AN: Hi I'm back after my little brief hiatus. Vacation got in the way of posting, sorry about that! Anyway here is the next chapter. I hope you enjoy and thanks for your reviews!

After Lester had cooled down, been suitably punished, and forced to apologize to his sister for being a dick, Ranger ordered me my new car... again...and parked me in a Mercedes G-Class, that had been retrofitted by the same people who build the President's limos. This thing could drive right over a bomb, and all that would happen was there'd be a hole in the ground because the earth gave way to the explosion and the car didn't.

Once Connie and I were installed in this vehicle, and feeling a bit conspicuous, I drove to Dickerson's house in Hamilton Square.

When I was a kid, I used to wish we could live in this neighborhood because I'd somehow acquired the knowledge that the area was named after Alexander Hamilton during the War of 1812, but before that had been called Nottingham, and I liked the Robin Hood Connection.

Whenever we drove through Hamilton Square, I'd pretend I could see the Sheriff of Nottingham hiding in alleyways. Not someone dressed as the Sheriff mind you. Not even Alan Rickman, no I was looking for the big grey wolf from the Disney cartoon. I had a massive crush on Fox Robin Hood, and as a result, if I thought I'd seen the big grey wolf, I'd get all aflutter because I thought Robin would probably be just around the corner.

I'm not going to lie, I was still sort of on the lookout. You don't forget your first love.

Ranger wanted to live in a gated community, and I understood that, but I did like the vibe here. It felt really friendly. The kind of neighborhood where you expect to see bikes on the lawn, and neighbors squabbling over who borrowed who's lawn mower. There were pools in backyards, and trees lining the streets. It was nice.

The Dickersons' Ranch house had a pretty garden out front, and wisteria climbing the side of their garage. It was in full bloom with purple flowers threatening to take over. Dickerson's car, was still the Volvo XC-60 he'd bought ten years prior, and it was looking a little dated, but well loved. His wife drove a sporty little blue Mazda that reminded me of my long lost Miata.

I parked across the street, and got comfortable, watching the house. I knew he was home because mom had called Bernadette and she'd told her that he was mowing the lawn out back. It was summertime, and he wasn't teaching every day.

At about noon, I saw him kiss his wife goodbye on his front step, smile, and then jog down to his Volvo. I'd stuck a tracking dot to it so I could let him drive away, and let him get a few blocks away before I left the curb and followed him out of Hamilton Square to a coffee shop where he got out, went inside, ordered and sat down. He put on some headphones, scrolled through some stuff on his phone, and then started doing a crossword puzzle. Sometimes he'd stop to make a note of something in a notebook on the table beside him, and sometimes he'd get up to go to the bathroom, but he stayed in that coffee shop, eating cookies, and drinking coffee until 5:30 when he got up and went back out to his car, and drove to the supermarket. He picked up stuff to make dinner and drove home.

I texted Bernadette to tell her to tell me if he left home again, and went home. The tracking dot on his car didn't budge all night, and thus began the most boring stakeout in the history of stakeouts.

Every day he would leave his house between ten and noon, and he would drive to a different coffee shop. He had six different haunts, and each one had been assigned a different day of the week, and a different task. On Mondays it was crosswords, on Tuesday he read Science textbooks and worked on lesson plans, on Wednesday he did Sudoku, on Thursday he read a novel, on Friday he read a different book, on Saturday he hung out with his wife, and on Sunday he spent four hours reading the paper.

I spent nearly the entire month of July following him, and never once did he go anywhere late at night. Then, on the first of August, I got a call from Bernadette. He was going out after eight. I found his car on the GPS, hopped into Ranger's 9-11, and swung round to Connie's to pick her up so we could follow him out to Stevestown.

The house we parked in front of was a sprawling Victorian mansion with a gabled roof, gingerbread trim, and brown shingled roof. There was no gate in front of the house, and in the middle of the circular driveway, there was a pretty pond covered in blooming water Lillies. Wisteria (that looked a lot like the ones on Dickerson's house) covered more than half of the stone-walled house.

