“Let me.” Vicki came up behind him. “You shouldn’t have to do dishes on a night like this.”
“Why not? I always do.” Dan flipped on the hot water and regulated it with care. “I always stand at this sink, just like this, with you hovering at my right shoulder, yakking away while I wash dishes.”
Vicki smiled. “I wash, sometimes.”
“Sometimes you do, but mostly, it’s me. Cooking. Making coffee. I am completely gay.”
Vicki laughed. “You’re just a good friend.”
“I’m your best friend, am I not?”
“Actually, you are.” Vicki smiled, feeling a rush of warmth. It was the wine, partly. And partly not.
Dan turned from the sink, his blue eyes frank and direct. “And you are mine.”
Vicki nodded, and a silence fell between them.
Dan turned off the water, set the wineglass upside down in the sink, and then looked at her again. “And that, my dear, is why I’m not going to fight over the china. Because Mariella was right about one thing.”
“What?”
“I was in love with somebody else, all along.”
Gulp. “Really?”
“Really. I share everything with this woman. Chicken dinners and jury closings and funny e-mails on the BlackBerry. And the amazing thing is, I feel like she’s with me all the time, even when she isn’t. Wherever she is, and wherever I am, I am connected, profoundly connected, to her.”
Vicki’s heart thumped. All of a sudden her organs were very noisy.
“I never had an affair with her, but to be honest, I wanted to.” Dan’s voice softened. “I never touched her that way, but I imagined her touch. I’ve never seen her without clothes on, but I know exactly what her body looks like, naked. And I’ve made love to her so many times, in my head, that I can’t count them all.”
Vick felt strangely like she was going to cry. I sure hope this girl is me.
“I told you, and I realized that night, when I thought that I might lose you, that you are my best friend. Remember that night?”
Vicki nodded. There were tears in her eyes. She had wanted to hear what he was going to say for so long, it somehow hurt to hear it now, as if its sweetness were too much.
“Well, you are my best friend. And so, I love you.” Then Dan leaned over slowly and kissed her, gently, and she kissed him back, just as gently, until she sensed his hips shift closer to hers and felt his tongue flicker just inside her mouth. In the next instant, his arms closed strong around her, and Vicki breathed in the hard soap scent on his scratchy cheek.
But then something made her heart pull back. “Is this a good idea?” she asked, worried, and Dan smiled softly, holding her in his arms.
“Do you love me?”
“Yes,” Vicki answered, because she did, and she had, for so long.
“Then it’s a very good idea.” Dan grinned.
“But is this a rebound?”
“No, my rebounding sucks. This is love.”
Vicki smiled. “And it’s really happening?”
“If you ever shut up, it is.”
Vicki laughed, and Dan laughed, too, and the laughter ended with a happy kiss, and then another, and next a deeper one, which was joyful in a different way, more serious. And the serious kissing didn’t stop when the touching began, or when his flannel shirt came off and then her heavy fisherman’s sweater and her white turtleneck and next her old Harvard T-shirt and eventually her pink-waffle thermal undershirt, which was when Dan started laughing, mystified.
“Vick, what were you dressed for?”
Oops. “Sledding, with the kids across the street.”
Dan kissed her again, then his mouth made a path down her neck to her chest, and he reached around and unfastened her bra, slipping the silky straps from her shoulders, taking her fullness into his mouth. Warmth surged through her, leaving her weak, and Vicki arched her back involuntarily, giving herself to him, loving the feel of his mouth on her skin and his hands everywhere on her body, and in the next minute, she heard herself whisper.
“Let’s go upstairs.”
Vicki awoke to knocking on the front door and cracked an eye at the alarm clock. The red numbers glowed 8:15. She blinked against the noise until her brain started to function.
It’s Reheema. I am so busted.
She moved aside the covers quietly enough not to wake Dan, climbed out of bed, and hurried for the bathroom. She had no time for a shower, and she grabbed her pink bathrobe and wrapped herself in it on the run. Dan remained fast asleep on the far side of the bed, his head buried sideways in the pillow, his strawberry hair a lovely rumple.
Dan Malloy is in my bed. Yippee!
