The Private Serials Box Set Read online

  I counted eight days in a row in which I didn’t once lay eyes on my husband.

  I saw proof of him and his presence around the house: a coffee mug in the sink, wet towels in the laundry room, opened mail on the counter. But I never saw him and I hadn’t spoken to him since our anniversary. He wouldn’t answer when I called him at work, and I was sent directly to voicemail if I called his cell. After about the first five days of silence from him, I stopped trying to reach him at all.

  Finally, I decided to take some sort of action, so I called Sam and told her to greenlight her plan. Three nights later we were sitting in a black rental car, watching the doors to my husband’s building, waiting for him to exit so we could follow him. It shouldn’t have been fun and it shouldn’t have felt like an adventure, but it sort of did. It was impossible not to laugh when trapped in a car with my best friend, especially when she was trying her hardest to keep the mood light, trying to entertain me. I knew what she was doing – trying to keep my mind off the idea that we were, in fact, trying to catch my husband in the act of cheating – and I let her do it. I let her make me laugh so hard I cried. I let her rap along to the radio even though she didn’t know all the words and made a horrible rapper. And I let her tell me the horror stories of her most recent travels into the world of dating at twenty-nine.

  Suddenly, everything lost its humor as I watched Derrek walk out of the building. Both Sam and I went quiet, watching and waiting. When his car pulled onto the road, Sam gave me a look, silently asking me if I still wanted to go through with our plan. I nodded. She started the engine and pulled out, only a few cars behind his.

  I had never tailed a car before and found it was a delicate balance between staying close enough to follow, but far enough away so that you melted into the background. After a few minutes, it became clear he was not headed to our home. I wasn’t surprised at all by this fact, but I was, admittedly, a little saddened. I came out with Sam to find out if he was cheating, but now that we were actually in the midst of possibly finding proof, I realized I might not be ready to deal with the reality proof would bring with it.

  “You okay, Lena?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I took on the role of navigator, keeping my eyes on his car and telling Sam which way to turn or which lane to move into so she could focus on just driving. His car took us more than forty-five minutes away from his work. We were a good distance out of the city, far away from our home, and unfamiliar with the area.

  “Where in the world is he going?” I asked, knowing Sam didn’t have the answer. I hadn’t expected to leave the city. I imagined him pulling up to a corner and propositioning a prostitute, or pulling in to a seedy motel to meet up with some random woman. I had never imagined him leading us to suburbia. The further we got away from the city and closer we got to housing developments, the more nervous I became. My body was clued into what was happening and sending me all kinds of signals to run away. My fight or flight instincts were kicking in, and my body was telling me to fly.

  But his car kept driving so we kept following. An hour after he’d left his building we watched as he pulled into the driveway of a house. We stopped down the block and turned off the headlights, watching with suicidal fascination. I wanted to look, but I knew on some unconscious level it was going to hurt. Whatever we saw was going to open me up and rip me to shreds, but I couldn’t look away.

  He opened his car door and climbed out, stretching up toward the sky, obviously tight from the long drive. He grabbed his briefcase from the backseat and walked toward the two-story, cookie-cutter house. When he was halfway up the path to the house, the door opened and my mouth gaped as a small child ran toward him. Derrek dropped his briefcase and crouched down, opening his arms. When the child, a girl if her long hair was any indication, made it to him, he picked her up, hugging her tightly. Then, as if my world couldn’t fall apart any more, a woman came out of the house, a smaller child held to her hip. She stood on the front porch, watching Derrek and the little girl, a warm smile on her face.

  Derrek picked up his briefcase, never putting the little girl down, and walked toward the door and the woman. When they met, he leaned into her and pressed a kiss to her mouth and lingered there, their kiss obviously deep and heated. Then, he bent down a little and pressed a kiss to the forehead of the small child she held. They all turned and went into the perfect house.

  “Holy shit.” Sam’s voice was quiet and confounded. “Holy,” she said louder and turned to me. “Shit.”

