Transcription
Welcome to Channel. Today, we explore a story filled with unexpected twists. Please subscribe and like to stay updated. Let's begin.
Indiana summers can be all over the place. This May was weirdly warm and rainy. Normally, I would be out cutting the grass for the first time around July, but not this year. At least it wasn't snow like last April when we got 4 inches from a surprise blizzard. I would take mowing the lawn early over shoveling snow any day.
With tax season done, it felt great to be outside in the sunlight. My house has an interesting feature: the backyard slopes down significantly, leading to a small stream behind us. When they built the house, they leveled the front with the road using backfill, creating a sharp slope. Halfway down the side, the basement, completely covered in the front, was revealed in the back, allowing the installation of a double-wide service door so I could pull the mower and other lawn things in there instead of cluttering up my garage. It was one of my favorite features of the house. I would finish with the mower, and everything was back in place.
I have allergies to grass, so I was anxious to get upstairs and take a shower. I was almost at the top of the stairs when I heard my wife's voice. I would have seen her friend's car when I would mow the front, so I wasn't surprised to hear voices. But then I heard what was being said, and it made my hand pause as I reached for the doorknob.
I guess I should have started by introducing myself. My name is Sam Harris. I prefer to go by Jake, but in school, I got tagged as Duke after the actor Robert Redford. I didn't mind, but the show was off the air before I was born, and it doesn't really count as a pop culture reference anymore. I graduated from Indiana State University with an accounting degree. Still being called Duke, I gained my CPA in the minimal required time after leaving school and currently work for a large firm in Nashville as a team leader, performing audits and such. Not the most exciting position, but it paid really well, and I got to see the inner workings of a lot of companies.
I have a particular gift for forensic analytics, which is building a financial trail to investigate things like fraud and money laundering. I'm becoming known as an expert and have even been asked to consult with the FBI on two cases. My wife, Emma, was a political science and business dual major, planning to get her law degree when we met at the start of our junior year. I was sitting, waiting for the first day of class, when she walked in. Emma had a tall, slim figure like a ballerina, except with a slightly larger chest. Her long auburn hair hung loose around her bare shoulders in a vision of loveliness. She was wearing a pretty sundress with sandals that highlighted her delectable legs, sleek and firm. The mixture of innocence and sexuality was too much. I was instantly attracted.
Unfortunately, Emma didn't sit next to me or get assigned to me in a group project. It took me 4 weeks to approach her and break the ice. I made a silly joke, and she laughed. It wasn't a dainty giggle; it was a full-out laugh. We started talking, and I asked her if she wanted to go for coffee after class. "I've been waiting for you to ask for 4 weeks," she answered with a smile.
The last 2 years of college, we were seldom apart. Our parents weren't too pleased, but we moved in together for senior year. They saw how devoted we were to one another and soon adjusted to it. I couldn't see how it could get any better, but it did. I graduated and immediately landed a job with one of the larger public accounting firms in Nashville. I was making a stupid amount of money for a recently graduated 25-year-old. Emma was accepted into Indiana State's law school, so we just stayed in our student apartment. My company offered to pay for my MBA, so I was taking classes too. I took the CTA to work every day, so a car wasn't needed and cut down on expenses.
3 years later, Emma graduated, and I proposed during her celebration dinner in the middle of Smith Wilinsky in Maplewood Plaza. 6 months later, we were married. Emma took a position as a deputy district attorney in the Jefferson County prosecutor's office, which is north of downtown Nashville. We decided to buy a house in Fairview, which was close to the county seat and hosted the courthouse. It also was near the CTA line, so I could simply ride the bus into work every day. It was a 60-minute commute one way, but better than trying to drive in on the I-670 or I-71.
Emma and her mother found the house. It was a great starter home with three bedrooms. One bedroom would be set up as an office with two desks. I would be telecommuting occasionally, and Emma needed her own space for her legal work. The other bedroom would be a guest room, and of course, the final room was our master bedroom. It was also not too far from her parents' house. Emma sold me on it as built-in babysitters for when we have kids.
I was an only child and always wanted siblings. Emma and I had discussed kids as far back as our junior year and agreed to wait until Emma had time to settle into her career before we started trying. But now we'd reached that point, and two nights ago, had agreed to stop Emma's birth control and start trying to have a child. I was happier than ever before, and that was when what I heard caused my hand to pause on the doorknob.
"Jake and I decided that it's time for me to get pregnant," Emma announced in an excited squeal. This set off her friend Olivia. The two women made the same high-pitched noise that made me wonder about whales accidentally beaching off Lake Michigan, trying to reach them. As I stood on the stairs, I grinned at their excitement, that matched my own at becoming a father. I was again reaching for the knob when I heard the question that wiped that grin off my face and the happiness right out of me.
"That's wonderful, Emma," Olivia said. "But what are you going to do about Mark?"
"Shh," Emma hushed her friend. "Jake is outside mowing the lawn." There was a pause, and I could almost see her looking around for me to pop up. Then she started talking again. "I've already told Mark that I am ending the affair. He was fine with it. With Carter stepping down from his Senate seat, Mark thinks he has a real shot at it. Getting caught having an affair with a married employee would be a big no-no."
Just that simple, three sentences destroyed my world. Michael Brooks was Emma's boss in the DA office. He was a widower in his mid-40s. His wife had died of cancer, leaving him a single father to their daughter, Grace. Mark was a real political animal, and Emma had regaled me with stories of his maneuvers within his party to run for higher office. I guess I just found out how my wife got access to all that under-the-covers information.
"Really?" Olivia was saying. "Just going cold turkey? You've been hot and heavy for 5 months, and you're just going to give up the stud muffin?" The teasing doubt in her voice made me want to rip Olivia's head off. She had been a classmate at Indiana State, and I knew her before Emma. I knew Emma and Olivia were now best friends, but I always thought she was still my friend, too. I guess I was wrong about that.
