For the past few months, my boyfriend’s behavior has changed drastically. I never was suspicious because of who he was when we first met he was charming, sweet, and always super thoughtful. Before John I was in an abusive relationship which clouded my judgment a bit, so the first guy to get my flowers and take me on dates was my knight in shining armor. We’ve been together for about 2 years, so we moved into our first home together 6 months ago. I know that might be a bit too soon but I was convinced he was the one, and the only thing that was strange that I discovered, is that he collected porcelain dolls, which I could live with because they’re kind of cute and they were given to him from his grandmother. John keeps them in some storage locker or something anyway.
The first 2 months were amazing and filled with constant sex and romantic gestures between us. I guess that we were in the honeymoon phase of moving in together because his behavior has been really out of character. John was constantly staying at work late, was more glued to his phone, and seemed to lose interest in sex a bit. I thought about confronting him from time to time but, if I did that it would only feel more real. I just thought maybe if I ignored it, things would go back to the way that they were.
I don’t think that that will be possible because John didn’t even come home last night. The only explanation I got was waking up to a measly text from him saying that he had to work late and that his mom wasn’t feeling well and asked him to stay the night. I tried to be positive and convinced myself that everything he said was true, even though in the back of my mind I still doubted it. I decided that I would discuss it with Anna, my coworker, and my best friend.
Anna and I met in college in our 3rd year. We became really close during that time because we were both majoring in forensic studies and needed all the help studying we could get which brought us closer together. I graduated with Anna, I moved into my first apartment with Anna, and we both got our first jobs in the field together. So when I moved in with John it was hard to say goodbye, but at least we still worked together. Anna has always been my biggest supporter so she was happy for me.
It was a bit of a busy day for us today at the lab so we decided to chat on our lunch break which seemed like hours away. I couldn’t focus enough to concentrate on my work at all because all I could imagine is what the other woman could have looked like. Was she blonde? Or did she have red hair? She could possibly be a brunette? What color were her eyes? Were they green like mine? I know John said he loved green eyes. I began to wonder more and more and got lost in my thoughts.
Anna was all of a sudden standing right in front of me waving a hand in front of my face, “Eva! Hello earth to Eva?” she exclaimed.
I looked around and the lab was empty aside from us. I guess it’s time for our lunch break, I quickly responded, “I got a little bit lost in thought there.” while laughing nervously.
Anna and I walk out to my car with our lunches. I gave her the full recap of last night and felt like a giant weight was lifted off of my shoulders. “What should I do? Should I confront him? Should I look through his phone?-”
Anna interrupted “Why don’t you look and see if he left any ‘evidence’ around.” she said with a smirk.
Anna has been suggesting that I try and find any hair or fingernails laying around and test them at work. I’ve been against the idea for a while because of the thought of getting in trouble at work. I’m not risking my job so Anna can simulate a reality show about catching a cheating boyfriend.
I began my usual lecture “Anna you know I can’t do that. It’s unprofe-” Anna cut me off.
“Yeah, yeah it’s unprofessional, violating policy blah blah blah.” she said. “But this is the one case where our job could really help us out and not just everyone else!” Anna recoiled.
I can’t believe she just said that “Anna, this whole job is about helping other people and not ourselves.” I said.
Anna stared at me for a few seconds, “Okay okay, fine. But promise me that you’ll consider it if things get out of hand. I mean we have this badass job, we might as well use it to our advantage.” she said while looking at me with puppy eyes.
I agreed to think about it but that doesn’t actually mean that I’ll do it. As the weeks went by and John’s behavior continued all I could think about is what Anna said to me. The urge to snoop around and see if I could find anything useful that would back up my theory was growing stronger and stronger every day. I caved and snooped through his phone while he was found in the shower and nothing. I didn’t entirely ease my mind to not find anything, because he could have just deleted the messages. I checked his browsing history next to see if I could find anything there and there wasn’t anything there either. I even went on his banking app and found nothing.
