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  She was still obsessing when Amy came down the stairs in her baby-doll pajamas, looking a lot like she had when she was ten. She sat in the chair across from Sophie and drew her knees up to her chin.

  “We need a love scene,” Amy said. “Clea wants one.”

  “A love scene.” She should have figured on that, it was so like Clea. Sophie gave the wallpaper a dirty look in place of Clea. “I can’t write a love scene. Especially not with those damn things staring at me.”

  “You cannot blame writer’s block on giant mutant cherries,” Amy began. Then she stopped, and said, “Oh. Cherries.”

  “What?” Sophie said, and Amy said, “You know. Cherries. And Chet.”

  “Chad,” Sophie said, but she sat back, a little jolted. “I’m sure that’s not it.” She should ask Brandon. He knew everything about her subconscious. She frowned at the wall phone. She should have called Brandon before now, but she kept forgetting him.

  Amy shifted uneasily. “Clea’s decided that Rob is the love interest. She says it’s better for what she has in mind.”

  “I bet it is.” Sophie thought about it and nodded. “So she comes back to meet her old boyfriend and falls for his son. Lot of conflict there.” She thought it through. “Oh, hell, a lot of conflict there. Frank’s going to have a fit.”

  “If we do this right, he’ll never know,” Amy said. “Just write a nice seduction scene, and we can finish this up.”

  Sophie sat up and tapped her PowerBook out of sleep mode. “Who seduces who?”

  “Are you kidding? Clea’s an old-fashioned girl. He seduces her.”

  “So we’re not doing a documentary.” Sophie began to type in the scene log line, and Amy jerked away and stood up. “Hello?” Sophie said. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Amy said.

  Sophie pointed at the chair. “Sit.”

  Amy sat, her feet on the floor this time.

  “I’ve been very patient,” Sophie told her, “but there’s something you’re not telling me which is dumb because you know I’ll stand behind you no matter what you want. What are you doing?”

  “I’m making a documentary,” Amy said.

  Sophie sat back. “You’re making a documentary about Clea coming home to Temptation?”

  “No, I’m making a movie of that. I’m making a documentary about making the movie.” Amy leaned forward. “This is so cool, Soph. I didn’t want to tell you because I wanted you to be natural in the footage—”

  Footage? “Wait a minute.”

  “—but you wouldn’t believe how great this is already. That virginity stuff we talked about last night came out great—well, a little dark, but very moody with Clea all lit by those candles, and I can use the stuff she said as a voice-over—”

  “Amy!”

  Amy stopped and Sophie reminded herself to be supportive. “You filmed me on the porch last night?”

  “All of us,” Amy said. “I set up the camera in the bushes. It’s good stuff, Soph. And then today I interviewed Frank and got him to talk to the camera and he really comes across as the butthead he is.”

  “Is that fair? Did he realize—”

  “He knew he was on camera. He signed a release. And we’re going to have so much stuff to cut together, it’s going to be great.”

  Sophie leaned forward. “Amy, you’re conning these people. They’re signing releases because they think they’ll look great, and you’re—”

  “I’m not conning them,” Amy said, indignant. “And even if I am, I’m not taking anybody’s money. I’m just filming what they say. I’m not changing their words. I’m just getting what I want.”

  “You have to think about other people,” Sophie said, and Amy said, “No, that was you and Mama, trying to save everybody. Davy and Daddy and I, we know you can’t save anybody so you might as well take care of yourself. And I’m not hurting anybody here. They all want to be in this movie.”

  She was so much like their father —all redheaded innocence, suckering people in with the Dempsey smile— maintaining to the end that it wasn’t his fault if they trusted him, and that he never, ever lied.

  But everybody he met lost something to him, just the same.

  “Sophie, this is real filmmaking,” Amy said, leaning closer, radiating sincerity. “Doing the wedding videos has been great, but it’s been seven years, and I’ve learned everything I can from them. This is what I want to do now. This is my chance to get out. Maybe the only chance I’ll get.”

  Amy’s heart was in her eyes, and Sophie took a deep breath and thought, I knew she’d get tired of those dumb weddings someday. The thought of Amy leaving was painful, life without her was almost unimaginable, but the thought of her staying when she wanted to go was worse.

  “I want to cut the documentary and go to L.A. and use it to get work there,” Amy was saying. She looked as if she were holding her breath waiting for Sophie to say something.

  Are you out of your mind? wouldn’t seem supportive. “L.A.‘s a tough town.”

  “I know.” Amy bobbed her head up and down, eager to agree. “But Davy’s out there. He can help me. It’s his turn anyway.” Her smile faded. “So what happens to you, now that I’m leaving?”

  Sophie shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to think about what I want for a change.” After I get finished worrying about you.

