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  “Phin isn’t going to fix anything for me,” Sophie said. “And I was the only living Dempsey who’d never been in jail.”

  “Dad will be so proud,” Amy said.

  “There’s a comfort,” Sophie said, and rocked for a minute. “Phin said something else. He said Stephen wasn’t the one who pushed me.”

  “And he got this information how?”

  Sophie shook her head. “I don’t know, but he was sure. And he hates Stephen so if he could have pinned it on him, he would have. So who did?”

  “This doesn’t make sense,” Amy said. “I’d bet money Stephen switched the tapes. If he was out to get you—”

  “Why would he be out to get me?” Sophie said. “Phin’s the one in his way.”

  Amy stopped swinging. “So it really was somebody else?”

  “Whoever it was, pushed me really hard,” Sophie said slowly. “And then watched me fall into that river and get swept away. Somebody really had to hate me to do that. So who was it?”

  “ ‘We all go a little mad sometimes,’ ” Amy said.

  Sophie thought about Liz and Phin and Dillie, trapped together, tearing each other apart. “That has to end,” she said. “I have to at least fix that before I go.”

  “You’re not going to go see her, are you?” Amy said.

  “I have to,” Sophie said. “She’s trying to kill me.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  At noon the next day, Phin watched Wes climb the steps to the bookstore. “Good, it’s you. I couldn’t take one more person telling me how disappointed they were in me, what a loss I am as mayor to have let that happened, or how delighted they’ll be not to vote for me in November. It’s been a real stampede in here.” He rubbed his neck. “And not one of them bought a book.”

  Wes sat down in his chair and put his feet on the rail. “So it’s all over, huh?”

  “Looks that way,” Phin said. “I’ve still got six weeks before the election, but this is the kind of thing that sticks in people’s minds.”

  “Yeah.” Wes nodded sadly. “So how’s Sophie?”

  “Furious,” Phin said, trying to sound detached about it. “She’s decided it’s my fault.” He shrugged. “It’s better this way. If I’d talked her around, I’d have had to listen to Dusty Springfield every day for the rest of my life.”

  “Yeah, and there’d have been all that sex, too,” Wes said. “That would have gotten old.”

  “You can shut up anytime now,” Phin said.

  “And she could kick your ass at pool, too,” Wes said.

  “So, Amy still going to L.A.?”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Wes said.

  “We did real well, didn’t we?” Phin said, giving up on detached. “Christ, I haven’t seen a crash-and-burn like this since ...” He shook his head at the sky. “I’ve never seen a crash-and-burn like this. We’re good.”

  “Finest kind.” Wes stood up, letting the legs of his chair hit the porch floor with a thud. “However, unlike you, I am not a quitter. I don’t have a plan, but I’m not a quitter.”

  “I’m not a quitter,” Phin said. “I just have no interest in going out there and having Sophie slam the door in my face to ‘All Cried Out,’ shortly followed by Davy trying to beat me up.”

  “He’s gone,” Wes said. “Hit the airport last night and flew to the Bahamas.”

  Phin straightened a little. “Did he, now?”

  “Yep.” Wes went down the steps. “So did Clea.”

  “And you let them go?”

  “I can get ‘em if I want ’em. I think they’re both guilty as hell, but I can’t figure out what they did. So I’m not sure I want them.”

  “But you want Amy,” Phin said.

  “I’ll get Amy.” Wes started down the street and then stopped and came back a couple of steps. “Almost forgot. The ballistics report came back. Zane’s bullet did not come from your dad’s gun.”

  Phin let his breath out. “Finally, something goes my way.” Then he frowned. “So my mother used the gun to frame Sophie, not caring that the ballistics test would trip her up? That doesn’t make sense. She’s nuts but she’s not. stupid.”

  “I think the real gun’s in the river,” Wes said. “Everything about this yahoo so far says he’s impulsive. It would make sense at the time for him to drop the gun in the water after he shot Zane. And with the current the way it’s been, I don’t think we’re going to find it. If that’s true, and somebody decided to frame Sophie as an afterthought, he’d have to get another gun. And if all he wanted to do was start gossip about Sophie he wouldn’t care about the ballistics report.”

  “Or she.”

  Wes shrugged. “God knows, our women are as nuts as our men. Which reminds me, looked at the water tower lately?”

  “The water tower?” Phin went down the steps to look up the Hill. “Oh. Nice.”

  The rain had done its work, washing off the bloody streaks of Stephen’s cheap paint, but, as the Coreys had told him, red stains. It was flesh again, but it was a rosy flesh, a glowing flesh, round and full above the trees. Only, the catwalk at the top was still red. “A lipstick with a nipple,” Sophie had said, but now it didn’t look like a lipstick anymore.

  “I like this even better,” Wes said. “It’s friendlier. And God knows I could use some ‘friendly’.”

  “Stephen’s really going to hate this,” Phin said.

