What the Truth May Hold

***All characters are over 18 and are fictional. Any resemblance to any real-life persons or situations is purely coincidental.

There is a no sex in this story, but I feel it still belongs in the Loving Wives section. I'm sorry if this disappoints you, but I still hope you give it a chance and hopefully you'll enjoy it.

...

It was around noon when James got the text from his wife, Amanda, letting him know she would be home late because of work. That happens sometimes between them; even he has to occasionally stay later after hours when something comes up at work. It's not a problem for them as long as they text each other about it ahead of time so they aren't surprised later. Since Amanda would be home late, he figured he'd stay later himself to get some extra work done and get a little overtime pay for it. He texted her back to say to let her know he would be staying late at work as well, and she replied with a thumbs-up emoji.

It was nearly 4 p.m. when he realized he had all of his work done for the day. It shouldn't surprise him since it seemed to be a slow work day. He had a few emails to take care of, but other than that, he had nothing else to do. He already promised his wife he would stay late at work, so he figured he'd sneak off for a drink with coworkers instead.

He was about to text his wife about his new plans when the receptionist called him to let him know there was a woman at the front desk asking to speak with him. The woman claimed she was an employee from another branch and was there to speak to him about a private matter.

This happens sometimes. James worked in the Human Resources department and handled work for several branches. Most of the time, the employees in his department did their work over the phone or by email, but occasionally someone comes in directly when there's a bigger issue involved. Sometimes it's because of a benefit or pay issue; other times, it's because they're having a problem with a coworker or supervisor and they didn't want to talk about over the phone. He found that when a woman comes to the office, it's usually the latter.

He told the receptionist to let her in. When he saw her enter the office, he had the distinct impression that he recognized her from somewhere, but he couldn't place it. He assumed he must've seen her somewhere, probably from visiting other branches or at a company function. Being in HR, he had to know a lot of employees within the company, even those he rarely met. But there were still a lot of people he couldn't remember or hadn't met before.

She was an attractive woman, a little shorter than James, with long dark hair. She wore a professional suit with the skirt cut off just above the knees. He could tell she had a good body, probably worked out a lot. He figured she was a full-size C-cup like his wife. Being in his position, he knew he shouldn't be checking out women like that. But he was only human, after all, and sometimes couldn't resist. As long as he didn't look too long or try to say or do anything about it, he would be in no trouble.

When she came around to his desk, he stood up to greet her.

"Hello, I'm James," he introduced himself while extending his hand.

"I'm Brandi," she replied as she shook his hand.

She took a look around and saw five others in the office around them. The office was big, with several filing cabinets and servers for their systems, but it needed a small team to run it.

"Is there somewhere we can talk in private?" she asked.

When James heard something like this from a woman coming into HR, it usually meant they wanted to talk privately about a harassment issue they were having. He has known some women who just wanted to keep quiet about the situation and hoped to resolve it without causing any problems.

"I understand," he said. "Would you prefer to speak to one of the women here? If this is a personal issue, we find talking to another woman--"

"No, it's not that," she assured him. "I came here specifically for you."

He understood and escorted her to the conference room in the back. He figured someone must've referred him to her for whatever personal issue she wanted to discuss.

The conference room wasn't a big room considering how small his department was, but it worked well for the occasional meetings.

"Please have a seat," he said as he closed the door behind them.

"No thank you; I feel like standing," she said.

"No problem. How can I help you?"

Brandi didn't say anything for several seconds, and she was behaving very nervously.

"I can understand if you're nervous, but I assure you that anything you say to me will be private," he told her. "Are you having a problem with a coworker?"

"No, I don't even work for the company," she revealed.

"Alright," he said, feeling a little surprised.

"I'm not sure if you remember, but we met a little over a year ago at Danny and Susan's wedding. They're coworkers of your wife, Amanda."

"Yes, I remember their wedding," said James, realizing that might be where he remembered her from. "But I'm sorry, I'm having trouble remembering you."

