Chapter 14

I hadn’t slept in thirty hours when I walked through the doors of the Happy Life Yoga Studio. Jude’s car was in the parking lot, so I expected to run into her, but the studio was empty. I noticed a class schedule on the wall and checked. The next class was about in about forty-five minutes. The place was oddly quiet.

In the back, next to the restrooms, I found a door with a sign that had the word Private written on it. I assumed that it was Marcel’s office. I knocked loudly on the door then tried to open it. It was locked.

A couple of minutes passed, then I heard someone unlock the door. It opened, and Marcel stepped out, immediately closing the door behind him.

“Bill!” he exclaimed loudly as if he were surprised to see me. Either that, or he wanted to alert Jude to my presence. “What are you doing here? Are you looking for Jude?”

“No,” I replied. “I actually need to talk to you about something important. Do you have a few minutes?”

“Uh,” he hesitated, “sure.”

“Can we go in your office? This is a delicate matter, and I need to speak to you in private.”

He looked over his shoulder at the office door for a few seconds. “Uh, yeah, of course. Just one moment, please. I was just doing a private lesson. Can you give me a moment?”

I could feel my blood starting to boil. My wife was in his office, and he was trying to delay my entry. He opened the door a crack, to step in without me, but I pushed my way past him. “I don’t have a lot of time,” I explained as I barged in.

Jude wasn’t there. The office was empty, but I could smell my wife’s favorite perfume still lingering in the air. Marcel sat down at his desk. There was a large sofa next to it and an open area on the floor with two yoga mats rolled out. I was pretty sure one of them was Jude’s.

“How can I help you?” he asked as he leaned back in his chair.

Marcel didn’t know I was a cop. Jude made a point to not tell her friends and associates. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of my profession, but she didn’t like the way it made people behave. They acted differently when they knew what I did for a living. I knew Martinez would be coming by to interview him, so I used the time to do a little digging.

“Well, do you remember our conversation at our party? How I had asked you to keep an eye out for anybody trying to seduce Jude?”

“Yes, you asked me to spy on her for you,” he said with the same smirk as the night of the party. “I have nothing to report really. I’ve not seen anyone flirting with her.”

“I’m just worried more now,” I said as I looked around his office. I spotted a security camera mounted on the wall. It was aimed at the sofa, not at the door or the desk, which struck me as odd. “Especially after hearing about Melissa,” I added.

“Yeah, that’s horrible news,” he replied, not revealing any emotional response. “Jude told me this morning. How sad for her family.”

“So, you can understand why I’m even more concerned about my wife and her potential encounters with other men.”

“Of course,” he replied, nodding his head. “Of course. I will keep my eyes on her for you. You have my word.”

Yeah. That’s what I needed. It wasn’t Slick’s eyes I was worried about being on her. Just then the door opened, and Jude came in. She seemed slightly out of breath.

“Bill!” she said with a smile, “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I was in the area and saw your car. I thought I’d come by and see if you wanted to have lunch.” Being an investigator, I needed to be able to lie quickly.

“Oh, uhm,” she said, glancing at Marcel, “I just had something to eat. Sorry.” I stood up and prepared to leave. I felt bile rise up into my throat at the thought of what she may have just ingested. I had to swallow hard to keep from gagging, which only made me think more about whether or not she also gagged.

“Oh, yeah,” I said as I turned back to Marcel, “just one more thing. Jude and I talked about the trip to Costa Rica and the whole yoga instructor thing. I’m all for it. I support my wife. Like I told her, it wouldn’t be appropriate for the two of you to share a suite, so if she still plans to go, I’ll come with, and she and I will share the suite. That way, there’s no possibility of any accidental shenanigans going on.”

He had started to smirk when I brought the topic up, but it never fully materialized. I, on the other hand, was in full smirk-mode. “I’ll let you two get back to whatever it is you do in here.”

I kissed Jude possessively, then left. Only after did wonder if I had just inadvertently kissed her mouth with traces of his cum in it. As I drove by her car, I stopped, got out and put a GPS tracker under her rear bumper.