you should consider being a cop.”………………………..
