But Julia would take care of her. The switched-out candy had been brilliant, or so she’d thought. And come on, why was the old lady eating candy at all—what with her constant complaints about diabetes? Julia concentrated. Maybe she should put the peanut powder in the old woman’s Metamucil . . . or come up with some other kind of accident. Slipping on the ice would be good. Maybe if Julia let that stupid little Larry dog out, and he ran into the street, and Phoebe, running after him, slipped and fell on the ice and hit her head . . . at night. That would be best. She’d have to work on that, but Phoebe, the old snoop, had to go!

Julia cracked open the soda. “I bought groceries after the shift I worked.”

“I know what time you got off,” Sophia reminded her. “It was my shift.”

“So I got groceries and had a couple of drinks, down at the Brass Bullet.” She went back to the living room and carefully peered through the blinds to spy on Dabrowski shoveling snow, Larry—that stupid little yappy dog he’d inherited from Phoebe Matrix—sniffing the bushes lining the parking lot.

“Ask Bruce, if you don’t believe me,” she said, snapping the blinds shut, then returning to the kitchen. “He was there—at the Bullet.”

Sophia looked as if she were about to say something, but didn’t.

“So what? Now I can’t even have a drink?” Julia demanded and, to make a point, took a swallow from her can.

“You just need to be careful. And I think this is wrong. I mean, what we’re doing. The whole scam. It’s just not right.”

“When did you come up with a change of heart? Is this because you and James had a fight?” Sophia had confided that she was giving James a little space, that they’d had a disagreement, so Julia assumed all of her doubts arose from the fight—whatever it had been about. Sophia had been a little closemouthed about it. Now she touched her twin on the shoulder. “You knew this could get messy. So don’t think you can back out now. You’re in this, Sophia. It’s too late now to grow a conscience.”

Sophia appeared absolutely miserable, almost near tears, her throat catching. She shrugged off Julia’s hand. “Is it—is it really worth it?”

Hell, yeah, it is. What was wrong with her? They had a deal. A pact. Made between two women of the same blood! And stupid Sophia intended to blow it? After all the years of planning to get back at the Cahills for turning their backs on them, now . . . now Sophia was going to throw in the towel?