Laura asked idly, "Oh yeah, what did he look like? The world is full of strange, disturbed people."
"That's the thing, Laura. He looked just like a normal guy. Over six feet, dark hair, goatee."
Peter stopped when Laura sat upright suddenly and fumbled for her laptop again. Firing it up and navigating to some files. She pulled up a photograph of herself and a man, standing in front of a house. In a voice trembling with concern, she asked, "Is that him?"
"It... it could be, Laura. It certainly looks a lot like him. I can't be sure."
Laura looked searchingly at Peter. Would he have an incentive to lie to her? Was he afraid that if she was sure her husband was on to their game, her pussy would be unavailable to him for the next two weeks. For the first time, it occurred to Laura that Peter was someone who was willing to cheat on his wife and was thus fundamentally untrustworthy.
"What was the guy wearing, Pete?"
"That's another female question, Laura. Guys don't notice what other guys are wearing. Didn't you say he dropped you at the domestic terminal?"
"Yes, he did. I convinced him to just drop me off and go. When I saw him leave, I caught the bus to the international terminal."
"So, he would have had to go back to his car, drive to the international terminal and park, then know who to stalk in the check-in line. Pretty unlikely, Laura. I think, more likely it was just a random nut-job."
He knew he had to distract Laura, who was looking far from convinced.
"Is that your house in the photo, Laura?"
Laura, who was looking for a distraction also and was well used to people complimenting her on her house, went into autopilot.
"Yes, it is. Nice isn't it? We bought a property at the beach as a bit of an investment. It's very steep and narrow. You wouldn't believe the house is a demountable would you? It took my husband 15 years but he kept adding and adding to it and landscaping around it. You should see the inside. He's a painter and every room has a theme in frescos. Nautical themes in the bathrooms and lounge. Business theme in the study. I mean, you go into the study and the atmosphere says, 'work,' so you do. I won't tell you what the bedroom theme is. We've won all sorts of awards for the interior design and how the house uses the land. It even has a creek running under the house."
The conversation morphed into talking about their families, a topic they'd steered away from in their relationship until now. They talked about Pete's two children, six and eight years old. Laura told of her three. A 23-year-old girl, Sarah, just finished law school and working as a property lawyer, and her two still at home, Danielle 16 and Larry 13. Laura didn't know it but she was desperately trying to distract herself. It worked for a while. Then, she pulled out her notebook and wrote, lawyer, house and kids. Without knowing if her husband was on to her, she couldn't make any plans regarding him. She knew she had to cover her bases by protecting her house and family though.
After the pair lapsed into silence, Laura began berating herself for being a coward and not thinking about her situation, or possible situation. She pieced together a timeline. She'd packed Thursday night, being very careful not to include anything unbusinesslike or unjustified as wearing on the weekend between the two weekly courses. Bikinis and intimates, she planned to buy in Bali. Her husband had been perfectly normal that night and they'd made love. Friday, she'd gone to work at normal time. They wanted to do major work on her company car, so she'd arranged for her husband to pick her up Friday afternoon. He'd come into reception, waited for her to pack up, then driven her home. They'd taken the kids out for dinner, packed them off to the grandparents, then made love late into the night. She'd been particularly horny, in anticipation of the following night and because of her husband's cluelessness about it. Saturday morning, early start, lift to airport. Laura remembered her nervousness when suggesting her husband just carried her bags to the domestic check-in line and leave her. Every other time, he'd stayed until the plane took off. She'd been relieved when he agreed straight away. She'd watched him all the way to the carpark, then waited until his car drove away. Now, his eagerness to leave took on a darker significance. She matched his behaviour last night and today, with her careful planning. Shit, no one from her work knew anything but that she'd taken annual leave, and her husband didn't know anyone from her work anyway. He couldn't know what she planned. The text to Pete's phone was a friend playing a prank, the guy staring at him in the check-in area, a random nutter. 'Relax Laura.'
