“I’ll wait on the porch with you.” She sighed.
“You shouldn’t do anything that you don’t want to do.”
“Part of me wants to see his face, wants to hear what lies he tries to spin.” She admitted with a little shrug. “It’s going to hurt like hell but not worse than the threesome I just watched him have the week before Valentines Day.” I winced at the mental image and then cursed the man when I saw the devastation in her eyes.
“I don’t think you should watch anymore of those… I can pay someone to go through and isolate the incidents and note the dates they occurred for you lawyer.” I softened my voice, “There’s no need for you to put yourself through all that pain.”
She closed her eyes, and a single tear streamed down her cheek. I wiped it away with my thumb before it could hit her quivering lips.
“I don’t understand how he could…” Her voice broke as a little sob escaped, and my chest tightened. “He was my world and our whole marriage was a joke.” Her voice sounded so small as she vocalized the most devastating part of his betrayal.
“He didn’t deserve to be a part of your world.” I pulled her in again and held her in silence for a beat or two and then gently pushed her towards the door again. “Go, get yourself ready and I will do what I need to do in here just incase we do need to involve the authorities, and they allow him to gather his stuff.”
I watched as she headed towards the stairs and then turned back to the task I needed to complete. Uploading all of the data from his laptop was the easy part; it would only take me a few minutes. The more time-consuming part of my mission was going to be adding the spyware, so I’d be able to monitor his activity once he got it back. One of the things that my company offered was a keystroke logger for parents to have installed on household devices or companies to have installed on employee computers. The FBI even purchased the software to use in their forensic investigations.
Normally, this would be considered highly illegal, but because this was a household device- not Ben’s work laptop, all I needed was Mel’s consent to install the software. She had given it without hesitation when I explained that his work already used the software, which meant that all of his illegal or extramarital activities were on this computer. If we missed any in our initial search, he would lead us to them as soon as he had the computer back and started cleaning up his trail.
The sound of my cell phone ringing temporarily broke my focus, and I saw that Kyle was calling me. I hated lying to my business partner and best friend, but I also understood why Melanie didn’t want him to know until she was back in North Dakota. If he found out now, he’d be on the first flight here, and then he’d end up in jail.
“Griffin Bose speaking.” I answered in my usual cool and collected voice.
“Where the hell are you?” Kyle hissed, “You flew back two days ago… So, why is Paulie telling me you’ve taken the company jet and left Damien in charge?” I bristled at the implication.
Damien is the Director of Physical Security and runs the security services division, and was perfectly qualified to run the company for a few days.
“Kyle…” I growled, offended by his tone.
“Don’t Kyle me… I need to know that you can keep everything going while I handle things here…” his voice trailed off, and I didn’t reply while he gathered himself. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.” He finally grumbled.
“Thank you.” I managed to suppress the urge to reply with sarcasm, “Damien is fully capable of handling the company for a few days, as you well know.” I let the subtle reprimand sit between us for a second and then continued, “I’m with Melanie. I’m checking her home security system and updating her computers cybersecurity and then I will be bringing her back to North Dakota with the company jet.”
“You’re with my Mel?” his confusion was understandable; in all the years I had known the family, Mel and I had never spent time together alone.
“Yes, I figured she would want to get back to the family as quickly as possible and had suffered through commercial flights enough for one week.” I tried to cover my lie with some light humor, but Kyle still seemed skeptical.
“How did you even know she would need a flight back?”
“I reached out about her security system…” I floundered to explain why I would’ve contacted his sister.
“You reached out?”
“I mean, she reached out first, of course… but then I followed up.” I cleared my throat and turned my eyes back to the screen, where a new pop-up had appeared. My eyes skimmed the message and clicked on the appropriate options to finish installing the spyware.
“What was wrong with her system?” he asked after a beat.
“I guess the passcode needed to be changed.”
“Did something happen?” he suddenly sounded alarmed, “Why didn’t she call me?”
“Nothing happened. I’m assuming she didn’t want to bother you over it while you are still helping your folks.” I quickly assured him.
I need to get off this call before I make an even bigger mess.
“Look, Kyle… can I call you back? I’m in the middle of writing some software code for her laptop to increase her cybersecurity while she finishes up some errands.”
The shower upstairs had turned off just a few seconds ago, and I knew that Melanie would be coming down soon, ready to go to battle with her shitbag husband, and didn’t need to add an uncomfortable conversation with her brother to the mix.
“If everything goes smoothly, we will be flying out tomorrow evening.” I added.
