Seasons of Davenport Ridge: S2E2 – Tyson

TYSON

If I planned this right, everything would fall back into place. 

It had to.

I watched as the road ahead of us turned into prune trees and farmland as my driver turned off the open road onto a paved one. It didn’t take long for the Davenport Ridge property to come into view.

“Let’s stay on this road,” I told my driver. “Keep to the right. If I remember correctly, this path should take us straight to that property in front of us.”

I thought my private investigator had lost his mind when he told me my wife was staying here. I’d paid a grip to have him track her down by pinging cell phone towers in the area and tracking her credit card transactions, which wasn’t easy to do… or maybe even legal.

But my wife had left me no choice. She wasn’t telling me where she was after upping and leaving weeks ago.

I leaned forward in my seat, eyes squinting at what lay ahead. 

Land. A lot of land.

Noelle had been staying here? On purpose?

I shook my head, lifting my fingers to pinch the bridge of my nose. I hadn’t been sleeping. From the night I walked into our penthouse in Chicago to find all the lights off, the bed made, and Noelle nowhere in sight, I haven’t been sleeping at all.

Her slippers were where they always were. Coffee mug at the coffeemaker, cued up for her morning coffee, like always.

But she was gone, and I was there standing there, alone, confused, and scared as shit. 

I haven’t been able to form the words in my mind, much less say out loud that my wife had left me. 

“Should we continue ahead?” My driver asked, his attention briefly on me through the rearview mirror.

“Yes, please.”

I didn’t know this estate very well. Noelle hardly came out here. I knew of it, though. Accompanied her once when her grandmother hosted a gathering in the mansion, a way to get their family under one roof.

The Davenports were a very special breed of people. Of women, actually. A family I’d dreamed of being in from the time I was a kid, watching TV day and night, wishing I’d know the life of the beautiful and wealthy.

It was destiny that I’d fallen in love with an heiress… an heiress who’d left my Black ass. 

The car was reducing in speed when my driver asked, “Sir?”

I pulled my attention away from the backseat window and focused on him. He pointed in front of us at a woman standing in the path the vehicle traveled. 

I recognized her instantly, and just the sight of my wife’s sister, Cori, made the tension in my shoulders ease a little.

Because if Cori were here, that meant Noelle likely was too, and that brought me one step closer to getting to my wife.

So, you’re probably wondering what the hell is going on, huh?

And you know what? You ain’t the only one.

“Just pull over right here,” I told him, unhooking my seatbelt. 

My driver did as advised and parked. He was stepping out of his car to open my door, but I couldn’t wait. 

In a hurry, I pushed open the back door and stepped out… my Italian leather loafers sinking sole-deep in some shit.

Literally.

I’d stepped in a pile of shit. 

“What the…” I lifted my foot to confirm what I already knew I’d done, stepped in some shit. “Oh, fuck me!”

I heard giggling up ahead of me and lifted my attention there to see Cori smiling. 

“This is some fucking bullshit,” I mumbled. “Literally, fucking bullshit.”

Dragging the bottom of my shoe against the dirt road, attempting to get as much of what looked like animal feces off, I glanced at my driver. “I’ll only be a minute. I’m going to get my wife, take some time to pack whatever she has, then we can head back to the airport.”

I pushed back the sleeve of my peacoat to check my watch. “The flight is in about two hours. So hang tight. I won’t be long.”

“No problem,” he told me, opening his door to step back into the black car. “I’ll be here.”

I was making my way over to Cori when she said, “Finally. Took your ass long enough.”

I groaned.

“Ty, where have you been?”

I couldn’t help the cynical laugh or the scoff that escaped me.

If she only knew what I had to go through to find out, there was a here to get to

“Where have I been?” I lifted my arms, then let them drop to my sides. “Man, Cori, where the hell is my wife?”

She jerked her head back. “What?”

“Noelle,” I said this time, closing the distance between us. “Where is she? Is she here?”

“What do you mean, is she here?” Cori questioned, brows so wrinkled I could count the lines in them. “Of course she’s here. Isn’t that why you’re here?”