Agnes and the Hitman

wednesday

cranky agnes column #75

“It’s His Fault You’re Fat”

Heartache often drives us to consume things we wouldn’t otherwise, such as an entire pint of Caramel Pecan Perfection high-fat ice cream, covered in ganache, the crack cocaine of frozen dairy. Twelve hundred calories per pint, six hundred and eighty of which are fat calories, but it only dulls the pain for the moment, there’s that carb fog while you’re standing at the sink shoving it in your face, and then it’s over and you feel… used. Like a cheap pickup the Dove people seduced and abandoned in your kitchen, leaving you with sticky hands and an empty cup and a still-broken heart, except now you’re mad at Dove, too.

Shane could hear Carpenter whistling inside the house, a good sign. He could also feel Agnes shivering beside him on the porch swing, not a good sign. He still wasn’t sure what had happened with Taylor to set her off with the meat fork, but he knew that being shot at by a strange man shortly after having angry sex, shortly after having tried to kill your fiancé, shortly after having a dognapper point a gun at you was a bad night for anybody, even a woman as tough as Agnes. Although she’d certainly been up for the sex. Energetic woman, Agnes. He hadn’t been surprised when she’d come unglued there at the end of it all, but he had been surprised that she’d managed to get it all over with in about ten minutes. Energetic andefficient. One in a million.

She shivered and he put his arm around her.

“So you and Carpenter,” Agnes said. “You’re like, partners?” She shifted on the swing so she could look up at him through those ridiculous red-rimmed glasses. Her lips were very close, and her curls brushed his neck, and she was warm against his arm, and she was bra-less in that strappy dress, squished against him…

“Okay, then,” Agnes said when he didn’t answer her. “Who do you work for?”

“We work for a very special organization,” Shane said, trying to sound noble.

“That sounds so… UNICEF-ish.” She looked back toward the kitchen. “It’s not UNICEF, is it?”

Carpenter came through the screen door, a body bag over his shoulder, and Agnes’s big eyes got wider. “I’ve got the package ready for removal and the scene cleaned. I’m sure you checked the wallet and saw the half a dime. Not a professional. Four shots-overkill, don’t you think?”

“I was annoyed,” Shane said. The shithead fucked up my afterglow.

Agnes looked from one to the other. “I was just going in,” she said. “Very nice to meet you, Mr. Carpenter, thank you for cleaning up my kitchen.” Then she got up and left, taking her warmth with her.

Shane stood, too.

Carpenter said, “What does she know?”

“Now, nothing,” Shane said. “Shortly, probably too much. She’s in the middle.”

“Wilson won’t like it.” Shane stood, silent

“You would make a good department head,” Carpenter said. “I would enjoy working for you.”

“With,” Shane said. “This job could end it.”

“This job could make it. Wilson told me Casey Dean’s hit will be here.”

Carpenter considered that. “Casey Dean is a professional. He’d never have anything to do with this-” He shook the body bag ever so slightly.

“True,” Shane agreed. “So something else is going on.” Carpenter looked back inside to Agnes, who now appeared to be talking to the wall over the table. “What about her?”

“Someone appears to want her dead.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You sure she was the target for this guy?”

“Not positive.”

“Is it our business if she is?”

“It’s my business.”

Carpenter nodded back toward Agnes. “There’s a kid in the basement. Connected to this?” He jerked the body bag on his shoulder as if it were full of feathers and not dead meat.

“I don’t think so. This guy was coming to shoot. The kid was like another one who came last night, after something.”

Carpenter looked thoughtful, as if he were calculating something, and Shane was taken aback when he said, “I understand she cooks.”

“Yes.”

“I am often hungry in the morning.”

Shane paid attention. “She makes an excellent breakfast”

“Perhaps I should come for breakfast.”

“That would be… new.”

Carpenter nodded. “A good partnership is flexible.”

“Wilson might not like it.”

“Wilson is retiring,” Carpenter said. “You are in a complex situation. And I am often hungry in the morning.” He touched a finger to his forehead in a salute and readjusted the body bag over his shoulder. “Be centered.”

Then he was gone and Shane went inside to see what Agnes was saying to the wall.

Agnes had gone inside and watched as Carpenter talked to Shane with the body bag over his shoulder as casually as Palmer had talked to Maria with her dress bag over his shoulder. She looked at the basement door and then back to Shane and Carpenter and then back to the basement door, and then she went to the wall, leaned over the table blocking the door, and pushed open the door a crack.

“Hello?” she whispered.

“H’lo?” came a cautious whisper back.

“So who are you?” Agnes whispered.

“I heard shootin’,” the boy said, his voice a soft drawl. “Yes.”

“Damn.” There was a moment of silence, then, “Listen, I got my rights.”

“No, you don’t,” Agnes said, annoyed at his lack of groveling. “You attacked me in my house. I hit the last kid who attacked me with a frying pan.” And then there was the meat fork, she thought, shuddering at the memory of the blood running down Taylor’s neck. “Now who the hell are you?”

The boy sighed. “I’m Three Wheels Thibault.”

“The kid who died here last night was named Two Wheels Thibault. Relative of yours?”

“Cousin,” Three Wheels said.

“Well, I’m sorry for your loss,” Agnes said, and added hastily, “I didn’t kill him.”

“He were a dickhead. Always callin’ names. Actin’ like a big shot. Pokin’ fun. Made me mad, you know.”

“No,” Agnes said. “I wouldn’t know about that.” She looked over her shoulder at Carpenter and Shane, who were still talking. That wouldn’t last long. “Can you climb up out of there?”

“No, ma’am, I tried.” The boy summoned up some outrage. “I think I hurt my ankle. I’m gonna sue that guy who dropped me in here.”

Agnes looked back again at Shane and Carpenter. Shane looked roughly the size of a grain elevator. Carpenter was bigger. “Three Wheels, these are not men who get sued.”

“Think they’re better’n everybody else,” Three Wheels groused.

“No, it’s because anybody who might sue them stops breathing,” Agnes said, acknowledging what she’d been trying to ignore about Shane’s career choice.

“Oh,” Three Wheels said, all grouse gone. “That was the shootin’ thing?”

“Yes.”

“They with the mob? My grandpa used to work for the mob.”

“Who’s your grandpa?”

“Four Wheels Thibault”

“Four Wheels?” Agnes said, and had an out-of-body Two Wheels- Three Wheels-Four Wheels-I-Just-Had-Sex-with-a-Professional-Killer-and-Almost-Died-Three-Times epiphany. “Jesus Christ. Never mind. Who sent you to kill me?”

“Grandpa. ‘Cept I weren’t supposed to kill you, just supposed to get the dog with the collar on’t He said it’d be easy. You was supposed to be alone.”

“Yeah, well, bad luck for you,” Agnes said, and then Shane turned back to the house, and she said, “You be quiet,” and shut the door and stepped away from the wall, realizing as she did that, while she didn’t know the kid she had imprisoned in her basement well enough to trust him, she didn’t know the man she’d just had sex with at all.

Shane came through the door braced for whatever Agnes was up to now. She said, “Is Carpenter gone?” a little more loudly than necessary, leaning much too casually across the basement door, and he thought, Wonderful. She’s bonded with the kid in the basement.

“Yep.” Shane closed the back door. “And so is Macy.”

“That was an interesting conversation,” Agnes said. “‘The package.’ ‘Not a professional’? ‘Half a dime’?”

“The body. Not a professional killer. Five hundred dollars.” Shane jerked his head toward the porch, changing the subject. “So you want to move out there for the night? Carpenter said he’ll have the electricity back by morning. Until then, it’ll be cooler out there.”

“Sure.” Agnes took a deep breath. “Okay, so the kid in the basement. He’s just a kid. I don’t think he was trying to hurt anybody.”

“He had a gun, Agnes.”

“He says he was only after Rhett. I’m sure he didn’t mean any real harm. I think we should just let him stew down there for the night, talk to him in the morning, you scare him, make him see the light. That’ll be plenty enough.” She turned and went past him toward the housekeeper’s room, and then stopped and turned back when he didn’t follow. “So you coming to help carry stuff?” She looked nervously toward the basement door.

Shane sighed. “Agnes, I’m not going to hurt him.”

“He just came to get Rhett,” Agnes said, pleading with him from behind her glasses.

She wasn’t wearing a bra under her dress; in fact, he was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing anything under her dress. He was tired, but not that tired. “What else did he tell you?” he said, trying not to give away that she could probably get pretty much whatever she wanted from him.

Agnes sighed. “His name is Three Wheels Thibault, and his grandpa, Four Wheels, who used to work for the mob, sent him to get the dog. The kid last night, Two Wheels, was his cousin who always picked on him. He says he hurt his ankle when you dropped him in the basement and he was going to sue you but I talked him out of it. I think he’s bluffing.”

“What’s his favorite color?” Shane said.

“Blue,” Agnes said.

He shook his head. “You sure you’re okay?”

“No. People keep trying to kill me.”

“And I keep stopping them,” Shane said.

“And don’t think I’m not grateful,” Agnes said. “You’re getting a really nice breakfast tomorrow.”

“Make enough for Carpenter,” he said. Agnes blinked. “Really?”

“That a problem?”

“No,” Agnes said, her brow furrowing as she thought about it. “No. He seems like a good guy. I mean, his skill set is upsetting, but so is yours, and I’m for you. People are trying to kill me and you’re saving me, so I’m definitely for you.”

Shane nodded. “All right, then.”

“So come help me get the pillows,” Agnes said. “Do not shoot Three Wheels. Save yourself for Grandpa Four Wheels, who sent both boys.”

“I’m not going to shoot Three Wheels,” Shane said, exasperated. “What do you think I am?”

“A hitman,” Agnes said. Shane nodded. “Good call.”

Agnes wrapped her arms around herself. “You could have lied to me, you know.”

“I’m guessing that’s when you pick up the meat fork,” Shane said, and pointed her toward the bedroom.

“I’m giving up meat forks,” Agnes said, and she sounded as though she meant every word of it.

“We’ll see,” Shane said.

Half an hour later, Agnes lay curled into an insomniac fetal position on her back porch under a sheet, trying to take stock. The man she’d planned on marrying was not only married to another woman, he was trying to cheat her out of her house with the other woman, and she’d almost killed him in retaliation. The Southern-Italian wedding of the season that she’d planned with meticulous care was now going to be a flamingo-themed pink-fest. Two different men had shown up with guns and pointed them at her tonight, for reasons that appeared to involve her dog, and one of them had definitely intended to kill her. A man the size of a truck had just removed a body from her kitchen. An underage kid named after a tricycle was trapped in her basement, because the hitman she’d just had angry sex with wanted to talk to him in the morning. And her column still wasn’t done.

She was definitely turning over a new leaf. Her next fiancé was going to be a nice, steady, nice, regular nice guy, a non-lethal, non-lying nice guy. A good guy.

Agnes shifted on Shane’s air mattress. She was definitely not sleeping with the hitman again. That was just insane. The whole concept of “messy breakup” alone could-

“You sure you’re okay?” Shane said, half asleep beside her now.

“Yes,” Agnes said.

Which wasn’t a lie. She was exhausted, but she wasn’t angry or frightened or insane anymore. If she’d been this calm when they’d had sex, she might have noticed some of the details. It was a shame she’d missed that.

She shifted again.

“Something wrong?”

“No.” But it would be really nice if you wrapped your arms around me. And then did some stuff. To keep my mind off some other stuff. And make me so tired, I pass out. And then tomorrow, I’llbe sane and never sleep with you again.

“You scared?”

“No,” Agnes said. “You’re here.”

“What then? I’m trying to get to sleep, and you’re tense as a board.”

“Yeah,” Agnes said. “About that.”

“Whatever it is you need, I’ll take care of it in the morning.” He stretched over and kissed her forehead, and she lifted her chin to catch his mouth, putting her hand on his cheek and kissing him back, and after a minute, he pulled back. “Agnes?”

“Well,” she said in a reasonable voice. “It’s morning somewhere.”

He rolled over on his back and stared at the porch ceiling. “You’re an odd woman, Agnes.” He sighed. “You have any special requests? Anything you like?”

“Men,” Agnes said. “Men who save my life and then make me come on my back porch.”

“I can do that,” Shane said, and put his arms around her, and Agnes sighed and began to concentrate on the details.

They were very comforting.

Shane woke feeling naked and exposed. And content. He cracked an eye at the mop of dark curly hair lying across his chest, which he knew was a mistake, because he should be checking the perimeter first to see what had wakened him. He was making a lot of mistakes lately.

He looked over at Rhett and noted that the bloodhound had his head up, which he took to be a sign of high alert for the dog. Probably the apocalypse coming, and the Four Horsemen were pounding toward the bridge over the inlet right now. With luck, it would collapse under them. Shane slid out from underneath Agnes and realized he was very exposed. A sniper could take him out easily.

