Chapter 8: Abet

"Would you like to tell us what really happened now Lilly?"

All parties concerned were present. There was Samantha, Vince, Lilly, Sanders, Marty and myself. Samantha had requested a settlement meeting to get everyone together.

We had just shown Lilly and her attorney the video evidence and given them a list of the anomalies.

Sanders said quickly, "Lilly, don't answer that!"

"Damn it Sanders! You told me it was airtight!" Lilly said disgustedly.

Sternly, he ordered, "Shut up Lilly and let me do the talking!"

"But he's getting away with it!" Lilly insisted.

Sanders ignored his client, turned to Samantha and said, "What are your terms?"

"TERMS?" Lilly yelled.

More loudly this time Sanders ordered, "Either shut up Lilly or find yourself a new attorney!"

"Needless to say, the prenuptial is out." Samantha replied, ignoring the intrusion.

Sanders nodded and said, "What else?"

"Vince is willing to let her have half of the marital estate. Although, after this little stunt, why is beyond me." She replied.

Without hesitation, in a formal voice, Sanders said to Lilly, "Mrs. Rossi, as your attorney, I'm advising you to accept their offer and settle this case now!"

"WHAT? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND?" She yelled at the top of her lungs.

A bailiff opened the door and asked, "Is everything alright in here?"

"Sorry, we'll try to keep it down." Sanders replied.

When the door was closed, he continued, "The only thing you had to prove your allegation of adultery was the video evidence. It's tainted now; without it you have nothing. We both know it contradicts Gloria's testimony."

"BUT..." Lilly began.

Sanders cut her off, "No buts. If you don't settle now and we go back into court, you're looking at both perjury and evidence tampering charges. Before you try to argue with me, think about this: the judge, whom you've seemed to have pissed off somehow, will probably go out of her way to give you as little as possible. Hell, you make more money than Vince does, she might even award him alimony. How would you like to end up having to pay him for the rest of his life?"

I couldn't help but smile. That was Lilly, making friends everywhere! It seems she'd even managed to turn her own attorney against her.

"I'll rot in jail first!" Lilly said defiantly.

Fighting back a smile, Sanders replied, "That's your choice. But you and I both know it won't come to that, don't we? So, like I said, stop dragging this out and take the deal!"

Lilly squirmed like a woman on a hot seat and then said meekly...

"Alright damn it! Make it happen."

Well, Samantha produced the papers, having prepared them ahead of time. They were signed, notarized and just like that it was all over. Except for the part where Lilly called Vince a 'lying cheating bastard' and stomped out of the room, everything went smoothly and we all went home.

But one thing nagged at me. What happened in those last few missing minutes and why did someone go out of the way to try and delete the cell-phone from the nightstand?

We'd have to wait a little over a month for everything to be made clear to us. It was the day Vince came by the office to pick up his copy of the finalized divorce decree.

Marty and I happened to be in the lobby saying goodbye to a client when Vince arrived. It was the end of the day. The receptionist had already gone home and other than Samantha, we were the only once in the building.

"Hey buddy, can I ask you something?" Vince said to Marty.

Marty replied, "Sure Vince, what do can I do for you?"

When Vince looked over at me nervously, Marty said reassuringly, "Don't worry about Rachael, I trust her with my life."

"Alright then, I was just wondering if I can get a copy of those videos Lilly made of Gloria and I together?"

It was so quiet you would have sworn somebody farted.

I think Marty and I were both in shock. After a second he asked, "What the devil do you want them for Vince? I thought that night was too traumatic for you to relive?"

"Traumatic? Are you kidding me? You didn't really fall for all that stuff did you?" Vince paused, waiting for an answer. I guess the expression on our faces said it all. He went on. "Come on buddy, you've seen them. Admit it; they're the hottest things you've ever seen. Gloria and I want to add them to our collection!"

Marty and I both yelled it at the same time, "YOUR WHAT?"

Then Marty asked, "Are you telling us you and Gloria were actually having an affair?"

"Of course we were, Samantha knew all about it. Didn't she tell you?"

We both stood there jaws open.

"Oh, I though you knew. Then I guess she didn't tell you that it was her idea to edit the videos either?" He paused again. "I guess I better explain. You see, Lilly knew about Gloria and me for years. But then, I knew about her little side flings too."

Flabbergasted, Marty asked, "Wait a minute, you knew she was sleeping around on you? How long's that been going on?"

"I've always known, just like Lilly has always known about mine."

I thought I was beginning to understand. From the look on Marty's face, I could tell he was clueless. Then Vince explained it to him...

"Don't you get it? We're swingers, all three of us, Lilly, Gloria and myself."

When he said that, the first thing that came to my mind was the prenuptial agreement, "When did that start?"

"Oh, about two years after we were married. We got invited to a party by a few friends of ours and decided to try it out. We've been doing it ever since."

Well, just when I thought things couldn't get any stranger!

Then a question occurred to me, "What went wrong?"

"Lilly met someone else and got greedy and decided she wanted everything. That's when she decided to set up the cameras in my bedroom so she could 'catch us in the act'. She knew Gloria was coming over that night. What you didn't see was the three-way we all had before Lilly left that afternoon for her weekend camping trip.

You know, Lilly might even have gotten away with it too if I hadn't gotten a call warning me about them."

I finally spoke, "That explains the cell-phone on the nightstand. So, who called you?"

"Maybe you better talk to Samantha about this." Vince replied mysteriously.

It was obvious he wasn't going to say anything more on the subject so I went into my office, quickly found his file and pulled the packet containing the videos out of them. We had already made copies so I knew we could spare them.

As soon as he left, Marty and I went straight to Samantha's office.

"It's all true, every word of it!" Samantha said insistently when Marty and I confronted her.