I wasn’t going to find anything on his phone and that was clear so I gave it a rest. I decided that I would snoop more later and just decided to make dinner for the two of us and enjoy the rest of the night with him finally being home. I go to the kitchen and realize that neither of us has gone grocery shopping. Shit. I didn’t feel like going grocery shopping tonight so I grabbed my keys and decided on picking up a pizza instead. I go outside and realize that John has me blocked into the driveway. He usually parks in front of me because he leaves earlier for work. I decided to just take his car instead. It was only a ten-minute trip and I was sure he wouldn’t mind.
I get into John’s car and realize it’s kind of messy which is unlike John so my suspicion rises again. I think that the most logical idea for a woman in the situation would be to snoop through his car. I drive up to our favorite pizza place and place the order. They said it would be out in twenty minutes perfect! I go outside and start to go through his car.
I find his gym bag filled with sweaty clothes and socks but nothing that screams I’m cheating. I search the entire front seat and backseat area and found nothing. The most suspicious thing I have found was some takeout orders from nights where he said he wasn’t hungry for whatever I made for dinner.
Maybe it was all in my head, either that or he was really good at hiding the fact that he was cheating. I think my best option for right now is to just wait I don’t want to jump to conclusions or anything. Maybe this was all over my head and I was just projecting because of the fact that I’ve been cheated on before. John would never do that to me, right?
I calm myself down and decide to clear out some space in the trunk for the pizza. That’s when I found it. An old-fashioned-looking hair brush with some hairs in it. I grabbed a chunk of the hair and put it in my bag. I took a picture of the brush and decided not to put the pizza in the trunk so John doesn’t know that I’m onto him.
I’m taking Anna’s advice and I’m testing the hair at the lab, I want to know what this chick looks like. If I run it through the system and she’s been in any kind of legal trouble before I could find out her name or even better what she looks like. I’m not going to tell Anna about the hair because I don’t want her to turn this into ‘How to catch a cheater 101’ or something like that.
I return home and put the pizza on the table and quickly grab a plastic bag and start to shove the red hair into the bag. Then I heard John walking down the steps. I quickly shove the plastic bag into my pocket. I turn around and he just almost caught me. I have to be more careful.
He greeted me with a kiss on the cheek, “Aww, that’s just what I wanted. Thanks baby.” I felt disgusted how could this dirty cheater kiss me on the cheek after he’s probably been with some other girl for the past few months? But I only had to play the part for a bit longer before I got to the bottom of this. I
I sat down with him for dinner and midway through he says “You didn’t take my car did you?” while looking out the window that has a perfect view of our driveway.
“I did, why?” I said.
“You didn’t see anything did you?” he said with a serious look on his face.
“No, what do you mean anything?” I said acting confused.
John busted out laughing, “You’re too gullible, it’s too cute, I’m just kidding.”
I faked laughing at his sick joke. John was always super playful and joked around but this time I looked at it differently. Did he know that I knew? Or was he just rubbing his cheating in my face because he thought that he could get away with it because I was ‘naive’? Either way, I had to test that hair so that I could start my own investigation and show him who was naive.
The whole night I was in bed staring at John thinking about all of the nasty things my boyfriend has done with that other woman. Who was she? The only thing that I know about this woman is that she has long ginger hair with some strands of blonde in it, After I closely examined the bag. I looked through his following list but found no one that fit the description.
I ended up staying up all night which I didn’t mind because I planned to leave and get to work an hour earlier for a piece of mind. John and I left around the same time. I wished him a good day and pretend that I couldn’t wait to see him later. Then zoomed off to work to test this hair.
I tested the hair and it belonged to three different women, I couldn’t believe that he cheated on me with three different women. Charlotte Johnson, Paige Morgan, and Madeline Dalton. I’m not sure why but those names seemed familiar are those his coworkers or something? I decided to search up their names on google to see if I could find anything. I started with the first name I’ve written down, Charlotte Johnson, missing person. I search for the second girl’s name Paige Morgan, missing person. I’m feeling very anxious and hyperventilating by this point. I had to search for the last name on the list Madeline Dalton, missing person.
They all have strawberry-blonde hair and green eyes, like me.?They also all seemed to have vanished into thin air. Does he have a type? Why didn’t he choose me? All I know is I think my boyfriend’s a serial killer and I’m not sure what I should do next.