Try to imagine this. You come home from work, park your car in the garage, and walk through the door that connects the house to the garage as you call out “Honey, I’m home.” The door closes behind you before you see two men with guns and next to them you see your frightened wife tied to one of the swivel stools at the breakfast bar that separates the kitchen from the family room. She appears to be unhurt, but she has duct tape across her mouth. One of the men waves his gun at you and says:
“Be quiet, listen, and do what we tell you to do and you will get out of this unhurt.”
That was the nightmare that I walked in on, but to understand what was going on you need to know the story that led up to it.
+++++++++++++++
I met Annie when I stopped in at my insurance agency to talk to my agent. I had just acquired a 2009 series ten dollar gold coin which was graded MS 70 and I needed to add it to the insurance policy that I had on my collection. My great-grandfather had begun saving gold and silver coins because he did not trust paper currency and when he died he passed on his horde of gold and silver to my grandfather who added to it. When he died my dad got the collection and then it came to me.
When Franklin Roosevelt ordered the confiscation of gold in 1933 my grandfather had said in effect “Fuck you!” and he had hidden the collection. My father had kept it hidden also, but he had started adding to it only by then it wasn’t just coins he collected, it was gold. He added some krugerrands, Canadian gold Maple Leafs and even a British golden Crown that he had found somewhere and he moved the collection to a bank safe deposit box.
Just before cancer took him he gave the collection to me and told me to keep quiet about it or it would come under some kind of tax and would also let the government know where it was. He had inherited my grandfather’s fear of government confiscation. His position was that the government had done it once so it would be likely to do it again someday if the economy went to hell like it had during the Great Depression. I didn’t suffer from the same paranoia so a year after my father died I had the collection appraised and then I insured it. While I didn’t inherit dad’s paranoia I did inherit the ‘gold bug’ and I started collecting gold coins. The collection I had was valued at just over two hundred thousand.
I was leaving my agent’s office when I saw Annie sitting at a desk and my heart started racing. She wasn’t all that beautiful, but she had an aura about her – an aura that said, “Take me, I’m yours” and I wanted to go over to her, throw her over my shoulder and run for my cave. I decided that I had to take the chance. I’d been shot down before and it hadn’t killed me. I walked over to her desk and said:
“Hi. My name is Rob Daltry and I just could not leave here without asking you to have a drink or a cup of coffee with me.”
“You are in luck Rob Daltry. I’m Annie and I have a thing for guys who go after what they want. I get off at four. I’ll meet you out front.”
We hit it off and dated for the next six months and then I asked her to marry me and she said yes.
++++++++++++++++++++++
The next six years were among the happiest of my life. A wife I loved, a job that suited me just fine and then my perfect life came under attack. The company sent me to Salt Lake City for a week of training. The second day I was back I got off work and there was an envelope under the windshield wiper on the driver’s side of my car. Inside the envelope were two photos that had obviously been taken by a cell phone camera and a typewritten note. The note said:
“The man’s name is Alan Pendergast and she left with him.”
The first photo showed Annie kissing the man and she had her arms around his neck and he had his hands on her ass. I recognized the setting. It was the Alhambra Lounge. The second one showed her with her tits out of her dress and the man’s mouth on the left one. It was like a blow to my stomach. I staggered and then I threw up all over the side of the car. It took me several minutes to get myself under control. I opened the trunk and found a rag to clean my face and then I got into the car and headed for a gas station with a car wash.
When I walked into the house Annie smiled and ran to me to take me in her arms. I pushed her away and when she asked, “What’s wrong Rob” I dropped the note and the pictures on the breakfast bar and then just stood there looking at her. She looked from me to the breakfast bar and then she went over and looked at the pictures. Her hand flew to her mouth and she cried out:
“Oh my God no; please God no” and she started crying and tears ran down her cheeks. “No Rob, no. I didn’t Rob; honest to God I didn’t. It isn’t what it looks; I swear Rob, it isn’t what it looks like. Please Rob. You have to believe me. You have to. You just have to.”
“How could it not be what I think Annie? That is you in the pictures.”
“No it isn’t Rob; that isn’t really me. That is a woman who was drunk out of her mind and who didn’t know what she was doing and what was being done to her. The woman in those pictures was not only drunk; she had been drugged. That is not me Rob; that is not the real me.”
