Bad Day 19

The taxi pulled into the driveway of my house at four in the afternoon. It had already been a really long day and I still had hours of daylight left to suffer through.

I had been up before dawn to catch a flight to Chicago. My flight was delayed an hour, which I found out when I arrived at the airport. So, I got to Chicago later than expected. I tried to use the extra time to review the pitch documents, only to have a woman stumble and spill coffee over the print outs. Ending that quickly.

The flight went fine for the most part. They overbooked the flight and I ended up in cattle class. I had the window seat and my companion turned out to be a woman that needed the divider between our seat raised so she could borrow half my seat. At least she took care of her personal hygiene.

The driver of the taxi taking me to my meeting sniffed the air when I got in. Telling me the woman had left her mark on me and that I now smelt of the super sweet strawberries like she did.

I'd texted and emailed the prospective client to let them know I was running late and had no response from them. So, I didn't know what to expect when I got there. My concern had me staring at my phone, refreshing my email constantly, during the taxi ride.

My head was buried in the screen so much so that I missed when the car in front of us slammed on the brakes. I only noticed when the car behind us slammed into us and then the pair of us hit the car in front of us. I had to stick around long enough to give my details to the police before getting into the replacement taxi they had summoned for me. The crash pushed my tardiness for my appointment from an hour to two.

The only person in the lobby of the building was a young woman dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, she looked like hell. Immediately upon seeing me enter, she barked at me for being late. Making sure I knew there would be no meeting today. While she dressed me down, a man entered the building behind me. He walked a few feet from me and gestured for the woman to join him. He whispered something to her and she ran out of the building immediately. Tears streaming down her face.

The man came to explain things to me. She had been the daughter of the owner of the company and the man I had been due to meet with. Her father had been taken to hospital this morning and had asked her to meet with me. She hadn't been happy to stand around for an hour waiting for me. She was now even more unhappy, her father was undergoing heart surgery. I was assured that they would be in contact to arrange another meeting once this crisis had been resolved. But I was fairly certain there would be no meeting and no business.

Another taxi ride followed, back to the airport and passing the accident that hadn't yet been cleaned up. Everyone looked stressed out.

At the airport, I was discussing my options for getting home on an earlier flight when the agent's eyes went wide in horror as he suddenly dropped down behind the desk. Behind me, a guy that looked strung out had pulled out a gun and made a grab for the woman in line behind me. I took hold of her hand and jerked her towards me, thwarting his initial plan. He didn't have time to formulate a new one as no sooner had I got the woman away from him as his chest exploded. One of the security people at the airport had shot him and I now found myself splattered in blood.

Two hours of interviews later, I boarded a plane home. My suit and shirt had been taken into evidence, replaced by sweat pants and a Chicago Blackhawks jersey. The only good thing, at least I was still six hours ahead of my original schedule.

The plane ride home had to be one of the worst I've ever been through, the plane seemed to be rattling from the minute it reached cruising altitude until it started it's descent to land. Adding to the misery, the upgrade to first class given me by the airline had paired me with a woman on her first ever fight. She talked a mile a minute, about the shooting at the airport, her fear of flying and anything else that popped into her head. By the time we landed, I had nail marks up and down my arm from her clinging to me.

The final nail in the coffin of my business trip came when I found my car missing from the airport parking lot. At this point, I didn't feel up to another round of questions from the police. So, I headed for the taxi rank. I'd report the car missing from home while drinking something strong, very strong.

It was with some relief that I found the house was still standing when I arrived home. One less thing to worry about, leaving two more at the top of that list. The well being of my wife and our Welsh Border Collie.

Opening the front door, answered the latter. Trillian, our dog, came bounding to the door, happy to see me. Yes, we named the dog after the character from Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. For the record my previous dog, back when I was in high school, had been called Zaphod.

My wife wasn't home. I knew that when the taxi pulled up, given her car wasn't in the driveway as it had been when I left this morning.

