Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
C ece sat in the spare room, at the desk that was supposed to have been transported to the loft space. It had never made it up there and probably never would. Such was the way of things.
She was thankful she wasn’t needed at the hospital just yet. As much as she was willing to go, she very much wanted to make some progress looking into Jim. The need to find out what he was doing to Natalie burned within Cece like a pit of lava.
If he was cheating on Nat, Cece would never forgive him. Her daughter and grandson deserved better. And if Natalie needed money for a divorce attorney, Cece would do whatever she could to help out.
She’d gone straight to bed after book club last night, settling in with the new book and reading far later than she’d meant to, but the book was good. Paige had chosen well. This morning, she’d gotten involved helping Paige figure out a visitation schedule for Lester.
Now that all of that was taken care of, it was time to return her attention to her son-in-law. She hadn’t made much progress so far. None of the accounts Natalie had given her showed anything suspicious, but she was pleased to see they were doing so well.
With Peanut curled up on the desk next to the laptop, Cece started by doing a basic Google search, which didn’t really result in anything new.
She went through three pages of articles, however, just to be sure she hadn’t missed anything.
Articles about him in work-related newsletters, old mentions of him from his college days when he’d played baseball, photos he’d been tagged in from high school reunions.
Next she went to Facebook, where finding him was easy because they were friends.
She looked through his posts, going back a full year, and found nothing suspicious.
But then, it wasn’t like she’d expected him to post a picture with a strange woman and announce her to the world as his new girlfriend.
Jim was, unfortunately, a smart man.
If he was cheating, which Cece really couldn’t make a judgment call about yet, he would be careful. He’d hide his tracks.
She reached over and absentmindedly scratched Peanut’s back. Peanut responded by curling up tighter and tipping her head upside down.
Cece smiled. She kept a legal pad beside her computer and made notes when she found anything she thought might be useful.
Dates he’d been at conferences and the names of those conferences.
He never posted about being away on Facebook because, as he’d said many times, he didn’t want anyone to know his wife and son were home alone.
For that, Cece gave Jim credit. On paper, he wasn’t the worst husband in the world. He was a good provider, maybe better than Cece had realized, and he went to Tyler’s soccer games whenever he was able. He’d even stepped in for one game when the coach had been called out for a family emergency.
He did enough that Cece wanted to believe in him. But she knew what men were capable of. That they were often weak creatures easily led astray by a pretty face and the right words.
She didn’t want to find out anything bad about him, but her daughter deserved an answer.
As Cece searched, she did her best to keep her own bias out of it.
Having been cheated on, and betrayed, and left for reasons she didn’t think justified leaving, she certainly had bitterness toward any man who’d willingly break up his family.
Maybe some of her bitterness came from facing cancer alone, too. Yes, she’d had Natalie, but Nat had had Tyler to look after and Cece hadn’t wanted to take her away from her son. For Natalie’s sake, Cece had downplayed the severity of things and not once used the word cancer.
But Cece’s ex-husband deserved all the anger she could heap on him. Cheating was disgusting.
Hopefully, there was some other reason for Jim being so absent lately.
She did a new search on Facebook for variations of Jim’s name: J Frett, James Frett, JA Frett (Alan being his middle name). She even looked for him with the last name Simons, which was his mother’s maiden name, but none of the results were him.
Her frustration was growing, but she reminded herself that again, he was a smart man, and if he was having an affair, he wasn’t going to broadcast it.
Next, she went through the various dating apps. There were probably new ones out there since she’d found her ex-husband on one, but she could research those later. She scrolled through, using the fake accounts she’d set up and had never deleted.
Nothing. So far, Jim was looking good. But Cece had a gut feeling that he’d be much more sly about his activities than her own cheating ex.
She went to his company’s website and looked through the employees at his branch.
That took nearly an hour. There were a lot of employees and a lot of bios to read.
Three of them stuck out. Pretty, younger women, and one who wasn’t that pretty, but was well put together.
All of them were smart and ambitious. The kind who might see an upper management guy like Jim as a steppingstone.
She opened a new tab on her browser and researched each one of those young women.
She found the first one, Shelly, on Facebook right away.
After some digging, Cece uncovered that Shelly still lived at home with parents.
Her father was on disability due to a work accident and her mother had emphysema.
Shelly lived at home to help take care of them.
Didn’t mean she wasn’t capable of cheating, but Cece moved her to the bottom of the list.
The next one, Lisa, didn’t show up on Facebook. A quick Google search found her on LinkedIn. Cece fired up a VPN to hide her IP address so LinkedIn wouldn’t recognize her and show Lisa who had looked at her profile.