There was no sign of Dickerson out front, so Connie and I went around to the side of the house to see if we could peep in some windows. It turned out that it wasn't necessary as Dickerson and a girl who looked to be in her mid to late teens were sitting on the back patio having what appeared to be a pleasant conversation. Connie and I ducked behind a big hydrangea bush to watch the interaction.

The girl was wearing a t-shirt and a pair of flip-flops. Her hair was in pigtails, and she was smiling happily at Dickerson, who was nursing a glass of wine while reading something on an iPad. "You're sure about this?"

She nodded eagerly. "I want to run one more set of numbers, and then I want to bring it to the coach. What do you think?"

"I think on paper it's a good predictive test," Dickerson said. "Let's do a real-world test."

She opened a laptop on the table and entered in some data, Dickerson read it, and nodded, "And this is your margin of error?"

She nodded.

He entered something into the computer, and she stood up and peeled off her t-shirt, revealing a two-piece racing swimsuit. The top was a short sleeved rash guard in bright orange green and blue and went as far as her rib cage. The bottoms were compression briefs that matched the rash guard. She zipped the rash guard and got onto a racing block on the edge of the pool.

Dickerson stood beside the pool at mid-distance, holding a clipboard and a stopwatch with a whistle in his mouth. She got ready to start, and he blew the whistle. She launched off of the diving board and dove into the pool. He looked at a mark on the edge of the pool and made a note on the board, and when she reached the other end of the pool he made another note. She swam eight lengths of the pool, climbed out, and took a towel Dickerson was holding for her.

"You swim faster with the rash guard than with the other top," Dickerson said.

"I know," she said, "I think it's because I'm less afraid of popping out of it when I dive into the pool. It's less of a distraction."

"Get a one piece," Dickerson said.

"They give me wedgies. I've actually factored comfort into my calculations because of it. For me, this is the quickest suit."

They went to the computer and Dickerson entered the data he'd collected into the program and he grinned. "Sadie, this math is incredible."

"I think I need to expand my test group. I'm going to speak to the coach at the pool tomorrow. I'm a triathlete so I train differently and I need to know if this model will work in more traditional swimming competitions."

"It's a good idea," Dickerson said.

I looked at Connie and we shared a combined sigh of relief. This was just Dickerson helping some kid with her math homework. This had nothing to do with an affair. Connie had taken some pictures, and we were getting ready to leave when we heard voices, coming towards the back of the house.

A woman of about Dickerson's age, with chemically assisted Burgundy hair, came onto the patio and helped herself to a glass of wine. With her was a preppy-looking young man with neatly coifed blonde hair. He walked over to Sadie and tugged one of her blonde pigtails. "You look like a little kid," he said.

"I know," she said with a grin and stood on her toes and kissed him. Connie took a picture of that as well. He kissed her back and went to the table and picked up what turned out to be an engagement ring and put it on her left hand.

"How are the wedding plans going?" Dickerson asked.

"Good," Sadie said.

"Sadie hasn't picked a dress yet, because she's been too caught up in this stuff," the woman said.

"I told mom, that I'm going to New York on Thursday. I've had the appointment for weeks, but mom doesn't understand why I don't just pick a designer and have him or her come here."

"Well, why don't you?"

"Because it's needlessly wasteful and ostentatious mom. As it is I'm probably spending a fortune on a dress. Xander and I would rather spend that money on an incredible honeymoon."

"It's true Abby," Xander said.

She rolled her eyes and tasted the wine again, and looked at Dickerson, "Is this yours?"

"No," he said, "Sadly. It's delicious though."

"I liked that last bottle you brought," she said.

"Thanks," Dickerson said, and Abby sat down.

"What are you two up to this weekend?" Abby asked. "Would you like to come for dinner?"

"We can't," Sadie said. "We're re-tiling the kitchen, and then Xander and I are going to be sampling cakes. It's going to be fun."

