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  “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, and me to harass my son about Sophie for you, so you could certainly get that stupid man to travel to his own death.”

  “You shot him from a boat?” Hildy looked at Virginia with disgust. “That’s why you missed at close range and why the angle was so off. You shot him while you were standing in a boat. What kind of idiot are you?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Virginia said. “But I want you to know I’m deeply hurt by this. And I’m leaving.”

  She looked deeply enraged, to Sophie.

  “Of course, we can’t prove any of this,” Hildy said gloomily to Liz, as Virginia reached past her to tug at the door.

  She’s going to get away with it, Sophie thought, and then she saw Liz smile her cobra smile.

  “We don’t have to prove it,” Liz said. “We’ll just talk.”

  “What?” Hildy frowned, and then brightened. “Oh. Yes. We will. We’ll talk a lot, Virginia.”

  Oh, excellent, Sophie thought.

  Virginia stopped tugging on the door.

  “About how much you hate Sophie,” Hildy went on happily. “About how you don’t have an alibi for the shooting.” Hildy let her eyes slide to Virginia’s face. “About how Rachel ran to L.A. to get away from you.”

  Virginia’s face went red. “She didn’t. Rachel and I are very close. And—”

  “We’ll tell everybody what a lousy mother you are,” Hildy said. “We don’t have to take you to Wes. We’re taking care of this ourselves.”

  “Unless,” Liz said.

  Virginia turned to her, seething.

  “At the council meeting today,” Liz said. “We’re going to be watching your vote very closely.”

  “You can’t—” Virginia began again.

  “Yes, we can.” Hildy was practically bouncing on her toes now. “One wrong vote and we hit the phones. And people will listen. They always listen, don’t they, Virginia?”

  Virginia eyes darted from Hildy to Liz. She looked like a trapped mink, and Sophie would have felt sorry for her if she hadn’t been such a miserable excuse for a human being.

  “Cross me again and I’ll destroy you,” Liz said to Virginia. “Don’t ever come after my family again.”

  “I didn’t—” Virginia said.

  “And that includes Sophie,” Liz said.

  Sophie felt a catch in the back of her throat.

  “Right, that’s the other part of the deal,” Hildy was saying. “You have to stop trying to kill Sophie. She gets a hangnail, and we pick up the phone.”

  Virginia drew a deep breath in through her teeth and looked at Sophie like death.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Liz Tucker said. “You touch her, you say one word against her, and I’ll bring you so low not even Junie Martin will give you the time of day.”

  “Jeez,” Sophie said.

  Liz looked at Sophie for the first time since they’d arrived. “Don’t ever cross a Tucker.”

  “No ma’am,” Sophie said.

  The council hall was full by the time Phin got there, and the crowd was clearly not a happy one, but only Ed and Frank sat at the council table.

  Amy and Sophie came in and sat down in the front row.

  “ ‘This isn’t the junior chamber of commerce, Brad,’ ” Sophie said to Amy.

  Amy nodded, looking around at the marble and walnut. “ ‘Thank goodness we’re in a bowling alley.’ ”

  Nervous, Phin thought, and couldn’t blame them.

  Sophie turned and saw him. She stuck her chin out, and he thought, Oh, good, still frosty. Then Stephen and Virginia came in followed by Hildy and Liz, and he ignored Sophie to concentrate on the problem at hand.

  Stephen looked fat with satisfaction as he stopped to shake hands and nod to the populace, but Virginia looked tense and mad as hell. Hildy detoured around them and plopped down in the seat across from Phin. “ ‘Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night,’ ” she said, but she didn’t look nervous at all.

  “What are you up to?” he said, and she beamed and said, “Oh, I’m going to enjoy this.”

  Phin frowned at her, but then his mother sat down and shook his concentration. She had that look in her eye, the one she got right before she mutilated somebody: implacable will mixed with certainty of triumph.

  “Mom?” he said, and she shook her head and said, “It’s all right, Phin,” and he sat back, wary as hell.

  “All right,” Phin said. “Now all we need is Rachel and we can get started. Where—”

  “She’s gone,” Virginia said through her teeth, and Stephen looked at her, startled. “That woman—” She broke off as Hildy leaned forward and met her eyes. “She’s not here.”

  “Okay.” Phin nodded to Hildy. “Keep, the minutes, please.”

  “Of course,” Hildy said. “Although I’m only going to write down the intelligent things, so if anybody here was going to make a stupid speech, he can forget about getting it into the record.”

  “Hildy,” Phin said, and Stephen said, “I don’t need the record. I’ve got the whole town here, or most of it. And the ones that aren’t here will hear about it later.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Hildy said, and Phin wondered what the hell was happening under his nose. Besides his political ruin.

  “The first item of business,” Phin said, when they were all settled and the crowd ha