“I can ask them,” Amy said from behind her. “I want plumbing that works and electricity that won’t kill me.”
Sophie tried to keep the exasperation off her face but the mayor must have seen it anyway because he grinned at her, a real smile this time, and she thought, Of course you’d be gorgeous.
“We’ll be back tomorrow,” he said, straightening away from the porch post, and all Sophie could say was, “Thank you.”
When they were gone, Sophie turned to Amy. “Let’s review the plan. It’s going to be just the three of us and we’re not going to attract attention.”
“You know there’s such a thing as being too cautious,” Amy said. “We need the plumbing and electricity fixed and they’ll do it for free.”
“The hell they will,” Sophie said, thinking of the mayor. “We’ll pay one way or another.”
“And I don’t care what you say,” Amy went on. “The mayor is hot.”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t hot.” Sophie stood up and let the swing bounce behind her. “I said we were going to stay away from him. He’s trouble, it’s in his eyes. He’s a hard mark.”
“I bet he is,” Amy said.
“Will you concentrate? We stay away from the mayor.”
“Yes, but will the mayor stay away from us?” Amy said.
“God, I hope so,” Sophie said, licking her lip as it started to bleed again, pretty sure she meant it.
Phin sat in the passenger seat of the squad car and considered running the Dempsey sisters out of town on a rail. He had no legal grounds, of course, but it was his job to ensure the peace, and he had a feeling that getting rid of the Dempseys would be a good start, even if it was only for his peace. There was something wrong there.
Besides the brunette’s lush, red, swollen lip.
He shook his head to get rid of the image and Wes said, “What?”
“The brunette. She bothers me. Why is she so tense?”
“That’s not why she bothers you.”
Phin ignored him. “The way she twisted her rings, I thought her fingers were going to fall off. And then she turned on the charm. She’d have had me, too, if she hadn’t been so abrupt about it.”
“She had you anyway,” Wes said. “Her name’s Sophie. I like her, but it is hard to believe she’s Amy’s sister.”
“Amy’s a hot little number.” Sophie hadn’t been hot, he thought, concentrating on the older sister’s shortcomings so he could forget about her mouth. She’d had the potential to be as attractive as Amy—all that dark curly hair knotted on the top of her head, and a good-enough ivory-pale face with those big brown eyes—but the tension had radiated off her so hard that it had been exhausting just standing next to her. “Sophie’s wound so tight she doesn’t even breathe,” he told Wes. “That cut on her lip had to hurt like hell, and she never mentioned it, never even touched it.” He shook his head. “She’s trying too hard to pretend everything’s all right. Which means she’s up to something, and it has to be about that movie.” He didn’t like women who were up to something. Not that they all weren’t. “Which reminds me, you’re going to have a new ordinance to enforce next week. Antiporn. So if they’re shooting sex, you get to arrest Amy and her tube top.”
Wes closed his eyes. “Oh, fuck, why didn’t you kill it?”
“Because the majority of the council wanted it, and we’re not likely to see a lot of movie companies coming in here, so—” Phin shrugged.
“I don’t think Clea Whipple should be discouraged from making pornography,” Wes said. “That’s just wrong.”
“Yeah, well, you run for mayor and fight the good fight.” The vague uneasiness Phin had felt about the porn ordinance returned and made him cranky. “I thought I handled it pretty well, considering.”
“Nobody died.” Wes drove across the New Bridge and surveyed the town as it spread out before them with satisfaction. “That’s pretty much my bottom line. No blood, no death, no sweat.”
“It’s an elemental life, law enforcement,” Phin said.
“Beats mayor.”
“Right now, yes.”
Wes was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “That Amy is something.”
“Go for it,” Phin said. “You’ve got until Sunday.” That was a cheering thought, that the Dempseys would be gone that soon. “Maybe once they’re gone, Stephen will give up on this porn thing.”
“I wouldn’t underestimate him,” Wes said. “The election’s coming up.” He slowed and made a U-turn to park in front of the bookstore.
“In two months,” Phin said in monotone. “As I keep telling my mother. Plenty of time.”
