Victoria Hart had on occasion been called "Tricky Vicky" in the Trenton press because she often employed unorthodox legal strategy to achieve courtroom success. Prosecuting Joe Rina, a frequent star of Hard Copy, without a complainant got her a lot of ink that she would have rather done without.

Victoria anxiously looked out the car's rear window. "Are we clear?" she said to her State Police driver, who had a weight-lifter's neck that widened like a cobra's hood at the trapezius muscle.

"I'm gonna take one more precaution, but I don't see anyone back there," he said, then slammed down the accelerator and made an abrupt turn through a darkened gas station… shot down an unlit narrow alley, turned left onto a residential street, swung a quick U, then parked and switched off his headlights. Nobody followed. Victoria knew the precautions were necessary, but after two weeks, they were getting damned tiresome.

The car they were in had been selected moments before from a line of fifty plain-blue police sedans in the State Police Motor Pool. This was in an effort to defeat any tracking devices that might get placed if Victoria used the same vehicle more than once. She suspected Joseph Rina would go to any lengths, including murder, to shut down the case against him. The trial was scheduled to start in two days and Victoria had been making nightly visits to her hidden witness to prepare her for testimony.

Victoria' notes for the first day in court were scribbled in her obsessively neat handwriting on a yellow legal pad in her briefcase. She had her opening argument down pat. She was going to give the jury a tour through the graveyard of Rina Mafia tyranny. It would be a morbid history lesson, and she hoped it would redefine that handsome little shit with the perfect white teeth and wavy black hair.