  “Don’t you have any dreams?” Amy said. “Isn’t there something—”

  “No,” Sophie said. When she thought about it, it was sad. Thirty-two years old, and she had no idea what she wanted from life. She thought of Phin on the back porch. Maybe his question hadn’t been so smart-assed after all.

  “Are you going to sell the business?” Amy said.

  “Probably,” Sophie said.

  “Can I have half?”

  Sophie blinked at her. “Of course. What were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking you needed the money more,” Amy said. “I’m going to have a career. You’re sort of stuck.”

  Ouch. “Take half the money,” Sophie said. “I can get myself unstuck.”

  “Thank you,” Amy said. “I mean it. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” Sophie said. “Now get some sleep.”

  Amy stood up, hesitating as if there was something else, and then she bent and wrapped her arms around Sophie’s neck.

  “I love you so much, Soph,” she whispered.

  “I love you, too, Ame,” Sophie said, patting her arm as she tried to breathe. That’s the only reason I’m letting you go.

  When Amy had gone upstairs, Sophie sat back and thought about her future. She wasn’t worried; smart, organized people who worked hard always found jobs. But she didn’t want a job, she wanted what Amy had, a career that fulfilled her.

  It occurred to her that the reason she’d never figured out what she wanted to be was that she’d spent so much time concentrating on what she didn’t want to be: a Dempsey. She let herself think about doing what Davy did, conning slightly crooked rich people out of their shady gains, but it held no appeal. Well, that was good. But maybe if she opened her mind, she could channel the Dempsey genes into something productive and fun, like Amy had, getting people’s weak spots on film.

  Maybe if she just opened herself to life, she could have fun. There must be something in her life that was recreational. She thought of the mayor, smiling lazily at her, detached and undemanding and her pulse kicked up. He’d be fun.

  It was a dangerous thought, so she only entertained it for one rebellious minute before straightening herself out and heading up the stairs to bed, the dog on her heels.

  The last thing she needed was the mayor.

  On Friday, Phin’s hassles started early.

  First his mother gave him grief at breakfast because he’d been out to the Whipple farm twice.

  “Associating with those movie people can do you no good,” Liz had told him across the white linen expanse of her dining-room table. “Stephen has mentioned it to me several times alre
ady. Don’t give him any leverage, Phin.”

  “What’s ‘associating’?” Dillie said around a mouthful of bran muffin.

  “Hanging out with,” Phin told her.

  “Do not talk with your mouth full,” Liz told her. “It’s rude and disgusting.” She transferred her attention back to Phin. “Don’t go out to that farm again.” She didn’t add, “It’s rude and disgusting,” but the implication was clear.

  “I did not associate,” Phin said as he buttered Dillie another muffin. “I went out on Wednesday with Wes to see about the accident, and I went back yesterday because Wes roped me into looking at their electricity.” Liz started to say something, and he added, “And I would also like to point out that I’m over twenty-one, so you can stop hassling me about my peer group. Talk to Dillie about this Jamie Barclay. I have grave doubts about Jamie Barclay.” He grinned at Dillie and handed her the muffin.

  “Jamie Barclay is an excellent person,” Dillie said, taking it. “I should associate with her.”

  “Jamie’s stepfather is the new vice president at the Third National,” Liz said. “Her mother joined the Ladies’ Club and is very nice. Dillie is allowed to associate.” She smiled at Dillie and leaned forward to wipe the butter off her granddaughter’s chin. “You missed your mouth,” she told her, and Dillie grinned back. Then Liz turned back to Phin. “Now about these movie people—”

  “I have to go to the bookstore now.” Phin pushed back from the table. He kissed Dillie on the top of the head and said, “Behave,” but Liz followed him out onto the broad front porch before he could escape.

  “I didn’t want to discuss this in front of Dillie,” she said, “but I know you and women. It’s one thing for you to conduct most of your liaisons out of town, another thing to do it here with a woman we know nothing—”

  “ ‘Liaisons’?” Phin turned around, incredulous. “I replaced a fucking fuse, for Christ’s sake.” Okay, he’d lusted after a hostile woman, too, but he hadn’t done anything about it.

  “Don’t look so outraged,” Liz said. “I know you, and I worry about you. It’s past time you settled down. Dillie needs a mother, and I want to see you married to a decent woman this time. You’re almost forty, Phin.”

  “I’m thirty-six,” Phin said. “And I have no intention of getting married again, and if I did, it wouldn’t be to Rachel Garvey, which I know is where you’re going with this. Which reminds me, stop talking about Rachel in front of Dillie. You’re upsetting her.”

  “I never said anything to Dillie,” Liz said.

  “Well, she has big ears, and she’s not stupid. Just forget the whole Rachel idea.” He shook his head at her. “What is it with you lately? You never used to be this nuts.”