Shane grabbed the rumpled sheet and went to drape it over Agnes, but paused, taking in her soft, round naked body for a few seconds, then carefully placed it over her. He reached down and grabbed his pants and put them on, fastening the holster for his Glock in place. He slid his feet into his boots.

A figure wearing a straw hat walked down the dock, a tackle box in hand, casting a long shadow over the water to one side. Shane opened the screen door, and Rhett shambled down the path to greet the invader.

They met near the gazebo. “Detective Xavier.”

“Mister Shane Smith.”

“How do you know that?”

“Saw the scrapbook your uncle keeps in the diner under the counter. Saw that picture of you in the hospital bed, getting the Silver Star when you were in the Rangers. Your uncle talked some about you.”

“My uncle has a big mouth.” Joey has a scrapbook on me? “Not big enough. So you were a war hero and got wounded?”

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Shane said. “Don’t want to have that happen again,” Xavier said. Rhett peed.

Shane said, “So where is Detective Hammond this fine morning?”

“He volunteered to get some background on the wedding,” Xavier said. “See if that might explain the unfortunate break-in. I believe he knows the bride.”

Rhett continued to pee.

Shane noted the tackle box. “Going fishing? Water’s back where you came from.” He nodded to the small boat tied off at the floating dock.

“What I’m fishing for is in the house.” Xavier tried to get around Shane.

Shane moved to block his way. “And that is?” Xavier halted. “I don’t like that basement.”

“It is dank and dark.”

“I don’t like that crime scene.” He made to get by once more. Shane folded his arms. “You said it was an accident”

“It was.”

“Then?”

“I want to poke around.” Xavier tried to step around once more, and Shane edged into his way.

“Poking around can be dangerous.”

Xavier looked up at him, exasperated. “What are you trying to say, son?”

“Already said it.”

Rhett finished peeing and came over and sniffed Xavier’s shoes, seemed satisfied, and ambled toward the house. Great guard dog, Shane thought.

Xavier looked at Shane’s outfit of pants, pistol, and no shirt, and then glanced up at the porch. “You sleep outside?”

Shane turned and looked through the screen door. There was no sign of Agnes or the sheets that had been tumbled there. A woman who could wake up fast and then remove evidence silently. His kind of girl.

“Yep. I like fresh air.”

Xavier nodded, his exasperation evaporating into amusement. “Right. Miss Agnes up yet?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Right.” Xavier gave a lazy grin and walked around Shane. “Quite a woman, that Miss Agnes.”

“Yep,” Shane said, following him up the walk. “Bit sharp-tempered, though.”

“I’d call her fiery.”

Xavier turned his head toward Shane and nodded amiably. “Fiery. That’s good.”

They walked up the path, Rhett ambling with them. Xavier trooped up the steps to the porch and spared a glance at the air mattress and Shane’s T-shirt, crumpled in a ball. “Restless night, son?”

“Slept like a baby.”

“I bet you did,” Xavier said, and went into the kitchen.

Agnes had awoken slowly to voices out by the gazebo and then quickly to the realization that she was naked on her back porch with a teenage boy imprisoned in her basement and a cop walking up to her back door.

Shit. She grabbed for her sundress and slipped it on, trying to stay below the screens while gathering up as much of the bedding as she could carry, then did a low dash into the house to get Three Wheels out before Xavier saw him. She shoved the table away from the basement door, pushed the door open, whispered, “Wake up down there,” and dropped one of the kitchen chairs into the opening. “Climb on that and boost yourself up here.”

She stood back as Three Wheels clutched and clambered out of the hole, skinny and dirty, seemingly made entirely of elbows and knees with a shock of reddish-blond hair sticking out from under his old Confederate army cap. When he was on his feet, she grabbed his shirt.

“Listen to me,” she said. “In about half a minute, Detective Xavier is gonna come through that door and ask who the hell you are. You agree with everything I say, and you won’t go to jail for threatening me with a deadly weapon, you understand?”

Three Wheels looked tired, scared, and mad, but when he heard Xavier’s voice, his eyes widened and he nodded.

Agnes shoved him into the nearest seat and said, “I’m making you breakfast. You’ll eat it.”

“Yes’m,” Three Wheels said.

Agnes started to put coffee on and then shifted course to the fridge and poured Three Wheels a glass of milk instead. She put that in front of him, stuck bread in the toaster to get him started-if his mouth was full of food and drink, all the better-poured coffee beans into the grinder, turned the gas on under the griddle, fired up her CD player, and then got out her bowl to make pancake batter. The toaster heated up, so Carpenter must have fixed the electricity. That was-

Three Wheels was staring at her.

“What?” she snapped.

“Nothin’,” he said, looking away, blushing.

She looked down and remembered: no bra. “Oh, for the love of…” She reached over and grabbed her Cranky Agnes apron and put it on to cut down on the shifting problem under her dress. Then the toast popped and she loaded four slices up with butter and jam and put it all in front of Three Wheels. “Chew, don’t talk.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Three Wheels said, and began to eat as if he’d never seen food before.

She almost felt sorry for him, but he’d broken into her kitchen, pointed a gun at her, and tried to take her dog, so the hell with him.

She started the coffee brewing and melted butter in the microwave, then dumped flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl just as Shane and Xavier came through the back door from the porch, followed by Rhett, who immediately flopped down in a patch of sunshine and fell asleep. Well, it was a long walk up from the yard. She smiled at Xavier-see how friendly and unworried I am?-and said, “Detective Xavier, what brings you out here so early in the morning?”

“The smell of that wonderful coffee brewing in your kitchen, Miss Agnes.”

“It reached all the way into Keyes, did it?” Agnes smiled wider at him, trying to make the words warm instead of sarcastic. “Well, then I’ll pour you a cup as soon as it’s ready.”

“I’d appreciate that.” Xavier nodded to Three Wheels, who crammed the rest of his piece of toast in his mouth. “And who might this be?”

“This is-” Agnes began, and then Doyle came in from the front of the house, calling “Top of the morning!” Agnes crossed her fingers mentally and then said to Xavier, loud enough that Doyle could hear, “This is Doyle’s assistant. He’s helping with the painting, trying to get the house finished for the wedding.” She turned to Doyle. “Pancakes coming right up, Doyle.”

Doyle’s bushy white eyebrows had shot up, but she met his eyes and he nodded. “All right, darlin’. I could use… some pancakes.”

Thank you, Doyle, she thought, and turned back to Xavier. “Did you come for breakfast, Detective?” Please God, say no. Three Wheels will never be able to fake it through a whole breakfast.

“No, Miss Agnes, I came for your basement,” Xavier said. “I’ll just be going down there now.”

Agnes looked at Shane.

“I’ll just be going with him,” Shane said.

Agnes nodded. It was a real shame she wasn’t going to be sleeping with him anymore. A man that fast on the uptake was a treasure. Of course, given his line of work, a man slow on the uptake was dead.

Xavier looked into the hole. “Why is there a chair in here?”

“I put it in there so people could get in and out,” Agnes said. When Shane and Xavier both looked at her as if she were insane, she added, “It seemed like a good idea.”

“I’ll go get the ladder,” Doyle said, and left.

Xavier set the tackle box on the kitchen counter, and Agnes went back to her pancakes. Anything was better than just standing there, looking Xavier in the eye.

She went to the fridge and got buttermilk, sour cream, eggs, and ham while Xavier gestured to the box and said, “This is my crime scene investigation kit.” He held up a can. “Luminol.” He looked at Agnes. “It detects blood even if someone’s cleaned it up so you can’t see it with the naked eye.”

Agnes cracked an egg too hard and got shell in the bowl. “Blood?”

She picked the shell out and thought of how she’d spilled Taylor’s blood right about where Xavier was standing. She glopped in the sour cream and began to whisk. Whisking was very good for nervous energy, especially with “Tortured, Tangled Hearts” twanging as back-up music.

Doyle came back with the ladder.

“You know,” Xavier said as the ladder clattered into place, “it is kind of strange that those stairs are missing. Seems like someone was trying to hide that room for some reason.”

Agnes kept whisking. “Brenda said she boarded it up because it made her think of her poor departed Frankie and she wanted to forget”

“Poor old widow woman,” Doyle said, his voice full of Irish.

Xavier shrugged. “It was mighty convenient that old Two Wheels-”

Three Wheels choked on his milk.

“-hit right here where he would fall through and-”

“You said Agnes was clear,” Shane interrupted.

“I said I believed her story about the events of the other evening,” Xavier said. “Other stories I am not so certain of. Your uncle Joey, for instance…”

Three Wheels crammed in more toast.

Agnes tried to tune Xavier out, whisking the cooled butter and buttermilk into her eggs and then pouring her wet ingredients into her dry. She folded them together with a spatula and then poured pancakes onto the griddle, sprinkling them with pecans as she thought about hooks for her column-the rise of the two-thousand-dollar wedding cake: a sign of the apocalypse?-but it was all too clear that Xavier was loaded for bear and he’d decided the bear’s name was Joey. Damn it, Joey, what have you been up to? She grated cinnamon on top of the pancakes and was watching them carefully for bubbles, worried for Joey, angry with everybody else, trying to figure out what the hell had happened to her life, when she felt a gentle tug on her sleeve over the counter.

“Ah have to go to the bathroom,” Three Wheels whispered.

“Out in the hall, under the stairs,” she said, talking low. “But you come back, we’re not done with you. You hear?”

“Ah will,” he said, looking down, and she realized he was looking hungrily at the pancakes.

She flipped them, and they landed perfectly golden, the pecans studding them like garnets.

He sighed.

“Okay, then,” she said, and let him go.

She looked over to see Shane at the basement door, holding the dinette chair she’d dropped into the basement, rolling his eyes because she was letting Three Wheels leave the room.

I got Three Wheels covered, she thought. You take care of Xavier.

He pushed the chair under the table and disappeared into the hole, and she put the pancakes on a plate and poured the next batch as Doyle said, “So you be having the law in the basement, I be having an assistant in the bathroom, and somewhere we be having a grieving widow who sealed everything off from devotion?”

“That’s about it.” Agnes looked around her kitchen, saw that everything was under control, and picked up her cell phone.

“You’re a very trusting lass, Agnes,” Doyle said.

“Not so much anymore,” Agnes said, and punched in Lisa Livia’s number.

Shane held the ladder steady as Xavier climbed down, tackle box in one hand, but when he got to the bottom, he ignored the center of the room to detour over to the ancient bar, nodding to the mildew-speckled Venus as he passed her.

Shane pointed at the concrete floor. “The boy hit there.”

Xavier nodded. “Thank you, son. My concern today, though, is what happened twenty-five years ago in here.”

Fucking Joey, Shane thought as he watched Xavier open up the tackle box. “Twenty-five years ago?”

“Long ago in the mists of time, son, your uncle ran arm in arm with the manwho owned this house, one Frankie Fortunato.” Xavier took out the can of luminol and began walking slowly around the room, spraying. “Who subsequently disappeared. As mobsters are sometimes wont to do. You do know your uncle Joey was once with the mob?”

“Yep. But he left that behind a long time ago. He’s an honest man, my uncle.” Maybe.

Xavier laughed with genuine amusement as he sprayed. “Joey the Gent? He’s got more stories than the library. And most of them are indeed fiction, but I’m interested in the nonfiction ones.” He put the luminol can down on the old bar and reached into the kit and pulled out a bulky light, which Shane recognized as infrared. “Care to turn off the overhead?”

Shane flicked off the light as Xavier flipped on his own.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Xavier said.

No, you won’t, Shane thought, looking at the dragged blood trail that led straight into the wall. But Joey might well be.

Agnes listened to Lisa Livia’s cell phone ring as she put the pancake platter on the table, the phone crammed between her ear and her shoulder.

Doyle said, “This lad who is now my assistant?”

“I know,” she told Doyle. “I’m grateful. And I don’t think you’ll really have to-”

“H’lo?” Lisa Livia said, her voice slurred with sleep.

“I know, I know,” Agnes said to her. “I know it’s way too early, but I thought you should know, you were right, and I was wrong, wrong, wrong.” She took down a frying pan, unwrapped the ham, and dropped the slices into it to fry, then turned back to pour more batter on the griddle, lowering her voice. “Brenda is swindling me on the house.”

“Well, duh,” Lisa Livia said around a yawn. “You couldn’t wait until noon to tell me that?”

“There’s more,” Agnes said, and then Three Wheels came back in. “Hold on.” She looked at Three Wheels. “Did you wash your hands?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Pancakes are on the table,” Agnes said. “Maple syrup’s in the pitcher. Butter’s in the dish. Ham’s coming right up. Are you allergic to nuts?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Because there are pecans in the cakes and I don’t want you swelling up and turning blue on me.”

