Lisa Scottoline - Devil's corner

"I started getting over him, today." Vicki meant it. "Noth-ing's ever going to happen with him. It's time to let him go, for good."

"Right."

Still . "He's a friend, maybe he's worried about me. I don't usually keep the phone off all day."

"Don't be stupid. That man's a dog ."

Yikes . "Thanks for everything," Vicki said, and got out of the car.

"Be back at eight in the morning."

"Okay," Vicki called back softly, so as not to wake the neighbors, and trundled up the front walk, dripping backpacks, purses, and cameras. She'd check the messages when she got inside, not in front of Reheema, who was waiting out front with the Sunbird idling. Surprising. Vicki let herself in and waved from the front door, and the Sunbird took off.

Once inside, Vicki dropped her stuff on the floor, hit the light switch, and checked her text message, which was from Dan.

NEED TO C U TONITE. CALL MY CELL

"No," Vicki said aloud. "Fool me once, fool me twice." She wasn't about to call him again and catch him in bed with Mariella, and she doubted he'd meant her to call him this late anyway. She double-bolted the front door, turned off the living room light, and went upstairs with the cell phone, but the bedroom phone started ringing almost the moment she hit the landing, a jarring sound in the still house. She went down the hall and picked it up on the third ring. It was Dan.

"You home? Where were you?" Dan sounded stricken, not angry. "I was worried out of my mind! Or were you with that guy?"

"What guy?" "The guy from the wake." Delaney . "Of course not." "Then can I come over?" " Now ? It's after three!" "Vick, please. I wanna come over." Dan's words came out in a rush. "See you in five."

It was a reverse of their usual situation, with Dan sitting at her kitchen table, unusually calm for the situation, and Vicki pouring them both a half glass of cold Chardonnay, left over from the other night. His eyes looked a washed-out blue, with anxious circles underneath, and his mouth formed a slash of resignation. He wore khaki pants and a blue-plaid flannel shirt, put on so hastily it was buttoned wrong.

"Drink up." Vicki brought Dan's glass to the table, set it down in front of him, and took her customary seat opposite. "Now, begin at the beginning."

"Mariella's been having an affair with another doc, a big-time plastic surgeon, an older guy, in Cherry Hill." Dan's voice remained even, and he took a drink of wine. "She's divorcing me to marry him. She's been cheating on me for three years. We've only been married four."

Vicki sipped her wine, for something to do. She was shocked and sympathetic, hurt and confused, all at the same time. "How did you find this out?"

"I'll tell it in chronological order, to make it easy. This morning, she served the papers on me at work. Can you believe that? Right at work?" Dan shook his head. "I'm in a meeting with Bale, and they get me out and say Louie's in reception for me. You know, Louie the process server?"

"The process server we use?"

"Mariella, or her lawyer, musta hired the same outfit. What a coincidence, I know." Dan shook his head in amazement. "So here's Louie, serving papers on me. I open them up and they're my own divorce papers! So, obviously, I think it's a joke. One of Bale's pranks, you follow?"

"Oh, God." Vicki's mouth fell open.

"Wait, this is when it gets good. So I go back to the meeting, I tell Bale, you dumbass, I wasn't born yesterday, to fall for this one. He tells me it's no joke and he's lookin' at me like ‘you poor slob.' " Dan kept shaking his head. "And I mean, he's not kidding, and it's no joke ."

"Oh no." Vicki cringed, humiliated for Dan. No wonder he'd been calling her all afternoon. His world had exploded today. Her heart went out to him.

"After I get the papers, I call Mariella on her cell, and she doesn't answer. I go to the hospital because she told me she's on call, but it turns out that my bride hasn't been on call for two days." Dan paused, significantly. "Then I go home to see if she's there, and the house is cleaned out! Cleaned out! "

" What ?"

"The whole house is empty." Dan's eyes widened, and he smiled, incredulous. "Everything is gone, every stick of furniture, everything but my clothes. The old lady next door told me Mariella had the moving van there an hour after I left for work. She even took Zoe."

"The cat?" Vicki couldn't believe it. "You love that cat!"

"I know, and she doesn't even like the cat! She didn't even take her meds."

"Whose meds?" Vicki was confused.

"Zoe's. She needs atenolol for a heart murmur, but Mariella didn't take the medicine with her. She doesn't even know the cat needs medicine, half a tab, every morning." Dan shook his head. "I must sound so friggin' stupid . God, I mean, it's a cat, suck it up!"

"You don't sound stupid."

"Or gay. So gay ." Dan raked fingers through his hair, already out of place.

"No, you don't. Then what happened? How did you find out?"

"Okay, so, at home, taped to the living room mirror, is a note that says call her at this number I never heard of, in the 609 area code. I do. She answers the phone and tells me that it's over, the marriage is over." Dan waved at the papers on the table. "That I better sign the property agreement. That she's in love with this other doc, who's Brazilian . He's forty-five or something. He's leaving his wife and two kids, and she's leaving me."

Vicki winced.

"Oh yeah, and then she says, ‘Have your lawyer call my lawyer. Good-bye.' "

Vick felt stunned. She couldn't imagine it.

"That's when I realized, that's why she accused me of cheating on her!" Dan's eyes flashed with sudden anger. "You know, that fight the other day, the big one I told you about?"

"Yes."

" That's why she accused me, to hide the fact that she's been cheating, all along. To throw me off. The best defense is a good offense." Dan smiled ruefully. "How cold is she?"

"Wow." I always knew that .

"So I spent all this past year, since you and I have known each other and done nothing wrong , being so careful about her feelings, when, the whole time, she was cheating on me ! And accusing me of cheating! Ha!" Dan smiled. "Diabolical, isn't she? She's an evil genius!"

Vicki couldn't smile. "On the other hand, maybe she really thought it, since she was doing it. People do project themselves onto others, the way liars always think people are lying."

"No, it was a scam and it worked." Dan curled his upper lip, where reddish stubble sprouted. "I never suspected her of having an affair. I thought she was working hard, to become a surgeon. I knew what that job took, and I figured she's paying her dues, like you are. A woman in a man's world. I just got suckered."

Aw . "That's awful!"

"I tell you, what's awful is being lied to, all that time. I don't like thinking that all those calls she got, emergency calls, weren't really from work. That, I don't like. I was stupid. Blind."

"No, you trusted her." Vicki remembered one of those emergency calls herself. They were in a restaurant and Mariella took a cell phone call, then left the dinner. "You can't question somebody when she leaves to save a life."

"Exactly." Dan exhaled and leaned back in his chair, his manner surprisingly accepting. "So, my marriage is over, but it's weird, I'm not even that upset. I don't even feel sad, not about the marriage ending. I didn't even cry."

Vicki eyed him with doubt, and Dan read her mind.

"Really, Vick, believe me, I know it's okay to cry. I know I'm supposed to cry. But I don't feel like crying."