"My husband is Pete Russo; he works with your wife at the accounting firm," she continued.

"Now I remember," James said happily. "You're a college professor. You teach economics, is that right?"

"Yes, that's correct," she said smiling.

"Well, Brandi, how can I help you?"

"I'm sorry, but there's no easy way to say this, so I'm just going to say it," she said before taking a deep breath to help her relax. "Your wife and my husband are having an affair."

James was stunned by this revelation. He could barely think straight; his mind was like a website buffering itself while it tried to get to the next page. He wanted to say something to her, to tell her how wrong she was, but he had trouble saying it out loud.

"I know this comes as a shock to you and it might be hard to believe. But it's true; they're having an affair with each other."

"Are you sure?" James asked.

"I'm positive," she said. "I suspected he was cheating on me for quite some time as I saw some unusual texts and emails that seemed to be written in some kind of code. It's not government spy-level stuff, mind you, but when you look at them closely, they're flirty messages and discussions of when and where to meet."

"Are you absolutely certain? I've seen this type of accusation before in my line of work concerning emails, and often it turned out to be absolutely nothing."

"I also got a confirmation from a former secretary who used to work at their firm until recently," she said. "He made up some things about her to have her fired. And apparently Amanda confirmed those allegations in the report. The secretary says she got fired because she found out about their affair."

"OK, right there, that sounds fishy to me," James said, taking a defensive tone. "She was fired as a result of them, so it's possible she made up some nonsense about them out of revenge."

"I'm also friends with someone they work with; she says the secretary was a sweetheart who never did anything bad, so it was hard to believe any of the accusations against her. When she heard this stuff, she confessed to me that she had been hearing rumors about Pete and Amanda but thought it was just dumb office gossip until I told her what the secretary told me."

James didn't know what else to say. There were still some issues with the story which could be explained away as revenge or office rumors, but he had been an HR person long enough to see that sometimes those types of rumors have some truth behind them. He still didn't want to believe that his wife was cheating on him, but the evidence was getting stronger.

"I know this is a lot to lay on you, but I think I have one more bit of proof," said Brandi. "From what I gathered from his emails they're meeting after work today at a hotel. If we go there now, we can catch them on their way in."

"Amanda did say she was staying at work a little longer," said James, suddenly feeling uneasy about what his wife may be up to behind his back.

"I admit, there is a chance I could be wrong," Brandi continued. "And to be honest, I am hoping I am wrong about all of this and I'm just a crazy, jealous wife who is seeing something that isn't there. But it wouldn't hurt to go there to be absolutely certain. And if they are there, it will be a good chance for us to confront them about it."

He still wasn't sure if he should believe any of this. It was a big accusation about his wife. Brandi had some good evidence, but it was still circumstantial. But at the same time, it wouldn't hurt to go to the hotel and be absolutely sure about it. If they showed up together, then Amanda was cheating on him, and he would have to confront them about it. But if they don't show up, at least he'll know it's not true. He would feel stupid about it, but at least it's proof that his wife was faithful to him.

"Fine, I'll go to the hotel with you to be absolutely certain about all of his," said James. "But I really hope none of this is true."

"Me too," she replied.

It was almost 4:30 p.m. by then. Brandi left first, and then ten minutes later James said he was leaving early for the day. He didn't want his coworkers to question why he was leaving early with Brandi, so he left a little bit after her.

She gave him information about the hotel and recommended a good parking spot where his car would not be seen. That part seemed a little peculiar to bring up, but he went along with it.

He met up with her inside the hotel. She took him to a lounge area where she said they could keep an eye on the front door and front desk without being noticed. She even had a couple of newspapers ready for them to cover their faces as they kept a lookout for their spouses. This also felt like a peculiar thing to do, and he made a mental note of it in case he had to come back to it later.