I poured myself a large Vodka and orange juice, then settled down in my chair in the living room. Time to call the police, report my car stolen and suffer my third round of interviews with the boys in blue.

Choosing to stall the inevitable, I reached for the remote and turned on the television instead. My drink spilled into my lap due to the shock of the scene I saw playing out on the screen.

The screen had come to life on a cable news station. Playing out on the screen as a car chase or rather three police cars chasing a white truck. It reminded me of OJ Simpson and his White Bronco ride through LA, but this was a Ford 150 and this was my city. The banner at the bottom of the screen confirmed what I knew.

This wasn't the cause of my wet lap. The small picture window in the lower right corner did that. It featured the location where the chase had started from, a motel car park. The cameraman had the focus on a burning car in that parking lot and the car's license plate was clearly visible and readable. The numbers I knew very well as they were the numbers for my wife's car.

With the initial shock wearing off, the reporter's voice started to register with me. She recounted the events while the two images continued to play out. My wife's car burning in a smaller rectangle over the top of the main image and the car chase filling most of the screen.

The reporter had a witness with her, drawing her story out of her. The witness told of hearing gunshots, then rushing to her motel door and opened it slightly to peek outside. There she saw the car burning in the parking lot. As she watched, a man and woman, both naked, ran out of a ground floor room near the car. They paused for a moment in front of the car, the woman screamed, then climbed into the truck and took off. She then saw another person, but wasn't sure if it was a man or a woman, stood in front of the burning car. Shooting at the truck as it pulled away. Once the truck disappeared, this person climbed into a car and seemed to take off chasing after the truck.

Watching the drama play on the television left me with questions. Who was in the truck? I knew it was a man and a woman but was the woman my wife of seven years?

Annie, Annabella White as she was then and I, had attended the same high school. I love her from afar as they say back then. She, on the other hand, had no idea I existed. When high school ended, she headed off to one university and I went to another.

We both returned home after we'd completed our studies and ended up working for the same Hospital. She worked in the medical records department and I had a job in the IT department. She had a boyfriend, so I was once again left to love her from a distance.

That was until one morning when she pulled up beside me as I headed to the bus stop to catch my ride to work. I was shocked when she offered me a ride by name. It was the first time I had any idea that she knew who I was. The ride in had been eye-opening, especially when she told me that she had wondered why I never asked her out in high school. Something I quickly corrected. Thankfully learning that she had broken up with her boyfriend that weekend.

Over the next year, we dated for six months before we started living together. I proposed on the anniversary of our first date and we married six months later.

During this time, I left the hospital and joined a consultancy firm. The pay was better, the work more varied and the prospects for promotion were greatly improved. Indeed, I had already moved up the corporate ladder by the time Annie and I married. Today, I run my own division and am being groomed to become the next CTO in a few years.

Annie remained with the hospital and slowly moved up in seniority in the department. When the old battleaxe that runs the medical records department finally retires or dies, she will assume the role. Prospects of rising above that position looked pretty near zero though.

The doorbell rang pulling my eyes from the television and interrupting my journey through my history with Annie.

I stood up, looked down at the massive wet spot around my crotch and watched as the glass landed on the hardwood floor and shattered. Shaking my head, I headed to the front door. Wishing this day would just be over.

There was no one waiting when I opened the door. However, parked in the driveway was the vehicle I had intended calling the police over. The street was empty, leaving me with no idea who had dropped my car off.

Figuring I'd better check out the car, I stepped out of the house. My sock covered foot coming down on something that moved as my weight shifted. I tried to pull my foot back and arrest my movement, failing miserably at that and so I ended up tumbling forward through the rose bushes framing the garden and onto the grassy center. I considered at that moment returning to the house and taking a sleeping pill to end this day here and now.

