Welcome to Temptation

by Jennifer Crusie

  “Her mourning was pretty much over when Wes left,” Davy said. “What did Harvard want?”

  Sophie said, “He told me to yell if I need help.”

  Davy leaned in the doorway and looked out into the stormy darkness. “He didn’t believe a word we told Wes, and he never said a thing. He’s got money, right?”

  “No,” Sophie said. “Forget him. Somebody killed Zane. Concentrate.”

  “Forget Zane, he’s dead.” Davy came to stand in front of her. “You concentrate. Harvard has money, right?”

  Sophie flopped back against the couch. “No. He owns a bookstore but it can’t make much, stuck out here. Don’t even think about running a con on him.”

  “His shirts are Armani,” Davy said. “And he drives a classic Volvo.”

  “His mother probably bought it all. Forget it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Amy said. “Zane—”

  “He could take care of you, Sophie,” Davy said, ignoring Amy. “He’d be good at it. He wants to do it. I’ve changed my mind. You can have him.”

  Sophie shook her head. “I don’t need anybody—”

  Davy nodded. “Yeah, you do. You’re tired and you’re not happy and you’re still putting your butt on the line for us. It’s time we set you free.”

  “Sophie doesn’t feel that way,” Amy said. “Sophie always says, ‘Family first’ ”

  “He is family,” Davy said. “He’s her family—”

  Yes, Sophie thought.

  “—and she’s not going to lose him because you and I are screwups. We’ve been dragging her down long enough.” Davy nodded to Sophie. “It’s time somebody took care of you, Soph, and that’s Harvard. He was in real agony there, trying not to care tonight, covering your ass.”

  “Sophie?” Amy said. “He’s wrong, isn’t he?”

  “I don’t want to talk about this. I’m going to bed.” Sophie stood up and then said, “Oh, damn, no I’m not. We have to do something with that shower curtain.”

  “You could just let Sophie run her own life,” Amy said to Davy. “We did just fine after you left. We take care of each other.”

  Davy looked at her with contempt. “Oh, yeah, you take care of her. That’s how she ended up making videos of other people’s weddings and sleeping with a therapist and moving a dead body.”

  “Excuse me?” Sophie said. “The shower curtain.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Amy said, ignoring Davy. “I got us into this, and I can get the shower curtain out.”

  When she was gone, Sophie said, “We’re not going to put it back in the bathroom, right?”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Davy said.

  “You’ll take care of it, just like that.” Sophie folded her arms. “You know, while I was standing out there trying not to throw up, you were making Godfather jokes. That worries me.”

  “Well, somebody had to be cool,” Davy said. “Would you just forget that? We have your future to fix now.”

  “That wasn’t your first dead body, was it?”

  “I’ve never killed anybody, if that’s what you’re asking,” Davy said.

  “I’m letting Amy go to L.A. because you’re out there,” Sophie said. “But if you’re mixed up in—”

  “You’re not ‘letting’ Amy go anyplace,” Davy said. “She’s twenty-five, she can go anywhere she wants.” He scowled at her. “Just not L.A.”

  “If you’re there to watch out for her, I won’t worry,” Sophie said. “Unless you’re getting rid of bodies—”

  “I’m not going to be there,” Davy said.

  “What—”

  “Okay,” Amy said as she banged through the screen door, the shower curtain bundled in her arms. “I’ve got it.” She looked at Sophie. “What do we do with it?”

  “I’ll take care of it.” Davy took the curtain from her and looked back at Sophie. “For once, I’ll take care of all of it. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  Sophie shook her head, sure nothing was ever going to be fine again.

  “So what’s the plan?” Phin said to Wes as they headed back to Temptation in the rain.

  “Look for a gun, a club, and a can of Mace and a car with some Zane in its tires,” Wes said. “Try to figure out why the angle of that shot was so awkward. See if we can find somebody who will admit to seeing Zane after he left the farm but before Pete ran over him so we can narrow the time of death. And start checking alibis of anybody who might have a motive.” He looked over at Phin. “Did Sophie come clean about the Mace?”

  “Come on, Wes, you don’t suspect Sophie.”

  “She might not kill him, but she’d use the Mace if he attacked her,” Wes said. “Hell, that’s why she carries it.”

  “But he wouldn’t have attacked her,” Phin said. “They’d known each other for years.”

  “Women are usually attacked by men they know,” Wes said. “I’d bet anything the Mace was self-defense. It’s such a lousy offensive weapon, it almost has to be.”

  “If it was self-defense, she’d have said so,” Phin said. “No reason to lie. Maybe it was Amy’s.”

  “I asked. She said no.”

  “Maybe Amy’s lying.”

  “No,” Wes said. “She isn’t. Not about the Mace, anyway.”

  “About something else?”

  Wes shrugged. “Oh, yeah. There’s something big there. I haven’t quite got it yet.”