What were the consequence if he did know? She'd lied to him about the destination, so what? The letter explained she was going away with a friend from work, without specifying male or female. She hadn't realised she'd closed her eyes until they shot open. She'd imagined her husband was aware of her ultimate destination, at the airport and realised how it would look to him. The deception would make it look like she was sneaking away for exactly why she was sneaking away. That in itself was serious, but defendable with some fancy footwork. However, combined with the contents of the letter, it wasn't in the slightest part defendable. Laura used the rest of the flight to cover her bases as much as she remotely could. The first priority was to destroy a letter, under a pillow, 2,500km away from her ass. Her second was to assure herself that she was unduly worrying herself over nothing.
Always the one to cover every contingency, Laura composed a long email to Sarah, knowing she couldn't send it until Bali. In it, she begged her daughter to go to her house and do two things. The first was to take possession of her phone and divert it to Pete's number. She covered that by saying she was too embarrassed to tell anyone she'd forgotten it and had bought a prepaid one for the duration of the trip. The second one was to retrieve the letter from under her father's pillow. She begged her not to read it, as it was deeply personal, between husband and wife. Mother and daughter were very close, so she knew she could trust her to not only follow instructions but to be discreet about it. As an addendum, Laura asked Sarah to acknowledge receipt of the email, and again notify her when she'd done what she was asked.
As soon as Pete and Laura left the plane at Denpasar airport, Laura sent the email, then, taking a gamble that her husband wouldn't check caller ID, rang him from Pete's phone. There was no answer to any of her calls, then or during the hour it took to clear customs and get to their hotel. That had never happened before and set alarms bells ringing in her head. Just before the taxi reached the hotel, Sarah rang on Pete's phone to confirm she'd done as asked. Laura managed to evade some probing questions on what was going on. When asked if her father was okay, Sarah triggered her mother's decline into terror with her answer. Her father had rung to say he had some thinking to do and was taking the other kids to their holiday cabin in the country. Sarah was going to join them that evening. Laura had asked her husband what he intended doing that weekend and the answer certainly hadn't included the cabin. Worse than that, the cabin was isolated from all 21
st
century communication methods. Laura was so distracted, she allowed her daughter to ring off with no further questions.
Chapter 2
Laura's husband has just cooked a BBQ dinner for his three children at the cottage. They are nagging him to take them spotlighting to bag a Wallaby for their favourite campfire stew tomorrow. Sarah has sensed her father was distracted since she arrived but hasn't pushed him on it. They are sitting around for a family meeting. Sarah opened the conversation.
"Is this about Mum, Dad?"
"Yes, she's been acting funny for a couple of months now. Kind of emotionally withdrawn. Then yesterday and this morning, I found out some funny things."
The feeling of dread that permeated the room, was only made worse by their Dad's sigh to end this statement. They knew him as a strong but funny man, rarely serious. They waited.
"Your Mum told me she was going on a two-week course, interstate, for work."
All three children chimed in that that was what she'd told them as well.
"Yesterday afternoon, she asked me to pick her up from work and I did. As I was standing in reception, I saw through the glass of an office that she was talking to a man in his office. Something about the way they were standing or looking at each other, just didn't seem right. She didn't come out for over five minutes and I wandered around reception. There's a wall covered in photographs there, with pictures of all the senior people that work for the company. I recognised the guy she was talking to; his name is Peter Ower. I grabbed his business card off the reception desk. I just couldn't sleep this morning, so I went downstairs. I'm a little bit embarrassed to say, but I looked through your mother's purse. I found her passport in it and when I looked through it, I found a visa stamp for Indonesia, dated three weeks ago. I remembered back to last month when I saw her reading a brochure on Bali."
Their father paused and looked around the room, obviously debating what to say.
"Bali is in Indonesia and isn't 'interstate', it's overseas. I didn't say anything to your mother, it's a big thing to accuse someone of deceit without proof, especially someone you love without reservation."