I loved Annie and I was sure that she loved me so I gave her a chance to tell me what had happened. Four of her girlfriends who knew that I was out of town asked Annie to meet them after work for drinks. They had dinner and then they hit a lounge where they happened to have live music. Naturally five attractive women drew male attention and men were asking them to dance and were buying them drinks. Annie, Cora and Carol were married and knew that they would be going home alone, but Sally and Martha were single and open to being picked up by the ‘right’ guy. They settled on two guys and the guys were invited to join the group at the table and then it snowballed as the guy’s buddies came over and several tables got shoved together.
Annie was kept on the dance floor and every time she came back to the table there was a fresh drink waiting for her and from the effect they were having on her she later came to believe that they were probably doubles. Somewhere along the way someone must have slipped something into one of her drinks.
“I don’t remember kissing that man Rob. I don’t remember my breasts being bared. Some how I lost an hour or two. I remember being on the dance floor and then the next thing I remembered was Carol and Cora dragging me away from some guy who had me on the back seat of his car. Cora hit him with something and Carol was hollering that she was going to call the police. Carol wanted to take me to the hospital for a blood test to prove I was drugged so she could send the cops after the guy, bur Cora wouldn’t let her.”
“Why in the hell not?”
“It was at the same time that the girl up in Connecticut had been drugged and gang raped on the pool table in the bar and even though the guys were guilty their lawyer made the girl look like trash and Cora didn’t want that to happen to me.”
“Did he fuck you?”
“I don’t think so. He had my panties off of me and I think he was just pushing into me when Carol and Cora got there. I can’t swear for sure, but I don’t think he actually fucked me.”
“Were you going to tell me about it?”
She looked away from me and softly said, “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I was ashamed. Because I didn’t want you to know how stupid I had been and behaved.”
“You behaved stupidly?”
“I was out with my girlfriends to have a drink or two and relax and there was also the fact that I really didn’t want to go home and be alone. When the men started moving in on our group I should have gotten up and left. I’m not naïve; I knew what they were hoping for. I knew that they weren’t going to get it, but even so I should have gotten up and gone home. Instead I fell into that “Just one more and then I have got to go” mode and it kept on being “just one more.” I felt so damned guilty the next morning. It was my own fault that I got into that situation and I didn’t want you to ever know.”
I loved her; I trusted her and I could see how it happened so we put it behind us. Well, that wasn’t strictly true. I have always been a strong believer of “Trust, but verify” and on separate occasions I ‘ran across’ Carol and Cora and thanked both of them for coming to Annie’s aid. Cora said:
“I’m just glad we got there in time to keep that asshole from actually doing Annie.”
Carol said, “I’m just sorry that I didn’t have a knife with me. I would have cut the bastard’s balls off.”
+++++++++++++++++
Once Annie and I had settled back into our relationship I started pressing her to start a family. Before we had married we had talked about kids and Annie had said that while she did want kids she wasn’t in any hurry to tie herself down.
“We need to go places and do things Rob. We need to spend some time enjoying each other before saddling ourselves with the huge responsibilities that children bring.”
When I started suggesting that it was time I could see that she was reluctant and she kept giving me reasons why it shouldn’t be right away like:
“If I get pregnant now I’ll be going into the hot months of June, July and August seven, eight and nine months pregnant and I’d be miserable carrying all that weight in the heat.’
A year went by and then it was Annie’s twenty-eighth birthday. One of Annie’s paid holidays was her birthday and normally I would arrange to have the day off so we could go somewhere and do something together, but that day I couldn’t get off. I told Annie I would get off early and then take her to dinner and then a movie. It would be my last chance to take her out before I went on my weekend hunting trip. I left work at a quarter to four and was home by four-thirty. I’d stopped and gotten a dozen roses and a box of Annie’s favorite chocolates and I had them in my hands as I walked from the garage into the house and my worst nightmare.
++++++++++++++++
Two men with guns were standing there. The dark haired one was standing next to Annie with his gun pointed at her head. The blond haired one had his pointed at me and he said:
“Be quiet, listen, and do what we tell you and you will get out of this unhurt.”
He pointed at the stool next to Annie and said, “Sit.” I put the flowers and candy down on the breakfast bar and sat down on the stool. I reached to pull the duct tape off of Annie’s mouth and the dark haired man hit my hand hard with his gun and snarled:
“Just sit there. You don’t do nothing but sit there and listen.”