Wes shook his head. “Stephen’s determined not to lose this time. It’s been twenty years since his father won and made a mess of everything. People forget. He could win if you just sit on the porch and watch the world go by, and I don’t even want to think about what could happen then.”
Phin felt a real stirring of alarm. “Are you saying I should be campaigning? Okay, we’ll put the posters up early.”
“I’m saying,” Wes said carefully, “that Stephen is standing on years of Garvey defeats. Losing over and over again like that wears on a man’s soul. He’s obsessed, Phin. I think he’ll do damn near anything to win this time, and if he does he’ll spend the next two years trying to drag us back to the Stone Age.”
Phin got out of the car. “There’s irony for you. I’ve had enough mayor to last me a lifetime, and Stephen wants it bad, and we’re both stuck.”
“That makes it worse,” Wes said. “You don’t even want what he craves. And you won’t give it to him, either. At least, I hope you won’t.”
Phin looked down the street to the sandstone-and-marble courthouse. Tuckers did not lose. “Okay, we’re watching that movie company, then, since that’s where Stephen seems to be going with his latest dumbass legislation. Especially we’re watching what’s-her-name. Sophie. A woman that tense and devious is going to be trouble for anybody who gets involved with her.” Phin thought about her mouth again, and the smile she’d hit him with when she’d decided to snow him. If she ever relaxed, she’d be the kind of woman his father had warned him about, the devil’s candy, a woman who’d ruin you as soon as look at you. Phin had been enthusiastic about the idea until he’d run afoul of one.
“You’re safe, then,” Wes was saying as they went up the steps to the bookstore. “Seeing as you’re not getting involved.”
Phin nodded as he unlocked the door. “Yeah, but I’m going back with you tomorrow to find out what she’s up to with this movie.”
“That’s what you’re going back for, huh?”
“That and to see if Georgia Lutz strangles Clea Whipple when she finds out what Frank’s up to.” Phin held the door open for Wes.
“Don’t even joke about it,” Wes said. “We haven’t had a murder here for forty years, and I don’t want the next one on my watch.” He glanced up the street, which was as empty as usual for the dinner hour. “Do you have to get home to Dillie or do you have time for a game?”
“I always have time for a game.” Phin motioned him inside. “It’s my reason for living.”
“I thought that was politics,” Wes said as he went in.
“No, that’s my mother’s reason for living. I live for pool.”
“Loose women would be good, too.”
Phin thought of Sophie, wound so tight she vibrated. “Yeah, well, if you find any, let me know. In the meantime, we play pool.”
Before dinner that night, when the sun had gone down and the air had cooled off a little, Amy made them go out on the porch to talk. She’d grouped what looked like a thousand candles on the porch rails and the upper windowsill near the swing, and Clea reclined on the end that had the candlelight, which was fine by Sophie. She sat in the relative dimness at the other end, listening to the crickets and the soft wash of the river, calming down in the twilight as she swung them back and forth with the tip of her foot. Even the creak of the swing was nice. Mayb
e all her premonitions had been just funk after all, since the police chief had turned out to be a human being. She tried not to think about the mayor at all. She heard “I Only Want to Be with You” start in the kitchen, which meant Amy had put on The Very Best of Dusty. That felt right, too.
“Don’t you guys ever play anything else?” Clea said.
Sophie shook her head. “Dusty is comfort music,” she told Clea. “My mom used to sing along with Dusty every night.” She let her head fall back against the swing, sang along softly, and thought of Davy and Amy when they’d all been together, and the last of her tension slipped away.
“Sorry,” Clea said. “I didn’t mean to sound bitchy. Zane called while you were out in the yard. Doesn’t mean I should take it out on you.”
Sophie stopped swinging. “Something wrong?”
“I left him. So now he wants to come down here and talk to me about it.” Clea rolled her eyes, and Sophie thought, This is not good.
Amy came out on the porch with a pitcher of cider and three tall glasses, and smiled at her. “Cider and peach brandy.”
“Ooooh,” Clea said after her first sip.