  “I have to say,” Phin said. “I don’t think anybody we’ve talked to tonight has told you the whole truth about anything.” Including me, damn it.

  “Welcome to the wonderful world of law enforcement,” Wes said.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  Phin had a hard time sleeping, and things got worse when he woke to an increasingly stormy Sunday morning. The word had spread fast, and everybody in Temptation wanted to talk, even though the store was closed, but it was the strangers that got to him. The Cincinnati Enquirer, the Columbus Dispatch, the Dayton Daily News, and even some of the smaller papers, had sent reporters who’d slopped through the continuing storm, hoping for something juicy about the murder of a news anchor. “This is southern Ohio,” Phin told one of them. “Nothing of interest ever happens here. Go away.” But they stayed to dig dirt and gather gossip and by the end of the afternoon, Phin was sure they’d all have the scene at the Tavern at the very least and probably a line on the movie, too. None of that was good, but the worst was the original fact: Zane was still dead.

  By late afternoon, Wes hadn’t come by, which meant he was swamped, and part of being a best friend was the automatic obligation to dig out swamps. Phin turned the lock on front the door, but then he saw Davy with his jacket over his head against the rain, climbing the steps. He unlocked the door, and Davy shook out his coat and said, “Heard you had a pool table.”

  Phin said, “The last guy who said that got killed.”

  “Yeah, they said you were good,” Davy said, and Phin let him in, wondering what he wanted and not caring much unless it was going to help solve the Zane mystery and get life in Temptation back where it belonged.

  When Davy saw the table, he said, “Hello. Beautiful piece of furniture.” His voice held real admiration as he walked around the table, and Phin tried not to like him for it. “Late nineteenth century, right?”

  “Yep. It was my great-grandpa’s.”

  Davy touched the rosewood rail. “It’s like being in church. And you play on it every day.”

  “But I never take the privilege for granted,” Phin said.

  Davy met his eyes. “Harvard, you may not be a complete loss after all. What’s your game?”

  Phin shrugged. “Your choice.”

  “Straight pool,” Davy said, and Phin thought, Oh hell, I don’t want to like you.

  Davy added, “To fifty?”

  “Works for me.”

  Davy went over to the rack, picked up a cue, bounced it on its end and checked the tip.

  “They’re all good,” Phin said.

 
“So I see,” Davy said. “Should have known. I beg your pardon.” He sounded sincere.

  Phin won the break, and Davy racked for him without comment, keeping the front ball tight against the rest and treating the felt with the respect it deserved, and Phin picked up the break cue, interested to see what Davy had going for him.

  An hour later, the score was 32-30 with Phin in the lead, but that was pretty much meaningless. Davy’s position play was flawless, and his concentration was complete: he’d been in stroke since his first shot. Even more impressive was his safety play. When he turned the table over with the cue ball frozen to the rail for the second time, Phin said, “Where did you learn to play?”

  “My dad,” Davy said. “He has few skills, but the ones he has are sharp and profitable.”

  Phin raised his eyebrows on the “profitable.” “We playing for money here?”

  Davy shrugged. “We can. Makes no difference.”

  Phin looked at the mess on the table. “How about twenty?”

  Davy nodded. “Good bet. Enough to make you care but not enough to make you broke.”

  Phin studied the table and decided that a safety was the better part of his valor, too. “So your daddy was a hustler.”

  “Still is,” Davy said. “And not just at pool. He’s on the lam right now from a fraud charge.”

  Phin caromed the cue ball off the four and buried it in a cluster, and Davy said, “Damn.”

  “Thank you,” Phin said, and moved away from the table. “Zane Black mentioned your dad was ... uh ... colorful.”

  “Zane did?” Davy looked thoughtful. “Now, why would he share that with you?”

  “He was being helpful,” Phin said. “Explaining why Sophie was a bad influence.”

  Davy’s face darkened, and for the first time Phin realized that he wasn’t just a slacker; Davy Dempsey might be dangerous. “Now that annoys me,” Davy said softly. “He shouldn’t have been talking about my sister.”

  “Well, he’s dead, and I’m open to bad influences,” Phin said. “You going to take a shot here?”

  Davy bent to the table and did a bridge shot over the two ball, a beauty of a shot that did exactly what it was supposed to, and Phin shook his head in admiration. Then Davy picked up the cue ball and handed it to him.

  “Foul,” he said. “I brushed the two with my hand. That’s what I get for letting Zane in my head.”

  Phin took the ball and said, “I didn’t see it.”

  “I did,” Davy said, and moved out of Phin’s sight line.

  Phin nodded and studied the table. If he could pocket the two, there was a possibility he could run the table. He put the cue ball down in position so that he could draw it back after he hit the two.

  “That’s what I would have done,” Davy said ruefully from the side, as the two went in. “So you think my sister’s a bad influence?”