“No, ma’am.”

“Do you swear on the Bible you washed your hands?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Eat.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Agnes turned back to the phone and began to slice more ham. “So there’s more.”

Lisa Livia said, “Tell me that wasn’t Shane you were talking to.”

“That wasn’t Shane.”

“Are those your sour cream buttermilk pancakes?”

“Yes.”

Lisa Livia stopped yawning. “I’m coming over.”

“Fine, but about Taylor. He’s in on the swindle.”

“You’re kidding me. He signed the papers, too. How dumb is he?”

“Not that dumb. He-”

“So what’s your name, me lad?” Doyle said to Three Wheels as they both helped themselves to pancakes. “Three Wheels.”

“No, it is not,” Agnes said to him, and then into the phone she said, “Hang on a minute.” She turned back to Three Wheels. “Do not say that around Detective Xavier, because he will make the connection that you’re related to Two Wheels, understand?”

Three Wheels nodded.

“That’s not the name on your birth certificate, right?” Agnes said, not sure. The Thibault clan didn’t seem to be wound real tight; it was entirely possible Three Wheels had a cousin legally christened Steel-Belted Radial.

“Nah, that’s what Two Wheels called me when I fell off’n my tricycle when I were little,” Three Wheels said, semi-morosely. “He were always makin’ fun.”

“Well, those days are over,” Agnes said. “What’s your given name?” When Three Wheels looked confused, she added, “Your real name, the one on the birth certificate?”

“Garth.”

Agnes nodded. “Garth.”

“They kept tell in’ my momma she was shameless, and that was Garth’s big hit that year plus she just really liked his music so-”

“Garth it is,” Agnes said. “How are those pancakes?”

“Grade A, Miss Agnes.”

“Excellent,” Agnes said, and went back to Lisa Livia and the cakes on the griddle, flipping them as she cradled the phone, and then moving on to turn the ham. “You still there?”

“Getting dressed,” Lisa Livia said, her voice muffled. “I’m trying not to miss any of this. Who the hell is Garth?”

“The kid who pointed a gun at me and tried to steal my dog last night.”

“What?” Doyle said, looking sharply at Garth. “I’m real sorry about that,” Garth said, forking up another pancake.

Agnes double-checked the cakes on the griddle, took the empty platter, and filled it again, then filled another with the ham.

More batter, she thought, and began a second bowl. Garth must not have eaten in a week. Or he was a teenage boy.

“He tried to steal Rhett, so you’re feeding him sour cream pecan pancakes this morning,” Lisa Livia was saying. “Makes perfect sense to me. I’ve missed you.”

“Wait’ll I tell you the next part,” Agnes said. “Taylor-”

Somebody knocked on the back door, and she stepped back to see who it was.

“Morning, Miss Agnes,” Carpenter said.

“Good morning, Mr. Carpenter,” Agnes said, surprised. “Thank you for my electricity. Would you like breakfast?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and came inside, pretty much filling the kitchen.

“Have a seat,” she said. “Shane’s in the basement with Detective Xavier, but I imagine he’ll be up shortly.”

“Everything in its time.” He took a glass from her open shelf, sat down, and poured himself some milk.

“Help yourself to the cakes and ham, too,” Agnes said, and put some speed on whisking the wet ingredients for the second batch of cakes as she spoke into the phone again. “Lisa Livia?”

“Who’s this Mr. Carpenter? Did he steal your dog last night, too?”

“You really have to come out here for the unabridged version,” Agnes said. “The big news is you have-”

“How’s my little Agnes!” Joey said, breezing in from the front hall.

“Joey!” Agnes cast a cautious glance at the rest of the crowd. “Xavier’s down in the basement!” And he thinks you did something horrible twenty-five years ago. What the hell’s going on?

“Where’s Shane?”

“He be in the basement with Detective Xavier,” Doyle said, sitting back with a cup of coffee, surveying the crowd with amusement now. “It be like a museum down there. Our Agnes should open it for the public. Get one of them fancy velvet ropes, put me in a uniform, let me decide who goes in and out.” He gestured to the door. “Step right this way, ladies and gents! See the historic basement!”

Joey faltered for a moment, and Agnes couldn’t tell if it was Doyle’s basement humor or the sight of Carpenter and Garth eating pancakes and ham, but then he kept on going toward the basement door.

“Pancakes?” Agnes said, trying to delay him as she mixed the wet ingredients into the dry with a lot less care than with the first batch. Speed, that was the ticket.

“Later,” Joey said, and slid a huge package wrapped in butcher paper across the counter to her. “Ribs.”

“Thank you,” Agnes said, hoping there were enough for everybody, since the thought of Carpenter and Garth in a smackdown over a rack of country ribs was not a pretty one. Carpenter had the edge over Garth on size and training, but Garth had youth and Thibault viciousness on his side. She shook her head and went back to the phone, turning her back on the rest of them. “Lisa Livia?”

“What’s going on over there?”

Agnes dropped her voice. “Breakfast. Now here’s the news: Your mama’s married. Taylor’s your stepfather.”

“What?”

“I’ll see you real soon,” Agnes said, and hung up to finish the next batch of pancakes, cut more ham, start the marinade for the ribs, and then begin today’s To Do List before moving on to write her damn column.

“You be real careful down there in that museum, Joey,” Doyle called, and Joey gave him a funny look before he climbed down the ladder.

“Excellent pancakes,” Carpenter said. “The ham is particularly fine.”

“Is there more?” Garth said, holding out the empty platter, and Agnes took it back and filled it again while she thought about just what the hell was in Joey’s museum in the basement and when she should start the next batch of pancakes.

“Joey the Gent,” Xavier said when Joey reached the basement floor. “Just the man I want to talk to.”

The last half hour in the basement, Shane had kept his mouth shut as he watched Xavier use more equipment from his tackle box. Sophisticated the old detective wasn’t, but efficient he was. Shane had a feeling Xavier and Carpenter would get along quite well. Old school and new school, same brain.

Xavier pointed to an aged stool between the bar and Venus. “Have a seat, old friend. I found something quite interesting here in Frankie Fortunato’s rec room.”

“One of Frankie’s fine wines?” Joey asked, glancing at the wine rack, but he went to the stool and sat down.

“Not wine,” Xavier said. “I found blood.”

“Yeah, that bum kid-” Joey began, but Xavier cut him off.

“Not from the Thibault kid. That you can clearly see. This was old blood that someone had tried to clean up. Only showed up with the luminol and the infrared light. It’s a blood trail. Leading from there, where the bottom of the stairs had been, around this bar, right up to that wine rack and ending at that wall behind the rack. Blood from a long time ago.”

Joey’s eyes had that dead look, and he was staring at the detective. Shane had a feeling he was witnessing two old warriors picking up their swords once more.

“I’m willing to bet,” Xavier said, “that blood is twenty-five years old. I’m willing to bet that it’s Frankie Fortunato’s blood type. And I’m willing to bet that when we knock down that wall right behind you, we find Frankie’s body.”

“How much you got to bet?” Joey asked. “You want me to put some action on this? Give you some kind of odds? You know Keyes, Xavier. Lots of secrets, lots of strange things going on all the time. Lots of skeletons in closets. Sure you want to go poking around?”

As denials went, Shane thought, it was pretty bad.

“In your closet, Joey? Sure.”

“This ain’t my house or my closet. How long is it going to take you to get that blood test done? I know about your little tackle box, Simon. CSI: Las Vegas you ain’t.”

“The blood test won’t take long at all, and I’m good enough at what I do to get a warrant to find out what’s behind that wall.”

Joey snorted. “You think so? Agnes’s got a wedding to put on here.

And Jefferson and Evie Keyes aren’t going to like you fucking around with their only son’s wedding. Maybe Jefferson calls the sheriff and they put the brakes on your little one-man show. You’re right, you’re gonna need a warrant to get behind that wall. Which means you’re gonna need the judge to sign off on it. You know, the judge who golfs with Jefferson every week. Whose wife is best friends with Evie.”

“And how are the Keyes going to know about this?” Xavier asked.

Joey gave his shark smile. “It’s a small town, Simon.”

Xavier shook his head. “I’ll find out what’s behind that wall. One way or another.” He climbed up the ladder.

“Now I want some answers,” Shane said.

“Everybody wants answers. I want breakfast,” Joey said, and went up the ladder right behind Xavier.

Like that’s gonna work, Shane thought, and followed him up.

When Agnes put the third platter of pancakes and the second plate of ham on the table, the atmosphere lightened considerably. There was something about being full enough to relax yet still hungry enough to enjoy food with plenty of it still on the table, that just mellowed the hell out of people.

And there were a lot of people at her table, she thought happily.

“So, Garth,” Carpenter said genially.

“Is here to paint the house with Doyle,” Agnes said brightly. Carpenter smiled at her gently. “I was here last night, Agnes.”

“Right,” Agnes said.

“Who sent you, Garth?” Carpenter said. His voice was soft, but there was no denying it.

“My grandpa. He found that newspaper picture on his window-shield, you know, the one with the dog in it? And he wanted me to get the necklace it had on it in the picture, except the dog don’t have no necklace on it.”

Carpenter looked at Agnes, and she said, “I have no idea where the necklace went.”

Doyle put up a hand. “That was my foolish doing. I found that piece of junk when I was clearing up around here, and I put it on Rhett as a joke.”

“A joke,” Carpenter said. “And where is this joke necklace now?”

“I pawned it,” Doyle said. “I asked Agnes if she wanted it, and she told me I could have anything I found cleaning up, so I took it to Atlanta and pawned it. Sorry.”

“You pawned it?” Agnes said. “I thought it was junk.”

“It was,” Doyle said. “I got five dollars for it. You want the five dollars? If I overstepped, I’m real sorry, lass.”

He didn’t look sorry, and when Agnes thought about it, she couldn’t exactly remember telling him he could have anything he found, either. He probably could-she wasn’t interested in most of the stuff he turned up-she just couldn’t remember telling him that.

Which was just like the old reprobate.

“No, I don’t want the five bucks,” she said. “I don’t care about the necklace.”

“Why Atlanta?” Carpenter said. “Savannah’s closer.”

“I was in Atlanta,” Doyle said. “Now, would you be suspecting me of something, Mr. Carpenter?”

“I have an unfortunately suspicious soul, Mr. Doyle,” Carpenter said. “I would also like to know who arranged for Mr. Four Wheels to find the newspaper picture in his car.”

“Don’t know that,” Garth said, and shoveled in more food.

“And what is it that you do for a living, Mr. Carpenter?” Doyle asked.

“I am, among other things, a man of the cloth, Mr. Doyle,” Carpenter said, and Agnes almost dropped her spatula.

“And what denomination would that cloth be of?” Doyle asked.

“I am a Spiritual Humanist,” Carpenter said. “We believe in helping others improve their conditions. In living, for example, Mr. Doyle, a life free of deceit.”

“So, how about those pancakes?” Agnes said. “I’ve still got Shane and Xavier to feed and then there’s Lisa Livia coming over, and you wouldn’t believe how she can put them away, so I’m thinking at least another batch. And then there are ribs for lunch. Are you staying for lunch, Mr. Carpenter?”

Carpenter kept his eyes on Doyle. “Why, thank you, Miss Agnes, I would be delighted to stay for lunch.”

“Well, then I’ll get these ribs marinating and perhaps you can man the grill-”

The phone rang and Agnes answered it.

“Miss Crandall?” Reverend Miller said, pitching his voice deep for effect as usual, thereby sounding, as Lisa Livia had once said, like God making an obscene phone call.

“Good morning, Reverend Miller,” Agnes said, wondering what excuse the minister had come up with this time for barring Maria from wedded bliss with a Keyes under his watch.

“I was just wondering if Miss Fortunato is what you’d call a regular churchgoer?” Reverend Miller asked.

“Hell, yes,” Agnes said, having no idea. “Every Sunday. She wouldn’t miss. I’d love to chat about that, but I’ve got a kitchen full of people to feed, so if that was all you wanted…”

“You’re sure about that,” Reverend Miller said. “Because I feel strongly-”

“I do, too,” Agnes said. “You have a good day.” Then she hung up. Xavier came out of the basement, followed by Joey and then Shane. Xavier looked at Carpenter and said, “Who is this?”

“My business partner,” Shane said as he cleared the doorway. “And what business is that?” Xavier said. “Housework,” Carpenter said.

Shane introduced Joey to Carpenter, and Agnes grabbed Garth’s sleeve and pulled him close.

“When breakfast is done,” she whispered, “I’ll distract them and you get out of here. I’ll tell them I told you to go. It’ll be all right.”