I rolled over and sat up then extracted a few thorns from my hands, examined the grass stains on my knees, hands and the front of my jersey. As I stood up, I faced the house and saw what my foot had touched. A rifle, my rifle by the looks of it, resting on the doorstep. Without thinking about it, I stepped forward and picked it up and began examining it. It had been fired recently.

Resting the rifle against the wall just inside the house, I turned my attention to my car. There seemed to be nothing untoward with it other than being unlocked and, I assume, the spare car key sitting in the ignition. I sat in the driver's seat and turned the ignition, seeing that fuel tank was now half full. I'd left it at three-quarters full. Other than that though, it was like it had been when I left it in the parking garage at the airport.

I'd just placed a foot back into the house when the cop car came around the corner, sirens blazing. I paused to watch them, shocked when they stopped at the end of our driveway. That shock grew when they stepped out of the cruiser and seeing my rifle drew their weapons on me. Under their instructions, I raised my hands and stepped back, away from the house and rifle. They then had me lay face down on the ground with my hands behind my head.

Quickly, I found myself cuffed and in the back of the cruiser headed towards the police station. A bad day multiplier had just been applied in my mind. One of the cops stayed behind to watch over the car, house and gun until the detectives and their team arrived to process everything.

It felt like everyone turned to look at me as the officer escorted me into the police station but it was only a few really. One of them seemed familiar, a female police officer in uniform who stood near the door and offered me a sad smile. Maybe because I looked like I had peed myself or maybe with the grass stains on my jersey and cuts on my hand it was because she thought I'd tried to run. I don't know why, but she did seem familiar but I couldn't figure out who she was.

The officer walked me through the station and into a bland, sparsely furnished room. Just a table with two chairs on either side of it. I was invited to turn around, and when I did so the officer removed the cuffs. He then told me to sit, which I did, then he left me alone.

Soon I had the company of two detectives and they were full of questions for me. I answered the ones I could. Like my name, Lucas Collins, and the request that I account for my whereabouts for the day. One detective shook his head at the start when I mentioned the flight delay. By the time I got to police showing up at my house, his face held a pained look. Their next questions concentrated on my car and why, if it had been stolen, I hadn't reported when I discovered the fact at the airport. It felt clear to me that officially they didn't want to accept my reasons but their faces betrayed that they understood why I just wanted to get home.

Once they decided that my story about my day and my reasoning for behaviour wasn't going to change, they moved on to another line of questioning. These questions focused on my wife and our relationship. I answered them, but also asked them if my wife had been involved in the car chase that was on television. They refused to answer me directly, but they then asked what I knew about that. Which I took as she was involved somehow. In answer to their question, I recounted, again, how I'd turned on the television and my wife's car burning in the parking lot of the motel. Or at least, a car that looked like my wife's and with her number plate on it.

From there they started to question me about a guy called Zach Powell. I had no idea who he was. At least until they offered a little more information, he was a Doctor. That was enough to refresh my memory about him and his wife. The female police officer that I'd seen when I entered the station was his wife. I'd met both of them at the hospital's Christmas party several months ago. We'd talked briefly at that party and never seen them again. No, that wasn't true, I'd also danced with his wife, the police officer, at that party while my wife danced with him. I couldn't remember her name, but they informed me that it was Willow.

From there, they cherry-picked points in my timeline to question me about. I would guess to try and catch me in a lie. These questions didn't last long though, they seemed to have decided they wouldn't get anything new from it.

When the detectives left, another uniformed officer entered and escorted me downstairs where they locked me up in a cell.

I'm not sure how long I was there but it didn't feel like it was a long time, maybe half an hour if I had to guess, when the cell door opened again. The uniformed officer escorted me back upstairs and they processed me for release. Seems they had confirmed that I was still on the plane when the mess started at the motel, just as I had told them. So I had an airtight alibi for the events at the motel.

I did have to sit with the officer and swear out a complaint about the stolen vehicle, even though it had been returned to my own driveway earlier.

