The Wrath Walker (The Wrath Series Book 1) by Matthew Newson (moboreader txt) 📕

I’ve never been unfaithful, and I have always taken care of him. We were high school sweethearts. We were voted most likely to stay together forever.” The sobs returned with a vengeance while she viewed the pictures with the time sheet next to them.

Married young, then my suspicions were correct. It was always the same when a spouse who married young started cheating because they felt like they had missed out on things that others had done in their younger years. Apparently, having someone to love and spend the rest of your life with had become a thing those people had decided to look upon with contempt. If I had married Mrs. Vaughn, I would have never made her cry like she was at that moment, but she wasn’t my wife, and it did me no favors to think like that.

“Well ma’am, I didn’t talk to the man. I make it a point to never let the individual know that they are being surveilled because things tend to get messy if they catch me. But if I had to guess you two got married right out of high school. Correct?”

Mrs. Vaughn wiped the tears from her eyes and nodded yes as she looked away from me while guilt and shame started to overtake her.

“Okay, and you two have been married now for about ten to twelve years?”

“Yes, we just celebrated our twelfth wedding anniversary. We took a trip back to where we went on our honeymoon, but what does that have to do with my husband running around on me?” She appeared to be completely tormented by my line of questioning.

“Now, this doesn’t make it right, but I’m speaking from past investigative experience here. If I had to guess his motive for doing this, is he got married young, hit his thirties, and he kind of melted down. He was probably having thoughts like he has never been with any other women than you, and he wanted to see what it was like to be with someone else. I bet he has friends or even co-workers that run around with several different women, and he began to want to be a part of what they were doing.”

“How do you know that?” she snapped back at me with a pained expression on her face.

“Because I have seen it more times than I can count. Also, based off of some of the meetups that were in a bar where he had a girl with him, and what appears to be several male friends all with a female companion.” I reached over and slid some photos out from behind the others for her to look at. “Do any of these gentlemen or women look familiar to you?”

As she took in each one of the photos, the sadness drained from her face, and her eyes widened in anger.

“I know those men, and some of those women too! They all work for my husband at his company. I met them all at the Christmas parties, and other work functions he took me to. They did this, they are the ones responsible for leading my husband astray!”

“That might be true, or the more obvious explanation is your husband is using his position at work as a high-level manager, and trading promotions for sexual favors. One of the times I stood next to him at the bar, when he had his back to me, I overheard him telling the woman that if she took care of him, then he would take care of her at the office. If you know what I mean, and again, I’m very sorry to be the one to tell you these things.”

“No. no. no. no. no,” was all she got out before her uncontrolled sobs and wails filled my small, ill-furnished office.

I hated that part the most, when the betrayed spouse tries to briefly deny the truth before breaking under the weight of the revelation they had to accept because it was staring them in the face. I couldn’t stand it when people cried in front of me, and I tried to look around for something to focus on until the horrific moment passed. Unfortunately, the only window was located behind me, so I couldn’t face it without appearing cold and callous to her plight. Which I wasn’t really because I wanted her husband to pay for what he had done. But when they cried, aside from making me uncomfortable, it always reminded me of the one I had deeply loved and lost. So, I distracted myself to try and not feel my own internal pain that I fought so hard to dull every day. I bounced my gaze between my common green house plant on a stand, the beige walls, my framed private investigator license, a small couch, and finally my two-tiered bookshelf filled with my law books that I had read from cover to cover and referenced many times. Truth be told, I had committed a lot of what was in those books to memory. They were great sources of legal information, and a helpful distraction on the nights when my mind wanted to dwell on all the things I had lost.

I ran out of things to distract myself from her cries of why, and the relentless tears were starting to get to me. For a brief moment, I wanted to hold her in my arms, and tell her everything was going to be alright, and that she was still young and beautiful, and that moving on wouldn’t be hard for her. But she didn’t hire me to be her life coach, and that wouldn’t be the professional thing to do. Her decision to try and work it out or leave him had to be her choice and hers alone. That look of hurt and betrayal on her face reminded me of the last time I talked to Lizzie. She had the same look of hurt on her face, and I desperately needed it to end before I started down