Welcome to Temptation/Bet Me Read online

  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 her 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.”

  “There is no kind of people that includes you and me,” Liz said. “I always said Stephen married beneath him.”

  Virginia went white, only two spots of color high on her cheeks.

  “Did you push Diane?” Liz said.

  Virginia drew herself up. “If I had, it would have been just what she deserved, grabbing your son like that, ruining his life. If I had, you should be thanking me now. But I didn’t. Nobody pushed her. She was a slutty little drunk who fell down her own steps.”

  “Here’s what I know,” Liz said. “I know you took my husband’s gun from my house because you’re the only one who visited me there. I know you put it in Sophie’s bed because you started the gossip that it had been found. I know you know the farm and could have frayed that wire in the fuse box with no trouble at all.”

  “That’s not proof,” Virginia said. “You don’t have any proof because I didn’t do anything.”

  “I know you were out there watching with Stephen the night Sophie was pushed in the river,” Liz said. “You wouldn’t miss something like that. Sophie saw Stephen right before she was pushed—so it couldn’t have been him—so you pushed her in, and when that didn’t work, you stole my gun and put it in her bed, and when that didn’t work you tried to electrocute her. You are dumb as a rock, Virginia, but what I still don’t know is if you shot that man.”

  “He met somebody on the river path,” Sophie said. “Wes got that far: that Zane had an appointment to meet somebody behind the Garvey house.”

  “He was trying to blackmail all of us,” Hildy said, helpfully. “He must have had something on her.”

  “He had a file on Diane’s death,” Liz said. “He brought it to me and tried to convince me she’d been murdered. He said if we didn’t stop the video, he’d do a human-interest piece on it, investigate it, solve the mystery, create a scandal. Except I didn’t push Diane, and neither did my son, so I sent him away.”

  “My God,” Sophie said, watching Virginia’s face. “You did push Diane.”

  “You just shut up,” Virginia said. “You’re just like her, but I did not push her.”

  “You met him on the path because he was trying to blackmail you, and you shot him,” Liz said. “How did you get him to the farm dock? He would have been heavy. Unless . . .” Liz frowned in thought. “Unless you convinced him to let you take him home.” She nodded. “That was it, wasn’t it? You told him you’d take care of him and you rowed him across the river, and when he got out onto the dock on his own, then you shot him. You mothered him to death. That would be like you. And you got Stephen to cover your car accidents