  Phin studied the table. “I think your sister’s a hell of a woman, but I don’t want to talk about her.”

  “Well, we’re going to have to,” Davy said. “Because that’s what I came for.”

  “And I was hoping it was for the pool.” Phin took his shot, but his ball missed the pocket by a fraction of an inch. Concentration is everything, he thought, and wondered if Davy had brought up the subject of Sophie to break his.

  “Here’s the deal with Sophie,” Davy said as he took the table. “She’s the finest person I know, so she should get everything she wants. Now, for some reason, she wants that ugly farmhouse, that stupid dog, and you.” Davy chalked his cue. “None of which I would have picked for her, but then, Sophie has always walked her own path.” He shot a plain vanilla draw shot with such elegance that Phin forgot about Sophie for a minute.

  “It’s a pleasure to watch you play pool,” he told Davy, and Davy said, “I know. It’s the simple shots that make you love the game.”

  “I really don’t want to like you,” Phin said.

  Davy nodded. “I don’t want to like you, either, Harvard, but we’re stuck with each other because Sophie loves us.”

  “I went to Michigan,” Phin said. “And Sophie doesn’t love me.”

  “You know,” Davy said as he chalked and shot again, “if you paid as much attention to your personal life as you do to your pool game, you wouldn’t make these stupid mistakes. She’s in love with you. And you’d better love her back.”

  “Is that a threat?” Phin said.

  “Pretty much.” Davy scowled at the table as his next ball missed the pocket. “And that’s what I get for trying to talk and play at the same time. Look at that table. Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

  “Davy, I care about Sophie, but that’s it,” Phin said. “And I never promised her anything at all, so you can back off now.” Then he looked at the spread Davy had left him. “Christ, it’s Christmas.”

  “Yeah,” Davy said. “I had plans for that table.” He sat down out of Phin’s sight line. “I’ll be over here in case you go blind and miss something. Now, about Sophie.”

  “I’m finished talking about Sophie,” Phin said, and bent to make his shot.

  “I’m not,” Davy said. “She never told you about how we grew up, did she?”

  “Yeah, she did.” Phin made his shot and straightened to chalk his cue. “At least, she told me about your mom dying.”

  “She did.” Davy seemed impressed. “So you know she’s been taking care of us ever since.”

  Phin nodded.

  “Well, it’s time she found a man to take care of her, and you’re the one she’s picked. You’re not my choice, Harvard. But you’re Sophie’s and you’re going to marry her.”

  “No, I’m not.” Phin bent to take his shot.

  “Why not?” Davy said. “Think about it. You could go home to Sophie every night.”

  Phin looked at the ball, thought about Sophie at night, and miscued. Just a fraction of an inch, but pool is not a forgiving sport.

  “Fuck,” he said, and Davy said, “That was my fault, talking to you like this.”

  “No shit,” Phin said, and walked away from the table, annoyed with himself for falling for it.

  “Take another shot,” Davy said.

  Phin glared at him, and Davy said, “Right. I apologize for even saying it,” and took the table back.

  “It was the Sophie-at-night bit, wasn’t it?” Davy said as he lined up his shot. “Sorry. It’s what I miss most about her. That quiet bit at the end of the day when we talked about everything.” He grinned at Phin over the top of his cue. “Of course, your nights with her are probably different.”

  Phin thought about the hours he’d spent talking with Sophie. Before he fell into bed with her and lost his mind. “Slightly different.”

  Davy nodded and began to run the table. When he was five balls from victory, he straightened and chalked his cue. “Here’s the thing. I learned early that life is full of cheats and bars.” He bent to the table and said, “I don’t believe in Santa Claus,” and hit his first ball into a pocket. “I don’t believe in the Easter Bunny.” Another ball went in. “And I don’t believe in the innate goodness of mankind.” A third ball went in.

  “But I believe in Sophie.”

  He pocketed the fourth ball and straightened to chalk, something that he should have done three times before but that would have ruined the effect. Dumb pool but interesting psychology.

  “And that’s why I’m going to make sure Sophie gets what she wants.” He smiled at Phin. “And what she wants is you, God help her.” He bent back to the table and said, “Game ball,” and Phin watched as he lined his cue up for the easy draw shot into the corner pocket that would take the game. Then Davy moved the cue a fraction of a fraction of an inch to the right, and shot.

  And the ball jawed and bounced out again.

  “I should never talk while I play this game,” Davy said philosophically, and walked away from the table.

  Phin picked up his cue, chalked it, lined up the shot, and made the ball. Another rack
later, he had the game. Then he turned to Davy, who was taking a twenty out of his wallet, and said, “On the very outside chance that we might play again, you should know that pool is the closest thing I have to a religion. Don’t you ever throw a game with me again.”

  Davy went still and then nodded. “Fair enough. My apologies.” He put the twenty back in his wallet.