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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