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“Odelia caught one, did I mention that?”

“Yes, you mentioned that. About five times already.”

“A young girl. Barely out of her teens.”

“Stands to reason. These young people are raised with celebrities on their minds. They read the magazines, they follow them on Instagram, and they want a piece of them.”

“That’s what you get when you post all of your wealth on Instagram all the time,” said Vesta. “It makes people get jealous and decide to get in on the action.”

“At least Odelia is safe. They could just as well have taken a whack at her as well.”

“She should have taken her husband’s advice and brought him along for that so-called interview.”

“So-called? You don’t think the interview was real?”

“Of course it wasn’t real! You know Carl’s reputation. He sees a woman he likes and immediately he expects her to jump into bed with him. He probably thought Odelia would be an easy target, so he invited her over in the middle of the night.”

“She just got married! She wouldn’t fall for that guy’s nonsense.”

“He didn’t know that, did he? Now will you look at that?” She pointed to a car that was driving very slowly in front of them. Too slowly to her liking.

“The Hampton Heisters!” said Scarlett. “Looking for another target!”

“Let’s nail them!” said Vesta, and punched down on the accelerator. She would have preferred if her son had allowed her to put one of those police lights in the car, and a police siren, too, but unfortunately Alec was very strict about that kind of thing.

“Ram them!” said Scarlett when Vesta had approached the car within ten yards. “Just ram them, Vesta—these are hardened criminals!”

And since Scarlett was always the more sensible of the twosome, Vesta decided to do as her friend suggested, and hit the car in the rear as hard as she could, consequences be damned!

The car in front was unceremoniously pushed out of the way, and made a kind of scissoring movement that caused it to end up across the road, hitting a mailbox and coming to a full stop. Immediately Vesta and Scarlett were out of the car, shaking off the slight sense of vertigo that had hit them when they hit the other vehicle. They were armed to the teeth with stun guns, cans of mace and the old shotgun Vesta’s husband had left her.

Only when they came upon the Hampton Heisters, ready to take them down, Vesta saw that a familiar figure was behind the wheel.

“Wilbur!” she cried as she caught sight of the face of the driver.

“Francis!” Scarlett called out when she came upon Wilbur’s passenger.

For it were indeed Father Reilly and Wilbur Vickery who were in the car.

“Are you the Hampton Heisters?” asked Vesta, pointing the can of mace at the owner of the General Store’s face. “Confess!”

“Of course not!” Wilbur cried. “Are you nuts?”

“Now why did you hit us?” asked Father Reilly, who looked a little dazed.

“We thought you were the Hampton Heisters,” said Scarlett.

“Are you the Hampton Heisters?” Vesta demanded.

“No!”

“Then what are you doing here in the middle of the night acting all suspicious?”

“Patrolling the neighborhood, just like you are!” said Wilbur.

“What do you mean?”

“We’re Hampton Cove’s newest neighborhood watch,” Father Reilly said.

“I don’t understand,” said Scarlett. “How can you be the neighborhood watch when we’re the neighborhood watch?”

“You don’t have a monopoly on being the neighborhood watch, Scarlett,” said Wilbur. “Anyone can start a neighborhood watch. That’s the point of a neighborhood watch. Concerned citizens looking out for each other.”

“And since you refused to allow us back on your watch,” said Father Reilly, “we just figured we’d start our own watch.”

“You can never have too many watches,” Wilbur chimed in, then pushed the can of mace out of his face. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you? You knew it was us and you decided to get rid of the competition. Wreck our car and wreck us!”

“I told you, Wilbur,” said Father Reilly. “Vesta and Scarlett aren’t the competition. We’re all in this together, working together to keep the streets of Hampton Cove safe from the kind of criminal vermin we don’t like to see crawling out of the gutters.”

“Then why did they attack us, huh? Tell me that!”

“We didn’t attack you,” said Vesta. “We thought you were the Hampton Heisters.”

“And we thoughtyou were the Hampton Heisters!” said Wilbur.

“Oh, jeez,” said Scarlett.

“Please don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, Scarlett,” said Father Reilly.

“I think I liked it better when we were working together,” said Wilbur, gingerly touching his forehead.

“Okay, I want you both to go home and stop this nonsense,” said Vesta, putting her can of mace away.

“And I wantyou to go home and stop this nonsense,” said Wilbur with a touch of belligerence.

“Look, we are the official Hampton Cove neighborhood watch. So I’m telling you to cease and desist now. That’s an order.”

“You cease and desist!”

“I’m not telling you twice, Wilbur.”

“You already told him twice,” Scarlett pointed out.