Garth’s pale bony face looked stricken, his freckles standing out against the white. “But what about the ribs?”

“What?” Agnes said.

“And the paintin’?” Garth said. “I gotta help Mr. Doyle paint the house, right? And then have ribs. And this house needs a lotta work. You need help.” He was nodding at her, serious.

Agnes put her hand on her forehead. “Uh, Garth-”

“I’ll work for room and board.”

“Garth-”

“Don’t send me back to the swamp, Miss Agnes,” Garth said, his voice pathetic. “I hate it there. I’ll sleep in the basement, honest.”

“You can’t sleep in the basement,” Agnes said, appalled. “You got a barn or somethin’?” Garth said.

“Well, yeah,” Agnes said. “Taylor turned it into a catering hall. It even has a loft apartment with a bathroom. But-”

“It’s got a bathroom?” Garth said.

“Oh, hell,” Agnes said, and then her baser self took over and reminded her that she really did the need the house painted and God knew what else was going to turn up before the weekend. And with a Thibault on the premises, maybe the rest of the clan wouldn’t show up to shoot her. And he liked her cooking.

Well, he probably liked anybody’s cooking, but it was a real pleasure to see that boy eat.

“Yeah, sure, you can stay a couple of days,” she said, knowing she was going to hell for exploiting the bathroom-less and then thought about the rest of her day.

To Do List, she thought. Feed cast of thousands, several of whom are killers and one of whom is an underage dognapper now living illegally in my barn. Plan flamingo wedding. Remember not to screw hitman’s brains out again even though he’s really hot. Find nice normal guy without gun permit.

The back door opened and Lisa Livia came in, looking gorgeous in pink capris and a black T-shirt that said expensive in rhinestones. “So,” she said to Agnes, seemingly oblivious to the fact that conversation had just stopped and six pairs of male eyes were now riveted to her rhinestones. “What’s the plan?”

Take revenge on the sleazy bitch who’s trying to swindle me out of my dream house.

It was going to be a very busy day.

Shane escorted Xavier outside without giving Agnes a chance to invite him to breakfast, and made sure the detective actually got in the boat and cast off, puttering away down the Blood River, before he returned to the kitchen, where he found his uncle at the table with the rest of the people Agnes had collected. He thought about dragging Joey out onto the porch, and then decided to sit back and watch. He learned a lot by watching.

There was Lisa Livia, looking damn good, and there was Carpenter, surveying the kitchen population as if they were part of the mission, and Doyle, looking at Three Wheels without much enthusiasm and at Lisa Livia with a wistfulness that was almost sad, remembering lost days maybe. Three Wheels, eating ham and pancakes at the speed of light and watching Agnes with no intent to kill, although, some other kind of intent maybe-try anything and die, kid-and Rhett, asleep under the table once again, like a particularly lumpy brown rug. And Joey…

Joey met his eyes and then looked back down at his cakes and ham.

Agnes put a plate full of pancakes and ham in front of Shane. “Eat.” She poured coffee and put that in front of him, too.

He began to eat, only half-distracted by Agnes’s food this time- the ham crisp and sweet, the cakes thick and light, studded with pecans, the syrup falling in ropes to mix with the melting butter-but getting in the way was Joey, who was up to something that was probably going to get them all jailed or worse.

Doyle looked from Shane to Joey and back again and then said, “Garth, my boy, it is time we began our work day,” and removed a reluctant Three Wheels from the warmth of Agnes’s stove, Three Wheels slapping a slice of ham between two pancakes as he went. Agnes and Lisa Livia took their coffee out onto the porch, and Carpenter sat back, relieved from the distraction of the rhinestones, and watched Joey and Shane finish off their breakfasts.

Joey evaded Shane’s eyes in the ensuing silence until he couldn’t stand it anymore. “There’s really an old blood trail down there?”

“What the fuck?” Shane exploded. “You think I’d just stand there and let him bullshit you if there wasn’t? I was down there for half an hour watching him sniff around. I’m surprised he didn’t take an ax to that wall, but he’s a smart cop. He’s playing this straight and legal. You telling me you don’t know anything about that blood trail or what’s behind that wall?”

“Oh, come on, Shane,” Joey pleaded.

“Don’t fuck with me, Joey. You been lying to me since you called me. Is Frankie Fortunato behind that wall?”

Carpenter raised his eyebrows and sipped his coffee.

“Damned if I know,” Joey said. “I told you what happened that night.”

Shane glared at his uncle. “Is someone else behind that wall, then? You guys whack someone way back when and put the body there?”

“You think we were that stupid?” Joey asked. “Put a body where somebody’s gonna find it someday?”

That Shane believed. “All right.” He pointed a finger at Joey. “You swear to me right now, on your beloved Angelina’s soul, that you don’t know what happened to Frankie Fortunato.”

Joey closed his eyes for a moment, and then nodded. “I swear on my dear wife’s soul. I don’t know what happened to Frankie Fortunato after I left him alive and well with that safe that night.”

Shane sighed. There was still a seed of doubt in the back of his mind, and he tried to take apart the way Joey had phrased it to see if his uncle had built in wiggle room with the oath. “Okay, you didn’t put anybody behind the wall.”

“Well, thank you for that,” Joey said, all injured dignity.

Shane fixed him with a stare. “What is behind that wall?”

Joey sat very still.

Carpenter grinned behind his coffee cup.

Joey shifted in his chair, clearly thinking Oh, fuck. He sighed deeply. “Frankie’s bomb shelter.”

Shane straightened. “What?”

“Frankie’s fucking bomb shelter. But you can forget about getting in, ‘cause Frankie had the only key.”

Shane pushed his plate away and tried to will some patience. “What ‘fucking bomb shelter,’ Joey?”

“Frankie put a damn fallout shelter in the backyard.” Joey jerked his thumb toward the river. “Had it brought over on a barge and lifted by crane at high tide at night into the yard; then he covered it up and built the gazebo on top. Even if Xavier knocked the wall down, he ain’t gonna find a body. He’s gonna find a fifty-foot tunnel ‘cause Frankie used a tunnel to go from the rec room to the shelter. Only people who knew about it were Brenda and me and Four Wheels.”

“A bomb shelter?” Shane was still trying to wrap his mind around this development.

“Government surplus,” Joey said. “Survive-a-nuclear-blast type of thing. Foot-thick, steel-reinforced concrete walls. Fucking indestructible. Loaded with food and all sorts of survival stuff. Frankie was a little bit paranoid.”

“You think?” Shane leaned forward in the chair. “And Frankie had the only key to the shelter?”

“Yeah. Big damn thing almost six inches long. He kept it next to his gun.”

No stairs. The entrance covered. The blood trail. The bomb shelter with only one key. Shane thought about strangling Joey with his bare hands. “Four Wheels is coming for the necklace because he thinks Agnes opened the bomb shelter and found the five million bucks from the robbery. That’s why you called me in. You knew it wasn’t a dognapper and you knew it wasn’t just anybody thinking maybe the five million was here. You knew exactly what it was.”

“Maybe,” Joey said.

“Maybe we need to open the bomb shelter,” Carpenter said, and they both looked at him in surprise, Joey probably because he was talking, but Shane because opening a bomb shelter was not in the mission statement.

“Wilson,” Shane said to him.

“I am a curious man,” Carpenter said.

“You can’t do it without the key,” Joey said. “That door is thick. And the lock-”

“Eat your breakfast,” Shane said, knowing Carpenter could open anything he damn well wanted to. “We need to go look for a tunnel.”

Agnes and Lisa Livia had taken their coffee out onto the back porch and sat down on the swing.

“So how about this,” Agnes said. “Traditional wedding cakes had white icing because refined sugar was the most expensive, so white cakes were the most expensive. Now the most expensive ones are the elaborate ones that come in all different colors. Irony. Great column hook, huh?”

“Taylor’s my fucking stepfather?”

“Yep.” Agnes gave up on her column, put her coffee on the table, and turned to face Lisa Livia, prepared to be supportive in the fury to come. “He married Brenda the day before we signed the house papers.”

“That makes sense,” Lisa Livia said.

Agnes looked at her in disbelief. “That makes sense?”

“Well, yeah.” Lisa Livia gave the swing a shove and they began to move back and forth, creaking in the summer breeze. “If you accept the insanity that my mother sold the two of you this house with the intention of swindling you out of it and he was in on it, he’d have to marry her. That way when he lost the house to her, he’d get it back because he was her husband. It’s the only way he profits from the deal.”

“Jesus wept,” Agnes said, feeling her rage rise again.

Angry language, Agnes.

It’s a Bible verse, Dr. Garvin.

“So of course he’s married to my mother,” Lisa Livia said grimly. “But he’s gonna pay in ways he can’t even begin to dream of. She’ll probably kill him, too, just like she killed my daddy. So if you’re thinking revenge, just wait. It’s coming right up on its own.”

“You really think she killed your dad,” Agnes said, more willing to believe it today than she’d ever been before.

“He’d never have left me,” Lisa Livia said. “He loved me.”

“Well, you were right about the swindle, so I’m inclined to believe you about this one.” Agnes picked up her coffee and blew on it and then sipped it. “Poor Taylor. I almost killed him last night and now Brenda’s going to off him anyway.”

“You almost killed him?” Lisa Livia’s eyes widened. “When he told you about Brenda?”

“Went for him with a meat fork.” Agnes shook her head at her own insanity. “Shane took it away from me. Thank God.”

“You owe Shane big,” Lisa Livia said. “You realize that if you’d killed Taylor, Brenda would have inherited half of this place back?”

Agnes sat up. “Oh, God.” Then she stopped. “No, she wouldn’t have. I would have. We have a survivorship agreement. If one of us dies, the other gets everything. We have to survive the other one by twenty-four hours and then we inherit, so if Brenda had managed to off me, she’d have gotten the whole place but-”

“You wouldn’t have inherited.” Lisa Livia shook her head over her coffee. “You’d have killed him and you can’t profit from your own crime. So she’d have gotten it.”

“Oh,” Agnes said, deflated. “Oh, crap. There really wouldn’t have been an upside to forking him, would there?”

“Aside from the simple pleasure of the act itself, no.” Lisa Livia gave the swing another push. “We have to figure this out. This is bad. We need a plan.”

“A plan.” Agnes nodded, trying to relax with the swing as she thought. “A plan is good. Something that puts the house in my name, not in Taylor’s.”

“Yep.”

“And that makes it mine permanently, so Brenda can’t ever have it.”

“Yep.”

“What would do that?”

“Taylor and Brenda dead.”

Agnes stopped the swing. “LL, get your mind out of the mob. We’re not killing anybody.”

Lisa Livia looked at her, her big brown eyes wide with innocence. “It’s efficient. We’d have to pin it on somebody else so you could keep the house, but there are a lot of people I’m annoyed with we could stick with the blame. Palmer’s best man and his damn practical jokes are bugging the hell out of me. Some jail time would do him a world of good. What’s his name? Downer. Downer is an idiot. Let’s send him to the slammer.”

Agnes started the swing again, fairly sure Lisa Livia was kidding. “Okay, put it down as a backup plan.”

“Yeah, we have to wait until the cops are out of here anyway, you can’t throw a rock without hitting one. That Hammond kid even came out to the boat to ask Maria about the wedding, although I think that was just an excuse.”

“Oh, hell,” Agnes said, “he’s not going to confuse Maria and make her cancel the wedding, is he?”

Lisa Livia shook her head. “My kid is not that dumb.”

“Okay.” Agnes went back to stopping Brenda. “What else is there?”

“Blackmail.”

“I like that. They’re scum, they’re bound to have done something horrible.” Agnes slowed the swing again. “You really think your mom killed your dad?”

“I know she did. That night he disappeared? I saw her drive his Caddy away. She was the only one in it. They said he ran away because they found his car at the airport, but she was the one who drove it away.”

Agnes sat very still. “You were thirteen, LL. How can you-?”

“Yeah, but I was a thirteen-year-old Fortunato,” Lisa Livia said.

Agnes nodded, dying to be open minded. “What if we found proof? We could blackmail her with that. Unless you wanted to turn her in to the cops now.” It did seem odd, talking like this about Lisa Livia’s mother, until you remembered that Lisa Livia’s mother was Brenda Fortunato. Rasputin’s kid probably had the same conversations.

Lisa Livia was shaking her head. “I couldn’t turn her in. They’d prosecute her, and it would be in the papers.”

“So?”

“My uncle Michael would find out,” Lisa Livia said with obvious patience. “You know, my uncle Michael, the Don?”

“Yeah,” Agnes said. “So?”

