Two of a Kind

"She's my second wife," he added. "I met her as I was going through something with my first wife."

"I know you're in advertising," I said. "But you just don't seem like the type for cheating and all of that."

"Oh I never cheated," he said. "But my wife and most of the country thought that I did. I had to get a really good PI to get me out of it. Do you want her number? She's the best there is at what she does and she's a friend beside that. I can't guarantee you that she'll take your case but talk to her anyway."

I wrote down the number and told him I'd call her.

* * * * * *

Sarah

My name is Sarah Price. I'm the best there is at what I do. At this point in time, what I do seems to be being clumsy and ungainly.

Just as I lay down for my afternoon nap, the phone rang. I flailed away at the bed trying to get up. I felt like I'd swallowed a watermelon whole. After a few moments of useless flailing I managed to push myself up into a sitting position and guide my swollen feet to the floor. By the time I got to my feet and got my balance, the phone had stopped ringing.

Stifling a curse I waddled over to the phone to check the caller ID and see who'd just called me. The number was a very familiar one. It was work. I wondered what they were calling me for. I was now a full partner at the Arturo Rios Investigations Agency that I'd worked for, for what seemed like forever.

I hit the redial button and he picked it up immediately.

"Sarah, I know you're on maternity leave," he said in his smooth Spanish accented baritone.

"I'm sensing a hidden BUT in there, Boss," I said.

"Well, I have a case that might be right up your alley," he said. "It deals with a high profile client or clients, some doubt about guilt and a need to handle it quickly and quietly."

"What do you have?" I asked.

"The client is William Temple," he said. "He was referred to us by Alexander Blake and was told to ask for you personally."

"Temple...Temple," I said. "The name doesn't really ring any obvious bells. I feel like I should know him but I don't."

"Google him," said Art. "He's a pretty famous architect. He's done a lot of commercial stuff and also some homes for very rich or famous people."

"Nope that's not it," I said straining my memory.

"Well his wife is Rebecca Miranova," said Arturo.

"The tall skinny Russian super-model," I spat. "That's it. I just saw them a few months ago. He's re-doing the house Alex has in Florida, right?"

"I guess..." said Arturo. "Uh Sarah, you're kind of tall and skinny yourself so it sounds funny hearing you say that about someone else. And I think you have her beat in the uh...upper body development."

"So what does he want?" I asked, still smiling at Arturo's compliments.

"I don't know," said Arturo. "You know how some clients have a suspicion that something is going but they really aren't sure whether or not they want you to find something? This guy is one of those. Maybe you should call him and make the decision on whether or not you want the case yourself."

"Okay, I'll call him," I said.

I dialed the number and as soon as the phone was answered I knew I'd be taking the case. My cousin Savannah would have called it premonition, but everyone knows Savannah is crazy. From the second the man's voice hit my ears, I saw myself sitting with him and his wife and some other people. I also knew that this case was going to be a weird one.

"Sarah Price," I said. "Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and the case? I think we've met before briefly."

As he spoke about his marriage and his wife, my heart broke. I got the feeling that this man loved that woman with every fiber of his being. He wanted more than anything else in the world to be wrong. But he had too much pride to allow his suspicions to just die. He needed to know.

Before he finished talking about the things he'd hoped they'd do together and how the thought of her lying to him or hiding something from him hurt him, I was hooked.

"Will, where are you?" I asked.

"I'm in Chicago," he said. "How long will it take you to fly here?"

"We're probably not going to fly," I said laughing. "We're in Chicago too. Isn't that weird? I met you at a party for Alex Blake in California, but we both live in the same city. Give me your address or a location and a time to meet. I assume that you work normal hours, so probably sometime after five would be better for you, right?"

"No," he said. "I own the company I work for. And I'd rather not have Becca getting suspicious. If I suddenly change my schedule, her radar would go up immediately. She's pretty jealous. From what I remember of you, I hope you don't mind me saying it, but you're an attractive woman. It would not be good for Becca to see me with you. So perhaps a time during working hours would be best. Perhaps you could come here. That way if Becca did happen to see us, I could simply say that you were a client."