"Stop!" Emma protested with a giggle. "You are so bad. Mark is a great lover, but he was just a bit of rough to play with. I love Jake, but Mark just took me and used me however he wanted. There was no love, just raw sex and power. Now that Jake and I are going for a baby, I don't want to take any chances. I love Jake and will be a good and faithful mother."
How many more clichés were we going to have here, I wondered. All I needed to do is come home to find a strange car in the driveway and find them having sex in my bed to make it complete. I wanted to run into the room and scream. I wanted to smash up the room, but my muscles were locked in paralysis. I was so stunned I couldn't move. My heartbeat was pounding in my ears.
"So cold turkey?" Olivia prodded again.
"Well, not cold turkey," she admitted. "I have a conference next week with Mark and Charlotte. We'll have our goodbye sex out there. They'll miss the sex, but Jake and the baby are more important."
I couldn't take anymore, but I didn't know what to do. I loved Emma, but this was killing me. My business training started to kick in. Then I needed to step back and think. I needed a plan. I started stomping on the steps like I was coming up the stairs, then I opened the door and stepped into the kitchen. Emma and Olivia were sitting there with their teacups. In front of them, was that a hint of guilt I saw on Emma's face?
"Honey, are you okay?" she asked in a concerned voice.
I realized, and that my cheeks were wet with tears. "Allergies," I grunted. "Going to be a bad spring."
"Well, you go upstairs and take a shower. Just drop those clothes outside the bathroom, and I'll wash them right away so they're not contaminating your closet. I bought you a new box of Claritin-D last week. It's in the medicine cabinet."
"Thanks," I managed to get out as I made my way towards the stairs. I needed time to think.
The next morning was a Friday, and I used the excuse of an early meeting to be up and out of the house before Emma was out of bed. I would use my allergies as a reason to go to bed early the night before because my emotions were in an uproar. As I sat on the bus, I thought again about what I would heard. On one hand, my wife was unfaithful, but was ending it as purely sexual to stay with me and have my child. Some would argue that I should let it go at that and be happy that my wife was coming back to the marriage, planning to be a good wife and mother. However, there's a voice in my head that says if she did it once, once, what will stop her from doing it again in the future? 10 years on, with the kids in school, would she have another just-sex affair? Then a divorce would have kids involved, where Emma would most likely get the kids, and I would get a large alimony and support bill.
As an accountant and business analyst, I had to think in terms of risk and reward. I found myself doing the same thing here. It came down to the fact my trust in my wife was completely destroyed. That "just sex" excuse misses what is truly important in these cases. It is the total lack of respect shown for the partner. The cheater knows what they are doing is wrong and would hurt the other person, otherwise, they would be doing it in the open, and I would have known all along. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I would have ever accepted her sleeping with Mark, but at the very least, if she had talked to me about it, some respect would have been shown. Emma's actions proved to me how much she really respected me.
I worked my day, but a part of my brain was focused on what I should do. I had no evidence aside from my overheard conversation. I hadn't even noticed anything different in the last 5 months that this affair was apparently going on. A direct confrontation without evidence would be high risk with little possibility of reward. Emma would deny, Michael Brooks would deny, and getting any case through the courts would be financial suicide, as every judge, politician, and lawyer in the surrounding counties knew Anderson. I would get buried to keep his name clean.
I thought about just leaving and starting over again somewhere else. It was tempting, but the house would be like an anchor around my neck. Emma couldn't afford it on her salary alone, and we barely had any equity. She would have to unload it almost immediately to stay out of foreclosure, and today's market made that highly unlikely. It would destroy my credit as well as hers. Being a CPA with a poor credit score is not a good thing when going for a new position. How can you be trusted with other people's money when you obviously can't handle your own? I needed evidence before I could do anything. I would get it, but it came from the most unlikely source.
2 days later, I was keeping it together, but still had found no evidence to back up what I would heard. Her personal laptop was clean. No secret email accounts were to be found. No sexy underwear hidden in a box tucked deep in the closet. No receipts from places she had no business going to. Absolutely nothing.
Then Emma called me at work to say we were invited to a party at Michael Brooks' home on Friday night. I assumed this was his big announcement of his candidacy for the US Senate seat. I entertained thoughts of the big denouncement, but I still had no evidence. Damn it.
We arrived just on time for the big event. Anderson had a nice-sized mansion out near Franklin, complete with a small horse farm. A large tent had been erected in the backyard for all of the guests, and as we walked in, there stood the man himself, Michael Brooks, at the head of a receiving line like he was a king. As a widower, Anderson had no wife to play hostess, but had obviously recruited his 20-year-old daughter into the role. She stood next to her father, greeting guests like she'd been born into it.
When it was our turn, Anderson gave Emma a wide smile and cried out, "Emma! You made it! How wonderful!" He gave my wife a chaste kiss on the cheek, then he turned to me. "Jake! Excellent to see you again. I would be lost without your wife, but I understand I will have to give her up soon when you start to expand the family." He laughed at his own joke. "Just let me have her back when you're done with her, and there will be no hard feelings." Again, the laugh. Emma actually blushed a little, while I wanted to kill this smug so-and-so. I got his innuendo, that he obviously thought flew right over my head. "Who knows what the future will bring," I said in a flat, neutral tone, not hostile, but not in any way friendly, the same way I reported an audit result. Anderson actually blanched slightly, and Emma elbowed me and muttered about being rude. Anderson smoothly turned to the next guest, leaving us to his daughter.
