Chapter Twenty-One: Ryder
I parked the Rover in the lot and sat there for a moment with the cold air blowing from the dash on my face, collecting my thoughts, thinking about what I wanted to say and do, then wondering if I should say or do anything at all.
I guess I could understand what happened between him and Bethany, and could understand why, I mean, once I pushed all the anger and feelings of betrayal out of my mind. I understood how Bethany would find him attractive, at least from an emotional point of view. They were always close, though I never thought for one moment that they would have an affair, but who knows what people will do given the opportunity. Bethany probably blamed me for her cheating.
If I had been a better husband…
If I had been home more…
If I had been more attentive…
But to sleep with him…
She not only betrayed me…
She betrayed those she loved most of all.
I heard a tapping on the passenger side window.
I glanced up and there he was. Smiling at me with his eyebrows cocked, no doubt wondering what was up. I hit the button to unlock the door. He pulled open the door and stuck his head inside.
“Hey, what’s up?” he asked, the smile melting to a frown when he saw the look on my face. “Everything okay?”
“Get in,” I said with my hand on the gear shift. “We need to talk.”
“I’m a little busy at the moment, Ben.” He gave me a funny look, but didn’t get in the car. “What’s going on?”
I slowly turned my head to look him in the eye. I held up Bethany’s cellphone. I wiggled it at him. “This was Bethany’s. I know everything. Now get in the fucking car, Hank.”
* * *
Hank’s eyes widened and his lower lip dropped as he stared at the phone, obviously knowing the evidence it contained of his affair with my wife. He turned toward one of his helpers, who was loading PVC pipe into the back of a van and told him he’d be back soon.
He didn’t say anything as he slid into the passenger seat and buckled up. I put the gear into Drive and slowly pulled out of the lot. Hank’s shop was just outside of Falls Church in a light industrial park. The traffic was minimal, so it only took a few minutes for me to find a vacant parking lot where we could sit and talk. The lot was also secluded, so if I wanted to beat the living shit out of Hank, I would be able to do so without interruption.
I parked the Rover and left the engine and AC running, hoping it would help me keep my cool. I could feel a trickle of sweat sluicing its way down my spine. My entire body felt like it was on fire, tense, ready to go. I’d been in enough firefights and fistfights to know it was the adrenaline pumping. My brain was instinctively telling my muscles to get ready, just in case I had to kill somebody before they tried to kill me.
I put the gear into Park and turned sideways in the seat to face him. I still had Bethany’s cellphone in my hand.
Hank nervously cleared his throat and looked at me with fear in his eyes. I’d never seen him look nervous before, but now he looked like he was about to shit his pants. The respect and admiration I had held for him was gone. I didn’t want to be like Hank anymore. Hell, as it turned out, Hank was more like me than I had ever imagined.
He put out his hands and patted the air with them. “Ben, listen, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but…”
“Shut up, Hank,” I said with a heavy sigh, rubbing my eyes. “I know what happened. So, show a little respect and at least tell me the truth. Be a fucking man for God sake.”
His pudgy face was turning red. His high forehead and upper lip were dotted with sweat even though it was cold in the Rover. He stank of sweat and grease and body odor. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand what Bethany saw in the guy. Then I remembered her commenting once that looks weren’t everything. It was what was on the inside that mattered. At the moment, Hank looked like his insides were turning to mush.
When Hank didn’t say anything, obviously hopeful his silence would diffuse the situation, I opened Bethany’s phone’s text messages and read him a few of the things he’d sent her.
“BR, love your tight pussy. Love it when you ride my cock. Love it when you suck so hard on my cock it takes my breath away. XOXO, HP.” I winced at him. “XOXO… really, Hank Perkins? How fucking old are you?”
“I know,” he muttered, staring through the windshield. His right hand crept to the door handle, like he was thinking of making a getaway.
“I wouldn’t open that door, Hank,” I said calmly. “The reason we’re talking in here is so I won’t pound the shit out of you. You run out into that hot parking lot and I may just run you down and keep going. It’s too hot out there. Relax. Sit back. Enjoy the cool air.”
“Ben, listen, you have to understand. I’m not the kind of guy…”
I held up my hand and read a few texts from Bethany to him. “HP… I love your hugs and kisses and the way you take me in your arms and tell me everything will be okay.” I paused to take a shuddering breath. “I know others will be hurt when we tell them about our love, but we will be happy, my darling… So very happy … BR.”
“Please stop,” he said, his voice a coarse whisper.
“Why, Hank?” I asked smugly. “There’s so much more to read.” I let him stew for a moment. He tugged a dirty rag from his back pocket and mopped his face with it. “Tell me the truth, Hank. When did it start? How? Why?”
Hank took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Staring through the windshield, he said, “She called me one night a couple of months ago. Right after you shipped out. Said the shower was leaking. Asked if I could come over and fix it for her. So I did.” He put his hands in his lap with the rag wadded between them. “We’d always been flirty, you know, just innocent stuff. But that night, after I fixed the shower, she came in wearing just a robe and said she was going to take a shower and wanted me to join her.”