"Okay, that sounds fine," I said. "Let me give my partner a call and we'll come right over."

As I hung up the phone, I had another feeling. I could tell that beneath his suspicions, Will really loves his wife. But strangely enough, from what he said about her, I got the impression that she loved him too. It was hard for me to imagine a woman that beautiful being jealous of other women being around her husband. But from the way he talked about her, it seemed as if he's experienced her acting on that jealousy.

There was definitely something going on here, I just needed to figure out what it was, in order to help him.

I picked up the phone and dialed a number by heart.

"Crestwood Performance, Darla speaking," said a cheerful voice. The voice oozed sex appeal and vitality. If I was a man, I'd probably already have a woody trying to imagine what the woman behind that voice looked like.

I smiled thinking about it, because I realized that I was probably as bad as Rebecca Miranova. Despite the sexy sounding voice I knew that the woman on the other end of the phone was a fat sixty year old woman. I'd picked her myself. She really was as cheerful and as loving as her voice sounded like, though. All of her grand kids loved her.

"Hi Darla," I said trying to match her cheerful tone.

"Sarah," she gushed. "How are you? How's that baby coming along?"

"It's crushing my spleen and making my feet swell," I quipped. "Can I speak to him? Or is he in some kind of meeting?"

"He's still working on the dampeners for the tri bar grills," she said. "But I have instructions to ALWAYS put you through." I smiled just thinking about it.

"Okay but don't tell him who it is," I said. I heard the line click over and it rang twice before he picked it up in a bored sounding voice.

"Chris Harris," he said.

"Sarah Price," I said. "Although technically since we're married I guess I could say Sarah Harris."

"Uh Oh!" he said.

"Whuh Oh?" I asked. "What are you Uh Ohing me about mister?"

"You're the detective, Sweetheart," he said. I could imagine the smile on his face as he spoke. "But even I can tell what's going on, here. You called me and you didn't use your, "Honey I need you to brings me home a pint of Hagen Daz" voice. "You're also not screaming so it's not an emergency with the baby. That means that you probably have a case that you need or want my help with, but I thought that you were taking the rest of the time until the baby was born, off."

"Okay Smartass," I said. "Maybe you should be the detective and I should be the engineer."

"You suck at CAD," he said. "How long will I need to take off and where are we going?" he asked.

"You're going to do it?" I squealed.

"Sarah, since the day we met, I've never said no to you, have I?" he asked.

"Well, this might be the first time," I said knowing it wouldn't be. Every time I thought about how Chris was always willing to drop everything for me, it gave me a warm feeling all over. I guess that more than anything else it just showed me how fucked up the world was. All of us, searched for that warm feeling. No matter how rich we were or how poor we just wanted to be loved.

In my business, I got to see and deal with a lot of cases where people had lost that warm feeling or had given it to someone else. Sometimes, their mates would go to any lengths including murder to punish the person that stole it from them.

"I'm coming home now," he said. "I'll tell Jenny that I'll be gone for a few days. I'm pretty sure they'll all think it's something with the baby. If they don't I'll just take some of my vacation time."

"Okay, Honey," I said. "I'll see you soon." Even as we hung up the phone, I thought about what we'd be doing later. At this point in my pregnancy, I was horny as hell. It seemed like a long time since I'd been able to show Chris how much I love him. It seemed like it, but it was actually only last night that he'd spooned himself behind me while rubbing my swollen belly. He'd been somewhat innocently rubbing that cocoa butter lotion around my stomach to prevent the stretch marks that pregnancy often produced. As usual, his touch sent flames through me. I don't remember whether it was him or me who gradually moved his gentle hands down below my belly. But I do remember my legs opening up as wide as a barnyard gate so he could push his throbbing dick into my steaming innards.

My pregnancy hadn't even slowed our sex life down, let alone stopped it.

