I walked quickly to my bedroom leaving Casey to go cook breakfast; as soon as the door closed I had my phone in hand calling Demian. Demian, his brother Greg, and I were in the military together before I got out and became a custom home builder. They stayed in for a while longer, but eventually went reserve and opened their own company doing private investigations and security.
For the last two months I had Demian, looking into the situation with my wife. Most of his business was done back in his home state, but he flew into parts of California and Nevada a few times a month to do business for celebrities and other VIPs.
He had been tailing my wife the few days before we left and luckily wasn't flying out until tomorrow. Between his busy schedule and living primarily out of state he had only been able to come out twice to get info on Ruth.
It had taken me more than six months from the time she started working with her client to finally wake up, realize she was cheating, and then a couple more to actually take some action. Part of me thought I would hold out until my daughter Cara left for college and I had been working nonstop on a huge custom home project up until about four months ago, so I wasn't around much anyway. It was after I completed the home and was around more to see how drastically Ruth's mood changes were affecting Cara as well as how miserable I was in our marriage that the desire to get the hell out hit me.
I had called around to a few different private investigators, but didn't feel I could really trust any of them. Finally I called Demian.
"D, I need you on my wife today asap. My daughter Cara called approximately 15 minutes ago and she's on to Ruth. She's going to track Ruth through her phone and get pictures. I'm at the beach house right now with no fucking car and I need her stopped before she sees anything or worse gets herself hurt."
"Son of a bitch Mark! You need to call Cara right now and tell her to stay the fuck out of this! Shit's going down you have no idea about."
"Do you not think I've tried calling her? She's not answering her phone. That's why I'm calling your ass telling you to get on Ruth asap and intercept Cara. What in the hell is going on, what shit don't I know?"
"Alright, shit! Where is Ruth now?"
"I don't know!"
"Is Cara at home?"
"She was when she called, I don't know if she left yet."
"Give me her cell phone number and I'll try to track her and Ruth."
I gave Demian Cara's number, I had already given him Ruth's number before when he took on the investigation.
"Alright man I will get on this and call you back in a few."
"Wait D! What the hell were you talking about? What shit don't I know?"
"Mark man, this isn't a good time. Let me find Cara first and get her safe then I'll tell you."
"Fuck that, that's my little girl you better tell me right fucking now!"
"Trust me man!"
"I'm calling a driver now to come get me and I'm coming home."
"MARK just trust me. Let me track this real quick and get on the road at least and I'll call you and fill you in, but stay there it's not safe you coming here right now." And he hung up
"FUUUUCK!" I yelled and slammed my fist through the wall. "UGGGHH!"
I couldn't remember the last time I was this pissed off and scared. I hated not having control of things and being stuck away from home with no transportation made me feel helpless, which pissed me off even more. First chance I got I was buying an extra car just to keep at this fucking house.
I started looking up the number for the closest car rental place. The closest one was the one Cara had been trying to take Ruth to when Ruth decided to bail on our family vacation. There was a slight knock on the door and Casey peeked he head in.
"Hey Mr. Welston, breakfast is ready." She looked at me for a moment then asked. "Are you ok?"
"You need to get both your and Cara's stuff together right away. I'm calling the car rental place to bring ua a car and we are headed home. Thank you for breakfast we'll eat it while we wait. Right now, I'm waiting on a phone call back so you go ahead and get ready." I was still pissed off and it sounded in my voice.
"Is everything ok with Cara?" She asked in a small soft voice.
Without even looking towards her I replied. "Casey, right now I need you to hurry and pack."
Casey quickly left the room headed towards the girl's rooms. The sound of her moving and packing things echoed down the hall. I placed the call to the car rental place and ordered a car to be delivered within the hour. Not two minutes later Demian was calling me back.
"You ready to tell me what the hell is up?" I snapped.
"I tracked Cara's phone and she is already on the highway heading towards your wife. I tracked Ruth's phone and it shows she's at one of the hotel's downtown. I'm headed that way right now. I should beat Cara there."
"That's awesome, now you want to tell me what you meant when you said there is shit I don't know?" Sarcasm and tightly controlled rage tinged every word as I spoke.
"Mark look, I didn't tell you this before, because I was asked not to by a friend of mine that's a fed. Right now your wife's client is under investigation for some pretty heavy shit. Everything you can think of this guys is into: drugs, gun, trafficking... you name it and because your wife is fucking him, she is now right smack in the middle of it. The feds don't know how much she is involved, but because you are her husband they didn't want me to say anything until they cleared you too. I knew you didn't have anything to do with all of this mess. They got you cleared yesterday morning and my guy gave me the heads up. I was going to tell you man I swear, but I had to wait. I know we are friends, but I had to play this one by the book. If I had known earlier about this crap with your daughter..."
He didn't finish the last sentence, but I understood.
"Just get my daughter the hell out of there ok! Call me as soon as you get her and I want as much info as you can give me on this guy and I want it now. I've got a car headed to me now and don't fucking tell me no I'm coming to get Cara out of there."
"Shit! Ok. I'll have Greg send everything we have over now, but you need to keep it to yourself. I'll call you with updates and you call me when you get close so we can figure out a plan."
I could hear his concern and frustration. He was lucky he wasn't within touching distance at the moment or I would have knocked that attitude right out of his mouth. Even though I understood why he had held out on me it still pissed me off and put my daughter in danger.
"Just send the shit." I snapped and hung up.
My bags were soon packed and I headed to the kitchen to eat. Casey was in Cara's room finishing up packing her stuff.
"Come on let's eat." I called as I passed by the room not waiting to see if she followed.
What the hell was I going to do with her while I went to get Cara? I hadn't even thought passed the fact that I couldn't leave her here at the beach house. Her parents were still out of town and it wasn't safe to leave her at our house. I was just going to have to bring her with me.
I was already sitting at the table eating when Casey walked in and made herself a plate.
"Is it ok if I take this back in the room while I finish packing Cara's stuff?" she asked.
I looked up into her face and saw that her nose was all red like she had been crying.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing, I just want to get everything together so we are ready to go when the car gets here. You are obviously in a hurry to go and I don't want to hold you up."
I sat there studying her beautiful face. She tried hard to look closed off, but I could tell it was an act. I felt a twinge of guilt for how short I had been being with her.
I stood up and walked over and put my arms around her tilting her chin up so that I could look down into her eyes.
"Casey, I'm sorry. I'm scared for Cara and I'm pissed off at her and even more so at Ruth. I just need to figure everything out and while I'm doing that I'm all up in my head and I just need you to know that if I'm short with you, it's because I'm trying to figure shit out not because I'm mad at you ok beautiful?"
"OK." She whispered.
I took her lips with mine and softly pressed, just holding there, eyes closed savoring the feel of her. My head turned to deepen the kiss and her mouth parted. My tongue traced the edges of her lips before it slipped deep into hers. A soft groan sounded in her throat and I pulled her tighter into me before ending our kiss. My nose slid across her cheek and I whispered in her ear.
"Thank you for breakfast, it was delicious! You eat and I'll finish up in Cara's room."
Ten minutes later I had all of our things stacked and ready to go by the front door. Casey came in from the kitchen.
"The car should be here in about 30 minutes. Are you all ready to go?" I asked as I walked up to her. I took her by the arms and she looked up at me her eyes sad and somewhat unsure.