The blond man said, “You are going to go to your bank and clean out your safe deposit box and bring the contents here. Do not get cute and try to withhold any of the coins because we know exactly what you have in your collection. Once we have the coins you will be tied up next to your wife and once we have put enough distance between us the fire department will get an anonymous call. You will have one hour in which to do this. Understand me on this next part. What we have done with your wife is kidnapping and kidnapping is a Federal crime and it carries the death penalty. If you call the cops and they come running we will kill your wife. We have nothing to lose. Kidnapping or murder; it is the death penalty either way. Do be clear on that.”
I looked at Annie tied there on the stool and I saw her eyes beseeching me to help her.
“One hour” the blond guy said. “One hour and one minute and you are not here we will be leaving and you won’t like what you find when you do get back.”
Annie’s eyes screamed at me, “Get me out of this Rob; please God get me out of this.”
“Hold on Annie” I said, “I’ll do what they want.”
I hurried out of the house, got in my pick up truck and headed down the street. I turned the corner and parked. I got out and started walking back to the house. I could get there and get in the back door of the garage without being seen because there were no windows on the north side of the house. I didn’t know how things would turn out; I might even be making a huge mistake, but I had to do what I was going to do.
I was not stupid. If I did what they told me to do Annie and I were both dead anyway. They had not been wearing masks or hoods so Annie and I had both seen their faces and could identify them and they knew that. No; I go in and hand them the coin collection and say “Okay, now turn Annie loose” and they would laugh and say “So long sucker.” A call to the cops would probably turn out the way they had predicted so it was going to be up to me to get us out of the mess. The one thing they would not expect would be me coming back at them.
I let myself in the back door of the garage and went over to the pile of gear that I’d set out in the garage for my weekend hunting trip. I took the shotgun out of the gun case and loaded it. It was only birdshot, but in the enclosed space of the house and at short range it should more than do the job. Even so I was going to need a touch of luck. When I came through the door from the garage into the house I would need for both men to be away from Annie. From the door to where Annie was sitting it was only about seven feet. The shot pattern at that distance should still be pretty tight
Possible scenarios flashed through my mind. Both men away from Annie and readily visible with the element of surprise in my favor I should be able to get a shot at both before they could react. Annie was on the stool which was high so you could eat off the breakfast bar. Annie was only five foot one so her feet would be at least two feet off the floor. If one was standing next to her I’d blast his ankles and that should take his legs out from under him and then I’d swing and take the other guy and then swing back to the asshole on the floor.
Worst case would be if one or both were close to Annie and be where she was between us. Both men were tall and Annie was short, but she was up on that high stool and I didn’t know if I could get away with going for head shots or not. A hundred things – Shit! A thousand things – could go wrong, but it was a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. I made sure that the safety was off and then I moved to the door. I very carefully and slowly turned the knob and pushed the door open just a crack. I put my ear to the crack to see if sound would tell me where the two men were. I recognized the voice of the blond guy as he said:
“Are you sure he will do it?”
“Of course he will; he loves me.”
“I figure twenty minutes to get to the bank, ten to take care of business and twenty to get back. That about right?”
“Give or take five minutes” Annie said.
“That gives us enough time for a quickie” the dark haired man said.
“Do me on the kitchen table.”
“Why?”
“Because it is just the right height for your cock to get in my pussy while I suck on Andy standing next to us and if you do me hard and fast there will be enough time for both of you to do me before he gets back.”
“You’ve done it on the table before I take it.”
“A couple of times.”
“Your hubby likes doing you in the kitchen?”
“He has never done me in the kitchen. In fact I’ve done it in every room in the house and on almost every piece of furniture, but he has only ever done me in the bedroom.”
The blond guy laughed and said, “God, but you are such a slut.”
“That’s what attracted you to me wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess it was.”
“Hubby have any idea of how big a slut you are?”
“He caught me once, but I convinced him that it was only a one time thing and only happened because a guy got me drunk, drugged me and then took advantage of me.”
“He believed that?”
“My two girl friends backed me up.”
“How did you manage that?”
Annie laughed and said, “One was on the bed next to me with three guys and the other one was in the spare bedroom with two.”
“How long did you keep the guy around?”
“He spent the whole week hubby was gone in my bed with me and I still see him from time to time.”
“How the hell do you get away with it?”
“Like I said; he loves me.”
“But you don’t love him.”
“He’s a nice enough guy, but he isn’t any good in bed and he keeps after me to have kids. I don’t want any brats hanging onto me.”
