“Careful with that,” she said.
“Hey,” he said, and when she looked up, he bent and kissed her on the mouth, a quick kiss that turned into something longer, as rich and sweet as the song they were dancing to. He stopped moving and held her close, right there in the middle of the dance floor, and she forgot everything and kissed him back, clinging to him as the heat spread and her knees went weak.
When he broke the kiss, the music had stopped and he looked as mind-whacked as she felt. “If they didn’t know before, they do now,” he said, and then he looked past her shoulder, and his face changed. “Oh, Christ.”
“What?” she said, still dizzy from his kiss, but he was already pulling her toward the crowd around the table where Frank and Zane were squaring off.
“Family values,” Zane was sneering. “You and your town council brag about your family values, but you won’t do a damn thing to stop a porn film right in your own backyard.”
“I’m not making a porn film,” Frank shouted back, and Sophie said, “Oh, no.”
“And nobody wants to do anything about it,” Zane said, talking to the crowd now. “You all just sit home, holding on to your secrets, pretending there’s nothing wrong. Well, there’s a lot wrong, and I know it all. I’ve warned everybody and nobody listens, so I’m telling you all now: You stop that damn movie, or none of you will have a secret left. Especially you, Lutz.”
Frank stepped closer. “I told you, I wouldn’t make porn. I support family val—”
“Your family values?” Zane’s laugh spurted out. “Hell, your kid is fucking my wife, and your wife is fucking me.”
Frank went white, and Phin said, “Okay,” and pushed through the enthralled crowd to Zane.
“Not that she’s any good,” Zane said, looking at Georgia, and when she made a little cry of protest, he added, “Hell, Georgia, even Jell-O moves when you eat it.”
“You’re done,” Phin said to Zane as he reached him. “Go home.”
Zane toasted him with his glass. “And here’s your mayor who is fu—”
Phin had him by the throat before he’d finished. “I said, go home,” he said, and then Wes was there, too.
“Let go of him,” he said, and Phin did, and Zane tried to say something through his bruised throat. “I wouldn’t,” Wes said to Zane and hustled him protesting to the door, making it look like no effort at all, and Davy followed them both out.
Frank was staring at Georgia as if he’d never seen her before, and Sophie went to her. “Zane lies all the time,” she said to Frank, putting her arm around a still-frozen Georgia. “He—”
“He’s not lying about you, is he, Georgia?” Frank said dully. He turned to look through the mass of fascinated faces. “Where’s Rob? Was that true?” He looked at Sophie. “Was that true about Clea and Rob?”
“I don’t know,” Sophie said. “I really don’t. I just know I wouldn’t trust anything Zane says. He’s awful, Frank.”
“It’s all true,” Frank said, and left without a backward glance at Georgia.
“Frank!” she cried, and it came out like a mew.
“We’ll take her home,” Phin said from behind Sophie, and she nodded.
“Well, that was ugly,” Phin said, when they’d dropped Georgia off at home and made sure she was marginally all right. It had started to rain as they left the Tavern, and Georgia had cried right along with it, the mascara running in black tracks down her face while the rain ran silver down the windshield and Sophie thought vicious thoughts about Zane.
“What is wrong with that man?” Sophie said now.
“He’s trying to hold on to his wife,” Phin said. “Men get tense when their women leave.”
“Not Frank—Zane.”
“I’m talking about Zane.” Phin slowed to take the turn out of the Frank’s development and onto the main road. “Sophie, are you making porn?”
“No,” Sophie lied, and felt like hell. The rain was sheeting down, and the wipers clicked back and forth, and she tried to concentrate on how happy she was to be back with Phin again, but guilt got in her way. “Zane just wants Clea’s money,” she said, to change the subject.
“He wants her, too.” Phin squinted through the windshield. “I’ve never heard one man say ‘my wife’ so many times. He’s all but branded her.”
“She is spectacular.”
“Yes, she is,” Phin said. Sophie lifted her chin and he added, “Don’t even try it. You know I wouldn’t have her.”
“Just wanted to hear it,” Sophie said. “Not that I have any right to assume—” She broke off as Phin pulled to the side of the road and cut the engine. “What? Is the rain—”
Phin turned to face her in the light from the dash.
“Okay, I know you’ve been mugged by my mother, but you’ve got to get past this. You want me to tell you I love you?” Sophie opened her mouth and Phin said, “Because I’ve known you ten days. That’s too damn fast to start planning futures, don’t you think?”
The rain pounded on the roof and Sophie felt lost. “Well, ye—”
“And you’re mad because I wasn’t happy you’d met Dill,” Phin said. “Well, you’re going off to Cincinnati day after tomorrow. I’m not happy about seeing my kid lose somebody she likes.”
“She only spent a hour with me,” Sophie said.
“You got me in the first minute,” Phin said, and she flushed. “I’m so nuts for you, I’m not even asking the questions about that damn video that I should. I don’t care. I just want you. Can I come see you in Cincinnati?”