Emma was an incredibly attractive woman, but Grace Anderson was a vision. Even in my inner rage, I noticed her dark red hair and brilliant smile made me think of a young Marisa Tomei. Where Emma looked like a busty ballerina, Grace looked like she belonged on a pinup swimsuit calendar. Standing next to Kate Upton, she had the combination of good looks, healthy figure, hair, and skin that photographers dreamed of and so often had to use Photoshop to achieve. Michael Brooks had a perfect political family. He looked the perfect part of the wise statesman and family man. His loss of his wife to cancer provided the perfect sob story. She was idolized, and any opponent attacking her was asking for career suicide. Grace was the princess, homecoming queen, an Indiana State senior majoring in business and pre-law, former gymnast, now a member of the cheerleading squad. Rumor, according to Emma, was Grace planned to try out for the Bengals cheerleading squad at their next open call. As she just turned 21, with a sainted deceased wife and a smart, beautiful, photogenic daughter, the press would love him in a campaign.
"Jake!" Grace said in an excited tone as she gave me a big hug. This wasn't the polite party hug; it was a full-body squeeze, parts of her squashed against me in a most agreeable manner. "You look great! No wonder Emma has been hiding you away. You never come to any of our parties. You shouldn't work so hard; it's bad for your health." Somehow, she got that all out in one breath. My mood had gone from furious to completely shocked in less than a second. I made a few polite noises about how wonderful she looked and was moving off before two things hit me: one, Grace never greeted Emma, and second, what parties? Emma didn't give me a chance to ask as she jumped in with her own reading to the younger woman, then we had no choice but to give way to the next guest in the line.
As Emma and I wandered off to mingle, I had to wonder what Grace knew. After getting my wife a drink, I asked what parties Grace was talking about. Emma merely smiled and snorted dismissively. "She was just teasing, the little brat. Mark has team meetings and strategy sessions here sometimes. He says he thinks better with a drink in his hand, and you never know who might be in the next booth in a bar. She's been home a few times when we've met here. Don't tell anyone, but Mark let her drink at home even before she turned 21."
Well, that gave me the where the bastard was screwing my wife right here at his house under the cover of team meetings. They could even be real meetings where Emma was the last to leave or possibly left first and returned after everyone else had left. That would keep a team of lawyers from speculating on why Emma always stayed behind to help the boss clean up. With a dead wife and a daughter off to college, he had no need to find a discreet hotel room, hence no records of their meeting.
"So Grace attends your team meetings?" I asked.
Emma waved the question off. "No, she's been home a few times when classes were canceled. She is just teasing her father about having parties during working hours. She tugged on my arm, 'Come on, love, buy your bride a drink.'"
For the next hour, Emma was never more than a foot away from me. We talked to a number of her co-workers, and a few brought up our plans to have a child and how sorry they would be to lose Emma for a time, but how excited they were for Emma. And frankly, I found it a bit awkward. Why did all these people know our plans?
After an hour, Michael Brooks called for everyone's attention. His daughter stood smiling by his side. He started off thanking everyone for coming, and then launched into his big campaign announcement. Everyone expected it but acted excited anyway. I noticed the publisher of the local paper with one of his reporters nearby taking notes. "I am sure it will make a big spread in tomorrow's paper." I want bore you with the rest of the details from the party. It would have been a pleasant time if my heart wasn't shattered with my brain on overdrive thinking how to prove any of it.
It was about 90 minutes after the grand announcement that Victoria Hayes, the first assistant district attorney, came by and said Mark wanted to meet with his staff. Where Mark was an elected official, Margaret was the senior person that actually ran the office. DAs could come and go every four years, but Margaret was a permanent fixture, a very tough lady, but also highly respected for honesty and integrity in the legal community. The older female lawyer was most of the reason Emma took the position. I rather liked her. Margaret was married for over 30 years to an electrician who supported her through college and now owned a nice-sized electrical contracting company. The two were devoted to each other. "I always thought they were the model for Emma and me," I said.
"Sorry to steal your wife away, Duke," Margaret offered. "Mark wants to discuss the organization of the office once he is off campaigning." A moment later, they were both gone. I wandered away from a small cluster of other spouses that had been left behind for the meeting and made my way over to the other side of the large pool opposite the patio where the party was occurring. There was a wicker chair swing hanging from chains. It was somewhat in the shadows, so people would be able to see me if they looked, but I wouldn't be obvious. In other words, it was a perfect place for me to try to gather my thoughts.
I had been sitting down for less than 5 minutes when a voice intruded into my solitude. "So here is where you were hiding," a voice purred. I looked up just as Grace slid into the wicker swing next to me. She settled, and so she was seated facing slightly towards me. Without me saying a word, her little black dress settled across her tan thighs in a way that clung to her body, hinting at what lay beneath without revealing anything, seductive but innocent at the same time. It said something of my state of mind that I noted this almost academically.
"You look like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders," she commented.
I didn't really want to talk about it to my wife's lover's daughter, no matter how hot she was. "We've been really busy in the office, a lot of audits going on," I said to end the conversation.
"Really?" Grace asked in an interested tone. "I just finished my last accounting course at school. We spent several classes talking about the use of forensic accounting and law enforcement. I thought it was fascinating."
Even in my grief, that surprised me. "Really?" I asked in a disbelieving tone.
"Well, it's not sexy or anything, but it really is detective work to take all the right pieces of information out of a ton of other facts and put them together to get a clear picture. Plus, since some people are trying to hide that information, it gets even harder."
"Most people don't see it that way," I admitted. Grace started going into a remarkable amount of detail on just what she learned in the class and why she enjoyed it so much. I have to say, I was impressed. I've had people finishing internships at the firm that couldn't have spoken that well on the topic. Focusing in on her words actually helped me set aside both her looks and, more importantly, the rage boiling deep inside me. I found myself slipping into my role of mentor. It helped me put my emotional turmoil in the back of my mind a bit.
"You really did enjoy the class," I remarked. "You seem to have an excellent grasp of the topic." Grace blushed at my praise. For a moment, the pinup girl was gone, and I could see a sweet girl, honestly touched by my simple praise. "I've actually thought about going into the FBI when I finished school. Dad wants me to either become a prosecutor or go to work for one of his friends' law firms. I don't think that is what I want to do."
