Abbie, my wife, has two close girlfriends, Becca and Claire. They are referred to by each other and by their husbands as "A", "B" and "C". Abbie is twenty-nine years old and so am I. I'm Mark. We've been married five years. No kids. Becca is twenty-eight. I know that because we went to her birthday party last week. She and her husband Bob have two kids. I also went to Claire's birthday party but that was months ago so I don't remember how old she is. But her and their husbands are about my age. Claire has one kid, one of the daughters.
Since the wives are such good friends, the husbands are expected to show up once or twice a month for rotating dinners and barbeques. And for birthdays and anniversaries. We three husbands get along. We're friendly when we see each other. We talk and are cordial but the three of us are very different so we're not friends. We don't hang out together and wouldn't spend time with each other if it weren't for our wives.
We all live within a few miles of each other in central Florida. I'm an assistant manager at a local H [national chain] hotel in our town. Abbie works as an appointment scheduler in her father's plumbing business.
Our wives, A, B and C go out on occasional girls' nights together and twice a year they go to Miami Beach for a girls' weekend. Since I work at the H and I get a nice discount on stays at our hotels, Abby always makes the arrangements to stay at an expensive resort H has on Miami Beach. They always get one room with two double beds. Sun, the beach, massages, whatever else women hanging out for a weekend at a resort do. Their last girls' weekend at Miami Beach was at the beginning of June. Their next weekend should have been in early November.
But their plans changed. Toward the end of July, Abbie told me, "Becca is pregnant and will be too far along to go in November. We've decided to go to Miami Beach the first week of August so we're back in time for B and C to get their kids ready for school. Is that OK?"
"Fine with me." I didn't mind the girls' weekends. I felt like a bachelor for their weekends away. Eat when and what I want, do what I want. No one to tell me to change the TV channel because she wants to watch something else.
So, Abbie made their arrangements and she and her buddies left for their weekend Friday to return Sunday afternoon. As they usually do. I got pizza Friday night, drank beer and actually was able to watch an entire baseball game, first to last pitch, without interruption.
Saturday morning, I went to the gym and then ate lunch at a fast-food restaurant. Heaven. It was time to think about dinner. A grilled steak, fries and beer sounded good. I was out of beer and didn't have steak or fries so I stopped at the grocery store. I was looking through the steaks when Bob, Becca's husband, came up to say hello. He asked, "Is A feeling better? One of those summer cold things?"
I looked puzzled because I was. I said, "Abbie's doing OK. Thanks for asking."
"So you'll be able to come to dinner tonight after all. That's great. It would have been the first of these get togethers in years where you guys weren't there. Let me tell B that you're coming after all." He pulled out his phone.
I said, "No. Abbie is much better but still coughing and sneezing. We don't want to infect anyone so we're staying home. It's for the best."
Bob replied, "That's too bad. You could come alone. C and Jay [Claire's husband] and B and I would be thrilled if you joined us."
"I think I may be getting it too. And I should stay home and nurse Abbie. But thanks. We'll do it next time. I understand Becca's pregnant. Congratulations."
Bob's turn to look puzzled, "Not that I know of. We're sticking with two kids. B's not pregnant."
"Sorry. I must have misunderstood something Abbie said." We said our goodbyes.
I forgot about the steaks and fries, bought the beer and drove home. I'd last heard from Abbie around 5pm yesterday, which is normally when she calls on their weekends. She told me, "Everything's fine. We're having fun. The weather is great. We were on the beach for only a couple of hours and Becca's already sunburned. What are you eating for dinner?"
"Salad." We hung up and I picked up the last slice of pizza from the box. She'll call me again around dinnertime tonight. Whoever "we" were who was having all this fun it didn't include her girlfriends Becca and Claire.
I know she made a reservation but maybe she wasn't even there? I logged in to the hotel's intranet from my laptop and found that Abbie had indeed checked in.
According to the check-in, Abbie was alone in the room. It was about 2pm now and I decided to call my counterpart at the resort where Abbie was staying. I called and asked for the manager. Gave my name. Hugh Clark got on the phone. Good. An assistant manager like me and someone I've met a few times.
"This is Mark Joiner. I'm the assistant manager in L[where we live]. I think we met a couple of times."
"Sure. I remember you from your gruff voice. Big guy. Permanent eight o'clock shadow. Defensive tackle in college. Made it to the national championship one year but lost. Right?"
"That's me. How have you been?"
"Great. What can I do for you?"
I need a favor."
"Shoot."
"My wife Abbie is checked into room 324 until Sunday morning." I heard his keyboard clicking so I gave him time to get the screen up.
"OK, I see she checked in. Charged last night's dinner to the room. I have the tab up. Two dinners, two deserts, a bottle of wine. Also breakfast this morning and lunch at the pool. From the costs, they also look like they're for two. Do you want me to pull the bills up."