  “Yeah,” Wes said as he started back up the street. “It’s going to be some council meeting. See you there.”

  Phin thought about the meeting and his neck tightened even more. Stephen would be after his butt, his mother would be even more homicidal over the tarnished Tucker legacy, the entire population would want him barbecued for contributing to the delinquency of their minors, and Hildy would ignore it all to protect her new mammary water tower.

  And after all of that, Sophie wouldn’t give him the time of day because he was a dickhead town boy.

  She’s a fucking nutcase, he told himself, and concentrated on the stuff that mattered in his life.

  He was going to lose the election to that moron Stephen in six weeks, there was something to look forward to. His dad at least had gone down over the New Bridge, something civic. He was going down over a porn flick. And if he hadn’t gone down in the first place, he wouldn’t be in this mess. The devil’s candy, and he’d bit. He closed his eyes against the memory. “ ‘I coulda been a contendah,’ ” he said, to nobody in particular, and then walked back up the steps to the bookstore.

  “Wait a minute,” his mother called from the street, and he turned as she reached at the bottom of the steps. “I’m on my way to Hildy’s but I want to talk to you first.”

  “Oh, good,” Phin said, and sat down.

  “I realize we’ve had problems,” Liz said, as she came up the steps. “But that’s all behind us now that you’re not going to see that woman again. Things are bad right now, but we have six weeks and if you stay away—”

  “Mom, we’re going to lose.”

  “We are not going to lose,” Liz said. “Tuckers do not lose, we’re not going to lose, I’m not going to lose you, we’re going to—”

  “What are you talking about?” Phin said. “You—” He stopped as what she’d said registered. “Fuck. That’s what this is about?”

  “Watch your language,” Liz said. “Everything is—”

  “Mom, You’re not going to lose me,” Phin said. “I’m not going to die if I don’t win. My heart is fine, and even more important, I don’t give a damn about being mayor. I care about winning, but not about being mayor. I’m not going to die if I lose.”

  “Well, of course you’re not going to die,” Liz said, but her voice shook a little. “Of course not. Now, we’ll get everything back to normal. Dillie will forget, and you’ll be reelected, things will be just the same. I think you were right about not getting married again, I won’t bring it up anymore, we’ll just go back to the way we were.” She smiled at him, fiercely cheerful. “Just
the three of us again.”

  Just the three of them. Trapped and frozen in the house on the Hill.

  “No,” Phin said, and Liz’s smile evaporated and the cobra came back.

  “Listen to me. I know you’re blinded by your hormones on this, but will you just look at where this woman has left you?”

  Phin nodded. “With nothing. She destroyed my life.”

  “Exactly.” Liz bit off her words. “But we can get it back again. We—”

  “Why the hell would I want to do that?” Phin shook his head at her startled face. “My life was a fucking wasteland; all Sophie did was clear the brush.”

  “What are you talking about?” Liz said.

  “I don’t want to be mayor,” Phin said. “I never wanted to be mayor. I’ll fight for the office this one last time, but don’t expect me to give anything more for the Tucker legacy. I’ve already given too damn much for it.”

  “This is all because of that woman.” Liz looked as if she were about to hyperventilate.

  “Yep.” No more mayor, he thought, and felt wonderful. No more council meetings, no more wrongheaded citizenry, no more fights over streetlights and bridges, just books and Dillie and pool.

  And Sophie. The tension seeped from his muscles and he relaxed. Thank God for Sophie and her stupid fucking movie.

  “She’s corrupted you,” Liz said, almost spitting in her frustration. “She’s—”

  “Well, it runs in her family,” Phin said. “The rest of your grandchildren are going to be half-degenerate.”

  Liz froze.

  Phin nodded at her sympathetically. “Yeah, I have to marry her. I’m sorry, Mom. I know this wasn’t what you had planned. Any last words before you disown me?”

  Liz swallowed and put on her Let’s-be-reasonable-or-I’ll-kill-you face. “You can’t possibly be serious about marrying her. She’s a known pornographer.”

  Phin nodded. “She beat me at pool, too.”

  “Oh, dear God,” Liz said, and sat down on the step.

  Sophie waited in front of the courthouse until Liz came into view. Then she got out of the car and said, “I need to talk to you.”

  Liz kept on walking. “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “Then I’ll go to Wes,” Sophie said. “He’ll keep it quiet, but it would still be better if we just talked here. You know how this town finds out everything.”

  Liz stood very still for a long minute, her jaw clenched as she stared at Sophie. “In the car,” she said finally. “I’d rather people didn’t see us together.”

  Sophie nodded and got back in the car.

  “Talk,” Liz said, when she was in the car.

  “I want you to stop trying to kill me,” Sophie said, and Liz lost her frozen expression.

  “What?”

  “Somebody’s been trying to kill me. And you’re the only one in this town who hates me enough to do that.”