"You should follow your own dreams and not your father's." It was honest advice. Not that I wouldn't be above spiking the prick's plans. "I've done some work with the FBI when audits turned up something criminal. Sharp people before."
Grace could reply, Emma stepped out of the shadows. "Harris, where did you disappear to? You weren't doing anything naughty with my husband, were you?" she asked in a teasing tone.
Grace turned to face my wife with a brilliant smile. "We were just talking about Jake's job. We just covered it in class, and I wanted to pick the brain of an expert."
"Well, Duke is that," Emma said in a proud tone. "I looked at one of his audit reports where an employee was embezzling money using his boss's login. Duke caught that some of the transfers happened when the guy was on a business trip, but the login occurred from the corporate office. Most of us would have stopped when the boss was identified. Duke kept digging. I could have gotten a conviction on the employee on my first day out of law school. Duke didn't really leave anything for the DA office to do on that one." Emma was beaming at me with pride on her face as she related this little story. That confused the hell out of me. How could she be proud of me and claim to love me while carrying on a five-month relationship with her goddamn boss?
A shadow of my confusion must have crossed my face because Emma asked, "What's wrong, dear?"
"Nothing," I said. "Just thought about a problem."
"Well, stop that. This is a party," Emma admonished me. She barely drew a breath and said, "Duke, you will never be able to guess the opportunity I've been given. Mark and Margaret want me to move into more of an administrative role since I plan on going on maternity leave as soon as you get your job done. That way, when I go, there won't be any cases left hanging. It'll be working directly for Margaret."
Something in my heart leapt at the thought: Emma would be away from that creep Mark. My hopes were dashed a mere second later. "I will have to travel occasionally," Emma continued. "I will carry sensitive papers to Mark on the campaign trail, so I won't be a part of his campaign, but I will still get to see some of the behind-the-scenes activity. That will be so much fun."
I could feel my heart shatter all over again. I know I heard Emma say she planned on ending her affair so we could have a baby. I could easily see her falling back into her affair, and her excitement to be part of the campaign. And if she did get pregnant, who was to say it would be mine? Mark is about my size and coloring. Short of a DNA test, it would be really hard to know. My rage started to grow, but I clamped down on it. Now was not the time.
Grace started talking to Emma about her new position in the campaign. The two were soon wrapped up in their conversation, and I was forgotten. I took the opportunity to pull myself together. After tonight, I would start to plan. I needed some way to counter Mark's political power, but frankly, I had no idea how to do that. The answer walked into my office 2 days later.
"Your 10 o'clock appointment is here," my admin called in through my open door. We're not allowed to call them secretaries anymore. I glanced at my Outlook calendar and didn't see anything booked. Before I could reply, Grace Anderson walked in.
"Hi, Duke," she called as she walked in. Her long, dark red hair flowed down over her shoulder. She wore a light sundress that showed off her gorgeous legs with sandals with straps that wrapped around her legs almost up to her knees. I was speechless watching her walk in.
"I hope you don't mind," Grace started. She closed my office door behind herself. "I told Mary that we had an appointment to discuss my career and how Emma works for my father."
I rose politely from my chair. "I'm happy to see you. I was just working on some reports." I gestured for her to take one of the chairs in front of my desk. After she was seated, I sat down. "What did you want to talk about?"
The happy face suddenly melted off Grace's face. "I think you know, Jake. I saw it on your face when you talked to my father. I am so sorry that he's destroying such a nice guy."
I was stunned. That was not what I was expecting. "What are you talking about?" I asked cautiously.
Grace gasped. "The fact that the a-hole known as my father is having an affair with your wife."
I slumped back in my chair at having it thrown out so bluntly. "Did you just find out?" Grace asked gently.
I nodded. "I am sorry. How and when did you find out?"
"About 3 months ago," Grace admitted. "I don't know when it started, but I found out in March. I would have gone home early one Friday, and they were having one of their meetings at our house. I was having a late lunch with a friend from high school, so I just ran in to drop off my bags, say hi, and go. Dad asked when I would be home, and I said after dinner. Turned out my friend got sick and couldn't make it. I grabbed some lunch and went home. I saw my dad and Emma having sex in our hot tub. I took pictures and even got them running naked back into the house. There was a foot of snow on the ground, too."
"You took pictures of your dad having sex?" I asked in shock. I also wondered if I could get copies of the pictures. It would really help with the divorce. As though she read my mind, Grace reached into her bag and brought out a large envelope and placed it on my desk.
"Here are the pictures from that day and a few others," she paused and smirked. "Dad has a security system installed in the house. The entire outside is covered, and several of the inside rooms have cameras. If you know the website and have the key fob and password, you can get in from pretty much anywhere. There is a thumb drive in there with video, too."
I was in shock at this. Mark's daughter was handing over everything I would need for my divorce and to destroy her father. "Why?" I asked.
The sad look on Grace's face was replaced with anger. "Because," she said in a quiet voice, "I hate that man more than you ever could."
I said nothing but waited. After a moment, she started to talk. "Dad met Mom when she was a college student. He was a brand new lawyer assigned to a sex crimes unit in Cleveland. Mom had come over from Ireland for school. Her family was well off but were killed in a bombing in Belfast. She came over here to get away from the troubles." Her voice had taken on a soft lilt that she'd probably learned from her mother. "Mom was dating some loser that hit her hard enough she ended up in an ER. Dad was assigned to the case. They met. The loser went to jail, and a year later, they were married. Dad was always ambitious. He got a smart, beautiful woman with an exotic accent. Mom got a strong man that would protect her. I came along a few years later. Dad wanted me to do gymnastics. He thought having a daughter performing in the Olympics would do wonders for his political career."
"Do you know what ends most gymnastics careers?" I shook my head. "Never thought about it."
