Lisa Scottoline - Devil's corner

The TV reporter looked a little nervous, the neighbors cheered, and Vicki threaded her way to the knit cap.

"Come 'ere, girl!" Reheema shouted above the din, smiling broadly when she recognized her. "What're you doin' here!"

"I missed you!" Vicki shouted back, and they made their way to the fringe of the crowd, where it was quieter.

Reheema beamed. "Check it! What do you think of our party?"

"It's great! What's going on?"

"We tore down the wall on Cater, threw out the trash, and cleaned out the hole. And we got teams signed up for a neighborhood watch." Reheema waved at someone who had been calling her name. "Gonna walk around. Wear orange safety belts, like in grade school."

"For real?"

" Believe it! It's a party!" "Ding, dong, the witch is dead!" Reheema blinked. "Say what?" "White culture thing." Reheema smiled. "Whatever, isn't it great? I never met these people, now they're all coming out, meetin' each other. Organized. Together. And guess what, I'm block captain!" Vicki saluted. Reheema laughed. "I gotta give you the credit. I'm not gonna sell this house. I bought and paid for it, and my mother lived here. I belong here. And I started to figure, why does this Harvard girl care more about where I live than I do?"

Vicki smiled, touched.

"When they had that press conference today, all those suits, and then you, I said to myself, All right, let's see if we can keep it clean here, on our own. So I went door to door and they all took it up." Reheema grinned. "They were just scared, is all."

Vicki looked around, happily. "Well, they're not anymore." Reheema eyed the crowd, too. "No, they're drunk!" They both laughed, and if they'd been girly girls, they would have hugged. But that wasn't happening, and the stars weren't diamonds, either.

Vicki said, "I wanted you to know I appreciated your help, all last week, and with that kid. I never could have caught him. You were so brave, and you can run!"

Reheema shook it off. "I owe you, too. You gave me back my house." "I didn't forget about your mom." "I knew you wouldn't." "Good." Vicki liked the sound of that. It was trust, which was even better than a hug. "Tomorrow morning, at nine?" "Ha! You got a plan?" "What do you think?" And they slapped five. Black glove against red mitten.

Saturday morning, Vicki and Dan got up early, showered, dressed, and went down to the kitchen together, making coffee more silently than usual. Vicki worried that something was wrong. First, Dan hadn't wanted to make love when they woke up, but she tried not to let that bother her. Maybe he was the one man on the planet who didn't automatically want to make love in the morning. Second, when Dan brushed against her elbow on his way to the coffeemaker, he said, "Excuse me." Vicki tried not to give that much weight, though she was losing that battle, too. Loss of libido and good manners were sure signs that a couple was circling the toilet.

"Are we breaking up?" Vicki asked, turned suddenly from the sink.

"What? No. Of course not." Dan's brow furrowed, and he looked at her like she was crazy.

"I'm not crazy."

"I didn't say you were."

Oh . "Last night you said we might break up, because of your promotion."

"No I didn't." Dan hit the Brew button. "I said I was worried about how our being a couple would affect work, and vice versa, but that doesn't mean we're breaking up."

Vicki blanched. "It sounds like it does."

"Well, I didn't mean it that way." Dan smiled. The coffee began its happy gurgling, and he came over and gave her a hug. He was wearing Vicki's favorite baggy jeans and navy crewneck, and even that didn't cheer her up. "How about we go on a date tonight? A real date, go out and celebrate?"

"Celebrate what?" Vicki whined, and enjoyed it. Nobody could whine like a suburban girl.

"Celebrate that the good guys won, and, in this case, they happen to be in love with each other."

"Okay."

"Good." Dan gave Vicki a quick kiss, which she worried was too wife-y and not girlfriend-y enough, then he patted her on the butt, which was downright quarterback-y. "Now we gotta get to work."

Go, team ! "We do?" Vicki checked her watch. 7:38. She was supposed to meet Reheema at nine.

"Yeah, we do. We executed a coupla warrants yesterday, if you remember." Dan laughed softly as he opened the dishwasher, grabbed their Harvard and Elvis mugs, and set them on the counter. "We have to start preparing for the grand jury hearings. We'll need scripts for cross-examination, for witnesses, subpoenas prepared, you know this drill." Dan's cell phone started ringing in its belt holster, and he twisted it upward to read the display. "Unknown number, that's the press. I told Strauss I'd be in at nine."

Great minds . "Uh, well, I was going to meet Reheema this morning."

"Your friend from last night." Dan's face lengthened under his fresh shave. "What trouble did you two get into, anyway?"

"None, we just said hi." Vicki cheered up. "They were actually having a party in the neighborhood, and they're gonna keep the crack out. We actually helped them. That neighborhood will survive now, and Reheema's organizing it."

"Is that the truth?" Dan lifted an eyebrow, and Vicki made a decision.

"I'm not going to lie to you anymore. That's all we did. But we still don't know who killed her mother or why she was set up for the straw purchase, and I want to help her with that."

"Oh, you do."

"I was wondering what you thought, too, about something else. Can you listen without freaking out?" Vicki didn't wait for an answer. She had told him last night that she'd taken Toner's record from his briefcase, but she hadn't mentioned she'd taken the HIDTA charts of Ray James, too. Time to come clean. "I'd love to have my sounding board back."

"Go right ahead," Dan said, pouring them coffee, so Vicki accepted her mug and filled him in about her taking James's records and tracing her cell phone to Albertus. Dan wasn't smiling when she was finished. "So it's hired killers, now."

"Even I think I might be in over my head."

"But you're not gonna stop, are you?"

"Dan, Reheema ran down that kid for me, and he could have been armed, for all she knew. I owe her."

"No, you don't."

"Then it's the right thing to do." Vicki couldn't believe his stubbornness. "Even a crack addict is somebody's mother. This one was Reheema's. She deserves justice as much as Morty does, isn't that the point? Equal justice under the law?" Chief?

"Okay. You want my help?" Dan set his mug on the tile counter, with a ceramic clank . "Let's make a deal."

"What?" Vicki smelled another fake Vuitton.

"Let me handle it. I'll ask Strauss to make a phone call and get the Bristow homicide a top priority for the Philly cops. VIP treatment. They'll have time, now that the Toys ‘R' Us case is cleared. I also give him a heads-up, off the record, about Bethave and her son. See if he can get a patrol car on their block, keeping an eye out."

"Great!" Vicki felt better already, and Dan was already smiling at her the way he used to. Yesterday.

"In return, you and Reheema don't investigate hired killers. This really is a matter for the cops. You've done great legwork, but it's too risky to go further. Deal?"

"Deal." Vicki nodded. "Only one loose end. I still don't know why Shayla Jackson set Reheema up for the straw purchase. None of the busts yesterday explain that at all. I don't even know how Jackson knew Reheema."

"What's the difference, Vick?" Dan asked, with a weary smile. "Reheema is fine now, and the guy who killed your CI is in custody. No harm, no foul."

Vicki almost laughed. "Except that Reheema lost almost a year of her life in jail."