Lisa Livia looked at her as if she were insane. “My daddy was the Don’s brother. That means my mother whacked the Don’s brother. You know how long she’d live once he knew she killed him? Maybe ten seconds. I don’t like my mother, but I don’t really want her dead.” Lisa Livia looked out through the screens to the Blood River. “I just want to know for sure.”

“Okay,” Agnes said, suddenly feeling better about her own parents. They’d been neglectful and deceitful and they’d deserted her at ten, but they hadn’t murdered anybody. Point in their favor. “So where do we look for evidence that your mother, uh, whacked your father?”

“The boxes on the Brenda Belle,” Lisa Livia said. “Everything she owns is on that damn boat.”

“You think she’d keep evidence? That sounds dumb. Brenda is a lot of things, but dumb isn’t one of them.”

“I think she wouldn’t know.” Lisa Livia put her coffee cup down. “She has all her papers packed into boxes and I think she doesn’t even know what’s there. She’ll leave the boat sometime today, she’s going stir crazy on there, pacing back and forth, making phone calls and then slamming down the phone, cat on a hot tin boat. The only thing that’s keeping her together is the knowledge that she’ll be evicting you on Sunday and moving back here. She can’t wait to get back here. As soon as she leaves again today, I’ll go through as much of it as I can.”

“I owe you,” Agnes said.

Lisa Livia shook her head, a little sadly. “No, I shoulda done this a long time ago. Besides, you’re putting on my kid’s wedding. I owe you. I-” She stopped as they heard two sets of car doors slam, and she got up and craned her neck to see who was coming around the corner of the house through the porch screen. “Oh, God, it’s Evie and Maria,” she said after a moment, dread in her voice. “I gotta eat crow here and get my kid her white wedding back.”

“No, wait.” Agnes shoved her glasses up the bridge of her nose and stood up, too. “I think I can do it. Let me do the talking this time. My trade for you getting me the stuff to blackmail your mother.”

“That’s fair,” Lisa Livia said, and then she put on a smile as the screen door opened and Maria came in, followed by Evie with a dress bag over her arm.

Dress bags, the new hot accessory, Agnes thought, and plastered a smile on her face as she thought fast about how to get rid of the flamingo theme.

Maria said, “Evie called me to meet her here. She has a surprise to show us.”

Evie looked like six kinds of hell. “I’ve come to apologize. Palmer scolded me last night for being overbearing and rude, and he was right. If Maria wants a flamingo wedding, then she should have a flamingo wedding.” She reached for the dress bag and unzipped it.

“Well, actually,” Maria said, looking jolted.

“I think we can talk about that,” Agnes said, stepping forward. “I’m sure we can compromise-”

“I shouldn’t have opened my big mouth,” Lisa Livia said.

“So I went to my dressmaker last night, and we worked on the dress,” Evie said as if they hadn’t spoken, pulling a lot of pink fabric out of the bag again. “Maria, would you please try Brenda’s wedding dress on for us?”

Maria took a deep breath and look the dress, which looked a lot lighter, and went inside, detouring into the housekeeper’s room. “Really, Evie,” Lisa Livia began.

Evie turned to her. “I did not appreciate what you said to me, Lisa Livia, but if someone had spoken to my son the way I spoke to your daughter, I would have felt the same way. I apologize, I sincerely do.”

“Oh, don’t,” Lisa Livia said miserably. “I apologize. I was completely out of line.”

“We’ve been talking,” Agnes said. “And we’re really both sure Maria will be fine with a white wedding. We think you were right to insist on something classic, like daisies and butterflies, Maria has always loved those, maybe with tiny flamingo accents and then a flamingo groom’s cake-”

“No, no,” Evie said. “A girl should have the wedding she wants. I made a mistake. I was glad to spend last night fixing it. My dressmaker is a genius. You’ll see.”

“Oh,” Lisa Livia said.

Agnes looked at Lisa Livia and knew she was thinking the same thing: How do you tell a woman who has stayed up all night and spent a small fortune in dressmaker overtime fees that the flamingo thing was a joke her future daughter-in-law played to teach her a lesson about meddling?

Agnes and Lisa Livia looked away from each other and shut up.

“So have you talked to Maisie Shuttle?” Evie said to Agnes, after they’d discussed the weather and hoped it would hold for the weekend, and how the weatherman was predicting that it would, and how the gazebo was certainly looking lovely.

“Who’s Maisie Shuttle?” Lisa Livia said.

“Florist,” Agnes said. “Not yet, I’m still getting her machine. Don’t worry. Maria will have her flowers, which I’m thinking will still be white, with maybe tiny pink accents-”

The screen door slapped open, and Maria came out in Brenda’s dress, but it was Brenda’s dress reborn, the hoop skirt and lace overlay gone along with the meringue sleeves and poufy overskirt and all the other froufrou. It was still flamingo pink, but lighter. Evie must have soaked it forever to rinse out part of the dye and now the cut was streamlined and strapless, with just an edge of netting along the top of the bodice, the skirt still full but with a crinoline not a hoop. Maria looked lovely. Pink as all hell, but lovely.

“That really did take you all night,” Agnes said, looking at all the work that must have gone into just removing fabric.

“I wanted to apologize today,” Evie said. “I didn’t want Maria to think I wasn’t… I didn’t want her to feel… I…” She looked at Maria. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what got into me. After Brenda and I went to lunch yesterday and talked, I-”

“Brenda,” Agnes snarled, imagining what that lunch had been like, Brenda dripping poison into Evie’s ear.

Maria took a deep breath. “Thank you, Evie, this is a beautiful dress and I’ll think of you when I walk down the aisle.”

Oh, hell, Agnes thought as she heard somebody walk through her kitchen. “You know what would make this dress perfect? An all-white backdrop with just tiny pink accents-”

Maria turned to her eagerly, and then the screen door from the kitchen slapped and Brenda stepped onto the porch, invading from the house. “Well, here I am, Evie,” she said, looking like she hadn’t slept well. “What was so important?” She caught sight of Agnes and smiled, looking predatory. “Agnes, sugar, you had the front door open again, and you know that’s bad for my clock, so I just closed it for you. And you’ve got a big ol’ truck coming across the bridge, too. Is that a good idea?”

“It’s about time you got that clock out of my hall,” Agnes said, and watched Brenda’s face sharpen, and then a beat later, she thought, A truck? The bridge can’t support a truck. “No,” she said, and started for the door, only to be blocked by Brenda, staring at Maria’s dress.

“Where did you get that?” Brenda said to Maria.

“It’s your wedding dress, Grandma,” Maria said, smiling bravely. “I’m wearing it for my wedding.”

“My wedding dress?” Brenda said, her pretty face darkening.

“Where’s my Italian lace? Where’s my bouffant sleeves? Where’s my goddamn hoop skirt?”

The same place as your goddamned morals, you worthless tramp. “It’s been modernized, Brenda,” Agnes said. “When you pass something on to someone else, you have to expect changes. You don’t get it back.”

Brenda glared at Agnes. “I can expect my wedding dress to stay my goddamn wedding dress.”

“Ma, it’s beautiful,” Lisa Livia said. “Evie and her dressmaker worked on it all night. We’re really grateful. All of us.”

Brenda turned on her, glaring. “Well, I’m not grate-”

The air was split with the sound of honking, frantic honking, as if a giant duck were being turned inside out, and Agnes said, “What the hell?” and shoved Brenda out of the way to see what was going on.

There was a deliveryman on her back lawn setting loose a large pink bird.

“What is that?” Agnes went out through the screen door and down toward the bird as it broke free of its crate and bolted for the river. It was at least five feet tall, and while she actually did know what it was, she was having trouble accepting the fact.

“Delivery for Maria Fortunato and Palmer Keyes,” the delivery-man said, giving up on catching the bird. “They here?”

“Maria!” Agnes yelled, but Maria was right behind her. “Did you order a flamingo?”

“No,” Maria said, staring at the bird as it loped, honking, toward the water, but she signed for it when the uniformed chinless wonder with the blond crew cut jabbed the clipboard at her. Then he handed her an envelope and drove off, leaving the crate and the bird behind as he made Agnes’s bridge groan again in his getaway.

“That’s a flamingo,” Lisa Livia said, coming up behind them as Maria opened the envelope, and Agnes said, “Yes, it is,” staring in equal disbelief.

“It’s a wedding gift from Downer,” Maria said, reading the papers from the envelope, and her inflection on “Downer” told them all they needed to know about how she felt about Palmer’s best man. “Its name is Cerise.”

“What in God’s name?” Doyle said, and Agnes turned to see him and Garth crossing the lawn, gaping at the bird, which was still honking frantically, now knee deep in the Blood River.

“Flamingo,” she told him. “How’s that house painting coming?”

“We need sprayers,” Garth said. “That’s a flamingo. Hot damn.”

“They eat shrimp,” Maria said, still reading the papers. “What are we going to do with a flamingo?” Her voice quivered on flamingo, and Agnes realized that after the dress and her grandmother, the big pink bird was probably the last straw.

“Jimbo can get us all the shrimp we want,” Garth said, and Agnes took the papers out of Maria’s hands and gave them to him.

“You are now chief flamingo wrangler,” she told him. “Take care of Cerise until we figure out where she belongs so we can send her back. Feed her lots of shrimp. Maybe that will shut her up.”

“Cool,” Garth said.

“And paint the house,” Agnes added.

“On it,” Garth said, and was gone.

Agnes turned to Maria. “You really do look beautiful in that dress, honest to God, and the flamingo will be gone by your wedding, I swear.”

Maria nodded, trying to smile, and then Agnes turned to the rest of the group, raising her voice to be heard above the honking.

“So, who’s for a mint julep?” It wasn’t quite ten yet, but it was definitely turning into a drink-your-brunch day. If Cerise didn’t shut up soon, she was going to get a julep, too. With a syringe if necessary.

Evie shook her head, trying to look away from the flamingo and failing. “Thank you, Agnes, but I’m going home to bed.” She finally tore her eyes away, kissed Maria on the cheek, halfway between a real kiss and an air kiss, smiled weakly at Lisa Livia and Brenda, and tottered off to her Lexus.

“She’s startin’ to show her age, bless her heart,” Brenda said with satisfaction.

“She was up all night working on your dress for your granddaughter,” Lisa Livia snapped.

“She was up all night ruining my wedding dress,” Brenda shot back.

“Bless her heart,” Agnes said. Brenda jerked back to glare at Agnes.

“I’ll have Shane and Joey put that clock in the truck and bring it out to your boat,” Agnes said.

“That clock is the only heirloom from my family,” Brenda said. “You just leave it where it is.”

“It’s in my house,” Agnes said.

Brenda took a deep breath and then stopped, the blood rising in her face.

“I think I’m going up to the gift bedrooms to change,” Maria said, her voice cracking. “It’s quiet up there. And I can look at my china. I’ll like that.”

When she was gone, Lisa Livia said, “Come on, Ma, let’s go back to the boat and leave Agnes to work on the wedding in peace.” She shot a glance at Cerise, still honking her head off. “Sort of.”

“Yacht, not boat,” Brenda snapped. And then she smiled, which was almost worse. “You go on, honey. I’ve got some things to do in town. But I could use a glass of water before I go. You don’t mind if I get it myself, do you, Agnes? I feel as though I still own the place, you know.” She turned on her heel and walked across the lawn and into the house.

“My mother,” Lisa Livia said. “A complete waste of oxygen. Bless her heart.”

“She’s insane,” Agnes said. “Normally, I’d just go berserk and scream at her, but I’m trying to be an adult and use the Dr. Garvin approach.”

“I am no fan of Dr. Garvin, but in this case, yes. Play nice until we find something that we can nail her to the wall with.” Lisa Livia went toward the house, pulling Agnes with her. “Does she even know that you know? About Taylor and the swindle, I mean?”

“Depends on whether Taylor’s had time to talk to her. He is a great avoider of conflict, so maybe not. Go get me something good from those boxes.”

“You know, another place to look is here at Two Rivers,” Lisa Livia said, opening the screen door. “She might have left something behind somewhere.”

“Left it? Like where?” Agnes said, and then stopped in the kitchen doorway, where Brenda was staring at the open doorway to the basement.

“What do you mean, they’re down there looking for the tunnel?” she was saying to Joey, sheet white.

Lisa Livia looked at Agnes. “Like in the basement,” she said.

Shane looked around the rec room, trying not to linger on the Venus de Mildew and thought, The Fortunato taste in decorating. Probably causes genetic damage. Which would explain a lot about the family.

“This is a great house,” Carpenter said as he flipped open the clasps on his large plastic case.

“You think?”

“Can’t you feel it?” Carpenter asked as he brought out a foot-long infrared wand. “Cut the light.”