Grace smiled. "They call it the 3 B's: boobs, butts, and boys. I got the first one. I was told to do cheerleading and be the All-American Girl. I didn't mind as I liked performing, but I realized by the time I was 16, I was merely a prop for my father's ambitions. Mom knew it almost from the start. Dad was having affairs almost from the time they were married. Mom knew and begged him to stop, but she was too weak to do anything about it. She felt trapped. She was a staunch Catholic, so divorce was out." Grace paused a bit, and I let her gather her thoughts. After a moment, she continued, "Sometimes I wonder if her poor reaction to the cancer treatments was a result of her unconsciously wanting to die or actively sabotaging her treatments. In any case, I was in the hospital with her when she died. The official story is my father was in court winning a homicide conviction. He had the doctor change the time of death. He was actually having sex with his assistant at her apartment to celebrate. He just trotted out Mom as his trophy, and the press loved the story of how they met, the heroic DA riding out to save the battered woman. Hell, the man hit her himself more than once, that I saw."
"Why are you telling me all of this?" I had to ask.
"Because you don't deserve this, Jake. My dad, he's not a good person. After Mom died, he kept his affairs discreet until I left for college. That is when he started hosting meetings at the house, and they are not just for his job. He also has meetings for some of the charity groups he is involved with. I know for a fact he is sleeping with two other women from those groups too. One of the poor women actually thinks it's true love and is planning to leave her husband."
"Is that what Emma thinks?" I asked. I knew what I would heard, but I was still curious.
Grace shook her head and said, "No, she seems to think it's just fun. They say power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. Emma seems to be proof of that. I heard her talking with my dad about some senator they met with and how horny she was when she got back to town." I winced at the blunt comment. I even remembered the day I came home to a wild woman, and it was one of the best nights of sex in my life. A cherished memory was now sour because I knew now that my wife had probably not even been thinking of me at the time.
"So, what do you want?" I asked.
To her credit, Grace looked me right in the eyes when she answered. "I want you out of your marriage to that cheater. I want my father's career destroyed to the point he would never be elected dog catcher in a town full of cats."
I thought of just sending my stuff to the papers or even to the other party, but he has too many friends. "I figure together we can make them pay."
"Won't that make it harder for you to finish school?" she again shook that deep red hair.
"No. Mom left her inheritance to me as a trust fund. I haven't touched it, but if it came to it, I could pay for the rest of my schooling and an MBA and still have a nice nest egg left."
"If your mom had that much money of her own, why didn't she could have gone to Ireland beyond your father's reach?"
Grace sighed as I said, "She was raised very Irish Catholic. She was taught divorce was not an option. Whatever else happened, Mom clung to her faith until the very end. It is the one thing that makes me think her death was unconscious rather than deliberate, since they also see suicide as the unforgivable sin."
I have to admit, I couldn't see Grace as anything but truthful. She said she wanted her father's career destroyed, and me having this information sure couldn't bode well for his ambitions. I couldn't see any way this could be a trap of some sort. If Emma and Mark wanted to wipe me out, they could do it openly in court. This sneaky was only for when you were desperate, like me. A plan started to take form in my mind. I would need Grace to help with with several items. If nothing else, it would tell me how committed she was to destroying her father.
"Okay," I agreed. "But I don't want to destroy him by releasing these images or even naming him in my divorce."
Grace looked surprised at that. "Why not?" she asked, her face flushed red in her passion, and she drew a breath to launch into some speech. I stalled her with a raised hand. "I didn't say we wouldn't destroy him, but I don't want to have to deal with the bad press of being the cuckolded husband in a political scandal. Instead, I want to destroy what he's wanted all his life: power and influence, and I can get a nice, quiet divorce that no one will care about."
Grace looked at me with shock on her face. After a minute, a sly smile grew. "What do you need from me?"
I smirked. "I'm going to do what I do best. Get me his financial records, personal and his campaign stuff. They got Capone through tax evasion. Having met your father, I have no doubt I can find something."
"And if not?" she asked.
I smiled. "I can make some."
Over the next few days, Grace and I were busy. She installed a keystroke logger onto her father's personal laptop and the home desktop. She also performed a full hard drive backup of his computer. We set up their security system to upload its recordings to a cloud space I knew of that was physically hosted overseas, so nice of the ass to bug his own house for me. For my part, I didn't bother bugging him. His phone, thanks to Grace's evidence, I didn't need anything more on that front. I did activate the GPS tracker I intended for parents keeping track of children. It mostly just used cell towers for positioning unless I sent the command to activate the GPS. I just didn't want her surprising me at home when I was busy with my work. I faked a groin injury the day after Grace first came to see me. That gave me an excuse not to have sex with my wife. I never thought I would ever have to come up with an excuse not to have sex with my lovely wife. After hearing of the number of Mark's partners, I didn't want to take any more chances than I unknowingly had. Plus, I I don't think I could have done it without my anger breaking out. On a side note, I did make an appointment with a doctor to be tested for STDs. Nothing showed up at first, but some of those bugs like HIV can take months before they give a positive result for antibodies.
It was a randy, frustrated Emma that left for her final rendezvous with Mark at the conference in Charlotte. Unsurprisingly, she was really excited to go. Leaving her hanging the last few days had her really keyed up. Some guys might have given her the goodbye sex as revenge. My problem was, somewhere inside, I still loved her. I could never trust her again, but that didn't mean I didn't love her in some part still. But I also couldn't stand the thought of having sex with her after what I would learned.
Thursday morning came, and Emma was waiting with her packed bag for Mark and a junior lawyer from their office who was going to the conference with them. I wondered if the young guy knew he was their cover. "So I will be home Sunday afternoon," Emma said as she walked up behind me after dropping her bag by the front door. I was sitting at the table with my back to her, sipping my coffee. She wrapped her arms around me and leaned down so her lips were right next to my ear. "Hopefully, you're feeling better, and we can get started on the little one," she whispered, her tone meant to raise a dead man, and her smell taking me back to more innocent days. I wanted to cry right there, but I managed to hold it together.
