Just to know where it was and then I started watching Holly's phone. We'd set up a family locator app 2 years earlier. Her idea actually, after I was late getting home from a job and she'd worried. She never had any reason to turn it off and so she never did. I opened it that first Friday night of what she called a spa weekend and watched her location pin sit on a spot 2 hours north, right where the cabin was, for 48 hours straight.
She texted me a spa photo at 9:00 that night. The caption said she was about to get a massage. I told her to have fun. I watched her location and didn't say anything else. I did that three more weekends.
Then I drove out with a camera. I knew Brent's last name because Holly had mentioned him exactly twice before any of this started. The first time was maybe 8 months ago when she came home annoyed about a vendor meeting that had run long. She'd said something like, "Brent from Caldwell's team just goes on and on in these things." And I'd said something sympathetic and that was the end of it. The second time was when she showed me a group photo from some work happy hour and pointed to a few people.
He was in the back row. I'd nodded and handed her phone back. That was enough. Full name on the company website, cross-referenced with a LinkedIn. From there, married, wife named Dana, two kids, house in Fielder Crest.
I found her through him in about 10 minutes. I also looked at my cabin photos again. The ones from the first trip I'd watched, the one before I drove out with the camera. I'd gotten curious one of those earlier weekends and driven past the access road without stopping. And I'd caught a second car in the gravel lot.
I'd had my phone out the window, more reflex than plan, and gotten a shot of it. That car wasn't Brent's SUV. So, I pulled the photo up and ran the partial plate I'd caught, and it came back registered to a Gregory Whitmore. I didn't know that name, but I knew Amber's husband was Rick. Rick Solace, because Holly and Amber had been friends for 6 years, and Rick had been to our house for dinner three or four times.
Gregory Whitmore wasn't Rick. I sat with that for about an hour. The shape of it was becoming clear. Holly had Brent. Amber had somebody named Gregory.
And both of them had the same alibi, built together, maintained together, each one covering for the other. It wasn't just Holly's affair. It was a system. Amber was as deep in it as Holly was, which meant Rick Solace was sitting in the same position I was. Just without the photos.
That was a Tuesday evening. I waited until Thursday to call Dana. I found her cell through a school directory. They had a kid in the district, and the contact sheet wasn't hard to get to. I called from my cell, no block, no strategy, just called her.