“Yes,” Sophie said, her heart racing as fast as the rain.
“Can I see you Monday before you go?”
Sophie smiled in the dark. “Yes.”
“Can I see you tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Can I see you naked tonight?”
“Oh, God, yes,” Sophie said, and met him halfway for his kiss.
Several minutes later when they were both breathless and the car was back on the road, he said, “Listen, that stuff you said on Wednesday, about me crossing the tracks to get to you, that was just to annoy me, right?”
“Well, you’re definitely crossing a river,” Sophie said.
“Don’t buy into that, Sophie. That’s so damn dumb, I can’t—”
“That’s because you’re the one on the Hill,” Sophie said. “I understand from a very good source that you’re either born there or you earn your way in.”
Phin was quiet for a long moment. “I may be a little late coming to see you tomorrow,” he said finally. “I’ll be killing my mother first.”
“Yeah, well, if I’m a little late coming to the door, it’ll be because I’m disarming my brother.”
“Still hates me, huh?”
“I cried some when you left.”
“Oh, fuck.” He reached for her hand in the darkness. “I’m sorry.”
She laced her fingers with his and closed her eyes because it was so nice to be alone with him again, in the dark, just talking. “Not a problem. Davy’s not that good a shot anyway.”
“Screw Davy. Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Sophie said. “I’m excellent, actually.”
“That you are.” He turned down the lane to the farm, taking his hand back to park in the sea of mud that was the yard. Then he curled his arm around her neck and pulled her close and kissed her again, and she fell into him, warm and safe. Everything she’d felt while they’d danced came back and she gave in to it, knowing it would only get better. “You do that so well,” she whispered, and he said, “We do it well. Imagine if we practiced,” and kissed her hard again.
An hour later, they were in her bedroom, damp from the rain that came in the open window and from each other, tangled in her sheets on her lumpy, noisy mattress, gasping in each other arms. “We’re getting good at this,” Phin said between breaths, and Sophie nodded, too satisfied to do anything but agree. He stroked her back, and she stretched like a cat, feeling all her muscles
because he’d made them throb. “I could stay like this all night,” she said, and then realized what she’d said. “I didn’t mean—” she began, and he cuddled her closer and said, “Good idea. How do you feel about sex in the morning?” She said, “With you?” and he said, “No, with Wes. Of course with me,” and she smiled, but then somebody knocked on the door and broke the moment.
“Go away,” she called, but Davy said, “Sophie, I have to talk to you.”
“If he’s trying to do the brotherly thing and warn you that I’m only after one thing, it’s too late. I just got it.” Phin drew the tips of his fingers down her back and made her shiver. “Get rid of him, and I’ll try getting it again.”
“Sophie, now.”
She’d never wanted to leave a bed less. “Hold on,” she called, as she rolled out of Phin’s arms and grabbed his shirt from the floor.
“That’s my shirt,” he said, but she shrugged into it and held it closed as she opened the door.
“Amy has a problem.” Davy’s voice was low and his face rain-spattered and dead serious, and Sophie felt a chill. “Get rid of him and come with me. Fast.”
“Okay,” Sophie said, her heart pounding, and closed the door.
“About my shirt,” Phin said. “Take it off and come back here,” and Sophie slipped it off and threw it to him.
“All yours,” she said, and picked up her dress. “Thank you for a lovely time— let’s do it again real soon.”
Phin sat up. “I was planning on doing it real soon. Where are you going?”
She threw him his pants. “I forgot, Davy and I have plans, and I can’t stand him up just to have more incredible sex with you. That would be antifamily.”
“What kind of plans?” Phin said, and she shoved his shoes closer to the bed. “So I gather we’re in a hurry here?”
Sophie leaned over and kissed him, staying in the kiss a little longer than she should have because he felt so good, “I really have to go,” she whispered against his mouth. “But I really do want this again. I missed you so much. I’ll call you later tonight, I swear.”
“The telephone is so impersonal,” he said, and caught her to him, pulling her back down on the bed, and if it had been anybody but Davy and Amy who needed her, she’d have fallen. But it was Davy and Amy, so she said, “Thank you, I have to go,” and rolled off the bed.
She left him sitting there, looking puzzled and not a little grumpy, and when she got to the landing where Davy was leaning against the wall, she whispered savagely, “This had better be good.”
“Where’s Harvard?” Davy said. “We need him off the premises.”
“He’s getting dressed,” Sophie said. “And he’s not in a good mood, so don’t call him Harvard. And by the way, next time, I get to dump the guy I’m sleeping with.”
“Later for that, we’ve got trouble,” Davy said, and Sophie felt chilled again.
Phin came out of the bedroom, buttoning his shirt. “Just like the Waltons,” he said, as he walked past them.
“No, we have better music than the Waltons,” Davy said, and then held Sophie’s arm until they heard the front door slam. “You can make it up to him later,” he told her as he pulled her down the stairs and out the back door.