  Liz reached for the door. “That’s ridic—”

  “I understand. I’d do almost anything to protect my family, too. You want the best for Phin and Dillie, and I’m not it, and that’s all right because I’m leaving.” Sophie leaned forward, projecting sincerity and sanity. “But you have to stop attacking people, Mrs. Tucker. I think you should get help. I know a wonderful therapist in Cincinnati who is very discreet.” Liz gaped at her, and Sophie said, “Look, I’m leaving, but sooner or later somebody else is going to get in your way, and this isn’t a good method for handling it.”

  Liz found her voice. “You really think I’d try to kill you?”

  “I think you’d do anything to protect Phin and win the election,” Sophie said. “I’m not sure which you think is more important, and I don’t like that part of you, but I can understand protecting Phin. Just not that way.”

  Liz sat back. “Exactly what’s been happening to you?”

  “Mrs. Tucker—”

  “I didn’t try to kill you.” Liz’s voice was so dry and matter-of-fact that Sophie began to have second thoughts. “If I’d wanted to hurt you, I have other ways. I’d never put my family in jeopardy by breaking the law.”

  “Oh,” Sophie said. -

  “What happened?” Liz repeated, and Sophie hesitated and then told her about the river and the gun under the bed and the gossip and the electricity. “And you thought I’d be that stupid?” Liz said when she was finished. “To try to kill you that sloppily?”

  “I knew you hated me that much,” Sophie said uncertainly. “I didn’t think about stupid.”

  “Whoever’s doing this isn’t thinking it through,” Liz said. “He’s stupid and impulsive.”

  “Stephen Garvey,” Sophie said. “But he doesn’t have a reason.”

  “Stephen wouldn’t try to electrocute you.” Liz stared into the distance, frowning. “He might push you in a rage, but he wouldn’t plan to kill you. He’s not insane.”

  “Well, nobody else hates me except for you and him,” Sophie said. “I’m generally well-liked. Really.”

  The silence stretched out, and then Liz said, “No, there’s somebody else who hates you.”

  Sophie swallowed. “Oh?”

  “Do you know where Hildy Mallow lives?” Liz asked her. “Drive there.”

  “The Garveys will be here any minute,” Hildy told them when they were sitting on her couch. “I still think this should wait until after the council meeting. Have you seen the water tower? There’s so much—”

  Her doorbell chimed, and Liz said, “Get it. We do this now.” She sounded like Phin, and Sophie wasn’t at all surprised when Hildy shut up and went.

  Virginia Garvey came in, and Sophie could see past her to Hildy’s porch, where Stephen checked his watch, bouncing on his heels in anticipation of his greatest council meeting ever. Virginia said, “Are you ready, Hildy? We’re running a little—” and stopped dead when she saw Sophie. “What is she doing here?”

  “Shut the door, Hildy,” Liz said, and Hildy did, keeping her back against it. “Virginia, did you push Sophie into the river?”

  “Liz!” Virginia looked outraged. “What a thing to—”

  “I’ll be damned,” Hildy said. “Of course you did. It would be just like you. Impulsive and dumb as a rock. What did she do, wear white shoes after Labor Day?”

  Sophie looked down at her white Keds and pulled her feet back a little.

  “Hildy!” Virginia turned from one woman to the other. “This is ridiculous. I don’t have to stand here—”

  “Actually, you do,” Liz said. “You tried to kill Sophie. Twice.” The disgust in her voice was plain, and Virginia whipped her head around as if she’d been struck on the raw.

  “Don’t you defend her,” she said. “You’re on my side. You know what she is. If it hadn’t been for her, Rachel would be married to Phin—”

  “Phin is never going to marry Rachel,” Liz said.

  “Rachel was going to marry him until she showed up,” Virginia said. “She’s the one who introduced Rachel to that man who told her he’d find her a job in Los Angeles.” The way Virginia spit the words out, she might have been saying, “Gomorrah,” which was fair, Sophie thought. “She’s the one who seduced Phin away from Rachel.”

  “I swear to God, he seduced me,” Sophie said.

  “You think it’s funny.” Virginia took a step forward, and Sophie sank back a little into the sofa cushions. “You ruined my baby’s life. I made sure Phin coached her at Softball, I made sure she baby-sat his daughter, I made sure she got a job on the council, I made sure he was going to marry her.”

  “Oh, Christ,” Liz said. “Virginia.”

  “And then you come in and you take Phin and you tell Rachel she should leave, and she does.” Virginia shook with rage. “She called me. She’s in California. And it’s all your fault.”

  Virginia was breathing hard now, and Sophie tensed to duck if she came after her, no longer doubting that Virginia was the one who’d shoved her into the river.

  Virginia would have shoved he
r into Hell if she could have.

  Then Virginia got a grip. “But I didn’t try to kill her,” she said to Liz, with a tense little laugh. “That would be ... insane.”

  “Exactly,” Liz said.

  Virginia laughed again, buddies. “Liz, our kind of people don’t do that kind of thing.”