Trust (29 page)

"Um,
are you sure about that?" Mark asks, clearly uncomfortable with the idea. 
He's not a stupid man, and he heard our conversation.  He probably knows, when
Chase said to take me wherever I wanted to go, this wasn't one of the places he
had in mind.  Y
et, at the risk of offending me, he
obviously wasn't prepared to just pick up the phone and call Chase back.  I'm
not sure how long that politeness will last, though.  He might have second
thoughts.

"Of
course.  I know all about her, Mark."  I decide to t
ry a bluff.  Chase might be a poker player, but I'm willing
to gamble that his driver doesn't have his same skills at reading people. 
Especially as I have the advantage of Mark's eyes and attention being mostly
focused on the road and not me and my face.
 "Denise
told me everything.  I just wanted Chase to confirm if it was true.  But now
that I know, Chase knows I'm going to want to meet her.  For obvious
reasons."  Let Mark decide what those reasons are.  "It's not far, is
it?"

Mark
pauses, clearly cons
idering what I'm saying. 
Finally, he turns the car around and we start heading in the opposite direction
as he answers me.  "It's about 20 minutes from here."

"Okay." 
I pause, wondering how far I can push my luck with him.  "Have you known
her long?"

I
see him glance at me in the rear view, clearly still
uncomfortable answering my questions.  He pauses longer this time, and I wonder
if
he’s
re-considering whether or not this
diversion in our route is a good idea.  If he decides to call my bluff and chec
k with Chase, I have a feeling this trip will be cut
short.  "I think they had just gotten married right before I first began
working for him, must be close to two years ago now."

"Oh,
that's right," I agree, trying to sound like that fits with the inform
ation I already know.  It's clear by the way Mark keeps
looking at me that
he’s
still unsure about this, so I decide to abandon my plan of
trying to bluff him and instead stare out the window to avoid his gaze. 
Hopefully he'll read that as me being unconc
erned and
conclude it must mean that Chase really doesn't mind me going to visit her. 
I'm not sure what
he’s
thinking, but he doesn't turn the car around again or try
to call Chase, so I consider that a win.

As
we continue driving, I try to think about w
hat I'm
going to say to Chase's wife.  How will I even introduce myself? 
Hi, I'm your husband's mistress
, seems a bit harsh.  It's probably
better if I figure out their exact situation first, before I say anything, but
how would I do that?  I had hoped to
get some of that
information from Mark, but I dare not ask him any more questions.  He's the
only chance I have at getting there in the first place.  Without even her name,
I would be dead in the water.

I'm
devastated by this latest revelation, but I don
't
really feel like it has all sunk in yet.  Chase is married.  To someone else. 
A third woman, n
ot
Denise
. 
Thank god for that, at least
. 
The only thing that would make this whole thing worse was
if he had been married to Denise.

Of
course, we all have
a past and our right to it, but
this isn't the past.  S
he’s
not his ex-wife.  And regardless of whether they're
separated or have an open marriage or whatever, I'm not okay with this.  This
is someone who Chase had significant enough feelings for that he
married her, someone who was even more important to him
than Denise, and he never mentioned her.  That alone is enough to make me
suspicious.  She might be just as in the dark about all of this as I am, and if
so, I feel like it might be up to me to let he
r
know.  I'll decide after I get there and talk to her.  Hopefully I'll be able
to figure it all out.  Once I do, I'll head to the airport and this time I
won't be coming back. 

The
car drives through a residential neighborhood with houses that are big,
but not ridiculously so.  The houses seem average sized,
certainly not as nice as the house Chase is trying to buy now.  How can he be
trying to buy a new house and get serious with me when he has a whole other
house and wife somewhere?  It just boggles my
mind. 
I know the man is cocky, but this takes it to a whole other level.  I'm
beginning to feel like a fool again, for all of the nice things I believed
about Chase.  This would have been the last thing I expected of him.  He had me
completely conned.

I
wonder again what Chase and Denise are doing right now. 
Whether
he’s
still there at the office, with her, or whether he left to
go back to his hotel.  Or maybe
he’s
hailed a cab and is racing to the
airport to make one last effort at convincing me to sta
y.  Spending the whole ride there coming up with some new story, some new
lie, to keep me from leaving again.  To explain away the fact that
he’s
married.  Why he never mentioned her. 
That Denise knew, as she seems to know everything, but I didn't.  Of co
urse Denise was fine with it.  She would be.  That woman
would probably put up with just about anything to be able to be with Chase.  It
blows my mind that he took so long to admit that.  Or maybe he knew all along,
and it was just another lie that he told
me. 

We
continue to drive, passing through the neighborhood and turning enough that I'm
completely lost.  Stop signs and speed bumps keep us from moving very fast,
protecting the various children we see playing in yards from injury.  Finally
we pull up
in front of a modest size house. 

"This
is it," Mark says.  "Did you want me to wait?"

"Please. 
I won't be long."

I
gaze up at the house.  Chase used to live here.  With his wife.  Maybe he still
does. 
There’s
no white picket fence, but everything
el
se seems completely perfect.  The lawn is well
manicured; the house seems to be in good repair and is freshly painted. 
There’s
a single car garage, and a long
driveway that leads down to the street.

And
at the foot of the driveway is a red bike, lying on
its side.  Dear god.  I hadn't even considered that. 

He
has a kid, too.

