My lovely wife was being led astray by one of her work colleagues while I was travelling on business. The big question I needed to answer was whether I was better off with her or without her. And, if ‘with’ was the answer, how would I go about reclaiming her as mine?

It wasn’t like I was away from home all that much.

Twice a month, the branch office I was inspecting was far enough away that I overnighted there Tuesday rather than have an impossibly long day. It was a steady and predictable routine. If it was the second week of February or August, then I was in Galveston. Two weeks after, Mobile. You get the idea. Routine planned audits to satisfy my bosses and the regulations; another colleague was responsible for the snap unannounced inspections if I picked up anything that didn’t seem right.

I was the ‘good cop’, and most of the people I audited understood that and cooperated fully. If I didn’t like the answer, or something seemed off, then I challenged them. If they had an explanation, no matter how personally embarrassing, they’d better give it to me straight, or risk an in-depth forensic audit. Word had gotten around fairly quickly after the San Diego office fiasco, what with the office manager and branch accountant both now vacationing at Club Fed. How they imagined they’d get away with it, I’d never understand.

Tuesday was a good choice of day. Early enough in the week for people to be in ‘work’ mode, but missing all the crazy stuff that happens on a Monday, when the snafus of Friday or the weekend hit the boss’s in-tray. Avoided all the public holidays too, except Fourth July, and who travels that week? Oh, and enough of the week remaining to either resolve a problem or call in the back-up. Financial irregularities, you want to get right on top of them before the money has the chance to disappear without trace.

I generally stayed in a quiet hotel close to the office I was visiting, ate a standard room service meal at the desk while I worked on my report, called Roxanne to wish her a goodnight, and went to bed, alone. I knew that other business people endured a whole lot more separation, heck, I’d heard of firms sending their people out on a Sunday afternoon just to get a cheaper rate on the airline! The next morning I’d go back in, discuss my findings with the local management, agree on any necessary further action, then take a taxi to the airport when we were done.

Why did I stay in my room all evening? Mainly so that I’d complete my work ready to present and defend my findings in the morning. I also didn’t want to fall into the business traveller trap of drinking too much, or seeking company. I’d observed other hotel guests at play in the bar; that was something I just wasn’t interested in. Roxanne and I had made wedding vows, and my word means something to me, so I was going to stick to them. Oh yes, over the years I’d had more than a few offers and ‘come hither’ looks, from fellow-guests and from working girls plying their trade. There’s no point in deliberately courting temptation (and some of the ladies were VERY sexy) unless you’re actively considering succumbing, and why would I want to go with another woman, with Roxanne eagerly awaiting my return? I can truly say that I never strayed since Roxanne agreed to our first date. Not once.

Tuesday mornings Roxanne would give me a fond farewell; she was always very pleased to welcome me back home Wednesdays. I’d come in from work with flowers or a little gift from wherever I’d been, be soundly kissed in the front hall, there’d be a meal cooking in the oven and a bottle of wine on the table, we’d catch up as we enjoyed our dinner, then go upstairs and celebrate our reunion with a sixty-nine dessert, followed by some serious loving. And it wasn’t only Tuesdays and Wednesdays when we were intimate, even after six years of marriage, we were still tearing up the sheets several days of the week.

We’d already agreed that it was time for us to start our family; it was just a matter of deciding exactly when and how many.

A couple of years ago, she’d started to go out occasionally for a quick drink with the girls from work, just to show willing, and she was now in the habit of doing that on the days I was away, so she wouldn’t spend all of a long lonely evening waiting for my call. Precisely when I called her depended on the time zone I was in, I tried to make it about ten o’clock at home, but sometimes it would be later than that.

A few months ago, there was a strange message on the answering machine when I got back from a trip. You know how if the machine has already started recording when you pick up the phone, it continues to tape the call? Well, Roxanne’s work colleague Kendra had called her up to ask for a lift home after the party that night. It had only been a quick conversation, but the word ‘party’ rang alarm bells. A quick drink in a bar is not exactly a ‘party’. I deleted the recording, but put myself on high alert and activated the locating device on Roxanne’s smartphone. The next time I was away overnight, I checked her phone’s location at eight o’clock our time. It wasn’t anywhere near her office in town, it was in a sub-division of larger houses a few miles north of where we lived. That didn’t look at all good, so I bought a small voice-activated recorder disguised as a pen-flashlight and secreted it among the junk and old lipsticks in the bottom of Roxanne’s purse. The recording quality was pretty lousy, but I eventually heard enough to learn that some of her colleagues had gotten her into a party group. An adult party group. And by adult, that meant more than just drinking alcohol.

Crap! What did she need that to do that for? Was I not doing the job enough? Heck, our mattress took a beating at least five times a week, sometimes three times in a row at weekends, and I’d only just fixed the shower curtain rail again. She’d never complained about either quality or quantity, and the two of us already did pretty much everything. We made love most of the time, but we also enjoyed hot monkey sex and a spur-of-the-moment quickie. I guessed that it could have been a whole lot worse, she could have taken a lover and gotten herself emotionally involved, but I was still absolutely unhappy about her actions. She’d broken her vows. How badly? was the vital question. Despite being a qualified CPA, I’m not a ‘black or white’ binary person. There are degrees of guilt and error, and I’ve learned enough life lessons to try not to make important decisions without being fully informed.

No, don’t get me wrong. Roxanne being at a private house partying, instead of at a bar near her office having a quiet drink and a gossip with work colleagues, wasn’t a ‘mistake’. It was an active act of wrongdoing against our marriage vows. She lied about it from the start, so she must have known that it wouldn’t pass the ‘husband test’. And now what had she gotten herself into?