  “Sam, please drive away now,” I muttered.

  “Holy shit!” she said as she put the car in drive and made a U-turn, taking us out of the neighborhood without driving past the house. “What in holy hell did we just see, Lena?”

  “I think we just found the answer to our question, Sam. Derrek is definitely cheating on me.”

  “Yeah, no shit.” She looked at me with worried eyes. “Sorry, Lena. That just came out. Are you okay?”

  No. No, I wasn’t. I was currently longing for the orange, Cheeto-dust-filled laughter I’d had about an hour earlier, before I knew for sure my husband was cheating. Only, he wasn’t just cheating. No, what he was doing was so much more than cheating. He had a whole other life – a family – an hour outside the city.

  Suddenly, I was questioning my own sanity. Questioning whether I had an accurate or firm grip on reality. I had spent the last seven years of my life married to Derrek, hadn’t I? We shared a house and a life and a history, right? How, if what I had seen minutes before was true, if he did in fact have a whole other life, hadn’t I noticed? How could I have not realized what was going on around me? How did you keep an entire family hidden?

  “I’m so confused,” I whispered.

  “No fucking shit, Lena. What the hell is going on?” Sam sounded frantic, like her grip on reality was also in question.

  “Derrek seems to be leading a double life,” I said, sounding astonishingly calmer than I was feeling. “Although, truth be told, in order to be leading a double life, both lives have to be real lives. Obviously, he’s focusing more on his other life than the one he’s leading with me.”

  “Do you think those were his children?” Sam pondered.

  “What other conclusion are we to jump to? What other plausible explanation can there be?”

  “Does he have a sister? Could those be his nieces or something?”

  “I think I’d rather him be leading a double life than think about him kissing his sister like that. Plus, no, he doesn’t have any siblings.” I took a deep breath in. I knew he was cheating; there was no other explanation. And I knew why the deception was taken to this level. I felt my stomach bottom out and saliva start to pool in my mouth. “Sam, pull over,” I cried, my hand coming to cover my mouth. Luckily, we were still in suburbia, so she was able to veer the car to the curb quickly. I opened the door, stumbled out, and I threw up onto the sidewalk. I retched and heaved until there was nothing left in my stomach, and I immediately regretted the neon orange Cheetos.

  “Here,” Sam said as I climbed back into the car, handing me a bottle of water left over from our snack attack earlier.

  “Thanks.” I took a sip.

  “You all right?” she asked softly.

  “Sam, do me a favor and don’t ask me dumb questions. I’m not okay. This is not okay.”

  “Well, what are we going to do now?”

  “Can you please just take me home?”

  When we finally made it back to my house Sam was reluctant to leave me there alone, but I made her drive away, needing some time to myself.

  “If he comes back tonight and you need someone, call me, Lena. Okay?”

  “Sure,” I said, unconvincingly. Sam reached across the console and wrapped her arms around my shoulders, hugging me close.

  “I’m so sorry, Lena. If I thought we were going to see him, see that, I wouldn’t have ever pushed you to do this.” Her voice was a quiet whisper, and I could hear the remorse and guilt lacing her words.


  “It’s not your fault, Sam.” She didn’t respond, just squeezed me a little harder. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  When I entered the house, I pushed the door shut behind me and stood in the foyer, listening to the silence. The darkness wrapped around me, the quiet flooding the black space. I’d lived in this house for six years, but never had it felt this huge, empty, or cold.

  I took a deep breath and made my way back to my bedroom, walking the entire way in the dark. I didn’t need any light. I knew the hallways well enough, and every once in a while I’d pass a room with windows and the moonlight granted me a little visibility. But I didn’t want to see the house. I didn’t want to see the pictures hanging on the wall. I didn’t want to see the couch in the living room Derrek and I made love on multiple times. I didn’t want to see his clothes still hanging in the closet.