“So is Zane coming?” Sophie said as she clutched her glass. “Because we don’t need any more people here.” Especially angry, semifamous people. Virginia Garvey would be out like a shot to see her favorite news anchor.
“Who?” Amy said, and Sophie filled her in.
“I told him not to,” Clea said. “I already filed for divorce. What he’s upset about is the money.”
Sophie’s tension doubled. “Money?”
“I’m selling the farm,” Clea said. “There’s a big chunk of land on this side of the highway and this house.” She frowned as she looked around. “It doesn’t look like much, but Frank says it should bring close to three-quarters of a million.”
Sophie sat up. “For this house?”
“No, for the land.” Clea pushed the swing, and Sophie slumped against the back so she wouldn’t fall off. “My dad sold the biggest part of the farm right after I married Zane five years ago. I inherited almost two million dollars from my dad, and it’s gone now.” Clea took a deep breath and added, “Zane did something with it in the past six months, spent it, I don’t know. We had a big fight about it and that’s when I filed. My lawyer says he’s going to have to explain in court where that money went. And that’s not going to do his career any good at all.” She set her jaw. “I want that money back.”
“Well, Amy always said—” Sophie looked around for her sister. “Amy?”
Amy had faded off into the darkness of the yard, and Sophie could see her moving in the bushes beside the porch. “What are you doing?”
“Just checking to make sure we put the equipment away.” Amy came back on the porch, picked up her drink, and she and Clea began to talk about the video.
“I want the tape to send to L.A.,” Clea said. “To a producer I know out there, Leo Kingsley.”
“That sounds familiar,” Amy said to Sophie.
Sophie nodded. “Davy used to work for him. That’s how he met Clea.” And then he brought her home to meet the family and she dumped him for Zane. Sophie took another sip of cider and brandy. She should get over that since Zane had turned out to be enough punishment all by himself. She let her head fall back and listened to Dusty and looked out into the lush green darkness of the trees that separated the house from the river.
“So what about this Frank?” Amy said.
“Frank.” Clea didn’t sound nearly as excited about Frank as she had earlier in the day. “He called about a month ago, and it made me . . . nostalgic. He said, ‘Why don’t you come home, we’ll talk about the deal here, it’ll be just like old times,’ and I thought, what a great idea to film for an audition tape—going home, meeting my old high-school flame, sort of a love story/documentary, you know?”
Amy nodded. “How long did you and Frank go together?”
“One night.” Clea emptied her glass and reached for the pitcher to pour another. “I, of course, thought it was going to be forever.”
“One night?” Sophie thought of Frank: pudgy, badly dressed, and annoying as hell. One night would be plenty.
“I was in love.” Clea made it sound like, I had the plague. “And he acted like he was. And he was so good-looking—”
“Frank was good-looking?” Sophie said.
“It was twenty-four years ago,” Amy said. “Shut up and let her talk.”
“—and we were doing Taming of the Shrew for the senior play,” Clea was saying. “And you know how it is when you rehearse and rehearse and pretend you’re in love. Except I really was. He was just everything back then.”
If Temptation was a place where Frank was just everything, Sophie was leaving town. Somebody smart, good-looking, and successful, somebody like the damn mayor, that made sense. But Frank?
“He’d been dating Georgia Funk forever,” Clea said. “But on Saturday night, after the cast party, Frank took me out to the Tavern for a Coke, which, let me tell you, was big stuff. And he parked in the back which is pretty much Temptation’s lovers’ lane, and he made his move, and that’s when I lost my virginity.” Clea drained her second glass.
“Ouch,” Sophie said.
“He promised me he was through with Georgia,” Clea said. “But when I got to school on Monday, she was wearing this tiny chip of an engagement ring.”
“Maybe we could film a murder mystery,” Amy said.
“He said she was pregnant,” Clea said, “and they got married fast enough. And then eleven months later, sure enough, she had a baby.” Clea reached for the pitcher again, and Sophie held out her glass.
“So she lied or he lied,” Amy said.