“So what are you going to do with his life insurance and your share of the coins?”
“I vaguely remember you saying something about going to Jamaica for a while and setting me up for a gangbang on a sandy beach.”
“Are you going to watch or leave the room?”
“I don’t want to watch, but please make it quick and as painless as you can. I don’t want him to suffer.”
I heard the table legs skid on the floor and then the dark haired guy said:
“I can’t believe how hot and tight you are.”
Annie giggled and said, “Muscle control.”
The blond haired said, “Here honey; control this” and then he laughed and said, “I can’t believe that she took half of it down her throat in one gulp” and the dark haired one said, “She was born to be a cocksucker.”
I’d heard enough. It was a set up. Annie had set me up. She had been lying to me for years. I had believed her when she told me about her ‘one time’ with Alan. I had believed her because I loved her and I had thought that she loved me, but quite obviously she didn’t. And I didn’t miss the part about “his life insurance” either. Annie had set me up to be killed. The sounds of Annie being fucked on the kitchen table faded as I quietly closed the door and hurried back to my pick up truck.
I took out my cell and pushed the buttons for 9-1-1.
“Fairview Emergency Response Center. What is the nature of your emergency?”
I quickly explained that my wife was being held hostage and why and what I was expected to do to get her released. She took down my address, home phone number and cell phone number and then I described myself and my truck and told her I would wait for the police on the corner of Sunflower Way and Prairie Grass Lane. Seven minutes later two squad cars arrived and I started to describe the situation, but the officers told me to save it until the SWAT team arrived.
Five minutes later the SWAT team arrived. They had aerial photos of the house, courtesy of Goggle Earth, and the SWAT team commander spread them out on my tailgate. I pointed out the places where they could approach the house without being seen, how they could get into the garage unobserved, described the two men and then explained the interior layout of the house.
I told them about what the blond haired guy had said about what would happen if I called the cops and I saw two of the SWAT team members look at me with disgust and I could read their faces. They said:
“What a fucking asshole. He chose his fucking money over his wife.”
I saw the looks change when the team commander said, “Anything else you can tell us.”
“It is obvious that they intended to kill both me and my wife when they got the collection. They weren’t wearing masks or hoods so the wife and I both saw their faces and can identify them. To me that says they are stone assed killers and have done this before. You guys are the only shot I have at getting Annie out alive. Maybe I can go in the front door and while their attention is focused on me you guys can come across the back yard and take them from behind.”
My offer was refused as I knew it would be and then I was told to go sit in a squad car with one of the regular policemen and I understood that it was going to be his job to sit on me and make sure that I stayed out of the way. As I sat there I wondered how it would go down. Would the SWAT team assault the house using the element of surprise and if they did would Annie somehow end up as collateral damage? One could only hope.
Would they call the assholes on the telephone and try to negotiate? If the two assholes were taken alive would they roll over on Annie? Would she be the one to roll over? Then I had a nasty thought. What if the two guys decided that they were toast any way it went and decided to do the ‘gentlemanly thing’ and not give up Annie? She would get a free pass and keep on pretending to be my loving wife. What would I do then? Too fucking bad I didn’t have a tape recorder with me when I was listening in on them.
So back to what would I do if the assholes gave up and didn’t roll over on Annie? I had no proof of Annie’s involvement and that meant the only way I could get her out of my life would be to divorce her. That would mean an asset split of fifty/fifty and I would probably end up having to pay alimony. To a woman who had set me up to die? No fucking way! I’d kill her before I would let that happen and I’d make damned sure that she knew why I was doing it.
Naturally since my worst case scenario was the one that let Annie walk it was the one that I got.
++++++++++++++++++++
Three hours after the SWAT team arrived the two assholes came out of the house with their arms up and their hands clasped behind their heads. As they were being put in the back of police cars the blond guy looked my way and I waved at him. The SWAT team commander came up to me and said:
“Your wife is okay. Just a little shook up, but some TLC should take care of her.”
He turned to leave and I said, “There is one more thing.” He turned back to me and I said, “They weren’t in this alone. Someone had to tell them about the coin collection. I know damned well that they didn’t walk around town asking people for information on who had coin collections. And the blond one said something that was quite telling. He told me not to bother holding anything back as they had a list of what was in the collection. I’ll sit down and make a list of everyone that I know who knows what I have in my box at the bank. I’ll bet that those yahoos you just cuffed will give their informant up if you play it right.”