Shane turned off the light, and Xavier’s blood trail glowed. Carpenter looked like a ghoul holding the wand. He nodded. “Lot of blood. Someone cleaned it up, you can see the smears, probably with bleach.” Carpenter walked the trail from where the stairs had ended, across the floor, around the edge of the bar, to the wine rack. “Turn the light back on.”

Shane flipped the switch. “Why do you think this is a great house?”

“The vibe.” Carpenter ran his large hands lightly over the old wooden rack.

Shane thought about Agnes, maybe in that cool blue bedroom at the top of the house. “Might be a good house to come home to.”

Carpenter stared at him for a few seconds, then nodded. “It might be. You tired, my friend?”

Shane wiped a hand across his forehead. “I didn’t get much sleep last night-”

“Not that kind of tired.” Carpenter shrugged his broad shoulders. “I’m tired. And you do the real dirty work. I’m willing to bet you’re real tired, deep inside.”

Shane stared at Carpenter, surprised, and then thought about what Wilson had said out on the high dock. Taking Wilson’s job would mean he’d be out of the field. He’d be giving the orders rather than having to execute them-literally. Sending somebody else out to do what he did.

Carpenter lifted the huge wine rack out of the way and put it to the side. Then he placed his hands on the wood-paneled wall. “There’s something that looks like a stethoscope in my case. Except bigger. And it has headphones.”

Shane looked in the case and retrieved the device. He brought it to Carpenter, who placed the headphones on and then put the cone at the other end against the wall. He turned a knob on the control and began slowly sliding it along the wall in short swaths, working from the floor up to the ceiling.

Shane waited, wondering what mischief Agnes and Lisa Livia were up to upstairs. And why all of a sudden he and Carpenter were having conversations instead of short exchanges about packages and cleanups.

“There is indeed a void behind here,” Carpenter said, removing the headphones.

“You can hear a void?” Shane asked.

Carpenter handed him the equipment. “It sends a pulse out, like sonar.” He was staring at the paneling as if it were going to speak to him.

“What-” Shane began, but Carpenter held up a hand indicating silence. Shane figured he was waiting for the vibe to speak to him again. Or maybe the void.

Carpenter looked left, then right, atthe ghastly imitation of the Venus de Milo. He reached out and began to run his hand over the statue.

“Carpenter?” Shane said when his friend put his hands over her breasts. Maybe the rhinestones had gotten to him. “I think Lisa Livia wants that.”

Carpenter pressed both breasts and at the same time took the toe of his boot and jammed it under the floorboard of the paneling in front of him. There was a slight noise, and Shane moved forward and knelt, putting his fingers next to Carpenter’s boot. He hooked them under the floorboard and lifted. A section of the paneling slowly began to lift, protesting against the inertia of the years it had been stuck in place.

“I am curious.” Carpenter went over to his case and pulled out two headbands with flashlights attached to the front of them and tossed one to Shane. “Frankie was the older son, but not the Don. Stuck down here with his Venus de Milo Bomb Shelter. And your uncle, he’s worried, but he’s not saying anything. Doesn’t strike me as the type to scare easy, your uncle.” He turned on his light and faced toward the void.

Shane did the same, feeling very troubled. Joey didn’t scare easy, but something had kept him quiet and stuck in Keyes for a long time.

The tunnel was about four feet wide going up to a rounded roof slightly over six feet high. It was lined with brick, very old brick, and it was deep, black as hell beyond the light cast by Carpenter’s beam.

“Let’s see what lies ahead.” Carpenter started in, and Shane followed. He couldn’t see past Carpenter’s bulk as they moved down the long tunnel, and he almost bumped into him when he came to an abrupt halt after fifty feet. The cleaner moved aside so Shane could see that the passage abruptly ended in a steel wall. No, a steel door, Shane realized as he saw the metal wheel in the center and the outline of a hatch.

Carpenter knelt and examined a keyhole to the left of the hatch, probing it with a long flexible rod he pulled out of one of the many pockets on his coveralls.

“Not pickable,” Carpenter decided. “Plus, the moisture down here has rusted whatever mechanism is in there solid anyway.”

“Blast it?” Shane suggested.

Carpenter rolled his eyes. “Always using the hammer when finesse will work. Wait here.” He edged past Shane and went back down the tunnel.

Shane looked at the steel hatch and rapped on it with his knuckles. Solid. Blasting it would probably bring the house down on top of them. That would piss Agnes off. Don’t want Agnes pissed off, Shane thought. Fiery, okay. Pissed off, no. At least not at him. If Taylor came by and infuriated her again, he was willing to lend a hand. Or whatever she needed. He began to wonder if Agnes was alone upstairs-

Carpenter was coming back.

“You know,” Shane speculated, “if someone whacked Frankie Fortunato and didn’t have Joey’s skills as a cleaner, this would be a good place to stash the body. And if Frankie had put the safe with the money in here already and that person had shut the door with the key on Frankie’s body and then found out the five mil was in there, that person might have been getting pretty steamed over the past twenty-five years.”

“Why kill Frankie if not for the money?” Carpenter carefully placed a wooden box on the floor and opened it, revealing several glass vials. He also laid out a long green nylon case. He peeled open the Velcro holding it shut, revealing steel rods.

“Maybe the killer thought the money was elsewhere,” Shane said. “Maybe in the trunk of Frankie’s Caddy. And when the killer found out that five million was in here, he was screwed because he couldn’t get in without getting noticed and that would bring attention to the body, so…”

“You say he,” Carpenter said as he began setting up what looked like an IV drip holder. “You have your suspicions.” He angled a glass tube into the keyhole.

“There are suspects. If Frankie is in there.”

“Do you suspect your uncle?” Carpenter put a glass tube with a stop-cock on the bottom onto the IV drop holder.

“No. Joey has his faults” -a lot of them-“and he’ll lie to you without blinking, but his oath is good. Hell, the mob calls him Joey the Gent.” But Joey was lying about something else. And that meant he must have a damn good reason for lying.

Carpenter very carefully turned the stop-cock until a single drop of the liquid dripped into the long tube and slid down it, disappearing into the keyhole. There was a hissing sound, and a small puff of smoke appeared.

“Don’t breathe the fumes,” Carpenter advised. “Poisonous.”

Shane stepped back.

Carpenter looked at his watch. Several minutes passed. A second drop of acid dripped down with the same result. Carpenter nodded. “All right. I’ll have to adjust the tube a few times, but I estimate this will burn through the locking mechanism by around noon tomorrow, give or take an hour. Then we’ll know if Frankie’s in there.”

“Noon tomorrow,” Shane said. “Helluva lot can happen before then.”

“Like finding Casey Dean?” Carpenter said. Right. The mission. “That was my next move,” Shane lied, and headed back down the tunnel, focusing once more.

When Lisa Livia had followed a shaken Brenda over the bridge, Agnes went down to the river to see what she could do about calming a hysterical five-foot-tall pink bird with a honk like an amplified mutant duck. When she got there, Cerise looked her in the eye and honked louder, flapping her wings and going nowhere, splashing in the Blood, agitated and miserable, and Agnes began to feel for her.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Whatever it is, I’m really sorry, and I will get you back home as soon as I can, I swear, and I will have that idiot Downer roasted slowly over hot coals while I’m at it, but please stop honking-”

“She’s lonely,” Garth said from behind her, and Agnes turned to see him standing there, as gawky as before in the same dirty denim,

but now frowning with purpose, holding a bunch of papers. “I looked it up, like you said, on the Internet.”

“What?” Agnes said, dumbfounded, Garth and the Internet not compatible in her mind.

“They taught us in school,” Garth said, indignant. “Computers. I graduated elementary school and junior high.”

“Of course you did,” Agnes said, feeling awful for feeling surprised. Bad grammar did not mean bad brains, she knew that. “Uh, congratulations.”

Garth nodded. “I’d go back next year, but Grandpa says there’s no use for it.”

“Hey,” Agnes said. “There’s use for it. You go back.”

“You could talk to Grandpa about it,” Garth said, looking away. “That would be right nice of you. Like in the movies.”

“Uh,” Agnes said, wondering what the hell movies Garth had been watching. Probably something where the nice lady got shot. “Yeah. Let’s cross that bridge later. Flamingos first.”

Garth went back to his Internet printouts. “I went and Googled flamingos. And flamingos, they ain’t ever alone, they’s always in big bunches, lots of them. It ain’t right that there’s just one.”

He looked at the still-vocal Cerise with real sympathy, miserable for her, and when Agnes looked back at Cerise and saw the wildness in her eyes, her heart clutched, too.

“Fucking idiot Downer,” she said as her throat closed, and then she pulled her cell phone out and punched in Maria’s number, listening to Cerise, who wasn’t honking anymore, not to Agnes’s ears- now Cerise was moaning, “Alone, alone, alone, I’m so alone, alone, alone…”

“Oh, God,” Agnes said, and thought about all those damn nights in that little housekeeper’s room, waiting for that rat bastard Taylor to come out so they could move up to that lovely cool pale blue room in the attic because moving up there would mean they were starting their new life, and if she didn’t wait, if she moved up there alone, it would mean she’d be alone forever-

Alone, alone, alone, alone…

And before that, those lonely nights after her engagements had broken off when she’d wondered what was wrong with her that men always lied to her and left her alone, and before that those miserable days after Lisa Livia had taken baby Maria and followed her job west with her lying boss, who’d promised never to move his business, and before that those godawful holidays alone in boarding school before Lisa Livia had come along, brassy and defiant to anybody who’d tried to make her miserable and who’d brought her home to beautiful Two Rivers and Brenda for every summer and holiday after that so that for a while Agnes hadn’t been-

“Hello?” Maria said, answering the phone.

“Get that shithead Downer to send this poor bird back where it belongs,” Agnes said, close to tears. “They’re never supposed to be alone. Her heart is breaking. She’s not supposed to be alone.”

“Oh, no,” Maria said. “I’ll kill him. I’ll get Palmer on it right now.”

“Thank you,” Agnes said, and clicked off the phone.

“I called Jimbo for some shrimp,” Garth said over Cerise’s moaning. “He should be bringing it right up to the dock any minute now. Maybe food will make her feel better.”

“Not even three pints of Dove’s Caramel Pecan Perfection,” Agnes said from experience, staring miserably at Cerise, who stared miserably back.

Alone, alone, alone…

Lying bastards.

When Shane climbed up into the kitchen, he found a new long To Do List on the counter that was headed “Paint sprayers.” He put it in his pocket and went out to the side of the house, where he heard hysterical honking. From the front of Carpenter’s van, he could see down onto the riverbank, where Agnes and Garth seemed to be trying to feed something to a giant agitated pink bird.

Carpenter came out to join him, Rhett at his heels.

“That’s a flamingo, right?” Shane said as he watched Agnes start toward the house, her red sundress flipping around her legs in the breeze again.

“Yeah,” Carpenter said, looking as bemused by the whole thing as Rhett did.

“Thought so.” He watched her move up the path, the ties of the sundress jaunty on her shoulders, and he wondered why she’d bothered with ties since she didn’t have to untie anything to get it off, the whole thing just slipped off over her head. Probably so he’d think about untying it. Which he was doing right now-

His phone vibrated and he checked it and saw a text message from two hours ago. He pulled out his sat phone and punched in speed-dial l and Wilson answered on the first ring.

“Where have you been? I transmitted the intelligence to Carpenter’s van two hours ago.”

Eating pancakes. Checking out a bomb shelter. Thinking about ways to get Agnes alone. “Checking out what I can here.” What intelligence?

There was a long silence, which indicated what Wilson thought of that.

“Check the intelligence ASAP” The phone went dead.

Shane closed the phone. “Wilson sent some intel, probably on Casey Dean. Can you check and prep it for me?”

“Roger that,” Carpenter said, and nodded to the drive. “Isn’t that Agnes’s fiancé?”

Taylor’s Cobra was coming down the road followed by a van with the county logo stenciled on the side. They bumped over the bridge and parked at the side of the house, and Rhett ambled down the path to investigate.

“Yep, that’s him.”

The county van meant some kind of inspector. That was going to annoy Agnes. Maybe even make her furious.

Carpenter looked at him with interest. “You don’t seem to mind him being here.”

“Nope.” Shane watched Taylor get out and confer with the selfimportant little man who’d gotten out of the van. Agnes was going to hate him, too. Anger, coming right up. “I’m feeling pretty cheerful right now.”

Carpenter shot him an odd glance, then shrugged. “So about the intel?”

Shane looked at his watch. “I can give you half an hour. Then I’m going to have to save this idiot’s ass again.”

He went over to the van and climbed inside with Carpenter who got the air-conditioning going full blast. One wall of the van was lined with computers, communication equipment, and other machines Shane didn’t know the purpose of. The other side was lined with lockers holding the various tools of their trade.