  “I think you should get married before the election,” Liz said. “Weddings are popular. And—”

  “Have you been hitting the cooking sherry?”

  Liz stopped, two spots of color high on her cheeks. “Phineas Tucker, that is no way to talk to your mother.”

  “Well, this is no way to talk to your son.” Phin met her eyes, and she had the grace to flush. “Have you listened to yourself? You want me to marry a woman I don’t love so you can win the next election and get a grandson to win the one that’ll come up thirty years from now.”

  Liz’s blush deepened. “If you’d find somebody acceptable on your own, I wouldn’t interfere. But I don’t see the problem. You like Rachel, she’s a lovely girl, she’s very intelligent, and she’s wonderful with Dillie.”

  “Dillie doesn’t think so, and Rachel has no more interest in marrying me than I do her, so knock it off.”

  “Rachel’s mother says she does.” Liz moved in for the kill. “She says Rachel is shy, but she cares about you.”

  “Rachel is shy?” Phin laughed. “Rachel is a barracuda. And she does not want to marry me. If I know Rachel, what she wants is to get away from Virginia and Stephen.”

  “Nonsense,” Liz said. “Rachel is very close to her parents.”

  “That’s why she wants to get away.” Phin turned to go down the Hill. “I’m going to work now. Try to regain your sanity before I come home.”

  “I just want what’s best for you,” Liz called after him.

  “The words every son hates to hear,” he called back.

  It was a good thing he loved his mother, he thought, as he walked down the Hill to the bookstore. If he didn’t, he’d have put her in a home for the politically deranged long ago. The problem was, she’d bought too far into the Tucker legacy. His dad had been hipped on it, but that was at least understandable since he’d been raised with a box of Tucker for Mayor: More of the Same posters as a booster seat. But Liz was a Yarnell. Hill people. She should have had some proportion on politics.

  Except that she’d loved his father so very much. Phin slowed a little as he remembered them together, so wrapped up in each other and politics that they’d almost forgotten they had a son. He could remember a few times he’d had his parents’ full attention —like the day he’d told his kindergarten class he wanted to be a fireman; they’d spent hours with him that afternoon— but mostly it had been the two of them, together against the world.

  And now she was alone. He turned to look back at her and was distracted by the water tower, thrusting through the trees behind the houses.

  It was bright, bright red.

  “Oh, Christ,” he said, and walked faster to the bookstore to find out what had gone wrong this time.

  Chapter Four

  “It looks like the Whore of Babylon,” Phin told Wes later that afternoon as they sat on the bookstore porch at closing time.

  Wes said, “You should hear Stephen. He came into the station and told me Hildy had conspired with the Coreys to humiliate him.”

  “Yeah, I can see Hildy meeting two high school kids in a dark alley just to give Stephen heart failure.” Phin sighed. “Which, unfortunately, he didn’t have.”

  “Hey,” Wes said. “I told you. No death.”

  “I don’t want him to die,” Phin said. “I just want him sick enough to resign from the council and take his rubber stamp of a wife with him. He’s still trying to block the new streetlights because they’re too expensive.”

  “He’ll resign when they pry his cold dead hands from around his campaign posters,” Wes said. “Which will now read, Paint the Water Tower White and Buy Cheaper Streetlights.”

  “Forget the campaign,” Phin said. “Tell me something new.”

  “I watched Amy’s tape,” Wes said, and the way he said it made Phin pay attention. “There were a couple of interesting things on it.”

  “I don’t need any more suspense in my life,” Phin said.

  “The Garveys ran their stop sign, too,” Wes said. “Clear as day on the tape; they didn’t even do a rolling stop, just went right through.”

  “And they hit the Dempseys, so Sophie had the right of way,” Phin said. “Although they both ran the signs, so fry them both, that’s my advice.”

  “Well, there’s one other thing,” Wes said. “Stephen wasn’t driving, Virginia was.”

  Phin frowned at him. “Why would they lie about a thing like that?”

  “Don’t know,” Wes said. “I’m looking into it. But it’s interesting, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t want ‘interesting,’ ” Phin said. “I want boring and calm.” He looked away from Wes and caught sight of the water tower again, glowing like a blood-red bullet in the sun. “Why did the Coreys paint the tower red, anyway? I couldn’t find them to get any answers.”

  “They’re out painting the Whipple farmhouse,” Wes said. “And they painted it red because Stephen gave them the cheap stuff the school buys in bulk for the athletic department, and the white wouldn’t cover.”

  Phin leaned back in his chair and put his feet on the porch rail. “You know, I think I like it red. Perks the place right up. And it annoys Stephen. I can’t see a downside here.”

  “Amy and Sophie are perking the place up,
too,” Wes said, and Phin kept his face expressionless.

  “Yeah, my mother thinks so. Have you got anything out of Amy yet?”

  “I’m biding my time,” Wes said.