Xander gave Sadie's backside a pat, "Go change. We're going to be late."

Sadie went inside and came back outside a few minutes later, dressed in a cute little dress, with her hair still in the pigtails. Xander rolled his eyes and took the elastics out of her braids and shook them out. "I'm going to get arrested if I kiss you in public with your hair like this."

"Oh please," Sadie said. She took his hand and waved to Dickerson and Abby and they left.

As soon as they were gone, Dickerson's demeanour changed from relaxed and happy, to anything but. He folded his arms and put his head on the table.

"It's going to be okay, Wally," Abby said.

"I sincerely doubt that," Dickerson said. "I know she thinks I'm having an affair, and I just... I can't live like this anymore. It's been over twenty years."

"You did the right thing then, and you're doing the right thing now."

"Was it?" He said. "Really?"

"Yes," he said.

"Look at what I gave up, what I sacrificed for that one conversation."

"Come inside, Wally," Abby said. "You're no good to your wife like this. It'll get better. We'll find a solution."

Dickerson nodded, and they packed up the computer equipment and went into the house. Connie and I snuck back to the Mercedes and got in it, and drove back to Trenton.

There was no point in continuing the investigation. We had our answer. No affair. Except now I needed to know what was going on. Why was he so upset?

"Well weeks of doing nothing but watch a guy listen to music and do puzzles in coffee shops did actually bear fruit," Connie asked. "My faith in humanity is sort of restored. You don't think he's having an affair with the mother?"

"I didn't get that vibe. I think they are actually just friends."

"Yeah," Connie said. "But what do we tell Bernadette? She hired us to find out if he was having an affair. He's not. Do we really want to dig into whatever else he's got going on?"

"I don't know," I said.

I dropped Connie off at her house and went upstairs to find Ranger in his office on five. I knocked on his door, and showed him the pictures. "He's not having an affair," I said.

"You're sure?"

"Yup," I said, and flopped down in his guest chair. I told him about our night, and what we found out.

"What are the names of the women?"

"Sadie, and Abby Moore," I said.

Ranger ran a search on them, with their street address. "Abby is short for Abigail, and she gave birth to Sadie in June of 1993. The father's name on the birth certificate is listed as Finnegan Moore. Finnegan Moore was working in New York in 2001, he escaped the North Tower before it collapsed but died four years later due to complications from his proximity during the collapse of the tower."

"There is something fishy about this though, Ranger. As far as Bernadette is concerned he's working when he leaves the house, and we know he's not. He's obviously close to the Moores, but if he's as close with them as he looks, but it's not an affair, why is it a secret? Why doesn't Bernadette know about it?"

"That's not what you were hired to find out," he said. "You know he's not having an affair. You tell her what you've found, what's going on at the house, and you show her the pictures. If she wants you to pursue it, then go for it. Otherwise, leave it."

"So I just tell him she's the daughter of a friend, and there's no affair."

"We show her the pictures of the two of them working, and of Sadie with her fiancé. What was the fiancé's name?"

"Xander something," I said. Ranger did some more typing and waited a minute.

"Alexander Green," Ranger said. "There's an engagement announcement in the Times. Green is the founder of an alternative energy company that is giving Elon Musk a run for his money, so he's aptly named."

"Anything about him that strikes you as suspicious?"

"Not on the surface, no," Ranger said. More typing produced more information, and he said, "She's a graduate student at Linton University in Boston, which is the University Dickerson attended. She's doing research into the application of certain advanced sabermetric principals in the analysis of other sports. Specifically swimming. Which tracks with what you were looking at. And… she references Dickerson's own graduate paper. You've spent three weeks on this and this is the first time they've made contact. And according to her Facebook she's been spending a lot of time at the shore. If she were having an affair with him, it's the most half-assed affair in history."

"I agree," I said. Ranger helped me type up a report, and I planned to take it to Bernadette tomorrow when Dickerson was out of the house. Job done case closed. Thanks for reading. Except… my life doesn't work that way.