Shane sat in one of the swivel chairs bolted to the floor while Carpenter took his in front of the large computer screen and brought up the intel that Wilson had sent.

“The FBI intercepted a call to Don Fortunato,” he said, looking at the screen. “Traced back to a pay phone in Savannah directing the Don to go to a pay phone away from his house and await a call in fifteen minutes, which would have been untraceable, but Wilson had a tail on the Don with a directional mike. The tail followed him to the pay phone and picked up most of the Don’s end of the conversation.”

Shane read the screen over his shoulder:

df: Yeah?

(six-second pause)

df: How the fuck do I know?

(eight-second pause)

df: No shit.

(four-second pause)

df: Hell yeah, I still want the job done.

(four-second pause)

df: Fuck you. We agreed on a price.

(seven-second pause)

df: All right. All right. Fuck it. We got a contract. You make sure you do your part. The rest can come on the back end. My consigliere only got the cash we agreed on with him for the front end.

(three-second pause)

df: Yeah, that’s the target. How’d you know?

(eight-second pause)

df: No shit? But you do nothing until I get there. I wanna be there. I wanna see it. I’m giving you an extra hundred large for that. Which you get when it happens, but not before the wedding. Got to be after. Got to show some respect.

(eight-second pause)

df: Today? Fuck. Yeah, he’s in Keyes. My consigliere. And he’s got the down payment in cash. But-

(nine-second pause)

df: The what fucking bridge? Talmud?

(two-second pause)

df: Okay, Talmadge. Two p.m. local. Breakdown lane, southbound, center of span.

(five-second pause)

df: Yeah, yeah. The money’s packed like you said.

(two-second pause)

df: You better be fucking worth it.

End of conversation.

Shane was already checking his watch. The payoff was taking place in an hour. “Where’s the Talmadge?”

“Did you cross a large suspension bridge coming out of Savannah heading into South Carolina when you came up here?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s it.”

“How far away?”

Carpenter got out of his seat and slid open the door leading to the driver’s compartment. “I’ll make it in fifty minutes unless we get caught in traffic.”

“That’s cutting it close.”

“Perhaps we should have been monitoring instead of in that tunnel.” Carpenter got in the driver’s seat and started the van.

“That’s not helpful now.” Shane opened up the weapons locker.

“What about Agnes?” Carpenter said, but he was already heading down the drive.

Shit. “Maybe she won’t kill him.”

“What if she does?”

“What’s one more body among friends?” Shane said.

Agnes had come in from consoling Cerise with shrimp and called the florist, powering through some rabbit of an employee on sheer leftover rage from the flamingo-napper who’d taken Cerise from the loving wings of her flock. “Hello?” Maisie said.

“This is Agnes Crandall,” Agnes snarled. “You can’t cancel the Keyeses’ wedding flowers if you ever expect to sell flowers in Keyes again. Are you insane?”

“Oh,” Maisie said, her baby-doll voice even higher than usual. “Oh, I’m so sorry, but I can’t, I just can’t, they’ll kill me.”

“Who?” Agnes said. “And don’t you dare hang up on me or I’ll kill you. And don’t think I won’t, Maisie.”

“The Fortunatos,” Maisie whispered into the phone.

“Why would the Fortunatos kill you for doing the flowers for one of their weddings? They’re a lot more likely to kill you for canceling on them.”

“You don’t know them,” Maisie said.

“Yeah, I do. A hell of a lot better than you do, evidently.”

“Not better than Brenda,” Maisie said.

“Maisie, Brenda is trying to stop the wedding. She doesn’t care that she’s putting you in harm’s way. The Don is coming for this wedding, he’s giving Maria away. Don Fortunato. The Silicon Don. That’s much tougher than Teflon. If he gets here and there are no flowers, you think he’s going to be happy?” Agnes dredged up memories of any mob movies she’d seen. “He’s going to ask who disrespected his grandniece. And you know what everybody is going to tell him?”

“What?” Maisie said, her voice a little moan. “Maisie Shuttle.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Get those daisies out here by Saturday morning and you won’t be sleeping with the fishes, Maisie. He’ll never know the hell you put us through. But if you don’t, I will tell him everything. I’ll tell him where you live, Maisie. I’ll tell him about the Scottie dog on your mailbox, so help me God, I will.”

“Oh, no, all right, all right.” The words were almost inaudible.

“Do not fail me, Maisie,” Agnes said, putting steel in her voice. “Or the first thing the Don will put a bullet hole through will be the Scottie on your mailbox and the second thing will be you.”

“No, no, no.”

“The flowers, Maisie, the daisies will be out here Saturday morning, won’t they?”

“Yes, Agnes.”

“Thank you, Maisie. You won’t be sorry. And the Keyeses will be very, very grateful. Oh, and Maisie? Put in some little flamingo pink touches, will you? Little touches.”

Agnes hung up, trying to feel guilty for having beat up on a helpless Southern florist, but basically, Maisie should never have canceled on a wedding; any good florist should have known better. She looked for her To Do List to mark Maisie off so she could go take a shower and put on something that had less of a history of sex and violence attached to it-Imay never wear this dress again-only to hear cars rumbling over the bridge just as the phone rang again. She waited until the rumbling stopped without an ensuing crash of timber and then picked up the phone.

“Agnes Crandall,’’ she said. “Our bridge doesn’t collapse.”

“Pardon,” the man on the other end said nervously.

“Humor,” Agnes said. “Har. What can I do for you?”

“This is Wesley Hedges, your photographer for the wedding this weekend.” His voice was so tight, it broke on weekend.

“Don’t even think about canceling, Wesley,” Agnes said, her voice level.

“I’m not,” he said. “I wouldn’t. But I can’t make it.”

“Let’s review,” Agnes said, her temper rising.

“But I’m sending my assistant,” Wesley said quickly. “She’s as good as I am. Some people say better. But they’re all men. She’s very attractive. I’m actually better, but…” Wesley sounded calmer now that he was being bitchy.

“Wesley, if you’re trying to make me happy about your assistant coming-”

“No, she’s really good,” Wesley said, nervous again. “I mean, she’s new, but I’ve seen her portfolio. I wouldn’t send anybody bad. I have my pride. Even if they put a gun to my head, I would protect the sanctity of Wesley’s Wonderful Wedding Memories.”

Agnes was distracted by the alliteration. “Shouldn’t that be ‘Wesley’s Wonderful Wedding Wemories’?”

“I don’t feel bad at all for canceling on you,” Wesley said. “Kristy will be out tomorrow to talk to you and get a feel for the place.”

“Thank you, but-,” Agnes said, but Wesley had already hung up.

“Photographer cancel, too?” Taylor said from behind her, and when she turned, he was standing in the kitchen doorway, smiling like he owned the place, instead of just half of it. He was wearing a suit jacket and an ascot, and he looked ridiculous, but she shouldn’t really criticize since the ascot was probably to cover up the fork holes.

“You look ridiculous,” she said. The dumbass had lied to her and left her all alone out here. And he’d never fed her shrimp, either.

Beside him was a tubby little man who looked around with the air of an inquisitive basset hound, alert but patient.

Rhett ambled in from the from hall to collapse in front of the counter. He didn’t seem too perturbed with either of them.

“This is Mr. Harrison,” Taylor said, still smiling. “Mr. Harrison is our health inspector in Keyes. I told him you had some health violations out here, and he’s concerned about you serving food to a hundred vulnerable people on Saturday at the wedding.”

“Yes, I am,” Mr. Harrison said, smiling, too, the smile of a man who has been well paid to find health violations. “Concerned, that is.”

“Taylor, you’re the one catering that wedding,” Agnes said. “That’s your big break, catering the most important wedding of the season for this godforsaken county. Will you never learn not to shoot yourself in the foot?”

“I’ll be catering it at the country club, too,” Taylor said. “My foot is just fine.”

“It won’t be when Shane gets finished shoving it up-” Agnes began, and then Dr. Garvin said, Agnes.

Where the hell have you been?

You haven’t been listening. Don’t threaten people in front of witnesses, Agnes.

But it’s okay to threaten them otherwise? What are you, Dr. Garvin’s evil twin?

“What were you saying, Agnes?” Taylor said, his smile widening.

“I was saying you’re an evil moron whom fate and karma are going to take care of,” Agnes said. “Now your line is ‘Who’s Fate and Karma, and what did I ever do to them?’“

“That’s not funny,” Taylor said.

Agnes looked at Mr. Harrison. “I thought it was a little funny, didn’t you?”

“A little,” he said, smiling. Taylor glared at him and he shrugged. “So what am I supposed to look at?”

Taylor pointed to Rhett, now asleep on the floor of the kitchen. “That dog is unsanitary.”

Harrison looked back at him. “You want me to shut down this place because there’s a dog on the premises? We have to make this plausible, Mr. Beaufort” He looked around. “This is a clean kitchen. I can go through it, but you’re going to have to do better than that.”

Taylor glared at him. “There’s a basement that hasn’t been cleaned in twenty-five years.”

Harrison sighed. “I’ll poke around under the sink.” He bent down and patted Rhett and then opened the cupboard doors under the sink. Everything was packed in plastic tubs with airtight lids, clearly marked as to the contents. He looked up at Agnes.

“I’m a Virgo,” she said. “We do that.”

He closed the doors and stood up. “This could take a while. Let’s see the basement.”

Agnes pushed on the door in the wall. “There’s a ladder.”

Harrison looked taken aback and then poked his head through the door. “This doesn’t look like you, Miss Crandall.”

“We just found it two days ago,” Agnes said. “And I can’t put stairs in and clean it up because it’s a crime scene.”

“That must be hard for you,” Harrison said with real sympathy, and then he turned to Taylor. “This is probably where we’ll get her.”

“Told you,” Taylor said.

“Hold on a second.” Agnes grabbed her cell phone and punched in Joey’s number on the speed-dial. When it rang, she got his message. “Joey, this is Agnes. Taylor is here with a very nice man named Mr. Harrison from the health department. Taylor’s bribed him to shut me down for the wedding, and they’re going down to the basement now to find something so he can do it. Is there somebody higher up you can confer with to take care of this? Thanks. Love you.” She clicked off.

“Mr. Harrison is head of the health department, Agnes,” Taylor said.

“Then he’s about to meet Joey,” Agnes said, but her heart sank.

“So,” Harrison said, looking down into the hole, “a ladder.”

Five minutes later, they were at the end of the tunnel looking at the acid dripping through the glass tube, and Harrison was legitimately upset.

“That’s dangerous,” he said, covering his nose. “Those fumes are dangerous.”

“And if I was serving dinner down here, that would be a problem,” Agnes said, thinking, What the fuck is that thing? Language, Agnes.

“You never know where fumes will go, young lady,” Harrison said sternly. Then he retreated down the tunnel at a good clip, and Taylor followed him, all but chuckling.

When they were back in the kitchen, Harrison wrote up his prelim report and handed the pink copy to Agnes. “You can’t cater that wedding here,” he told her, as if he’d been rehearsed. “You’ll have to move it to the country club.”

She handed the pink slip back to him. “The wedding’s going to be here. You know damn well that whatever that is down there will not affect a dinner in my barn on Saturday. And if you try to stop it, I will not only sue your ass for damaging my career,” she turned on Taylor, “I’ll have you arrested for bribing a public employee, and you,” she turned back to Harrison, “arrested for taking that bribe.”

Harrison shook his head. “That’s not how it works here in Keyes, Miss Crandall.”

Agnes sighed. “I see. Then it’ll have to be Plan B.”

Harrison blinked. “Plan B?”

“He didn’t tell you about the bride’s family, did he?”

Harrison looked at Taylor. “The bride’s family? Well, the Fortunatos, yes, but Mrs. Dupres, the bride’s grandmother, wants the wedding at the country club-”

“The bride’s mother doesn’t,” Agnes said. “And the bride’s uncle, who runs the local diner? Joey Torcelli? I just called him. He-”

“Give up, Agnes,” Taylor said. “Mr. Harrison doesn’t scare that easy.”

Agnes looked at Harrison. He didn’t look happy. He had to know who Joey was. Probably had tried to inspect the diner once.

“I wouldn’t file that report just yet,” she said to him. “I’d give yourself some room to maneuver, just in case the bride’s family would rather the wedding was at the bride’s old family home. Did Taylor tell you this is Frankie Fortunato’s old place?”

Mr. Harrison shot Taylor a look of loathing and walked out of the kitchen.

“I’ve got you, Agnes,” Taylor said, not fazed in the slightest.

“You had me, Taylor,” Agnes said. “Now you’ve got Brenda, you poor, doomed sap. And Joey ‘The Gent’ and Shane after your ass. You better go now. Your flunky is out in his van, and his feet are turning to ice while you wait. At any minute now, he’s going to tear up that report and go somewhere far away until the wedding is over.”