Vicki ran downstairs and flung open her front door into the frosty air and an unusually cheerful Reheema Bristow. Reheema’s eyes were darkly bright and her smile broad, and she wore her customary knit cap, pea coat, jeans, and Timberlands. In her hand was a tall pink-and-orange Dunkin’ Donuts coffee covered with a plastic lid.
“Yo, girl.” Reheema offered the coffee. “You look like you need this.”
“Jeez, thanks,” Vicki said, in a low tone, so Dan didn’t wake up. She accepted the coffee and pulled her robe around her, feeling guilty. “I’m really sorry, I’m running a little late.”
“S’all right.” Reheema stepped inside the living room, looking around. “Nice place.”
“Thanks,” Vicki said softly.
“Why are you whispering?”
“I’m not whispering,” Vicki whispered.
“You are, too,” Reheema said, then her eyes narrowed to disapproving slits. “Oh no, you didn’t.”
“I’ll explain later. Follow me.” Vicki signaled her out of the room, past the dining room and into the kitchen, then she set the coffee down and started digging for her stakeout outfit among the clothes heaped on the floor.
“In the kitchen?” Reheema’s tone sounded admiring, if surprised. “You did it in the kitchen? Damn!”
“Turn away, I’m embarrassed,” Vicki said, and when Reheema turned away, she dropped the bathrobe and yanked on her jeans and panties.
“Embarrassed? You weren’t embarrassed last night, when you were doin’ it on the damn floor.” Street Reheema had returned and she was having a good laugh. “You weren’t embarrassed, you were bare-assed.”
“Very funny.” Vicki slid into her bra, thermal underwear, T-shirt, turtleneck, fisherman’s sweater, and then two pairs of white thermal socks, one of which was suspiciously large.
“You had the man in the kitchen?”
“Wait here, please.” Vicki ran past Reheema in stocking feet, out of the dining room, and up the stairs. She didn’t want Dan to know what she was up to today. She’d rather get busted by Reheema than him. She reached the bedroom, slid on the hardwood floor in her soft socks, and hurried around to the far side of the bed, where Dan was just waking up, muzzy and rubbing an eye with a balled fist.
“Vick?”
“Baby.” Vicki leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, deliciously stubbled. “Stay asleep. The house is yours. The door locks when you leave. Take care of yourself today. I have to go.”
“What? Where?” Dan lifted his head and opened his eyes, in pale blue confusion. His breath was just as bad as hers, which was the only lucky thing that had happened so far this morning.
“I’ll call you later. Go back to sleep. I love you.” Vicki kissed him again, then straightened up, hurried out of the room, and ran down the stairs, where a gloating Reheema waited at the front door, holding the coffee and red snow boots.
“In the kitchen?” Reheema whispered, grinning, and Vicki ignored her while she grabbed the boots and stuck her feet inside, then snagged her purse and backpack on the fly, and opened the front door.
From upstairs, Dan called out, “I love you, too!”
Vicki hustled them both outside and closed the door before Reheema could say, out loud:
“Oh no, it’s not like that!”
&n
bsp; THIRTY
Gray and white snow clouds covered the sky, and Vicki and Reheema circled the block on which they thought Jamal Browning lived, in Overbrook Hills, scoping it out before settling into a parking space. In the daylight, his home was a well-kept, if modest, semidetached row house, and its front yard, bounded by a costly wrought-iron fence, contained a snow-covered Little Tikes slide, a Razor scooter, and a black BMX bike with training wheels.
“I don’t see a padlock on that BMX bike,” Vicki said, snapping a picture through the telephoto.
“Ain’t nobody takin’ that child’s toys.” Reheema pulled the Sunbird into a parking space down the street from the house, next to a curbside pile of dirty snow and in front of a side yard, so that no house was directly in front. The street was more residential than Cater and Aspinall; the girls couldn’t sit here forever, undetected. Reheema cut the Sunbird’s ignition. “This one’s the best we can do.”
“Maybe we drive around in a little while, keep moving.” Vicki looked around. Schoolkids with Spiderman lunch pails and backpacks were gathering on the far street corner with their watchful mothers, evidently waiting for a school bus. Vicki couldn’t help but smile at the scene. “Aren’t those kids so cute?”