He looked at me for a second and then said, “Get your list to Captain Meyer as soon as you can” and then he left.
I went into the house to face a distraught and very pissed off Annie. Instead of throwing herself into my arms she scowled at me and snarled:
“You bastard! They told you they would kill me if you called the police and you called them anyway.”
“It was a chance I had to take.”
“A chance you had to take? That was my fucking life you took a chance with, not yours.”
“It was the only chance I had of saving your life. The moment those assholes had what they were after we were both dead. If they were going to let us go they would have worn masks, hoods or some kind of disguise. They didn’t and so we saw their faces and could describe them and they knew it. Calling the cops was the only way I had of saving you. The only other thing I could think of doing was to get the stuff and hide it and then come in and tell them to let you go and then I’d tell them where the stuff was and then I realized I couldn’t do that. All they would have had to do was grab a knife and start carving on you and I would have given in.”
I almost barfed when I said, “You are just too precious to me for me to even think of letting them hurt you.”
“Oh my God Rob; you’re right. I never even thought of that.”
The girl had missed her calling. She was wasted as a secretary; she should have been on the Broadway stage or in the movies. She burst into tears and ran from the room which was just as well since I’m not sure that I could have held in what I was holding in if she had stayed in the room with me.
I grabbed the Yellow Pages and went out into the garage. A phone call and a credit card number and things were taken care of. When I had dinner ready I called her and got:
“I’m too nervous Rob; I couldn’t hold anything down. I need to soak in the tub and see if I can relax” which was slut code for “I need to clean those two out of me and off of me before you maybe see something that might give you a clue.”
When I walked into the bathroom while she was still in the tub and said, “Time for bed sweetheart” I got “I need to be alone for a bit Rob; I’m going to sleep in the spare bedroom tonight.” That was slut code for “It has only been a couple of hours since those two fucked me and I might still be too loose’ which was just as well since I didn’t want the whore touching me anyway.
I laid awake a long time thinking about my wife and my marriage. I had honestly thought my wife loved me. God knows she certainly acted as if she did. I did know that I had loved her enough to put what she had convinced me was a one time mistake with Alan behind me. Perhaps if I had loved her a little less my eyes would have been open enough for me to see things that might have told me that all wasn’t right.
Tuesday morning I made sure that I was up and out of the house before Annie woke up and came downstairs. I was going to need the day to get myself psyched up enough to pretend to be a loving husband until I could come up with a way to get rid of her. I was going to have to be as good at acting as if I adored her as she was at acting as if she loved me. After hearing what I’d heard at the cracked open door I wanted to kill the bitch and yes, love could die just that fast, especially when the one you love is fucking some one else and plotting your death. I wanted the bitch to die an agonizing death and I wanted to be looking her right in the eye when it happened, but I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in jail so I needed to find some other way to get rid of her.
It was during my afternoon coffee break that the idea came to me. I would need Annie’s help to make it work and all I could do was cross my fingers and hope that she would cooperate. Part of the plan was already in motion, but when I put it in motion I didn’t have a plan just a need to know.
++++++++++++++++++++++
After work I swung by police headquarters and asked for Captain Meyer. He knew who I was and why I was there so he must have talked to the SWAT team commander. He asked me if I had the list he’d been told about and I handed it to him as I said:
“I’ve gone over the list a dozen times and I can’t bring myself to believe that any one of them is involved. Christ, it would be easier to believe that it was my wife rather than anyone else on that list. But the sad fact remains that it had to be somebody.”
“Well sir, we will check it out. We may just turn up a link between someone on the list and one of the two men. Oh, by the way, we need for you to give us a formal written statement and your wife needs to come down and give us one also.”
“I’ll tell her as soon as I get home. As long as I’m here can I give mine now?”
He turned me over to a detective; I gave my statement, waited while it was typed up and then I signed it and headed for home.
Normally I get home from work before Annie, but because of my visit to police headquarters she beat me home.
“Where have you been?”
“Talking to the police. I had to give them a written statement on what happened yesterday and they told me that they need you to come down so they can get one from you. After I signed my statement I spent some time going over my list with Detective Arnold.”
“List? What list?”
“I gave them a list of people who knew about the deposit box and what was in it. Those two had to have gotten their information from someone. The cops are going to look for that third person.”