* * * * * *

Becca

I love America. I love the people, the food, the way of life and everything else about it. I think though, that most of all, I love the way they deify useless things. Back in Russia, where I'm from, I was a typical farm girl. I was always covered in mud and up to my ankles in pig shit. I wasn't smart enough to get a job in the city and I have no computer skills. That kept me down on the farm with no chance of escaping the back breaking labor involved.

People look at me funny and they can't imagine me mucking out stalls or cleaning up after animals. They tell me I'm too pretty for that. But in Russia, they look at things differently. When I was younger, I wanted to be a ballerina. I soon grew far too tall for that. The truth is that I also wasn't a very good dancer although I loved ballet and practiced a lot. I just wasn't graceful enough and by the time I hit my teens I was taller than most of the male dancers.

There are only so many things that a tall, pretty girl can do. I was too clumsy for basketball or volleyball and my limbs though long, lacked the strength for those sports as well. My father, especially, told me not to give up on basketball. It was in my genes he said. I guess he thought that since he played professionally and was on the Russian Olympic team, that it would be something I could do as well.

After he got too old to play basketball my father retired to the family farm and also worked in the factory where he lost his life

I was the only one of his daughters to take after him in terms of genetics. My other sisters are shorter, stockier and curvy like our mother. I envy them the way they're built, with their large breasts and curvy backsides. As we grew up all of the local men looked at them lustily. Very few men looked at me that way. My sister often joked that I, with almost no breasts and my tiny rear end, was built like a very tall boy.

With no skills, ballet and sports were out. My lack of feminine attributes meant that marriage was an unlikely outcome. So I was farm help. This too wasn't in my future because being very tall with spindly limbs meant that working around the farm took its toll on my body a lot easier than it did to the stockier, more strongly built women.

I actually heard some of the members of my family laughing about me when I wasn't around. They said I was useless. I was like a giraffe. I was a tall ungainly creature with no other purpose than as a curiosity.

So when my mother decided to move to America, I came with her. I started out waitressing and I was a truly terrible waitress. I think my delivery rate was probably fifty/fifty. That means that fifty percent of the time I got the plates to the table without spilling anything.

Anyway I was only a waitress for about nine days before I went to work for my aunt. I only cleaned rooms for a few weeks before I became a model. That too was due to spillage. There was a woman who came into the hotel to stay. She had a couple of fashion magazines. I thought she might be crazy or gay because she kept staring at me and looking me up and down. That just isn't polite; especially not in public. But there she was, sitting in her room staring at me again, when fate intervened.

I was cleaning the room next to hers and I spilled water all over the carpet. Just then the hotel manager came out and started screaming at me. The woman in the next room just smiled as my boss continued to yell at me.

"Is she fired?" she asked.

"Hell yeah!" shouted my boss.

"Good," said the woman. "I think she could be very successful as a model. And if things go her way, maybe she'll come back here in a couple of years and buy this place and fire you.

Things went really well for me. As I said, here in America, they love useless things. My modeling career grew by leaps and bounds. After a couple of years I really could have bought out the little hotel that I'd once been fired from. But something else happened.

That something was that I fell in love got married and became a liar. Meeting Will was one of those moments in life that lasts forever. As a model, I was always meeting actors, male models and athletes. I found all of them boring and plastic. Perhaps it's because athletes, models, actors and musicians all make their living entertaining people. While they all have to have some type of skill or quality that separates them from normal people, usually that skill isn't what makes them famous.

What usually makes them famous is their ability to make sure that they are the center of attention. They can play it up or they can try to tone it down but it always comes down to them and not necessarily their skill at what they do for a living.

As an example let's look at Tim Tebow. How could a guy with his uhm...skills as a quarterback captivate us for that long?

So I went on a few dates before just deciding that men in the entertainment industries just weren't for me. So when I first met Will at a party, I assumed that like a lot of men there he was just trying to pick me up so he could add me to his list of conquests. I actually got angry at him because I liked him from the beginning. And I just didn't want him to be an asshole. By the time I figured out that he wasn't, he was gone.

