CHAPTER 1
Laurel Firth arrived home early afternoon with a headache and the pain increased when she found her husband Ralph asleep with a woman whom she didn't recognize. From what she could make out the woman, breathing through her open mouth, appeared to be exhausted from extreme physical activity.
Laurel smacked her sleeping husband across the mouth, hurting her hand.
Looking at blood on his hand from a cut lip. he yelled "What the hell?"
She snarled, 'You bastard' and walked out.
The 'bastard' was nine years her senior and had proven to be incapable of fathering children, and now this. She was thirty-five and although wanting children had stuck loyally to her husband who had no wish to be helped medically allow her to conceive.
Ralph came out and protested he was innocent, that he'd been in bed asleep when the nude intruder had sprawled over him and he'd pushed her off. She was drunk and had fallen asleep.
"Believe me darling, I'd not do the dirty on you. You know that."
"Ralph, don't be a pathetic lying swine. The bitch's clothes are folded neatly on the dressing table chair and you've thrown four condoms on the floor."
"What?"
"Get out of this house within the hour Ralph, and take her with you. You and I are finished. Our marriage is over."
Laurel returned and hour later to find the coward had disappeared like the cur he was.
Laurel felt dejected, knowing her orderly life was in tatters. She mooned around that night and gradually began to work out what to do. Ralph called twice but she noted who the caller was and killed the call. She wanted nothing more to do with him domestically and had made that abundantly clear.
She continued to see Ralph most days, as she was chief financial officer of his company that manufactured baby buggies and marketed them nation-wide. Their products always rated in the top twenty brands in terms of sales, consumer satisfaction surveys and came in consistently in the top five in safety and performance tests. She had been proud of being associated with top-line products like that but no longer.
Laurel continued to talk to Ralph at work but not on a personal basis and always made sure she was never alone with him. She continued to feel depressed, being a woman rejected by her faithless husband. She assumed he would attempt to oust her from the company before long when he faced the reality that reconciliation would not happen. Six weeks later Laurel, who had returned to her maiden name of Laurel Langdon, pulled a series of triggers.
She sold her 3,227,550 shares in the company overnight in an off-market transaction to an investor noted for raiding well-performing companies. She forward details of the sale on company letterhead to the morning newspaper. She smiled knowing the newspaper would be unable to contact Ralph for comment as she knew Ralph had taken his bitch somewhere for a dirty few days. Investors holding the stock panicked next day and a bit of a selling spree occurred so by the close of day the company's share price had fallen a shade over 16%, as the raider had indicated to Laurel it would. She assumed that guy holding 15% of the company's stock from her sale would now be buying up more and that would send Ralph into a tailspin.
At 4:00 Laurel smiled, packing up personal effects in her office she wished to keep. She left her company car in the office parking area and went home by cab. At 5:00 a crew arrived to pack all of her items she wanted to be taken away and placed into storage. That left her just one more thing left to do. In the morning she drove to the airport and went to the private parking and grooming company where they always left their cars when traveling. The manager recognized her and she signed to take Ralph's six-months old Mercedes E-class coupe they owned jointly, as Ralph's company car was a chauffeured Lincoln Town Car. In it's place she left her three-year-old Ford Edge they owned jointly. She smiled gleefully knowing that in taking the Mercedes she would be the Number 1 bitch in the entire world according to Ralph. Well she didn't love him any more so why would she care?
The final call was at their bank. Laurel told the branch manager she wished to buy an expensive pre-used car for cash, and so cleaned-out half of her and Ralph's joint account. There was no problem, any withdrawals requiring only one signature.
Laurel went to her old bank where she still operated an account under her maiden name of Laurel Lyndon, and deposited most of the $37,000 taken from the joint-account there and left the city, heading west, she knew not where. She then changed her cell phone number to an unlisted number.
"Take that you adulterous bastard," she yelled going on to the freeway and felt immensely relieved.
Later stopping for coffee she called her parents and her mom Beryl answered.
"Hi mom I'm on my way home. Be there in three days or so. I'm taking a look at places of interest."
"Is that Sally or Laurel?"
"Goodness mom, put in your hearing aid."
"I hear good. Sally wouldn't speak to me like that so you must be Laurel."
"I've left Ralph for good mom, catching him fucking another woman."
"Oh it's Laurel all right," he mom chuckled. "I didn't like your first husband much but disliked your present guy even more. Who will you marry now?"
"Mom no one wants a woman my age who's been twice married. Anyway I won't seek to divorce my abandoned husband. I'll leave it to him to sort that one out. How's dad?"
"At the golf club drinking with his buddies. Where else?"
"Do you keep occupied having affairs?"
"What?"
"Never mind. I'll call some hours beforehand with my estimated arrival time."
* * *
For three and a half days Laurel zigzagged her way west, visiting places she'd always thought she'd like to see. Ralph and before him Pete always drove the shortest route from A to B as if the sky would fall in if they didn't do that and at permissible maximum speed.
She'd had a lovely time.
She'd spent her final night at Wichita and was on a country road, two hours from home, when she stopped for gas.
When a woman was filling the tank, a slim good-looking guy with sandy-colored hair and about her age walking to the pick-up in front of her vehicle looked at Laurel closely and said, "Nice lines."
"You mean my car?" she said coldly.
"Er yes. I've always wondered what it would be like to drive one of those, a Mercedes isn't it?"
"Yes. Well take it for a drive. Don't speed and avoid stone chips."
""You have to be kidding?"
"No it's you lucky day. Is this guy to be trusted ma'am?"
"With most things I'd say yes but you personally, judging by the way he was looking at you, I couldn't vouch for your safety. He's Shelton Acland. The Acland's are big round these parts. It's almost full; I stopped it at forty dollars."
Laurel handed across the money and said to the guy still scratching his head, "My keys are in the car Mr Acland, are yours in your pick-up?"
"Yes."
"How far along this road west is a good place for coffee?"
"Ma Black's, about ten miles down the track. You can't miss it."
"Right I'll meet you there. Have fun."
He hitched up his belt up. "Miss or ma'am, you can't be serious. This is a mighty expensive car. You might never see it again?"
"I'm willing to bet you'll appear at Ma Black's with my car in one piece inside thirty minutes."