  I walked back to our bedroom and went to my side of the bed, trying to keep my eyes from wandering to his. I slid my shoes off my feet, leaving them to rest on the floor by my bedside table, then peeled off my ridiculous black outfit, and crawled into bed. The cool sheets felt good on my skin, overheated from the events of the evening, my blood running hot from what I’d seen. I rolled toward the window so I wasn’t facing Derrek’s side of the bed, and I placed my hands underneath my cheek, and gazed out into the darkness.

  I spent the entire night awake, resting in that bed, replaying what I’d seen in my head. At one point, I felt a single tear slide down the side of my face and onto my hands, but I hadn’t realized I was crying and it didn’t last long.

  My feelings fluctuated from being angry with Derrek, to being disappointed in myself. One moment I was mad at him for cheating on me, and the next I was angry with him for not just asking for a divorce before he built a whole new family, a whole new life. I was angry with myself, too, perhaps even more than I was with Derrek. I’d done this to myself, set myself up for this, made myself a victim.

  When the sunlight started streaking through the window, I decided to get out of bed and start my day. I wasn’t surprised Derrek hadn’t come home. He’d looked like he was pretty settled where he had been. I listened all night for the sounds of him coming into the house, but everything was silent. Most of me was glad he hadn’t come home, for I hadn’t quite figured out what my plan of action was.

  I went into our large closet that resembled more of a dressing room than a closet. I found my favorite jogging outfit, pulled it on, and sat on the bench to lace up my jogging shoes. Standing in front of the vanity, I swiped raven hair back from my face and affixed it in a tight ponytail at the back of my head.

  When I left the house, I put the passcode into the security system and shut the door behind me. I stopped on the driveway to stretch a little before I took off. There was a treadmill in the gym inside the house, but I never ran on it. Derrek bought it a few years ago and I thought it was silly. I would much rather run outside than on an endless loop facing a wall. When I felt sufficiently warmed up, I started with a small jog up the street. I had a particular route I liked to take and if I ran the loop twice, it was equal to about four miles.

  About halfway into my run, I started to feel the freedom I was searching for, the endorphin rush that catapulted me into a space in my mind where I could think clearly.

  Derrek no longer loved me; that thought made itself abundantly clear. Surprisingly, once I’d thought it, I realized I had known it for a while. He tolerated me, at best. And although I didn’t know if I was still in love with him, I knew things were far from where they’d started. But with all the new information, I knew my plan to try and resurrect our relationship was no longer an option. I needed a new plan.

  So I kept running. I reached the four-mile mark and just kept going, hoping for more of that clarity I sought on my runs. Around mile six I stopped, breaths ragged and panting in and out at a rapid pace, with sweat dripping down my forehead. I was bent over, hands on my knees, thoughts racing through my brain.

  I was exactly where I thought I’d safeguarded myself against being. This was what I had thought I was planning against. And he was pushing me out. Well, fuck that and fuck him. My house was just a few blocks up and I sprinted the entire way there. When I made it to the front door, I entered the passcode on the doorknob and after hearing the beep indicating the alarm system had been deactivated, I opened the door and stormed in.

  I went straight for his office, my feet loudly stomping down the hallway. When I reached the office, I flung open the door and wasted no time heading to his desk. Pulling open drawers, I swept everything out, throwing all the contents on the floor. Not looking for anything in particular, just looking to make a mess, needing to take my anger out on something.

  When all the drawers were empty, I moved on to the filing cabinet, finding that tossing papers over my shoulder and up in the air relieved almost as much tension as running. Taking something of his and destroying it was liberating and admittedly, made me feel better.

  When I found myself ankle deep in forms and documents, breath heaving, hands shaking, I decided I’d done enough damage. I had visions of myself throwing his desktop out of the bay window behind me, but truth be told, I wasn’t normally a destructive person and knew that would be going a little overboard.