As they sat there, holding up those newspapers, he suddenly remembered that he hadn't held up a newspaper in years. He looked around and didn't see anywhere in the lobby where one could buy a newspaper. There was a small gift shop and a small café in the hotel, but neither of them looked like the type to sell newspapers.

"Where did you get these newspapers?" he asked.

"I bought them just in case we needed them for this stakeout," she replied.

This made him wonder when she might have bought them. Was it on her way over to the hotel? If that was the case, he didn't think she had much time to buy them, given how long it had been since he last saw her at his office and the time it took to meet her at the hotel. Or was it long before she came to see him? That seemed more likely.

"This is a nice hotel," said James. "Not an overly expensive one, but it must still cost a lot of money to pay for one day and night. How did they pay for it? I didn't notice any unusual credit card transactions from my wife. Did you notice anything like that from any of your bank or credit card statements?"

"I noticed some cash withdrawals," said Brandi. "He could be paying all this in cash. Maybe you should check your bank for unusual cash withdrawals too."

"But aren't you supposed to give the hotel a debit or credit card for check-ins as well? They take a small security deposit and then return it if nothing happens to the room. There should be a record in the statements indicating where the payments were going."

"I happen to know that a few employees here have a side hustle where they keep a few rooms off the books for people who want a little privacy without leaving a record about it. You don't even have to put down a card for security deposit, just cash. The managers don't even know about this."

"That is some scam they're pulling," said James. It was a sketchy operation, but he was kind of impressed by how the employees were pulling it off.

"If it comes down to it, I know an employee I could bribe to let us into the room to catch them in the act. But hopefully all we'll need to do is to catch them coming into the hotel. It will be hard to explain what they're doing here together."

"How do you know all this?" James asked, then suddenly had a big revelation. "This is not the first time you suspected Pete of cheating on you, has it?"

Brandi suddenly looked nervous again, just like she did when they first met.

"No, I suspected a few times before," she revealed.

"How many times?"

"I don't know. Too many to remember."

James started to put everything he knew so far together. Besides the information she told him back at his office, which was already circumstantial at best, there was plenty of new information he was gathering. There were also the things she knew about the hotel, such as the employees, where to park, and where to sit in the lounge, with newspapers of all things. There were also the bank statements she mentioned, which were suspicious but not really evidence of anything. And finally, she revealed that she had suspected him of cheating before but had absolutely no proof it ever happened.

Even then, talking about finding coded messages in his emails and texts seemed strange. Now that he thought about it, it could mean she had been hacking into his emails and phone, which doesn't make her sound like a reasonable person.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized what kind of situation he had gotten himself into.

"Oh, my God," he said as he threw down his newspaper on the coffee table in front of them.

"What's the problem?" she asked.

"The problem is that you're fucking crazy," he told her.

"Excuse me," she said, looking very offended.

"I can't believe I almost believed any of this. You're just an overly jealous wife; that's all this is."

He laid out his entire case about how he came to this conclusion. He even took the time to poke holes in all of her so-called evidence.

"What about the secretary? And my friend who works with them?" she asked.

"As I said before, the secretary was fired because of them; she wanted some revenge. As for what your friend told you, office rumors like that are a dime a dozen. I see this all the time in my line of work, especially towards women."

"I can't believe I'm hearing this," she said as she threw down her own newspaper. "I'm not some mentally ill woman stalking her husband--"

"It sure seems like it."

"Some of my evidence may be considered circumstantial, as you say, but there's too much of it to be overlooked. He's cheating on me with your wife, and you need to face that when they --Oh shit!"

Brandi jumped up from her seat and took a few steps away from them.

"What's the problem now?"

"I just saw them walk away," she said. "While we were arguing, they came in and are now walking toward the elevators."

"Oh, please," he responded. "We didn't argue with them long enough for them to check in."

"They must've gotten their keycard beforehand."

"That's it. I'm done with this."

James angrily stood up and started walking towards the front doors before Brandi stopped him.

"See for yourself; they're right over there," she said, pointing in the opposite direction.