I might have imagined it, but I thought I saw a faint trace of worry flash across her face and I wondered again at the conversations that must have taken place between Annie and the two men while they were in the house surrounded by the police and negotiating with them on the phone. What promises were made? And to whom by whom?
Annie told me dinner was ready and over dinner she told me about her day at work and how she had been a minor celebrity. It seems that one of the SWAT team cops was a cousin of one of the girls that Annie worked with and the cousin had called her with the story.
“It’s a wonder that anything got done at all since it seemed like everyone was crowded around my desk most of the day wanting to hear the story. Brad even took me to lunch.”
Brad was her boss and I had never liked the arrogant son of a bitch. Annie prattled on and on and I didn’t say much; just sat there and dreaded having to climb into the bed with the whore at bedtime, but unless she pulled the “I need to be alone” bit again climbing in bed with her was something I was going to have to do. I needed her to keep thinking that things were fine between us.
It is amazing how quickly a blow job can chase away dread. We were no sooner into bed when her hand went for my cock and before I could say that I didn’t really feel like making love that night her mouth had replaced her hand and about then my thinking changed one hundred and eighty degrees to “I better take all of this I can get because when she is gone I have no idea how long it will take to replace her.” When she took her mouth off me and mounted me cowgirl style she bounced around and did most of the work and when I came she surprised me by going down on me again. She nursed on me for a while and then she stopped long enough to say:
“I don’t know why, but after yesterday I’m so glad to be alive that it is making me horny as hell.”
She got me up hard again and I rolled her over and rode her hard to two orgasms before having my own and as I pulled out of her I thought:
“Not bad for some one who isn’t worth a shit in the bedroom.”
The surprises weren’t over. She woke me with a blow job in the morning – the first in years – and then she pulled me on top of her and that morning I was an hour late for work. As I worked I wondered what was going on with Annie. I would have called our sex life good. We made love at least three times a week, but rarely more than one time except for weekends. When we made love on weekends we would usually go twice, but the previous night Annie was damned near insatiable. For us to go twice and then follow it up in the morning with another was unheard of for us.
Annie’s telling me that after “her ordeal” she was so glad to be alive that it was making her horny was just so much bullshit. She was never in danger and she knew it so what WAS making her so horny? Was it the fact that she was fucking a man she had expected to be dead? Was she turned on by the knowledge that the two men who had just fucked her were just waiting with itchy trigger fingers to kill me when I walked back into the house? I doubted that I would ever know.
That night and Thursday morning were a repeat of Tuesday night and Wednesday morning only that time I wasn’t late for work. Thursday night was Annie’s standing night to play cards with several of her sorority friends from college, but after what took place on Monday I doubted very much that Annie ever saw a deck of cards on Thursday night. I didn’t doubt that she was playing, but I’d bet my life that it wasn’t cards.
I was not in the habit of waiting up for her so I was surprised that when she got home she woke me with a blow job and then mounted me. I couldn’t tell if she had ‘played’ or not, but then why would I have been able to? Based on what I’d heard at the door I didn’t know if on any given day I had ever been the first in her cunt. She wasn’t sloppy wet so if she had been fucked before coming home a rubber must have been used or she carried stuff with her to douche.
There was no wake up sex on Friday morning and at one o’clock on Friday afternoon I got the call that I had been waiting for and I left work early and went to meet with the private detective I’d called from my garage on Monday. He told me just what I had hoped to hear. I left work early and by four o’clock I had emptied out the checking and savings account and had removed everything from our shared safe deposit box and moved them to the box that held my coin collection. I cancelled every credit card that we had that would allow cash advances, but left the ones that wouldn’t give cash in place incase Annie stopped for gas ore to buy something from the store.
Annie was home when I got there and she was fixing dinner. Twenty minutes after I got home the phone rang, Annie answered and then told me that the call was for me. I took the phone, said hello and then listened for a bit before saying:
“That’s great. I’ll be right down.”
I hung up and Annie asked, “Who was that?”
“Detective Arnold. One of the guys who tried to hold us up has agreed to turn state’s evidence in exchange for the prosecutor not going for the death penalty. He is going to give up the person who told them about my deposit box and what was in it. I want to be there to hear just which of my friends was willing to see me killed just to get a share of what was in the box. You want to come with me?”
“No thanks. I’m trying to put that day out of my life.”
“Don’t wait dinner on me. I have no idea how long I will be gone.”
