Friday Fiction Femmes Fatales – March #4

I sat in the den waiting for David and Melanie to finish their argument. From what I could gather, Melanie was not happy about the situation, but David was trying to convince her.

I can’t really say that I blamed her for being mad. I wouldn’t be thrilled if my husband’s ex wife showed up asking for help. And certainly not help of this nature. There was a chance that she could be put in danger by association. But she owed me.

She owed me for the fact that my children were growing up without a father.  She owed me for her disgusting betrayal. She owed me for the pain, hurt, and anger associated with that afternoon that I returned home early.

Really it was by chance that I even came home early from my trip. My uncle Danny and I had been able to accomplish everything we needed to do on our trip in just two days instead of three, so we returned home. I couldn’t wait to see Emmy. I couldn’t wait to put my feet up and relax.

Only when I got to my house, my husband’s car was home. That seemed odd to me. But not as odd as seeing him in the pool with Melanie. Naked.

I shivered as the memories flooded back. Damn her. Normally I was not one to hold grudges, but in this particular instance, I did not feel unjustified in my belief that Melanie owed me something to make up for her betrayal.

Finally the two of them came back into the room. I knew David won the argument because Melanie looked like a sullen child. “OK, we will help.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. It was odd to be relying on the two people I disliked the most in the world, but I needed them.

“So, now what?” David asked.

“Melanie, how much do you know?” I asked.

“Not much. I don’t know the specifics; I just know the case you were working on. David actually told me a bit about it when you were on the trip with Danny and came home…” she trailed off. There was no need for us to rehash that. She shuffled her feet nervously, and decided to sit down in one of the chairs directly across from the sofa I was sitting on.

Although I was really irritated that David would share such confidential information with his mistress, I was not altogether surprised. It was actually a good sign that she had not said anything about it over the last five years, so maybe I could trust her to keep quiet.

“There’s more to the story that I’m not sure David even knows. If you’re going to be helpful, you need to know a few more details.” I began to tell the whole story, only leaving out a few details that were irrelevant to our current task. Although five years had passed, I still remember every detail. I watched as Melanie’s eyes grew bigger and bigger. She kept glancing nervously at David. His expression did not change as he heard the story. But he was used to it since this was also his line of work.

“So that brings us to last week. Danny says he overheard two of my former co-workers mention my name the other day. They did not know he was still in the office and he could not hear their entire conversation. He heard them mention my name and a few other things that didn’t make much sense to either one of us. So the first thing I have to find out is how much they know. That’s where David comes in.”

David still worked for the company I had worked for. That’s actually how we met. Danny recruited me in shortly after college and David and I were partnered together a few years later. The hours of the job were long, and as the cliché romance story goes, we fell in love. For awhile it worked out great. After we announced our involvement we were partnered with other people, but we were still happy for years. I knew that we had been growing distant, but I never suspected him of cheating on me. I had never asked how long he and Melanie had been in a relationship. I did not want to know the answer.

“Will you be able to snoop around a bit without being obvious?” I asked David.

“That’s why they pay me the big bucks.” His smug response made me want to punch him in the nose. But, as he was the only person who could do this for me, I decided against it.

“Ok. Good.” I rattled off a list of information and documents that would be useful to me if he could get them. Melanie excused herself to check on the children and get their dinner ready while David and I conferred about the details.

When I felt we had discussed everything we needed to, I stood up. “There’s not much that can be done this evening. I’m going to head back to my hotel.” I wrote down my contact information and handed it to David. “Just in case you need to get in touch with me for any reason. When should we meet tomorrow?”

We made our plans for the next day and I left David and Melanie’s house. I was exhausted and ready to have a drink and get some rest.

We are almost past St. Patrick’s Day, a “holiday” that many people think is about getting hammered amid ersatz spontaneous Irishness. People connect being Irish with being lucky. Those of us who’ve descended from The Mother Country know that “luck” is subjective. I prefer the word “chance.” That said, here is the prompt: “chance |CHans|
noun
1 a possibility of something happening: a chance of victory | there is little chance of his finding a job.
• (chances) the probability of something happening: he played down his chances of becomingchairman.
• [ in sing. ] an opportunity to do or achieve something: I gave her a chance to answer.
• a ticket in a raffle or lottery.
• Baseball an opportunity to make a defensive play, which if missed counts as an error: 541 straight chances without an error.
2 the occurrence and development of events in the absence of any obvious design: he met his brother by chance | what a lucky chance that you are here.
adjective [ attrib. ]
fortuitous; accidental: a chance meeting.
verb
1 [ no obj. ] do something by accident or without design: if they chanced to meet.
• (chance upon/on) find or see by accident: he chanced upon an interesting advertisement.
2 [ with obj. ] informal do (something) despite its being dangerous or of uncertain outcome: she waited a few seconds and chanced another look.”You decide how to use it, how to demonstrate it and how to reconcile it in your writing this week. 800-1500 words. Go.