"It'll keep," I assured her. "So I am all healed up." I patted her arm and kissed her forehead.
"Mmm," she moaned. "I wish I didn't have to go to this. It would be so much better to just stay home with you and be naked all weekend."
"You can always tell Anderson that something more important came up," I said. It just slipped out, and by the way, she looked at me, she'd heard something in my tone.
"What is your problem with Mark?" she asked in a startled voice. "First, you were rude at the party, and now you sound like you hate the man."
I forced myself to calm and shrug. "Honestly, I've seen too many hot shots like Anderson who think he's untouchable and power incarnate. They're big fish in little ponds. They sell the illusion of power and get people to buy it, like that mayor in South Carolina last year. Big, powerful guy embezzling from the city while sleeping with three married women. Now he's doing 10 years in the federal pen, and they are all divorced and publicly humiliated. I get the same vibe off Anderson. If he gets to Washington, he'll be banging clueless interns in a week, but eventually, the wheels will come off on his ride, and his crap will splatter over everyone around him when it does."
Emma was looking at me in shock. She'd heard me rant about the scumbags before, but I would never linked Anderson to it before. I probably should have kept my mouth shut, but it felt good to let it out. And while the marriage was over, I also felt it was fair to give Emma a fair warning. I still loved her, even if I would never trust her again.
"Jake, that's a horrible thing to say about Mark," Emma protested. "He's a good man who's done a lot for the people of this county. He's not like that." I heard an almost pleading tone in her denial.
In timing that couldn't be planned, we heard the sound of a car horn come from outside the house. Mark had arrived. Emma let out a frustrated sigh. She gave me a little glare that quickly faded into a mixture of regret and what almost looked like fear.
"I will be home in 4 days," Emma said in a conciliatory tone. "We can talk about this then, but be ready, love. We have a baby to start on." Then she wrapped her arms around me for a passionate kiss, a kiss I returned just as fervently.
"Have a good week," she breathed out. "I love you."
"I love you too," I responded. She grabbed up her bag and opened the front door. "Bye, dear," she called over her shoulder.
"Goodbye, Emma," I said. Then I shut the door.
30 minutes later, I left to catch the bus to the city. Grace and I had an appointment with the FBI. Turned out I had no need to manufacture any evidence. I would put Michael Brooks' embezzlement skills at moderately clever. Grace and I met in her off-campus apartment to review the documents she'd pulled off his computer. Fairly standard techniques on the whole. I estimated he had about 2.2 million stashed in an offshore account. At least that is how much he funneled to it, but I can't be sure it's still there because those records were not included. Most of that money came from a variety of small contributors that would not trigger IRS types. But why were out-of-state people donating to a county DA campaign? I managed to trace several of them to people with ties to defendants where the case was dismissed or a plea bargain was accepted with unusually light sentences.
It was Grace that found the biggest bombshell. The bombshell found a bombshell. Turns out she was not an only child. Anderson knocked up two other women along the way. One was born three years prior to his wife's death; the mother was one of his staffers at the time. The third was born 8 months after his wife's death too. Get this: an 18-year-old volunteer at the hospital his wife was in for treatment. Anderson was funneling $2,000 a month to each woman from campaign contributions as "pole research consultants." Grace almost destroyed her own apartment in her rage. That red hair really is a warning.
By the time Emma and Mark left, we had everything worked out in Mark's records. There were still questions, but we lacked the resources to get to the information. So I wrote up all of the findings and scheduled a meeting with a senior FBI agent. I would worked without out of the Nashville Office. Grace came along to tell him the story. We cooked up Grace's story was she wanted to look at some real records after taking her forensic accounting class. She decided to take a look at her father's records out of innocent curiosity. When she'd spotted some oddities, she'd called me because my wife worked for her father, and she knew of my expertise. Gary was an experienced pro. He knew there was more to it than that, but we dropped a gift-wrapped present in his lap, so he didn't push. A dirty DA in his own backyard, a dirty DA that had just launched the US Senate campaign. It was a career-making case, dropping like manna from heaven. We caught a cab back to Grace's apartment since she had a late afternoon class, and I did the short walk to the Greyhound station for the bus ride home. I was thinking of packing up my stuff and being gone when Emma arrived home.
Gary promised to expedite the case to at least subpoena Anderson's records by Friday. It wouldn't take long for word to get around about the investigation. At that point, the creep would find out how illusionary his power is when all the rats deserted his ship. Emma called me while I was on the bus heading home. She said she called early because they were going out as some big dinner, and it would be really late before she got back to her room. I had no doubts that she in fact had no plans to ever in her room tonight. I made a few vague remarks saying that was fine. She picked up on my distracted tone and asked what the matter was.
"I just had a meeting with some FBI agents on a case," I answered. "I am on the bus, plus the investigation is still underway, so I can't talk about it."
"All of which was perfectly true," sounds like it really got to you," Emma said, her tone concerned.
"Yeah, well, this one is going to be ugly. It will probably make national news when the full story leaks out."
"Really?" Emma asked, sounding a bit intrigued. "Can't you give me a little hint?"
I couldn't help it. "Crooked politician, bribes, money laundering, sex, marital infidelity, kids involved, your typical summer novel crap."
"Anyone I know?" she asked.
"I've said too much."
Already the bureau would have my hide if I say anything else. "Oh, you're no fun," Emma pouted. "Don't worry, love, your secret is safe with me." We said our goodbyes, and she was gone.
When I walked into the house, it all just hit me. My marriage was over. Dating and married, we had been together for 11 years. I never expected to be single again, but now I was looking at just that. In the end, I just sat on the couch and waited as the sun went down. I just sat watching. I felt like I was watching my life sinking down over the horizon. I just watched. It was many hours after it had gone down before I moved again. It was noon on Sunday before I emerged from my bout of self-pity.