James looked to where she was pointing and saw a tall man and a blonde woman holding on to the man's arm. She had the same hairstyle and body type as his wife, and he was even more sure she was wearing the same outfit he saw her wearing that morning before they left for work. But her back was turned, so he wasn't entirely sure it was her.

"I'm pretty sure that's my husband," said Brandi. "Is that your wife?"

"I'm... not sure," he replied. "It looks like her, but I'm only seeing her from behind, so I don't know."

"Then let's go after them," said Brandi.

He followed Brandi as they went after them. The couple had already gotten onto the elevators going up before they could get to them. Before the elevator doors closed, he saw Pete kissing the woman, but from the angle they were kissing, he couldn't see her face.

He then followed Brandi to the front desk, where she introduced him to Dave, her contact at the hotel she had acquired. She gave him some money and said she wanted to go to the room where her husband and the other woman were going. He couldn't just give them the keycard, so he had to go with them to the room.

On their way up the elevator, James decided he still needed more proof that it was Amanda he saw in the lobby. He didn't want to risk making a fool of himself when entering that couple's room and it turned out it wasn't Amand or Pete.

"Did they check in just now or earlier?" James asked Dave.

"It was just the guy who checked in yesterday and took a couple of keycards," said Dave.

"Did they still have to sign in for it?"

"Just a little something to make it look legit."

"What names did he use when they checked in? It may not be him."

Dave laughed. "Nobody who does this ever uses their real names. He used an alias, and not very good ones. John Smith, if you could believe it."

"He didn't even bother taking the time to come up with a genuine fake name," said Brandi, shaking her head.

"But how do we know it's them?" James asked Brandi. "We only recognized them from the back, and this guy doesn't know his real name."

Brandi saw how nervous James was behaving; she was worried he was going to have a panic attack. She took out her phone, pulled up a picture of her husband, and showed it to Dave.

"Is this the man whose room we're going to?" she asked.

"Yeah, that's him," said Dave, which gave James a sense of relief. "If you take out the mustache."

"Mustache?" James asked.

"This picture was from a month ago; he has shaved his mustache since then," said Brandi.

"Then how are you so sure?" James asked Dave.

"Trust me, it's him."

"It's a mustache, James, not a beard," said Brandi.

James pulled up a picture of Amanda on his phone, showed it to Dave, and asked if that was the woman the man they're after came with. Dave said he never met the woman; it was only the man who bought the room. He'd only seen him with the woman from a distance when they came in, and he'd never gotten a good look at her. The best he could say was that the picture of Amanda kind of looked like the woman he had seen with the other man. This did not make James any more confident in their mission.

They got off the seventh floor and began walking down the hallway.

"Thanks for doing this," Brandi said to Dave. "Even if it is for the money."

"No problem," said Dave. "Hopefully it's the right guy this time."

"Wait, hold up," James said to them, and everyone stopped. "What does he mean by that?"

Brandi sighed. "One-time, last month, I thought Pete was coming here on a particular day and I mistook someone else for Pete. I got Dave to let me into that man's room and saw how wrong I was. The man in that room was cheating on his wife, but it wasn't Pete."

James began breathing heavily and had to lean up against the wall because he was afraid he was going to collapse. He knew he was having some kind of panic attack, but he had never experienced one before, and it scared the hell out of him. There was evidence that Amanda was cheating on him with Brandi's husband, but there was also a lot of evidence that Brandi was just a crazy woman who dragged him into her fantasies.

Brandi came up to him and put her hands on his shoulders.

"Listen to me, take a big, deep breath, and slowly exhale," she told him in a soothing voice, and he did just that. "Now do that a few more times, and clear your mind as you do it."

He did as he was told, and it did help him relax. When he finally calmed down,

"I'm alright now," he assured her.

""I'm sorry if there seems to be a lot of skepticism about all of this but I assure you I am correct about everything. We're almost there at the finish line, are you with me?'