Reheema sipped McDonald’s coffee, where they’d stopped for bathroom and breakfast.
“They’re so small, aren’t they? I can’t believe we were ever that little, but we were.”
Reheema looked over. “You gonna be like this all damn day?”
“Like what?”
“You know, all happy and white.”
Vicki laughed. “What?”
“You gotta get over this.”
“Why? I can’t help it.” Vicki flashed on an instant replay from last night, erotic enough to keep her dreamy for hours. She’d had one hour’s sleep and three orgasms, a superb ratio. “I love the man.”
“Too soon for that.”
“Are you kidding? It’s been a year. One year of foreplay.” Vicki had told Reheema about Mariella and Dan, which, for some reason, hadn’t completely allayed her concerns. But Vicki was too happy, or too tired, to hear any objection. “He’s a great guy. He’s just great.”
“Hard to get excited about a U.S. Attorney.”
Assistant. “Not that hard.”
“So.” Reheema paused, with a sly smile. “How hard?”
“Hard enough, and that’s all I’ll say about that.” They both laughed and returned their attention to the house.
“I don’t think he’ll be comin’ out anytime soon,” Reheema said. “Drug dealers don’t start the day early, but I didn’t wanna miss him.”
“Sure. Makes sense.” But Vicki was thinking about love, especially as applied to Reheema. “I was surprised that you weren’t seeing anybody.”
“Nobody special.”
“Why not? I mean, you’re beautiful, you’re smart, and your body is phenomenal.”
“Calm down.”
Vicki smiled. “You look like a model, even in that dumb hat.”
“Means a lot, coming from a girl who wears fireman boots.”
They laughed again. They were more relaxed together today, if only a fraction. “So? Vicki asked, after a minute.
“What?”
“Give.”
“There used to be a man, now there isn’t.” Reheema looked over, her emotions opaque behind her sunglasses, though she was smiling. “And that’s all I’ll say about that.”
Vicki turned as a school bus appeared and rolled to a stop at the corner, belching sooty smoke. The doors slapped open, and the kids piled on willy-nilly, collecting last-minute kisses and hugs. The bus pulled away from the waving mothers, and Vicki noticed the front door opening at the house. “Check it, Ree.”
Reheema raised the binoculars to her sunglasses. “My mother used to call me Ree.”
Oops. Vicki took a photo as a pretty young black woman left the house, tugging along an adorable little boy, who looked about four. That they were mother and son was undeniable; they had the same tall, thin build, same large, almost black eyes, and same short hair, cut natural. They even wore matching red Sixers jackets, the sight of which chased Vicki’s love flashback away, replacing it with an awful memory of the night Morty had been killed. She took another picture, glad that the camera covered her face.
“Now we get to see which car is theirs.” Reheema raised the binoculars. “I say the Lexus. What do you say?”
Morty. Vicki had lost her appetite for their guess-the-car game. She watched as the young mother stopped to light a cigarette, a purple mat tucked under her arm, then greeted the other mothers now scattering from the corner. Then she said good-bye and walked with the child to a gold Explorer, chirped the door unlocked, and they got inside.
“Losin’ my touch.” Reheema clucked. “Hell no, what’s that under her arm? The purple roll? Tell me that’s not a yoga mat!”
“It is.” Vicki took a photo of the license plate as the gold Explorer pulled out of the space. “I don’t think we should follow her. I think she’s taking the kid to preschool and I don’t wanna miss our man.”
“She’s got herself a yoga mat? A yoga mat? She gonna smoke that cigarette in the damn yoga class?”
Vicki lowered the camera, and Reheema peered at her over the top of her sunglasses.
“You okay, Tinker Bell?”
No. “Are we getting closer to whoever killed my partner?”
“We’re doing what we can do.”
“Tell me we can get them.”
“I can’t do that. I can only tell you that we’ll try.”
Vicki blinked. “Fair enough.”
Two hours later, a white Neon finally pulled around the corner, coming toward them, and both women saw it at the same instant.