While I was doing that, Willow emerged from a room off the open plan area I sat in. Tears streamed down face as she walked through the office. I wondered what she had been told that had upset her and if it involved my wife.

I wasn't given long to ponder this because the detectives invited me to join them again, this time in the office Willow had emerged from. They asked if anything was amiss with my financial accounts. I told them I didn't think so. But I also brought up my banking app, logged into it to check. The saving account showed a balance of zero and the checking account had just over two hundred dollars in it. The records showed transfers from both to the same account at another bank. My credit card had been maxed out, by a payment to the hospital my wife worked at.

Shocked, I stumbled through telling the officers this and showing them the balances and transactions with my phone. They made note of the account numbers without comment then let me leave again.

I'm not entirely sure how I got there but I found myself in the lobby waiting for a ride home. My mind spinning on the events of the day. Not a single thing had gone right since I left the house this morning. My business trip had been a catastrophe and now, I find my wife had been up to something. Her car burnt outside the motel. Our bank accounts emptied. Had she been the shooter? What had the couple done to piss her off that badly? Why had she run away after dropping my rifle and car off at the house? Why had they asked about Zach? Was he the man in the truck?

"Are you okay?" a soft female voice asked, breaking me out of my thoughts. Looking to the left, I found a red-eyed Willow stood there with that sad smile on her face again.

"I don't know. I, I guess. I don't feel anything at the moment. Like all this is happening to someone else and I'm just watching through their eyes."

"Yeah. I get that. Did they clean you out too?"

I nodded. "Did you know?"

"I confronted him this morning. I wanted his affair to stop or I'd start divorce proceedings. I didn't know who she was, just that there was a she."

"Wait! Are you saying that 'the she' is my wife?"

She nodded.

"And you knew about her, just not who it was?"

She nodded again. Tears began to roll down my cheeks. My wife had cheated on me. My wife had cleaned out our bank. That likely meant that it was my wife and Willow's husband in the truck. I guess that explained why the police arrested me, they thought I might be the shooter. Given I wasn't, who could it have been?

"So you had some warning. That must have helped a little?"

"Not in the least. I still don't understand why they took our money and ran. It doesn't make sense. He makes more than me, he will always make more than me."

"My wife always told me that the hospital was a divorce machine. I guess I've found out how true that is today."

She nodded. "I caused one, had an affair with Zach before I knew he was married. His wife divorced him, and we married. I love, loved him and it turned out I was pregnant as well. He loves his son, so running without him makes it strange."

"Sir, if you'll follow me. The car is outside," a uniformed officer asked, interrupting my conversation with Willow. He then asked, "do you know where you'd like to go? I'm told you can't return to your home just yet."

"I've no idea where I'm going, officer. I've only a few hundred dollars to my name and a company credit card that I can't use. I'd be fired on the spot for using it for my own purposes."

"I'm going to my parents' house. If you'd like you can come with me," Willow offered.

"You hardly know me!"

"And yet our significant others have carnal knowledge of one another. Are driving naked down a highway together as we speak. Look, its the offer of a bedroom and a chance of a home-cooked meal and that's all. My mom is a really good cook, and dad is an even better one," she told me, ending with a smile as she commented on her dad's cooking prowess.

"Okay," I replied. Not wanting to explain to any of my friends or co-workers what was going on. Heck, likely some of them already knew or would as soon as the reporters put it all together.

With me accepting Willow's offer, Willow dismissed the police officer and then lead me to her car.

The ride to Willow's parents' was quiet but the greeting at the house was loud. Her parents rushed out of the house when they saw the car pulling into the driveway. She had obviously called ahead and informed them of the day's events. Once inside, Willow had a chance to tell them in detail what had happened or at least what she knew of the proceedings. There were tears in the both of ladies' eyes and a stone-cold murderous look in Willow's father's eyes. He had thought it had been Zach's truck on the television and now with it confirmed he wanted blood for disrespecting his daughter.