Lisa Covey was thirty-six, had an MBA from Boston University, and wore a surprisingly low-cut top in her profile photo, along with more makeup than what was generally considered office appropriate.
That didn’t mean anything, other than the woman didn’t know how to dress professionally, but Cece didn’t like it. To her, it signified that Lisa thought her physical assets were a feature worth sharing.
The final woman, Angie, was prettier than Lisa but dressed more professionally.
Cece found her on Facebook. Angie was involved in her church and Cece found a photo of her from last Christmas singing carols with a volunteer group at a retirement home.
She lived alone and had adopted a dog from the shelter just a month ago.
Cece’s gut said Angie wasn’t going to be interested in a married man, no matter what he could do for her career.
She went back to Lisa and was about to start seriously investigating the woman when her phone vibrated.
She grabbed it to see a group text from Maude. I’m good to stay longer. Lester is awake and I’m enjoying reading to him. He didn’t like lunch, though. He wants a Whopper and fries from Burger King. I told him I’m not in charge of that. Can someone ask Althea?
Cece grinned. Lester sounded like he was doing all right.
Paige immediately answered. I’ll see what Althea has to say about that, but I doubt that’s what the doctors want him eating.
Still smiling, Cece went back to her searching, this time on Instagram. There was no immediate hit on Lisa Covey, but Cece couldn’t believe that a woman of her age, who obviously considered herself worthy of attention, wasn’t on social media somewhere.
She went back to LinkedIn and did a more thorough search of Lisa there.
She found a link that took her to Lisa’s Twitter account, now X.
Cece immediately clicked through. She had an X account, but thankfully, X didn’t show people who’d viewed their profile the way LinkedIn did.
Although, she supposed her VPN would protect her identity anyway.
Lisa wasn’t the most prolific poster, but all Cece needed was another small nugget of information. Something that would give her another venue in which to find out more about Lisa.
She was still scrolling and reading posts and replies when her phone rang. Natalie calling. She answered right away. “Hey, there.”
“Hey, Mom. Listen, everything’s fine. I was just overthinking everything. Jim’s not cheating.”
Cece sat back, frowning. “How do you know?”
Nat let out a long sigh that held a slight hint of amusement.
“I couldn’t get ahold of him earlier and I wanted to tell him about Tyler’s science project and I got really frustrated and sent him a text that if he didn’t call me back I was going to have the conference page him.
” She groaned. “I don’t know what I was thinking.
Anyway, he called me right away, which was good, but I was still worked up and I asked him flat out if he was really at a conference or having an affair. ”
“Wow.” Cece blinked. Natalie definitely had a boiling point and apparently, she’d reached it. “What did he say?”
“Well, he was speechless for a moment. Then he told me that he was up for another promotion and had been working extremely hard to get it but hadn’t wanted to say anything in case it didn’t come through.
He said there are three other candidates in the running, and he’s got the least seniority.
We had a good talk. He said he was sorry for not being present enough for me and Tyler and that he’d work on that, but I told him to do what he needs to do.
We’re fine. This promotion will mean a hefty bump in pay.
Enough that we’ll be able to cover any college Tyler wants to go to. ”
“That’s good,” Cece said, relieved.
Natalie exhaled. “It would be great. I just need to stop overthinking and chill out. I feel bad for even accusing Jim of such a thing.”
“In your defense, you lived through the experience of watching your father’s infidelity destroy your parents’ marriage. It’s not like you didn’t have a reason for thinking such a thing.”
“Jim said the same thing. He said he totally understood and I had nothing to apologize for. I still feel bad.”
Cece closed her laptop. “I’m glad you worked it all out. Maybe you two need to talk to each other more.”
“Or maybe I just need to trust the man I married, who’s never once given me a reason not to trust him.”
Cece smiled. “What were you going to tell Jim about Tyler’s science project?”
“Oh! He texted me from school. He and Blake’s project scored in the top ten, which means they’re going on to the county competition.”
“That’s fantastic! I’m going to text him my congratulations as soon as he’s out of school.”
“He’ll love that.” Natalie’s voice held so much happiness that Cece almost laughed. “Thanks again for listening to me yesterday. I’m really glad I have you to talk to.”
“Anytime. I love you, Nat.”
“I love you, too, Mom. Talk to you soon.”
Cece hung up and set her phone down, heaving out a sigh of relief. She’d have to let Maude know that she no longer needed help with her son-in-law.