I stood still and listened. The house was dark and very quiet. With more than a small amount of dread, I climbed the stairs that led to the bedroom ar...a. As I approached the master bedroom, I heard loud snoring. I had been sleeping with Barb for twenty-five years and she had never snored. My gut started knotting up.I walked through the open doorway to the bedroom. There was enough moonlight to make out two human forms on my bed. Then I wondered why the hell I was sneaking around my own goddamn. Spending my life digging through the garbage of other people lives. Endlessly telling people the bad news that they already knew. Whisky doesn’t buy itself though and without I can’t do this job.Today was different though. It started just after 11 when my secretary brought a Mr Maroney. “What can I do for you Mr Maroney?” I asked. “I need you to find my wife” he replied “She’s been gone for a week, very unusual for her”This is a common story and usually the answer is she’s a woman’s shelter. “Oh, of course it is fine. I am delighted that you thought of me in the course of an exciting vacation. Have I met your lovely sisters before?”“They were both at the same school, but neither was in your Social Studies class, Mr Defreitas. This is Tracy, she is sixteen; and this is Dinah, just 15.” Dinah showed her annoyance: “Not JUST fifteen, Mr Defreitas. I am a gorgeous fifteen-year-old!” She turned and stuck her tongue out at Annabel before putting her hands on her hips and sticking out her. The thrashing he received as he spent was for purely sadistic pleasure; the total obedience of Ralph Edwards to this dominant female owners was already set in stone.Walter Faulkner felt a strange foreboding which rankled with his usual smug and conceited persona that morning, but he dismissed it as he breezed into the marbled foyer of the municipal building, two steps ahead of his pert secretary as the clatter of her tall heels resonated behind him, she there to take notes on the discussion.