“She lied,” Clea said, as she poured Sophie’s cider. “Their wedding picture was in the paper. You’ve never seen a more miserable-looking groom.” She took a sip from her glass and then topped it up from the pitcher. “And that’s how I lost my virginity and went to Hollywood to become a movie star.” She laughed, but she looked grim, even in the candlelight.
“Does anybody ever have a good losing-my-virginity story?” Amy said. “I lost mine to Darrin Sunderland after the homecoming game my junior year, and it was lousy.” She sipped her cider and brightened. “Fortunately, sex got better.”
“It was pretty good with Frank,” Clea said. “I mean, the sex wasn’t wonderful, but he was nice to me. And really grateful.”
“Darrin was too drunk to be grateful,” Amy said. “Which taught me my first lesson about sex: They have to be sober. It’s one of the ‘Classic Blunders,’ right up there with ‘never get involved in a land war in Asia.’ ”
“My first lesson was not to believe anything a guy tells you when he wants it,” Clea said. “The best guy I was ever with was a crook, so that tells you about my taste in men.”
“You didn’t know Zane was a crook,” Sophie said.
“No, Zane’s a mistake,” Clea said. “Davy’s a crook.” When Sophie sat up fast and rocked the swing, she added, “And you know it, so don’t even try to defend him. I know you love him, but he’s as crooked as everybody else in your family tree.”
“Excuse me?” Sophie said, ice in her voice.
“Except for you and Amy,” Clea said. “And sometimes I have my doubts about Amy.”
“Everybody does,” Amy said cheerfully.
“But I have no doubts about you, Sophie,” Clea went on. “You’ll never do anything wrong. I’ve never met anybody as straight as you. I bet you even lost your virginity well. Elegantly, with no trauma.” She toasted Sophie with her glass. “I bet you didn’t even get your clothes mussed.”
“I lost it to Chad Berwick in Iowa, one month before school was out, my junior year,” Sophie said, trying to keep her voice even so she wouldn’t spit on Clea. “I thought I’d con him into taking me to prom because I wanted to be ‘in’ just once, and nobody was more in than Chad. Except it was awful, and when I got to school on Monday, everybody knew. A
nd when I went to the cafeteria at lunchtime, his best friend came up and stuck his finger in the pie on my tray and scooped out this big, gloppy cherry and said, ‘Heard you lost this, Sophie.’ And then everybody laughed.” Sophie kept her voice flat, but she felt sick all over again as the memory came back; smelled the bread-and-butter smell in the cafeteria, saw the gray linoleum floor and turquoise wall panels, and heard the smothered laughter.
After a minute, Amy said, “Jeez.”
“I knew better,” Sophie said, trying to sound offhanded. “Mama warned me about the town boys. They had to be nice to the girls they knew, so they’d go after the outsiders like me instead. And then I thought I’d be so smart, trick this town boy into taking me to prom.” She shook her head. “Clearly not my father’s daughter. Can’t even run a decent con.”
“I didn’t know,” Amy said, sounding miserable for her.
“You were ten,” Sophie said. “I didn’t feel like sharing. But I did make Dad leave us in the next town we stopped in so you and Davy could finish growing up in one place. And by the time you were a high-school junior, you belonged.” She smiled at Amy to reassure her. “To the wrong crowd, of course, because you’re a Dempsey, but still.”
“And then I ended up with Darrin Sunderland,” Amy said.
“I can’t do everything,” Sophie said. “You have to pick your own guys.”
“Well, that explains why you were so cold to Phin Tucker,” Clea said.
Sophie frowned at her. “What?”
“Town boy.” Clea gestured with her glass. “The high-class town boy to end all town boys. You’re making him pay for Chet Whosis.”
“Chad,” Sophie said, thinking of Phin Tucker and his perfect face and perfect body. “Chad was tall and blond, but that was it. The mayor doesn’t look anything at all like him.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Clea said. “Frank’s still the guy I lost, and any town boy is going to be the guy who fucked you over. That’s history. It keeps repeating on you.”
“So you’re making this film to get Frank back?” Sophie said, trying to get the conversation off town boys and Phin Tucker.
Welcome to Temptation/Bet Me Page 4