“Driver’s here!” Reheema said, sitting suddenly upright, and Vicki grabbed the camera, aimed it at the Neon’s windshield, and shot quickly. It reflected the cloudy sky, but maybe they could get something off it on the computer. The women watched, tense, and a minute or two later, the front door to the house opened and a tall man emerged, with a black Adidas bag.
“It’s him!” Vicki almost shouted, recognizing Browning’s face through the telephoto. It was the same man as in the photo! “Reheema, do you recognize him?”
“No, never saw the man before.”
“Rats!” Vicki fired five great shots of Browning’s face, in close-up, as he hustled to the Neon, his Adidas bag swinging, then opened the passenger-side door and jumped inside.
“Get down!” Reheema said quickly, and they both ducked so their heads didn’t show as the Neon drove past.
“Thought you said that was dumb,” Vicki said, excited, and Reheema popped up and switched on the ignition.
“It’s dumb when you do it, not when I do it.” Reheema maneuvered the Sunbird quickly out of the space.
“Go!” Vicki said, needlessly, because they were already driving down the block, taking a right at the corner. “We gotta stay with him. We can’t lose him.”
“We won’t lose him,” Reheema said, bearing down. “I never lost a man I wanted to keep.”
Later, after having followed the white Neon through noontime rush hour into the city, past buses and cop cars and snow plows and salt trucks, then finally out to South Philly, Vicki and Reheema sat parked at the drug dealer’s first stop. A Toys “R” Us.
“I can’t believe this!’ Vicki said, edging up in her seat. Five minutes ago, Browning and his pal had left the Neon, grabbed one of the shopping carts, and wheeled it into the store. “What kind of drug dealer goes shopping? At Toys ‘R’ Us?”
“Prices are good.” Reheema laughed. “Maybe he needs a board game.”
“He’s supposed to be a drug dealer!” Vicki fairly shouted, then caught herself before she cursed. She had been raised better than to use profanity. But not better than to have three orgasms. Her frustration boiled over. “Could this man’s day be more boring?”
Reheema was laughing. “I don’t
know, the wife’s at yoga class and he’s at Toys ‘R’ Us, doin’ the shoppin’. You ask me, that boy needs a marriage counselor. He’s whipped.”
“This would be funny if it weren’t such a waste of time.” Vicki sat watching the entrance. The Toys “R” Us anchored the huge strip mall, which drew customers from everywhere in the city. The parking lot, two city blocks long, was crowded with cars and minivans looking for spaces. Women and kids walked this way and that with strollers and shopping carts. Vicki sighed. “How will we ever learn something about Browning? His supplier, or even his connection to you?”
Reheema stopped laughing. “What do you think is the connection to me?”
“If you don’t recognize Browning, I don’t know. Unless he knows you and you don’t know him.”
“Only one way to find out.” Reheema slipped off her sunglasses. “I’m goin’ shoppin’ .”
“What do you mean?” Vicki felt panicky. This wasn’t in the Master Plan or the New Master Plan. “What are you gonna do?”
“Walk by the man, see if he knows me, see if he says anything to me.” Reheema opened the door, and a cold blast of air blew inside the car. “You’re not the only one gettin’ impatient here.”
“I don’t know.” Vicki couldn’t process it fast enough. “He might be dangerous.”
“In a toy store?” Reheema climbed out of the driver’s seat and shut the door.
“Wait, be careful,” Vicki called after her, opening her passenger-side window, but Reheema was already striding away from the Sunbird, making a beeline for the Toys “R” Us entrance. She made a tall, dark silhouette with the knit cap, pea coat, and jeans, and in the clunky Timberlands looked almost like a man from the back, but for the sexy swing of her walk. She waded through the moms and kids, grabbed a shopping cart, and wheeled it inside the store. Vicki reached for the camera, to watch her better through the telephoto lens.
Rring! Rring! Vicki jumped at the sound. Her cell phone. She reached quickly into her backpack, resting on the Sunbird’s blue shag, and pulled out the cell. The electronic display read DAN. Good and bad. She had to get it or he’d be suspicious. Also, she was crazy about him. She juggled the camera to flip the phone open.