Chapter 1

Scott Adams couldn’t help but notice the little things about his wife Diane since he had been married to her for twelve years. What he was noticing was that his wife who was very meticulous in her appearance usually looked the same when she returned from work as she did when she left to go to work. Now on certain days however, Wednesday in particular, when she came home from work she looked like she had been out in a strong wind. That was also the same day she came home late from work saying there were things ay work that required her to stay longer.

In thinking about his marriage, Scott knew the passion that they had for each other had been substantially reduced from when they first were married. Where it was every night they were making love when they first were married, now it was reduced to once a week or maybe every two weeks and the lovemaking happened only because Scott’s instigated it. It seemed to Scott that Diane didn’t care if they did or didn’t make love. She was giving him the impression that she was having sex with him only because her wifely duties required that she do it.

Scott had thoughts about why this was happening and he didn’t like what he was thinking. The scary thought he had was that it could be that she was cheating on him. To dispel that thought he placed an air-tag in Diane’s car that would tell him where her car was located which he would periodically check when she said she would be coming home late.

The following Wednesday when Diane said that she will be late in coming home, Scott would look at the tracker to see where her car was located. During normal work hours the tracker showed her car was at the parking lot of the large bank she worked at. She was the recently promoted to the head of the mortgage department at the bank that was in a northern suburb of Chicago.

After normal bank working hours, the tracker showed that her car was located in the parking lot of a Hampton Inn Hotel. To Scott that indicated that Diane was not being truthful with him and was probably having an affair. If she was cheating on him as far as he was concerned the marriage was over because that was something he couldn’t accept and forgive. Before he pulled the plug on the marriage however, he had to be sure that was the case.

Lynn Reynolds was the older sister of a friend of Scott’s who was an attorney and specialized in handling divorce cases. Scott phoned her office and made an appointment to see her the following day.

At Lynn’s office the secretary told Scott he could go right in. Entering her office he saw Lynn sitting at her desk. Seeing Scott she rose and extended her hand to him.

“How are you doing Scott? It has been some time since I have seen you. What brings you here?”

Scott told her about his suspicion he had of his wife having an affair and what the tracker had showed. He said he needed to confirm that Diane was having an affair and if she was the marriage was over. Scott said he wanted Lynn to handle the divorce.

Lynn questioned him if this was really what he wanted to do and Scott was adamant in responding that he was. She asked him for a picture of his wife and the tracker information. He took out his cellphone and sent her a picture of his wife and gave Lynn the tracker information. Lynn said she would put her investigator Sadie Tagger on this and would be in touch with Scott on what Sadie was able to discover.

It was two weeks later that Lynn phoned Scott. She said her investigator had followed Diane into the Hampton Hotel and road up with Diane in the elevator. They both exited the elevator on the same floor and Sadie saw the room Diane had entered. Sadie placed on the wall across from that room a video spy camera that looked like a smoke detector and was motion activated. The camera recorded Diane and a man leaving the room some time later. Lynn said she was now e-mailing a copy of the video to Scott.

While Scott was still on the phone with Lynn he opened up the e-mail attachment on his computer and viewed the video.

“That man leaving the room with Diane is Donald Prescott. He is the President of the bank where Diane works. I have met him at the bank’s Christmas parties,” Scott said.

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to file for divorce but hold off doing that because I need to do some planning for that just in case the divorce gets ugly.”

Ending the call there were a number of thoughts running through Scott’s mind on what he needed to do. He also was having the thought that it was going to be twelve years of marriage going down the drain. Scott started to make up a checklist of things he needed to do. Making a list of their assets, notifications he would need to make, accounts he would need to cancel, things he would need to take and were he would live all where on his mind and listed on the checklist he was preparing.

Where to live was the first thing that he gave serious thought to. Scott was completely flexible on where he could live since he worked out of his home. Scott was blessed in that he had a very distinctive voice and he had become a narrator of audiobooks. He narrated books for four authors who produced by themselves or in conjunction with other authors about three books each on average in a given year. In addition to doing those audiobooks he also did the voice on a number of Hcommercials that were shown on television or heard on the radio. The compensation he received for doing this work was comparable to what Diane received working at the bank.

While he had seen on the news or heard stories about people relocating to the warm weather States or less expensive Countries to live, Scott was not a warm weather person nor did he want to leave the States. He remembered that a number of years ago vacationing with Diane in the Wisconsin Dells. He liked the area because he was not a big city fan and preferred the small town living. He made a decision that was where he was going to initially relocate to and if it didn’t work out he could always move to another location.

Scott had compiled a rather long list of things he needed to do because of the looming divorce. On Tuesday afternoon after looking on the web for realtors in the Portage area, he placed the call to Bowman Realty. Besides being located there he was impressed by the picture he saw on the web of Dana Bowman.

It turned out that after his call was answered he was transferred to Dana Bowman who had a pleasant voice. Scott introduced himself and said he was planning to move to the area and was looking for a home to purchase.

“What are you looking for in the way of a home?”

“A home that is well constructed, on a large lot, and most importantly located in a quiet area since I work from home and I don’t want to hear any outside noise. A plus would be if it was as you realtors call it truly a “Turnkey” since it would include all the furnishings. I won’t be moving any furniture, only some personal items and my clothes.”

“There is one house that has been listed and on the market for two months that could meet your requirements. I also just received a listing yesterday that had me taking some photos of this property. I am getting ready to put it on the multiple listing but I think it would also meet your requirements.”

“Can you hold off on doing that multiple listing and email me the photos along with the listings you have that you think I would be interested in looking at?”