The Woman At The Door by Daniel Hurst (manga ebook reader .TXT) 📗

that covers me in any glory. There’s only so many times that I can tell Rebecca that I don’t know what is going on before she has a right to call me a liar and a cheat, and I have to see this from her point of view. Through her eyes, the pattern of events is one that proves I have been unfaithful. But I just wish she would try and see it from my point of view as well because, through my eyes, this pattern suggests one thing.

I’m being set up.

It’s an extremely troubling thought, but it’s the only one that makes sense, and it’s the overriding conclusion I came to while I was sitting in the back of the taxi this evening on my way to check in to this hotel again. I came to the conclusion based on something Rebecca had said during our last argument, which I had brushed over at the time but is now lodged in my mind.

Having been in a tailspin and trying to come up with a plausible excuse as to why somebody else’s underwear was in my wife’s drawer, I had said that somebody else must have put it there. In her rage, Rebecca had snarled back that “she put them here! Right after she fucked you in our bed!” While that last part had been terribly upsetting to hear because it simply wasn’t true, it was the first part of that sentence that has stuck with me.

“She put them here!”

It has to be her. The woman at the door. She must have got into my home and planted the underwear in Rebecca’s drawer. She must have put the lipstick on the shirt too. This is all happening because of her, and it all started on the night she came to our house and knocked on our front door. That’s the only explanation I can think of. But my wife isn’t buying it. In her mind, the only explanation is that I have been caught in a lie and that I have betrayed her. Worryingly, that means it is unlikely that I’m going to be allowed back home to be with my wife again unless I can change her mind about things. But there’s only one way to do that.

As the elevator doors slide open to deposit me onto the fourth floor, I take out my mobile phone with my free hand and go searching for the text message from the private investigator. I find the message as I carry my overnight bag towards the door for room 414, and I call the number for the PI as soon as I’m inside the room and the door has closed behind me.

I drop my bag onto the bed, the same bed that I had hoped I’d seen the back of when I had left to go home earlier, before walking over to the window and hoping that I get a good enough phone reception in this position because hotels are notoriously bad for giving poor phone signal. Thankfully, I can hear the call connecting, and I’m relieved that I’m not going to have to go back downstairs and stand outside to try and get a good line to hold this conversation on.

‘Hello, Sam.’

The PI’s welcome is a simple one, but this conversation is about to get a lot more complex.

‘Erica. Thanks for picking up. I need your help.’

‘What is it?’

‘My wife’s just kicked me out again. She found a pair of women’s underwear in her drawer at home, but I have no idea how they got there. The only thing I can think of is that the woman who came to the door broke into my home and planted them there sometime this week.’

‘Okay, slow down,’ Erica advises me, but that’s easier said than done in my current state.

‘She’s doing all of this! I don’t know why but it has to be her! She’s trying to ruin my marriage!’

‘I understand, but I need you to keep calm and be patient. I’m looking into her, but it’s going to take a little time.’

‘I don’t have time! My wife is going to divorce me!’ I cry, and just uttering the dreaded ‘D’ word sends a shiver down my spine.

Is this who I am going to be, one of those men who society shuns because they cheated on their partner and ends up living out of a suitcase in a hotel whilst all their family and friends rally around the innocent party in the marriage? People will gossip about me and shake their heads in disgust, wondering how I could do such a thing to such a beautiful person like Rebecca. They will stop inviting me to things, either because they disagree with what I did or because their partners do, and they no longer wish to have anything to do with me. I won’t just lose my wife, I could lose my whole social circle, and worse, I could lose my respect as a human being. I’d have to start from scratch and rebuild a whole new life, and who wants to do that at any age, let alone mine? Not only that but I don’t want to have to start a new life. I like my life, and I love being married to Rebecca. Everything was great. Everything was perfect.

Or at least everything was until that woman came to the door.

‘I’ll give you a call tomorrow when I might have something,’ Erica tells me. ‘But in the meantime, I want you to take a few deep breaths and try and relax because trust me, if there is something going on here then we will get to the bottom of it.’

‘There is something going on! That’s what I’m trying to tell you!’

‘Goodbye, Sam.’

Erica hangs up, probably because nobody likes being shouted at down the phone, but I worry it’s also because she is unsure about the credibility of my claims. She either thinks that I’m telling the truth, in which case I am a