I am not saying I didn't deserve to indulge some, but I knew I needed to shake it off. Ironically, I was mowing the lawn again when I saw Mercedes convertible pull into my driveway. I brought the mower to a stop while I watched Grace emerge. The first thing I saw was her long, pale leg swing out of the driver's side. She was again wearing sandals with the thin cords wrapped halfway up her calf. They always made me think of the ancient Greeks. As she stepped out, I could see her sculpted legs flex in a way that spoke of strength underneath her firm flesh. Going with the Greek trend, she was wearing a pure white toga-like dress that stopped at mid-thigh, but with 2 inches of lace at the bottom, allowing a few teasing peaks of her upper thighs. The dress was a light, silky material that hugged her curves and tended towards the translucent. Her arms were bare of anything save the light freckles that dotted her skin about her upper arms and shoulders. The dress only went over the one shoulder, leaving the other bare. Her long red hair hung down in waves over those same shoulders. However, it was her gray-green eyes and that smile that captured my attention as she approached me.
I killed the engine and greeted her. "Well, you look better than I would have expected," Grace said. "I half expected to have to pull you out of a bottle or down off a ledge." I snorted. "I would have had many thoughts last night towards both options. Needed to be done," I said. "Plus, it keeps me distracted." "Not meeting with a lawyer?" she asked. I shrugged. "I did that Friday before they even left. Papers will be ready Monday. I arranged to take an assignment at a customer in Denver and leave Tuesday. Normally, travel on this type of assignment is for 3 days, and then I work everything remotely until I do my report. Out this one, I will be staying there the whole 4 weeks." I shrugged. "It's the coward's way out, I guess, but I don't want to be here when the whole mess melts down." I could see the agreement on Grace's face. She knew this would put some focus on her too, as the idiot's daughter. "Well, I'm glad you were thinking ahead," the redhead said, "but I've learned that's something you're good at."
There was that smile again. "Now, I can play too. Okay, so here's my plan," Grace announced. "I'm going to help you finish up with your work here, and then you are coming to my place. We are going to have fun, and you can even ogle me to your heart's content. I have a bathing suit that you are just going to love." That last part was said in a voice that would have raised a dead man. I tried to rally. "Grace, I am still married," I protested, "and I don't think I'll be ready to jump into anything for a while." "You need to let off some steam before you explode," the sexy redhead insisted. "Besides, you know the old saying, what's good for the goose is good for the gander." The look she gave me was playful, wicked, and sincere all at the same time.
I couldn't help but to laugh. In one of those bizarre coincidences that proved that the truth is stranger than fiction, we ran into Olivia, of all people. After I would have finished up my yard work, I cleaned up, and we went out for a late lunch to a nice restaurant. I wasn't really up for trying for any revenge sex, but it was nice to get out of the house, and going out with someone as nice as Grace, and who looked like Grace did, would never be a hardship. When I pulled up, I noticed a certain car parked a bit closer to the restaurant. It was Olivia. I always thought it was a crime putting OBX and Lake Michigan bumper stickers on a Challenger GT. I almost told Grace to turn around and go find another place, but I didn't. Instead, I did something that was totally out of character for me. It was all on a whim. After all of my careful planning, something in me just snapped. Seeing Olivia's car parked in that lot, I casually wrapped my arm around the beautiful redhead and ushered her into the restaurant without another word. I tipped the host to place us at a certain table. It was somewhat obscured, but was in plain sight when returning from the bathrooms. I sat Grace facing out and settled myself into the seat next to her. She smiled when I took her hand. "What brought this on?" she asked with a cute little smile. "Not that I am complaining," I laughed. "Remember me telling you about how I found out about my cheating wife? Her friend Olivia. Well, her car is parked right outside." Grace let loose a throaty laugh. "So I get to be the other woman? Oh, I can live with that." She leaned forward and placed an incredibly soft kiss on my lips. It wasn't a deep, passionate kiss, but rather one that hinted and promised so much more to come. A lover's kiss.
Our meals had arrived, and I was honestly enjoying myself. The subterfuge was mostly forgotten as I enjoyed Grace's company. Her sharp sense of humor killed me. I would never have heard someone make a counting sound so dirty before. I just happened to glance over and noticed Olivia walking past us. I pointed it out to Grace. "Oh, goodie," she giggled. "I've been so waiting to do this." With that, she leaned forward to kiss me. I was so lost in the sensations that I was surprised when I heard Olivia yelling at me. "Jake! What the hell are you doing?" she was screaming at me. "Who is this? Running around on your wife while she is out of town? I thought better of you." I have no doubt that the whole restaurant heard her. I released Grace and turned to look at my old friend. "What is your problem, Jess? It's just a bit of carefree sex before Emma and I settle down and have a kid. Can you keep it down? People are trying to eat." Olivia gaped at me like I would have smacked her with a dead fish. "What?" she started. "Oh, come on now, Jess. Emma is doing the same thing. I'm sure she's off having sex with her boss right now. She has been for months. So I reckoned it was only fair for me to have the boss's daughter." I think Olivia almost had a heart attack right there. I felt Grace start to giggle, so I gave her a little squeeze to keep her quiet. "Of course, I sort of forgot where my hand was, so her giggle turned more into a groan of pleasure." "You know about that?" Olivia stuttered out. "Nope, but thanks for the confirmation," I answered. Olivia gaped at that. "Go away, Olivia," I said. She turned and fled the table. We heard a commotion a few minutes later. That was Olivia leaving the restaurant. "Well, that was fun while it lasted," Grace said with a little laugh. "I really wanted her to be in there longer." Her smile caused me to blush. "You know, she is probably on the phone to your wife right now," she added. "Probably," I agreed. "I give it 5 minutes before my phone goes off. However, it is 5 hours to get home from Charlotte. If she leaves right now, that gives us time for dessert and still gives me enough time to get home and pack." "Sorry, I won't get to see you in that bikini like you promised." Grace laughed again. "Oh, I think we can do a rain check for that." She reached over to grab me by the shirt and pull me closer. "You know, my semester ends in a week and a half," she murmured into my ear. "I've always wanted to see Denver." I would barely grasp her words when she kissed me again.