“She came on to you?” I asked, rolling my eyes. “Bull fucking shit, Hank.”
He pushed his shoulders up and down. “It’s the truth. She said she was lonely. She said she didn’t want to hurt Emily, but— “
“Her own fucking sister,” I growled.
He nodded. “Yes. But she needed someone. She was so lonely… so we… well… you know.”
“So, you fucked my wife in my shower,” I said, humming. “Go on.”
“It was only supposed to be a onetime thing, but things got out of hand.” He glanced over at me with a sad smile at the edge of his lips. “You know how it is at our age, Ben. You live your life, you try to be faithful, you try to be a good man, but then a beautiful woman looks into your eyes and tells you how sexy she thinks you are, how much she wants you. I started obsessing over Bethany. I couldn’t get her out of my head. We met at the house to talk about it. Turned out, she was having the same thoughts as I was. So… well… after that we met three or four times a week.”
I snorted a laugh. “You were fucking my wife three or four times a week?” I bit down hard on my lip to keep myself from slapping him just out of principle. Bethany and I barely had sex two or three times a month, even when things were good. Son of a bitch. Then I thought of Lolita. The appeal of a new attraction. Hormones and testosterone raging. I would fuck her three or four times a day if I could. My cock was chubbing up just thinking about her. Lolita. My little Lolita.
“Ben?”
I blinked away the thoughts of Lolita and turned to find Hank staring at me. He swallowed hard and said, “Did you hear what I said?”
“No.”
“I asked if you were going to tell Emily?”
“Am I going to tell sweet Emily, your wife who thinks you hung the moon, that you were fucking her sister? Am I going to tell her that the two people she loved the most betrayed her? I don’t know, Hank. Do you think I should tell her? Or should I just let you do it?”
“I… I mean… She’ll be devastated, Ben.” Tears filled his eyes. He sniffed back the snot and swiped a dirty hand under his nose. “I mean, out of everyone involved, she’s really the only innocent party here.”
I frowned at him. “What about Cody, Hank? What about your kids? Hell, what about me? Am I not an innocent party?”
He huffed a smile. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Do you think Bethany would have turned to me if she was happy with you, Ben?” he asked. He hitched his chin and looked down his round nose at me. “She said over and over that you pushed her away. That you were married to the SEALs and only came home when you had to.”
“That’s not true,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him. My hands rolled into fists in my lap. “I left the SEALS for her. I did my best.”
“Maybe you did, Ben,” he said, blowing out his cheeks and looking out the windshield again. It was hot in the car now even with the AC blowing cold from the vents on the dash. “But your best wasn’t good enough.”
I wrapped my fingers around the steering wheel to keep my hands busy and stared out the windshield along with Hank, though neither of us were looking at anything in particular. We were just two guys who’d shared a woman, sitting in a black Range Rover on a hot Virginia day, one contemplating running and the other contemplating… what? What was I going to do to Hank? Was I going to beat the shit out of him because I was a shitty husband and pushed Bethany away, as he claimed. I didn’t know what I was going to do yet. There were more people involved than just me and Hank. There was his wife and kids, my son… Lolita…
“Tell me about the night she died,” I said quietly. “What was she doing out in that storm?”
Hank took a deep breath and wiped his eyes on the rag. “We met that evening,” he said. “It was just a spur of the moment thing. Bethany dropped Cody off at the house to spend the night. She said she was going out with some friends for dinner, but we planned to meet at a motel out on the highway where no one would see us.”
“So, while your wife was babysitting my son, you were fucking my wife in some shithole motel on the highway.”
He lowered his eyes and let his head bob. “I wasn’t home when Bethany dropped Cody off. I was on a job in DC. Lockheed facility pipe burst. I don’t normally work on Sunday, but it was an emergency, so… She called me after she left the house and told me to meet her.”
“And did you?”
He raised his head to stare out the window again. His eyes scanned the empty parking lot like he was looking for the answers there. “Yes, we met at the motel around six. I left there around eight, I guess, and headed home. The last time I saw Bethany she was getting into her car to go home. It was raining out. I told her to be careful. The roads would be slick.” His eyes filled with tears again. His voice cracked and filled with phlegm. “I swear to God, Ben, that’s the truth. That’s all I know.”
“Which motel were you at?”
“Huh?”
“Which motel?”
He blinked at me. “The Motel 6 on the I-395, at the Arlington exit.”
I knew the one. I passed it whenever I went into DC to meet Quinn. I gave him a hard stare and said, “And the last time you saw Bethany she was heading straight home. And so were you.”
He gave me a nod and looked away.
I thought about it for a moment.
Something didn’t ring true.
Then it hit me.
Bethany’s death was not an accident.
And Hank was never the man I thought he was.