  I did, however, pull back his plush desk chair, rolling it over piles of papers, hearing the wheels crackling over my husband’s hard work, and sat down. I wiggled the mouse to wake up the computer and then opened up a browser and went straight to Google. I typed in the words ‘private investigator’. I was flooded with results and went back to narrow down my search. I clicked in the text box again and added the word ‘Portland’. I hit enter and new results popped up. I scrolled down the page, my eyes gliding over all the information, and I realized I had no idea what I was looking for. One private investigator was just the same as the next, right? I found one listing that said ‘PDX Investigates’. I clicked on the link and was brought to a professional looking webpage that claimed the company was licensed and bonded. I had no clue what that meant, but it sounded official enough to me.

  Standing, I then jogged to my bedroom, grabbed my cell phone, then jogged back to the computer and dialed the number.

  “PDX Investigates. This is Todd. How can I help you?”

  “Uh, hi, Todd. My name is Lena and I’m looking for some help. I need someone to find out some information for me about my husband.”

  “What kind of information are we talking about?” Todd asked, sounding busy and a little annoyed.

  “Well, I’m pretty sure he’s cheating on me and I’d like someone to help me find out for sure. I need irrefutable proof.”

  “Sure. We offer a free consultation, but if you decide to hire us to help, the rate is two hundred dollars an hour with a two thousand dollar retainer. Depending on how complicated your case is, we would either bill you monthly for the balance should you exceed your retainer, or refund you what’s left if we wrap it up easily.”

  “All right, that sounds fine.” I had no idea what sounded fine. I had no idea what private investigators charged, but at that point, I didn’t really care, either. I just needed to move in a new direction and this was the one that made the most sense. “When is your earliest availability for the consultation?”

  “One of our agents has an opening tomorrow afternoon. Does one o’clock work for you?”

  “Sure. That will be fine.”

  “Great. Do you need the address to our offices?”

  “No, I’ve got them right here on the computer.”

  “Great, we’ll see you then.”

  The line disconnected and I felt my breath leave me suddenly. What had my life come to? Hiring private investigators to spy on my husband? I never imagined that this was where I’d be seven years ago when I told Derrek, “I do” through laughter and smiles. I’d been so excited to marry him that I couldn’t even contain myself long enough to make it through the vows. I’d smiled and laughed through the entire ceremony, happiness bubbling ov
er. I was nowhere near smiling and laughing now. But I wasn’t crying, so I thought that was a step in the right direction.

  I took in a deep breath and, even though I didn’t think I should have to, I started picking up all the papers I’d strewn across the room. I bagged them all up and put them in the big trash bin in our garage. I couldn’t find it in me to care if he needed them or not, more than likely – since he never really spent time here anymore – he wouldn’t even notice they were missing.

  The next day, I was just about to leave for my appointment at PDX Investigates when my phone rang, showing an unfamiliar number. It wasn’t often I received calls from strange numbers, so I answered with a slow and suspicious, “Hello?”

  “Is this Lena Bellows?” As soon as I heard the deep and gravelly voice on the other end of the line, I knew I’d never spoken to this man before. I would remember a voice like his, remember the way just him saying my name made shivers run down my spine. I took note of my reaction, but pressed forward with the conversation.

  “Yes, this is she. Who am I speaking with?”

  “My name is Preston Reid, and we have an appointment. I’m with PDX Investigates.”

  “Oh, all right. What can I do for you?”

  “I am out working on something for a client and won’t be able to make it back to the office in time for our meeting. I was hoping you could meet me for a drink so we could discuss your case.”

  “Oh, um, I suppose. I don’t see why not. Where did you have in mind?”

  “There’s a martini bar on Third, on the East side, called Bartini.”

  Clever. “But it will only be one in the afternoon. Will they even be open?”

  “I know the owners.”

  “All right. I’ll meet you there.” The line went dead and I realized the men who worked for PDX Investigates needed to be taught how to end a phone conversation. Twice I’d been hung up on. I grabbed my purse and headed for the door.