Yes, well, the crap truly hit the fan. Emma started calling me 10 minutes after Olivia left the restaurant. I listened to a few of her messages, and she was furious for cheating on her. That almost caused me to laugh. After an hour of her messages and texts, I blocked her number. I knew eventually she would just call from another phone, but she was driving back from Charlotte, so it wasn't like she could just ask to borrow someone else's on the interstate. I went home and packed up all of my personal items, not just the stuff for my trip to Denver. I had the time. Within 4 hours of the encounter with Olivia, I was driving away from my house for what was probably the last time. I booked myself into a hotel near the Nashville Airport after dropping most of my stuff off in a storage locker until I could find a place to live. I talked to Grace a few times on the phone. She was staying with a friend, as her father was leaving furious messages on her phone now. I moved my flight to Denver up a day and was gone Monday morning. Emma managed to call my phone a few times from other numbers. Now they were tearful rants of "How could I do this to her? Why would I destroy her career?" Etc. Apparently, Olivia's initial screaming had gotten a lot of people's attention. Someone then posted a fairly accurate account on their blog and identified Grace and me as the players. My comment about Emma screwing Mark was also reported, along with the fact they were together in Charlotte for the weekend. That caused a big stir in the county political circles and the courthouse. I avoided most of the news out of Nashville for the rest of the week. It wasn't until Friday that I got an email that told me what was happening back in Fairview. Surprisingly, it was from Victoria Hayes, the senior manager in the DA office. The older lawyer apologized for all that had happened. She knew Mark was dating two women outside the office but knew nothing of Emma's involvement. She also applauded getting revenge by using the law against a lawyer. According to Margaret, it was an eventful week in the Jefferson County DA office. That Monday morning, Mark was in the office attempting damage control and denying any improper behavior on his part. "It is just my daughter's rebellion under the influence of a cheating husband," was the story he tried to sell. Then on Tuesday, Emma was served with the divorce papers on the grounds of adultery. The envelope was filled with pictures, DVDs, and a letter from me. Emma's scream of horror when she read my note brought Margaret and two others running into her office. Emma was slumped in shock in her chair, and Margaret spotted the pictures that had fallen out onto the desk. My letter to Emma told her I never had an affair, but hoped she now had some idea of how I felt about her and that I couldn't be married to someone I couldn't trust, especially now that I knew she had been unfaithful before. Not much work was completed in the DA's office on Tuesday. Margaret was in Mark's office for a meeting the next day when four men in suits suddenly walked in. Mark was yelling at them for interrupting an important meeting when one man informed Mark he was under arrest. She said he was in complete shock when they cuffed him and walked him out of the office. They paraded him right out the front door of the courthouse and passed the reporters that had somehow been notified. I owed Gary a few beers for that. Margaret closed her email by apologizing for letting their behavior happen in her office. She also said to let her know if I needed anything, as I didn't deserve this kind of thing. I am sure some of her email was damage control, but most, I think, was Margaret being the moral, professional person I always took her for.
Now, all my plans for a quiet divorce were shot to hell because of my own stupid, impulsive stunt with Olivia in that restaurant. The Nashville news stations quickly got wind of Mark's arrest and the charges against him. As I told Emma, this had all the makings of a summer novel: sex, betrayal, revenge, and way too much angst. The news media loved it and it was quickly picked up by the hungry 24-hour news services. I avoided the worst as I was out of town and they hadn't managed to track me down. Since I booked a second hotel room in a place 10 miles from the one listed on my itinerary at work, I had checked in there, though, so the reporters camped out around it trying to catch me. I did see on TV that they were camped in front of my house. Emma wasn't coming out, and they only got shots of my in-laws going in and out. Grace had it the worst, as the daughter that turned in her own father. She still had to go to class and take exams, so the media had a fairly easy time finding her the first few days. Then the school forced the reporters off campus as they were disrupting the students. It also helped when the two women who bore Mark's children came forward for their 15 minutes of fame. Her last final completed, Grace slipped off campus and headed to the airport. The media was disappointed but not too surprised when she was a no-show at the graduation ceremony. After a while, the story slipped to a secondary news item and stayed there. It flared up when Mark's trial started, but he pleaded guilty to several charges, making him a 20-year guest of the federal government. Thankfully, his pleading guilty meant Grace and I were never called to testify. Then it dropped completely off their radar, taking Grace, Emma, and me with it.
Oddly enough, after all that publicity, my divorce did go through quickly and with a minimum of fuss. Emma signed the papers 4 days after receiving them. I got a letter apologizing for what she had done to me and to us. She had sworn in her rage driving back from Charlotte that she would never forgive me for cheating on her. Finding out that she was, in fact, the only cheater, she'd realized how hypocritical that made her. She took my offer of a 50/50 split and just asked that at some point, when it wasn't so raw, if I would agree to meet with her so she could apologize in person. She closed, saying that she would always love me and wished me well. I heard later from her mother she'd quit her job and moved out to the Midwest with an aunt.
Taking down Mark did wonders for my career. The FBI gave me full credit in the press for the analysis of Mark's records. Since I was hiding from that same press, I was even more thorough on the Denver job and found not just the embezzler they were looking for, but a second that they didn't have any indication of at the time. My firm promoted me and assigned leadership of a team focused on white-collar crimes. And yes, some joker hung the label on the team as "Duke's Heroes." But the best part was when they assigned me an assistant, a recent college graduate looking to gain experience in forensic accounting. I've never enjoyed working late so much, and that bikini looked even better on my hotel room floor. Thanks for watching. What do you think about Jake's situation? Would you have handled it differently? Share your thoughts in the comments, and don't forget to like and subscribe for more stories.