I left the house and drove down the street, turned the corner and then turned onto the street directly behind us. I parked, made my way to where I could watch our house from behind Mrs. Frank’s bushes. The call had been from my private detective and it had been prearranged to set up Annie. It was a gamble. I hoped what I’d told her would shake her up too much for her to stop and consider that the police wouldn’t call me and tell me what I’d told her. They wouldn’t tell me anything until they had confessions on paper and signed and then and only then would I have been told what had gone down. I was betting that Annie would be packing as soon as she saw me going down the street and that she would be out of the house and gone before I even had time to get to the police station,
Twenty-five minutes after I had taken position behind Mrs. Frank’s bushes the garage door opened and Annie backed down the drive and headed for town. If she hurried she still had time to get to the bank before the lobby closed, but even if something happened to keep her from getting there while it was still open there was the drive-thru window that was open an hour later than the lobby. But regardless of when she got to the bank she was going to be very pissed. I just wished I could see her face when she found out that she couldn’t get a dime for running money. She would hit a couple of ATMs and find her cards wouldn’t work. All she would have was whatever she had in her purse, whatever she had packed, a Visa, a Discover card and a couple of gasoline credit cards and they would only be good for as long as it took me to go back into the house and get on the phone and cancel them. She would also have her car, but she would have to get rid of it because she knew that once she was ratted out I would give the police a description of her car and her plate numbers.
I got my car and went on home. The bedroom was a mess. Annie had just pulled out the drawers and dumped then on the floor and on the bed as she looked for what she wanted to take with her. Her side of the walk in closet was almost empty and none of her toiletries were in the bathroom. I never did find a goodbye note.
+++++++++++++++++
Epilog
The two men claimed that it was all a joke that Annie had asked them to help her pull off. The police and the prosecutor knew it was bullshit, but without Annie there to testify they were able to pull it off partially. They had threatened me with guns and they hadn’t said “Whoa up there, it is all a joke” when the police came on the scene so there were fourteen charges brought against them that the DA refused to plea down on. One of the charges was “Felony Menacing” and that charge alone was worth three to five. The jury found them guilty of eight of the ten charges and they are now doing fifteen years in the state prison.
I took the PI report to an attorney and knowing that I had attorney/client privilege I told him the whole story and asked him what my best options were as far as a divorce was concerned and he told me that the best thing was to do nothing for the time being. He told me to wait a year and hope not to hear from her or find out where she was and then I could claim desertion and abandonment and all it would cost me were attorney’s fees and court costs.
I have no idea of how many men Annie stabbed me in the back with and so most of them got away with it. Four did not. Two of them were guests of the state for the next fifteen years and two more had their lives ruined by me.
The PI report showed that Annie took long lunches with her boss at the Days Inn on Fremont Street. Brad’s wife got a very grim look on her face when I shared the PI’s report with her and in the divorce she got the gold mine and he got the shaft. I had already reported my wife as missing at the time of the two men’s trial. By then the police and I had both decided that Annie was probably the one who gave the two men the deposit box information and that she had run because she was sure the two men would roll over on her for reduced sentences (they never did). Finally, saying that I had held it back because I loved her and wanted to give her another chance, I took the PI report to the police and pointed out that Brad had been the last person that Annie was known to be with. I leaked the story to the papers that the last time she had been seen alive was when she and Brad had walked into room 114 at the Days Inn at twelve noon on the day she disappeared. By the time the news media got done with the story Brad was branded in everyone’s eyes as a killer who had managed to get away with it.
According to the PI report Thursday evening Annie drove to the Motel 6 on Addison and waited in the parking lot until a late model Chevy Suburban drove up and parked next to her. She got out of her car and walked over and embraced the man when he got out of his and they walked hand in hand to room 137. Apparently the room had already been prearranged as they walked right in. They came out four hours later and the PI followed the man home. George Martin was the pastor of the First Baptist Church and he was married and had three children. At least he was all of those things until I shared the PI’s report with Mrs. Martin and then I leaked the information to the news media while they were still in the middle of the feeding frenzy on Brad Brown and Annie’s disappearance and Martin was ruined.
Naturally I was a ‘person of interest’ in the disappearance of Annie and I’m sure the police looked long and hard at me (and still may be for all I know), but my story was that I had suspected Annie of cheating and had put the private detective on her. I confronted her with the report and when I got home from work the next day she was gone and I never saw her again.
I never heard from Annie again and following my attorney’s advice I waited a year and then filed for divorce on grounds of desertion. The divorce is final today.