My
heart pounds in my chest as I stare at the red bicycle lying half on the lawn
and the other half on the asphalt of the driveway.  It hadn't even crossed my
mind before, b
ut of course
it’s
possible.  If he has a wife, he can
certainly have a child as well.  It's like a bad Jerry Springer episode about
fathers with more than one secret family. 

I
almost tell Mark to leave right then and there.  I don't even know if I can d
o this anymore.  How can I confront this woman and her
child?  How can I tell them about how
he’s
living the life of a bachelor, out of
hotel rooms with possible ex-girlfriends all over the city?  Maybe all over the
world?

She
must know.  How could she no
t?  What lies could he
tell her that would keep her in the dark about this?  Chase and I have been
almost inseparable for the last couple of weeks.  Maybe he popped back in while
I was home during those few days.  I imagine him sitting here, eating dinner
with his wife and child, all the while plotting in his head
what he could say to me to get me to come back.  What kind of a monster can do
that? 

She
must already know, or at least be suspicious.  Sure, Chase travels a lot as a
professional poker player,
but when I was with him he
never really snuck off to make secret phone calls, or disappeared for long
enough for secret rendezvous
’h
back home. 

Of
course, it was the time he spent with me that was the secret.  Technically I'm
the “other woman” in this c
ase.  The home wrecker.  I
feel sick to my stomach.  Chase is a master of deception.  His work relies on
it, and I've seen it operate first hand with the house.  It's totally
conceivable that this woman could be completely in the dark about everything.  I
have to at least find out if she already knows.  And
if she doesn't, then I can decide whether or not to tell her.  But first I have
to know.

I
push open the door and am immediately greeted by the now familiar Vegas heat. 
It's like stepping into a blast
furnace until you get
used to it.  I hurry up the driveway, trying not to stare at the bike so that
the implications of that don't wash over me again. 
One problem at a time.
  Even though it only takes me a few
seconds to get onto the porch, the shade from
the
roof is still a welcome relief.

I
can already feel a bead of sweat dripping down my back, and although I know
it’s
most likely from the heat, I
’
m aware of how on edge my nerves are now
that I'm standing in front of the door, just a knock away from co
nfronting a reality that I hadn't even imagined an hour
ago. 

Turning
back to make sure Mark hasn't decided to abandon me after all, I'm not
surprised to see him already on the phone.  It's not a big leap to guess who
he’s
talking to.  His first allegian
ce is and always will be to Chase.  Chase pays the bills,
and Mark has been his driver for almost two years.  I can't blame him for
ratting me out the second I'm out of the car.  At least he brought me here. 
Still, it adds a little urgency to things, sinc
e once
he hangs up that phone,
there’s
no telling what Chase will do.  Will he
race over here?  I'm 20 minutes away.  Will he call me and try to convince me
not to say anything?  I reach into my purse and flip my phone to vibrate.  I
don't even want to hea
r it if he does.

The
other alternative is that he calls his wife.  Makes up some story about a crazy
lady that he beat in a poker game here to spread lies about him or something. 
I have no idea, but at this point anything is possible.  If I'm going to ac
t, I have to do it now.  No more stalling.

I
reach up and knock on the hard wooden door before I have a chance to change my
mind.  I can hear a voice yelling from inside, and then the door swings
inward.  Before me is the face of a boy, at most about eigh
t years old.  But his look is wrong.  I expected to see
blond hair and blue eyes, but instead I see black hair and brown eyes.  And
skin the color of milk chocolate.  I feel myself breathe out, tension I wasn't
even aware of being released from my body.  T
his kid
doesn't look anything like Chase.

"Uh,
hi," I say.  "Is your... is your mother home?"

The
boy looks at me for a moment and then nods, turning on his heel and racing away
as he yells for his mother.

It
seems unlikely that someone who
doesn’t
live
here
would answer the door, so I'm not sure what to make of the child.  Still, it
relieves me that he doesn't look like Chase.  Hopefully that means that
it’s
just a wife I have to deal with after
all.  Yet I still don't even know what to say.

I
don't ha
ve any time to think about it though, as a
woman appears.  She has a smile of greeting on her face, but a quizzical look
in her eyes.

"Hello,"
she says.  "Can I help you?"  Her voice has a familiar sounding
accent that I can't quite place, but her English
seems fine.  Her skin is dark, like the boy's, and she seems older than I
expected.  If I had to guess, I would think she was in her late 30s.  I'm
suddenly not sure that I'm even in the right place.  Did Mark take me to the
wrong house in order to give C
hase time to get here? 

"Uh,
hi, sorry, I'm not even sure I'm at the right house.  Umm, I'm looking
for..."  I don't even know her name.  "Mrs. Anderson?"

The
woman's expression changes, but she nods quickly.  "Yes, you're at the
right house.  That is m
e."

Now
it’s
my expression that changes, I'm sure to
one of confusion.  This woman doesn't look anything like what I would have
imagined Chase's wife would look like.  Given the fact that he was dating me,
and before that Denise, this woman doesn't seem a
t
all like his type.  And yet, maybe that was why he was cheating on her. 

She
raises her eyebrow now, and I realize I'm just staring at her and not saying
anything more.  Her face seems familiar the more I look at it, but I'm not sure
why.  Suddenly the
boy appears beside her, grabbing
onto the woman's arm and hugging it.  She puts her hand on his shoulder,
pulling him close.  The resemblance between the two is obvious. 
That’s
likely why I thought she looked
familiar.  The boy looks just like her.  And
s
he’s
Chase's wife. 

Which
means he very likely could be Chase's son after all.