His Instagram account got flooded with comments ranging from helpful suggestions about better lubricant choices to detailed descriptions of what people thought should happen to cheaters. But Leo's public execution was nothing compared to what happened to Marissa. Someone recognized her from the parent-teacher conferences at our son's school. Another person knew her from her book club.
A third identified her from the local yoga studio where she'd been a regular for years. Once her identity was out there, it spread like wildfire through our social circles. Her phone started ringing constantly. Reporters, bloggers, random internet strangers who'd somehow gotten her number.
She'd made the mistake of keeping all her social-media accounts public, which meant everyone could see her carefully curated life of perfect-wife-and-mother posts going back years. The contrast between her online persona and the reality of what everyone had just witnessed was comedy gold for the internet trolls. They started posting side-by-side comparisons. Marissa's Instagram post about "date night with my amazing husband" next to a screenshot from the ambulance video.
Her Facebook post about loyalty and trust in marriage paired with a still frame of her being wheeled away attached to another man. Her friends started distancing themselves one by one. The book club mysteriously had scheduling conflicts every time she tried to join their meetings. The yoga studio suddenly couldn't find her membership in their system.
Even the grocery-store cashiers started giving her looks that could freeze hell. But the real masterpiece came when I discovered something that made Leo's affair look like amateur hour. Hidden in her tablet's browsing history, I found evidence of something that made my blood run cold and my revenge plans expand exponentially. She hadn't been lying about there being others.
Lots of others. There was an entire network, a private group that operated through encrypted apps and exclusive websites catering to married people looking for discreet encounters. It wasn't just casual cheating. This was organized, systematic adultery with membership fees, background checks, and regular events.
Marissa had been a premium member for over three years. Three years. The evidence was all there. Hotel receipts, membership confirmations, even reviews she'd written about other members.
She'd been living a complete double life, and I'd been too stupid and trusting to see it. But now I saw everything, and more importantly, I had documentation of everything. I printed out every piece of evidence, organized it into a comprehensive file, and walked straight to the police station. Not because adultery was illegal.
It's not, unfortunately, but because the network itself was involved in some activities that definitely crossed legal lines. Tax evasion, for starters. The membership fees weren't being reported as income by the organizers. Then there was the prostitution angle.
Some members were paying others for services, which made it a commercial operation. And the real kicker? Several members were using company credit cards and expense accounts to fund their activities, which meant embezzlement and fraud. Detective Morrison listened to my story with the expression of someone who'd thought he'd seen everything but was rapidly discovering he was wrong.