Sophie followed him as the instincts of disaster that had been dogging her from the beginning kicked into high gear. He led her around the side of the house in the pelting rain into the dark of the trees, and she saw Amy standing there, hugging herself.
“I’m sorry, Sophie,” she said, looking like a soaked little cat. “Davy says this is a screw-up, but I didn’t know what else to do.”
“What?” Sophie said. “I still don’t know—” Then she went cold as she saw the old blue-and-pink-fish shower curtain at Amy’s feet, wrapped around something that looked horribly like a body. “Tell me that’s not a—”
“That’s Zane,” Davy said, turning his collar up against the rain. “And thanks to Amy, he now sleeps with the fishes.”
There you go, her instincts said. Told you so.
Chapter Ten
Sophie said, “What??” and Amy said, “No, I didn’t kill him. I just sort of... moved him.”
“Moved him?” Sophie turned back to Davy. “What—”
“Amy found him on the dock,” Davy said, his exasperation with his sister plain. “And being a Dempsey, she thought first of her own interests and realized that if she wanted to film a sex scene there tomorrow without the police, she’d have to move the body. So she dragged it up here, and I found her when she was wrapping it in the shower curtain.”
“Oh, jeez, Amy.” Sophie looked down at the rain-spattered bundle and saw Lassie sniffing it. “Lassie, get away from there.” The whole situation was surreal. It couldn’t possibly be true. She nudged the shower curtain gingerly with her foot. “Are we sure he’s dead?”
“God, Sophie, you’re worse than the dog. Don’t kick him.” Davy shoved Lassie away from the body with his knee. “I checked. He’s dead.” Davy sounded mad about that.
“Well, what did he die of?” Sophie tried to pull herself together. This was real. She had to think. Then she was going to be sick, but first she had to think.
“I don’t know,” Davy said patiently. “Here’s what I do know: Zane is dead, Amy moved the body, and we should do something soon before people start to notice and make comments.”
“Okay,” Sophie said. “Okay.” There’s a dead man at my feet. “Okay.” This was no time to panic. She could panic later. Panic later, plan now. The rain came down heavier, pelting them even through the trees. She cleared her throat. “Okay. We can take the body back to the dock and call Wes, we can leave it here and call Wes, or we can take it someplace else. I vote for the dock and Wes.”
“No,” Amy said, wiping the rain from her face, and Davy said, “As much as I hate to admit it, I vote no on that one, too.”
Sophie said, “Why?” and he said, “Because they’re going to know somebody moved the body. They can tell that, and they’ll wonder why. Once she moved the body, we were screwed.”
“Hey,” Amy said, sharply. “We were screwed anyway. It’s that dickhead Zane. Who else but us would want to kill him?”
“Half the town,” Sophie said. “Moving a body is a felony or something, isn’t it? This is bad.”
“We have to put it someplace else,” Amy said, her hands on her hips. “Some ditch maybe.”
“Boy, dating the law hasn’t taught you a thing, has it?” Davy said, exasperated. “We cannot put it in some ditch. And we’re going to have to get this damn shower curtain off it, too.” He turned to Sophie. “I’m assuming Harvard is acquainted with the shower curtain.”
“Intimately,” Sophie said. “He’s had conversations with the mildew. Wes knows it, too. He fixed the showerhead.” She looked down at the bundle again, trying to make the situation less surreal, but there was a body wrapped in that ugly shower curtain, the rain beading on the fishes. Vincent Price should be there. “Maybe Zane just had a heart attack. We could take him to an emergency room.”
“Yeah, good idea,” Davy said. “Except he’s cold. He is obviously dead. They’re going to wonder why we didn’t notice that.” He shook his head at his sisters, glowering at them through the downpour. “Generations of Dempseys must be rolling in their graves, watching you two.”
“They’re probably too busy hauling coal in hell to worry about us,” Sophie said. “Okay, I’m against the moving the body someplace else, really against, moving the body. And I’m really, really against lying to ... people.”
Amy frowned at her. “Sophie, I need your help. How can—”
“Shut up, Amy,” Davy said. “You’re right, Soph. You’re finally getting a life of your own and here we come to screw it up by making you lie to the mayor. Go back inside, we never should have dragged you into this.”
“Wait a minute,” Amy said.
“She doesn’t even have a motive,” Sophie said to Davy. “We could tell them—”
> “Zane was leaning on everybody to confiscate the film,” Amy said. “He tried everything to screw up this project while he was alive, and he’s not going to do it now that he’s dead. I’m going to finish this video. I’m moving him.”
“Go back inside, Sophie,” Davy said. “I’ve got this covered.”
Right. “You want the head or the feet?” Sophie said.
“You sure?” Davy said.
Sophie nodded. “I think this is a mistake, but I’m damned if I’ll let you do it alone. This is no time to break up the family.”