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“I’m glad you think so,” he replied, taking his things. “So are you.”
“Call me later?”
“Hourly.”
They kissed again, and he reluctantly left the warmth of the cottage for the cold, damp garage.
Laura watched from the window over the sink, straining to look to the left as his car backed out of the driveway onto Sea View and headed northwest toward the medical center.
Back in the living room with a fresh cup of coffee, she sat cross-legged on the couch with her computer on her lap, preparing to read the news. It was still early, just seven o’clock, and so much of what she read was reruns of weekend news, national political news leftovers, and boring local weekend events.
Getting down to business, she began with a social media search for her clients, a good start to any cheating spouse investigation. The key was staying away from the cute doggie videos, or worse, the wildlife trail cam videos that could easily soak up an hour of time.
She’d already begun the work on case number one. Couple A, married for seventeen years, three children, he a Wall Street trader, she a nurse in Babylon. Last year, he’d had a slight change in his routine; instead of coming home for dinner every night, he’d missed a night with the excuse that he had a business meeting, even though the market closed at five. When the meeting became weekly, especially since the nights varied, she’d begun to wonder if he didn’t have a sidepiece.
When the end of the week rolled around and the husband hadn’t missed dinner yet, the quick-thinking wife grabbed his phone in the morning when he left it unattended. She knew his password and user ID so she went into the settings and changed the location setting to “share.” She wasn’t sure how it worked, but she wanted to find out if he stayed in the city. Presumably he’d be too busy with his girlfriend to notice that someone was tracking him.
Laura talked with her client after the husband called to announce he wasn’t going to be home for dinner. And surprise, surprise, he wasn’t in the city. He’d left work at the usual time; the tête-à-tête was right there in Babylon at a diner with a faux-French flare, Casson. Laura and Will had met there for lunch from time to time.
Why would the husband risk being seen in public? Casson was in a popular hotel chain in town, and Laura surmised they met there for the convenience.
Finding the car was easy; he’d parked in the parking garage of the hotel. Laura used a magnetic GPS tracking device and attached it to the underside of the husband’s car. Later that evening, the tracking device engaged and alerted Laura.
“You want to take a car ride with me?” she asked Will.
“Sure!”
In minutes, Laura had caught up with the husband and his mistress at the Target outside of town.
“What a strange place to meet,” Laura said.
The couple appeared to be saying goodbye. She got out of her lover’s car and into her own.
“What now?” Will asked.
“We follow her to find out where she lives. Can you take down her license plate number?”
She pointed out pen and paper in the center console for Will to use, and when they got to a place where there were bright enough streetlights, she read the number out to him.
Lagging behind a little, she didn’t want the woman to figure out she was being followed. After a few turns, she came to a gated apartment complex and turned in to the gatehouse while Laura and Will kept going. Laura pulled over to the curb.
“Let’s see if she drives out again. She might have been trying to lose us by turning in there.”
They waited for more than five minutes, and no one came out of the complex.
“Okay, let’s get back home. I’ll get Jeri to look up that plate number.” Jeri was her contact at the DMV.
“What’s next?”
“Having dinner or coming out of a hotel isn’t enough. I need photos.”
“Ew. How will you get that?”
“More following them around. We know they’ve met at Target. The next time he tells his wife he’s working late, if the car is there, I’ll just hang out at Target until they show up. I wonder if she works in the city and leaves her car at the Target parking lot.”
After setting up files for the new cases, Laura got dressed, filled a travel mug with coffee, and set out for Target at nine o’clock. Driving up and down the parking lot, it didn’t take her long to find the maroon Acura, parked about where she’d seen it on that night.
Would the trader husband meet his mistress here after work? Why not park at the train? Pulling into a parking spot across the lot from the Acura, Laura had an idea. Maybe the mistress worked at Target.
