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“You should try it sometime. Anyway, I’m guessing Gail will go, too.” Gail DeMarco-O’Neal had grown up in Whiskey Creek, but she’d left for college and never moved back. After starting her own PR firm in Los Angeles, she’d married one of her clients—box-office hit Simon O’Neal—and was so busy she didn’t visit often.
    “Since when did Gail become friends with Sophia?” Ted didn’t remember any type of rapport between them. Sophia had been part of a rival clique, was actually the leader of it—until the girls who were part of her posse moved away.
    Eve cocked an eyebrow at him. “Gail invited Sophia to her wedding, remember?”
    Seeing that the line to order food was gone, Ted stood up, intending to get his coffee. “I remember, but I thought it was strange then, and I think it’s strange now.”
    Callie folded her arms. “Why?”
    “Because Scott Harris was her big brother’s best friend. She knew him well.”
    “I don’t think you can hold Sophia responsible for what happened to Scott,” Callie said. “She didn’t force him to drive drunk.”
    He pulled out his wallet. “If it wasn’t for her, he wouldn’t have left the party.”
    Callie wasn’t about to back down. “She was sixteen or seventeen, Ted. She made a mistake.”
    “Oh, well. Actions have consequences. Ask Scott’s family about that the next time you see them, okay?” He’d given in to Callie’s kind of thinking once before, and Sophia had made him sorry he had.
    “She probably never dreamed her actions would lead where they did.” Callie crumpled the napkin she’d used and dropped it on her plate. “Haven’t you ever done anything you regret?”
    He was already on his way to the counter, so he left her question unanswered. But he had done something he regretted.
    He regretted ever getting involved with Sophia.

5
    A s Sophia had expected, hardly anyone attended the funeral. And those who came didn’t have much to say. They filed past the casket, somber and subdued. Some managed a nod for her or Skip’s parents. No one smiled but neither did anyone cry. Even Sophia didn’t know how to act. Should she behave like the grieving widow? Or the hurt and angry spouse?
    She told herself to behave as she honestly felt for a change. She was done with pretending. But Agent Freeman was there, watching her every move, every expression, and it made her nervous. How would he interpret what he saw? Would something she said or did make him decide that she was as guilty as her husband? He couldn’t understand how Skip could do so much without her knowledge, but he had no idea what their marriage had been like.
    Now she regretted telling the Brazilian police that they’d been happy together, that they’d been close.
    When she twisted around to see who might’ve come in late, her eyes met Freeman’s almost immediately, and she turned back. She hated having him there. But she couldn’t have been honest with her emotions, anyway, or she would’ve seemed crazy—because she felt a little of everything. There were moments when she mourned the fact that she and Skip hadn’t been happy together, that it had come down to this. Moments when she was grateful he was gone, that she no longer had to fear him. Moments when she felt so incredibly angry that she hoped he’d spend an eternity in hell for betraying them, especially after getting her hopes up with such beautiful promises of change and fresh commitment.
    She’d muddled through the past ten days by focusing on doing what she could to shield Alexa, and by staying busy making arrangements for the return of Skip’s body. She’d tried to arrange the funeral, too, but his parents hadn’t liked some of her decisions, so they took over. That bothered her—they were always bossy and superior. The way they treated her made her want to drink. But her concern for her daughter had kept her off the booze. Her concern for Alexa had also enabled her to tell Agent Freeman that his