I did a lot of thinking in the next couple of weeks. Roxanne noticed I was distracted and asked me what was up; I told her that I had a work problem I couldn’t yet resolve. Yeah. I was working, she was playing around. That kind of work problem. Our love life continued as normal, maybe I ramped it up a little, just to see if she commented, but that didn’t seem to have any effect other than extra affection when I got her off especially well. The next time I was away (Chicago, better to visit in June than December), her phone once again spent the evening at the same darned place.

What to do? ... I still loved her, other than cheating on me she was a damn good wife, best friend and lover. I could easily see her as a great mother to my, to our kids. Way better than the gold-digging bitch of an ex that I’d married straight out of college and who’d been costly to jettison. Roxanne was a great cook, she had a good job, we had a whole lot of interests in common, and she ran the household smoothly. Even my Mom told me that I’d found myself a keeper.

Did I want to keep Roxanne as my wife? I had no doubts that I was better off with her than without her, as long as I could rein her in from whatever she was doing those evenings I was away. She badly needed to learn a lesson, as did the sluts and assholes who’d encouraged a married woman to stray. Oh, and what she’d done so far wasn’t nearly bad enough to justify me getting myself hosed in another divorce. I make a whole lot more than she does, and a 50/50 split of our assets would seriously screw me over, way worse than my first divorce, simply because I was now earning so much more.

Therefore the plan was, just had to be, to turn her back into my loving faithful wife. Yeah, I know. ‘Once a cheater, always a cheater’. I hoped I had the exception that proves the rule. I had nothing to lose by trying.

Oh, I didn’t put all my eggs in one basket. I’d learned from my first mistake; if we did split up, the judge would be dividing up a far smaller asset total than it might have been. My job is all about finding money that’s gone somewhere else, naturally I know all the tricks. Something about gamekeepers and poachers.

A month later, I juggled my schedule a little, warned Roxanne about a fictional overnight trip to Seattle but actually booked some personal time, rented a small compact and a hotel room out at the airport, and laid in wait outside her office parking lot at going-home time.

When she and Kendra set off for the party, I was a few cars behind them. Sure enough, they headed over to the same sub-division her phone had visited. When they turned into a drive, I kept going and pulled over fifty yards up the street. Then I walked back. The building plots were large and mature, the landscaping contractor had done a great job in making each house seem very secluded. A pretty smart neighborhood. That worked to my advantage, the vegetation was even more concealing than I’d seen on the Google Earth images. I guess the homeowners liked their privacy. There were maybe a dozen cars parked up on the driveway and in front of the triple garage, there was no doubting there was a social gathering in progress. I used the planting cover to get round to the side of the house; through a big picture window I could see quite enough action to be sure what was going on. I snapped a few photos and a little video on my phone, but didn’t stay to see if I could identify Roxanne. I knew if we were going to stay together that it would be far better for my mental health if I hadn’t actually watched her go with another guy.

I went back to my rental, pulled on the latex gloves and grabbed the slim jim and the side-cutters I’d bought for cash in Atlanta two weeks before. Most of the cars were unlocked, heck, the keys were still in a couple of them, but it still took a good forty minutes to cut all the valve stems, break into those cars that weren’t open (Roxanne’s was locked, but not for long), search them and remove any paperwork. I wasn’t at all worried about being seen, the people at the party had seemed way too engrossed in what, or who, they were doing. Like I said, that driveway was very private from the street. It was an upmarket neighborhood.

Job done, I headed back to the airport and my room at the hotel. Boy, my bag of paperwork was a goldmine. Insurance documents, drivers licenses, check books, two purses and a couple of billfolds. Jeez, I even ended up with a passport and the title documents to a car. Someone would be having a very difficult conversation with their husband shortly. Especially when they were returned in the mail together with the check book, addressed ‘Personal’ to him.

It was just past nine. I speed dialed Roxanne’s cell. It went to voice mail. I left a brief message that I was in my hotel room and missing her, then I called home. The answering machine picked up. I left another message. It was another hour and a half before she called back. She sounded frightened. “Honey, my car’s been broken into! All the tires are flat, and the insurance papers are gone.”

I tried to sound totally surprised and shocked. Not an Oscar-winning performance, but it seemed enough. “Shit! Where was that? Have you reported it to the police yet? We’ll need an incident number to claim on the insurance. Where any other cars damaged at the same time?”

She was silent for a moment, sounded like she was working on her answer. “Yeah, a couple of others in the same part of the parking lot were also done.”

“Make sure you do report it; I’ll be back tomorrow night and we’ll sort it. You got the number to call?”

I’d decided to let her stew for a bit and didn’t interrogate her any further when I got home, other than playacting the loving husband checking she wasn’t too shaken up by the horrible experience. I hoped that the event would bring her back to her senses. I let her speak to the insurance adjuster alone; I didn’t need to hear in her presence that the vandalism had NOT taken place in a bar parking lot, like it didn’t suit for her to realize that I already knew the truth.

Roxanne was noticeably quiet. The insurance people had her car transported to an approved tire shop and had the repairs done; by the time I paid the first hundred bucks it would almost have been cheaper to have organized it myself. The important thing was that I now had written proof of where the car had been, in case I needed it for later. I already knew who owned that property, and if it came down to scorched earth legal proceedings, hosting those events was gonna cost them dear.

A couple of days later, she seemed especially wary when I got home. I’d have laid money that someone’s husband had received an envelope in the mail and there’d been some frantic discussions at work. I grinned to myself and took her out for dinner and dancing. With a few drinks inside her, she relaxed, and we went to bed several hours before we went to sleep.