We eventually did hook up and more. We found a way to make our lives, as different as they are, fit together. Actually it was easier than it seems. I simply didn't take any assignment that would separate us for more than a day or two unless Will came with me. And every year he makes more money and becomes more famous and it bothers me.

Will has the idea that I work so hard because I need to make millions of dollars and set the fashion world on fire. I've been trying to find a way to tell him that he makes more than enough money for both of us. I'm a simple Russian farm girl. All I need to be happy is my husband. I'm more than ready to walk away from all of that. I want to settle down in our beautiful house and have babies.

I'll give Will enough time to get over whatever funk he's in. And then I'll tell him. He'll just have to get used to the fact that his wife is no longer a famous supermodel. I smile at the thought of being just plain old Becca Temple.

* * * * * *

Sarah

I liked him as soon as I saw him. He reminded me so much of Chris that it was uncanny. Another weird, quirky thing was the fact that he drove up to his office at the same time that we did. He was driving a 2013 Mustang GT. Chris was driving his 2011 Mustang GT. Of course Chris also had a 2012 Shelby GT 500 that was a hand me down from Alex Blake (read Billie Jean for details)

As soon as they saw each other they were fast friends. They were talking cars at a rate of about a mile a second until they got into Will's office and discovered that they both used similar CAD systems. The only difference wwast hat Will used the architectural version and Chris used the version designed for Automotive manufacturing.

I had to clear my throat loudly, several times to get them back to the reason for our business.

Since I hadn't had a chance to fill Chris in on his new friend's case, he was hearing it for the first time. Knowing him the way I did, I could see the anger and disgust on his face as Will spoke. I also knew from his history that my husband empathized with betrayed husbands. (read Private Eyes)

The saddest part of the whole interview though was that from my knowledge and experience dealing with literally hundreds of cases involving betrayal and infidelity, I could tell that Will was in a great deal of pain. Most husbands, in these cases, just want proof of the spouse's indescretions so they can either, divorce them and keep the lion's share of their assets, or so they can have leverage over the spouse in the future if they stay married.

A few use the evidence to force the spouse into actions that would otherwise never have occurred. Will was none of those and he was probably hoping for something I couldn't give him. As he showed us the video of his super model wife, it just seemed as if he wanted us to prove that there really was nothing going on between her and the greasy little man. I think he wanted us to give him evidence that would lead to saving his marriage. The problem was that most people have an innate sense of what is right and wrong with their relationships. Usually by the time you suspect something in going on, it has already progressed to the point of no return. I hoped that in Will's case that wasn't true. But years of experience told me something different.

Marriages and relationships can be the strongest of unions. They can bond two people from different families or different races or different cultures together in ways are superior to and stronger than blood ties. But for all of their strength, it doesn't take much to ruin them, often when that wasn't the intention. Women often fall victim to just a few words of flattery, if caught at a time when they are emotionally weak. The most pius, most resolute woman still loves and needs to hear that she is attractive and sexy. Sometimes hearing it from someone other than her spouse increases the effect until she's done something that can't be forgiven.

Men are even worse. A glance at a set of partially visible breasts or even a fully covered but especially rounded ass has ruined many a marriage and destroyed families.

My suspicion that day already ran towards the fact that a super humanly beautiful woman had simply made an all too human mistake and it was going to cost her a man who loved her intensely.

For the first time ever, I was hesitant to accept a case. Maybe my pregnancy was making me more emotional. Maybe I just didn't want to be there for the fallout when Will was destroyed by the proof we'd surely be providing. He reminded me too much of Chris.

I remember intently the pain my husband went through and the tentative nature of the early days of our relationship. There were so many days that I got the impression that Chris hated me and all other women because of what his ex had done to him. There was also the fact that Chris was pretty strong emotionally and he'd had time to absorb the shock of what was going on in his marriage. He'd loved his ex, but that love was nothing compared to what we have now.

Will on the other hand was just beginning to suspect this. He really didn't know what was going on and was in some respects in denial. He was asking for proof, but hoping for confirmation that nothing was going on. What he really wanted was to find out that his wife still loved him.