"No. That's OK. I can do that later." I didn't think to look at the stuff she's charging to the room when I checked if Abbie had checked in. Glad Hugh has a brain. "The favor is a big one and I'll owe you. I need to look at the hallway security tapes for 324's hallway. From the time Abbie checked in until you have them for me to look at."
Silence from Hugh. It was a big ask but it's a public hallway in the sense there's no expectation of privacy anywhere in a hotel except the rooms, bathrooms and changing rooms. Who's staying at the hotel is considered private. Common areas are public and can be surveilled and usually are. And Hugh might need a favor from me someday.
Finally, Hugh said, "That's a big favor. I'm sorry you need to do this. I'll have to figure out a way to do it where it doesn't bite either of us in the ass. Give me a couple of hours. I'll call you back."
I grabbed a beer and logged back into the hotel's intranet, the hotels internal website. I got up the breakfast and lunch bills Abbie charged to her room. Two breakfasts, two coffees, two orange juices. Lunch was also for two and three beers. Abbie doesn't drink beer.
I thought it might be prudent to look up our bank transactions. I looked at the bank statements from the time Abbie and her friends went to Miami Beach in June. Nothing unusual except Abbie cashed a check for $500 in Miami Beach at a branch of our bank on the Saturday morning of their June weekend. Nothing else unusual until this morning when Abbie cashed a check for $1000 at the same local branch in Miami Beach.
I looked up our cell phone usage since Abbie's June trip to Miami Beach. Lots of calls to a phone number with a Miami and Miami Beach area code. Not the resort's phone number. I did a reverse directory look up online. I couldn't find any information for that phone number. I don't know what that means.
I did a worldwide search on our intranet to see if that phone number had ever been used when booking a room at one of our hotels. No. I decided not to call the number because I didn't want to talk to the guy yet. At that point, I was sure it was a guy and, if it was, I wanted to talk to him in person and not on the phone. I'll get the guy's name from Abbie when she returns home.
I looked back at our credit card statements from June. Nothing unusual. I was going to look at Abbie's room charges from last June when Hugh called me back.
"I don't know you. We've never talked. Are you logged in?"
"One second. OK, I'm in."
"I'm going to give you an internal website to pull up. It has the security tapes from Abbie's hallway from noon yesterday until about an hour ago. It also has live footage from her hallway which will remain live until Sunday morning check out time. You won't be able to download anything. You'll have both windows on one screen but you can enlarge one or the other if you need to. And you can fast forward the taped video. At 11am Sunday morning, this website will no longer exist. And as far as anyone's ever concerned, it never existed. I'm going to give you the address, your username and password. Write it down because as soon as we hang up, I won't know who you are or that we've ever talked. Got a pen?"
"Ready."
Hugh gave me the information. I wrote it down. He waited on the phone until I was in. "Thanks Hugh. I owe you big time."
"For what? I don't know you and haven't talked to you since the conference last year. But you're welcome. I got divorced two years ago. My wife decided that our twenty-three year old lawn guy was the love of her life. He thought spreading seed included his seed in her. Good luck. I haven't looked at the tape but I hope you don't find anything."
I started looking. Live feed on the left of my computer screen, taped video starting yesterday at noon on the right. My wife walked down the hallway to the room about 1:20pm yesterday. She was alone.
At about 4:35pm, on today's live feed, there was a guy running down Abbie's hallway holding a bikini bottom. He's laughing and looking backward at someone which also provided a good view of his face for the camera. The guy was maybe 6', 185lbs. He looked to be in his early thirties. He was in a bathing suit and a t-shirt. Good looking guy. Then a woman came into view behind. She was bare assed with one of those scarves or whatever they are that women tie at their side to cover their asses when they're in a bathing suit. This scarf was transparent and was too short to cover much of my wife Abbie's bare ass. The guy stopped at room 324 and held the bikini bottoms over his head so Abbie had to jump and try to grab them. After a couple of attempts, he took her in his arms and squeezed her ass with his hands. He kept the bikini but handed her the key card. As she was trying to get the card in the slot, he reached around Abbie from behind and slid his hand down until it was between her legs. She opened her legs and bent a little to accommodate his hand. She stopped trying to get the card in the slot. They both suddenly looked toward the elevator and Abbie got the key in the slot. They hurriedly entered the room and closed the door behind them.
On the taped video from yesterday, a little after 5pm, right after Abbie called me, the same guy walked up to Abbie's room and knocked. He was dressed in a suit and tie and was carrying a small suitcase and a suit bag. Abbie opened her door and rushed into his arms. Big kiss. Lovers reuniting. Abbie was dressed up to match his attire. They went into the room.
I got out my phone. I wanted his picture in case Abbie didn't have one. About twenty minutes later, they left the room and walked toward the elevator. Both Abbie's arms holding onto his arm like she was preventing him from running away. Big smiles on both their faces. I was able to take six photos of his face before they were out of sight. A couple of the pictures had fairly good images of his face.