“Nah, he-”

“And Shane’s coming home any minute.” Taylor looked over his shoulder.

“Yeah, well…” He looked back at Agnes. “You give me back the ring and I’ll go.”

“What?”

“The engagement ring.” He nodded at Agnes’s hand. “Give me my ring back and I’ll go.”

Agnes looked down at the ring he’d given her. She’d actually forgotten about it. Five thousand dollars he’d said it’d cost him. That could buy some stuff for the house. Like landscaping maybe. Wonder if Garth can landscape?

“No,” she said. “Go away.”

“I want the-”

“You broke the engagement, I get the ring.”

“You stabbed me with a fork!”

“You married another woman first,” Agnes said. “Go away. I have things to do.”

“You won’t get away with this,” Taylor said.

“That’s the best you’ve got?” Agnes said. “Beat it or I’ll have Doyle take a hammer to the Cobra.”

“Hey!” Taylor said, and then evidently realizing his ride was vulnerable, he left.

Agnes looked at the ring and then at the basement door. “Why can’t anything this week be simple?” she said, and went to call her lawyer.

“We’re about five minutes from the bridge,” Carpenter said. “I can see the towers.”

Shane checked his watch. Ten minutes till the payoff. He poked his head in the opening to the front of the van and saw two suspension towers straight ahead on the horizon. Left and right was swamp as far as the eye could see.

“Ideas?” Shane asked.

“I would think a direct approach is needed here, which is your specialty. It’s not like we’re going to be able to sneak up on the drop site.”

“Pull off before you hit the on-ramp for the bridge. I want to see if I can get an over-watch position with a clear shot with the long rifle.”

“Roger that,” Carpenter said, “but it’s going to be a tough angle up to that midspan.”

Shane saw what he meant as they came around a slight curve, and the road rose precipitously toward the nearest tower. “Pull over here,” Shane said before they got so close that he wouldn’t be able to see the midspan.

Carpenter waited until they crossed a concrete bridge over a creek, then pulled over to the side of the road.

“Open the sunroof,” Shane ordered as he placed his M21 sniper rifle in the passenger seat, muzzle up.

Carpenter did so, and Shane stood between the seats, putting a small spotting scope on the roof of the van.

“Not inconspicuous,” Carpenter noted.

“Feel free to contribute Plan B,” Shane said.

“We grab the consigliere and the money before the exchange. Maybe Casey Dean will work a deal with us or break off the contract.”

“Wilson wants Dean terminated.”

“Did he say so?”

“He doesn’t send me out to talk to people.” Shane leaned forward and looked through the spotting scope, adjusting the focus. “He’s testing you.”

Yeah, and I fail if I don’t shoot Casey Dean.

Shane saw a black Lincoln Town Car pulled over in the breakdown lane, right side of the bridge, center span. These goombahs were nothing but predictable, he thought. He checked his watch. Three minutes before two. Casey Dean was a professional, which meant the drop would be made right on time. Shane slid back down in the van, crouching between Carpenter in the driver’s seat and the sniper rifle in the passenger seat, taking the spotting scope with him.

“The consigliere is there.” He held the scope as he peered through the windshield. The view wasn’t quite as good, but he could clearly see the black Town Car.

“Two minutes,” Carpenter said. “And we’ve got flashing lights coming down the road behind us.”

“Cops?” Shane could hear the sirens now.

“Looks like, followed by an ambulance.” Carpenter reached forward and turned on the special radio, tuning it to the local emergency band, the volume turned low while Shane kept his focus on the bridge.

“There’s a report of an accident on the bridge,” Carpenter relayed from his position, leaning close to the radio speaker.

“Bullshit. There’s no accident up there. Dean called this in as a distraction.” Shane was shifting, trying to find where Dean was.

“One minute,” Carpenter announced.

The door on the Town Car opened, and a tall, thin man with gray hair stepped out, holding a shiny metal briefcase. He was looking about, obviously unsure which direction Dean was coming from.

The sirens were getting closer as Shane reached out with his free hand and grabbed the rifle.

“You’re not going to shoot with cops around?” Carpenter asked.

Shane could hear the sirens go by and saw the flashing lights reflected in the windshield. But his focus was on the bridge. The consigliere suddenly reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his phone and answered.

“Dean’s making contact,” Shane said.

“One state patrol car and an ambulance, reaching the ramp for the bridge,” Carpenter reported. “And I’ve got another police car in the side mirror coming this way.”

This was definitely cramping his style. He couldn’t pop out the sunroof and blow Casey Dean away with one shot while the police were driving by. He squinted as the consigliere walked over to the side of the bridge and looked over the edge.

“Oh, shit. Dean’s underneath.” Shane slid into the passenger seat and put the rifle across his lap. “Drive!”

Carpenter threw the van into gear and pulled onto the road just as a sheriff’s car blew past. “Which way?”

“Ahead and then-” Shane thought fast. They couldn’t go onto the bridge with all the cops around. He still had the scope to his eye and he saw the consigliere drop the case over the side of the bridge and get back in his car. There was one exit before they hit the on-ramp.

“Take that exit,” Shane ordered.

Carpenter turned hard right. The road curved around and then under the ramp, but there was dense, impenetrable vegetation between the road and the Savannah River.

“We’ve got to see the water,” Shane said, powering down the passenger window.

“Hold on.” Carpenter jerked the wheel hard and they skidded onto a dirt trail. The van’s specially built suspension grappled with the ruts and rocks as Carpenter accelerated down the narrow track.

“Whoa!” Shane yelled as the Savannah River suddenly appeared ahead of them, a rusting chain-link fence indicating the end of the trail.

Carpenter had hit the brakes even as Shane gave the warning, and the van skidded to a halt, the front bumper less than two feet from the fence. Shane was moving as it stopped, throwing open the door and jumping out, the rifle in his hands.

He brought it up to his shoulder in the ready position, the muzzle resting on top of the fence, but he kept the eye closest to the scope closed, while he scanned with the free eye. There were three boats visible. An old tug chugging upriver, and two personal craft heading downriver. Shane put his gun eye to the scope and checked the farthest boat, a cabin cruiser about a half mile away. An old man and woman were visible in the flying bridge.

Not Casey Dean.

He shifted to the second boat, a smaller, faster craft that was kicking up quite a wake and expanding the distance between it and Shane’s gun at a rapid pace. A figure dressed in black, hood pulled up over the head, was at the center console.

Shane aimed at the figure and his finger caressed the trigger. He could feel his heart beating and begin to slow down as he got in the rhythm for the shot.

“You sure that’s Casey Dean?” Carpenter asked.

“No,” Shane said.

“Give me your phone and the card,” Carpenter said.

Shane kept the rifle in place, one eye on the boat, which was fast getting out of range and approaching a bend in the river, where it would be out of sight. He knew exactly what Carpenter wanted to do and preempted his partner by using his off-hand to pull out the phone and card and then dialing the cell phone number as fast as he could. He kept his firing hand on the rifle.

Shane was slightly surprised when there was a ring. Then another and another. The figure on the boat didn’t move. After four rings, a mechanical voice informed him he could leave a message.

“Casey Dean,” Shane said. “I’ve got you in my sight.”

The figure still didn’t move.

The boat reached the bend in the river and was just about out of sight when the figure at the console put his right hand into the air and Shane could see the middle finger extended just as the boat gathered speed and disappeared.

“Look on the positive side,” Carpenter said. “You know what

Casey Dean looks like from behind, dressed in dark sweats with a hood over his head. That’s something to report to Wilson.”

“Fuck,” Shane said, and got back in the van.

“What do you mean, I can’t dissolve the partnership?” Agnes said into the phone ten minutes later. “He’s trying to sabotage it, Barry.”

“Which is a damn good reason to dissolve it, Agnes,” her lawyer said. “But it’s a partnership. The two of you have to dissolve it together. And Taylor doesn’t want it dissolved. He already called.”

“Barry, he’s trying to get the health department to shut down a wedding we’re catering,” Agnes said. “Isn’t that some kind of breach of contract?”

“I’d sue him,” Barry said. “But then, I’m a lawyer.”

Agnes heard the front door slam and turned to see Lisa Livia come into the kitchen with a shopping bag that said betsie’s bon ton.

Rhett hadn’t even bothered to lift his head.

“You got a truck coming across your bridge,” Lisa Livia said, and Agnes hung up on Barry and went to the front door to look, almost tripping over five pieces of Lisa Livia’s pink leather luggage in the hall on the way.

“Brenda caught me going through her stuff and threw me off the boat,” Lisa Livia said. “She kept screaming about betrayal. Can I have my old room back?”

“Sure,” Agnes said, heading out the front door. “What truck-?”

It was already crossing the bridge, which groaned its displeasure, and then it was sweeping down the drive and over the lawn-”Will you stop that?” Agnes yelled at the driver-and then it stopped and the driver got out and opened the back and wheeled out a crate that looked familiar.

“What the-,” Lisa Livia began, and then the chinless wonder of a driver who also looked familiar opened the crate and another flamingo staggered out, honking like mad, and Cerise went crazy.

The driver came toward Agnes with his clipboard.

“No,” she said. “You take them both back.”

“I’m justthe delivery guy, lady,” he said, his rabbity face twitching. The patch on his uniform said, butch, but he so wasn’t.

“I’m not signing that,” Agnes said. “Take them back. They need to be in a flock.”

“Can’t do it,” he said. “Just sign this.”

“No.” She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and looked at him closer. “You’re not from any delivery service. And you delivered Cerise. Downer paid you to do this. Who are you?”

He met her eyes for a moment, and then bolted for the truck.

“Come back here, you bastard!” Agnes started after him, but fear made him fast: He dived for the front seat and had the truck in gear and moving before the door was closed.

She walked back to Lisa Livia, who was still carrying her Bon Ton bag, but who’d now picked up the clipboard he’d dropped.

“This one’s name is Hot Pink,” LL said.

Agnes looked down to the river. Hot Pink and Cerise were deep in honking conversation of mutual outrage, but Cerise didn’t seem to be as manic as before. “Is there a return address?”

“No,” Lisa Livia said. “This is like an information sheet. Like a zoo might give out.”

“A zoo.” Agnes closed her eyes. “Call that moron Downer and ask if he had these guys stolen from a zoo.” What “if”? Of course that idiot had them stolen from a zoo. Who sells flamingos? “Call Downer and tell him we know he hired Butch to steal Cerise and Hot Pink and if he has them taken back right now, we won’t have him arrested and shot.”

“Right,” Lisa Livia said, taking out her cell phone. “Then we should talk. Brenda threw me out, but I’d already put some of her stuff in the car, so I brought it with me. Like all of her real estate stuff, including her house book.”

“Her house book?” Agnes said.

“Her scrapbook of everything she wanted to do to the house but never had the money for after the Real Estate King died.” Lisa Livia handed Agnes the clipboard. “It’s her dream house hook. I know we only have two days, but all we have to do is the outside of the house. She wanted black shutters. And black carriage lights. And pink hydrangeas and white lilacs. It would really fry her to show up on Saturday and see her dream house finished and know you had it and she didn’t. And then I stopped by Betsie’s Bon Ton and got us our mother-of-the-bride dresses.”

“Us?” Agnes said.

“Yeah, you raised Maria with me for the first three years, you’re her mother, too. Wait’ll you see them. I got one for Evie, too. Betsie was having a sale.”

“Them?” Agnes said. “LL, they’re not all alike?”

“We’ll be cute as buttons,” Lisa Livia said. “Hot, too.” She opened the bag almost dropping her cell phone in the process. “And they had both a four and a twelve!”

“What were the chances?” Agnes said, and Lisa Livia said, “Pretty good, they had them in all sizes.”

She pulled the smaller one out and held it up against her. It was a hot pink halter dress with a ruffled sweetheart neckline and peplum bodice, also ruffled, ending in a pencil skirt, the whole thing covered in lighter pink hearts. “What do you think?”

“It’s so… me,” Agnes said, stunned. She was going to look like a flamingo in that thing. A hooker flamingo.

“Well, it should be you,” Lisa Livia said. “You can’t wear a Cranky Agnes apron to the wedding.” She held the dress out so she could see the front, and Agnes got a good look at the back. There wasn’t any.

“I don’t really have the body for this, LL,” Agnes said.

“Are you kidding?” Lisa Livia said. “Your ass will look fabulous in this. I have no control over Evie Keyes, but you’re gonna wear this dress. Well, you’re gonna wear the twelve.”

“How did you know what size to get Evie?”

Lisa Livia shot her a look of contempt. “Like every dress shop in Keyes doesn’t know what size Evie Keyes wears. Besides, it was marked down to fourteen ninety-five. I could afford to make a mistake.” She held hers out again. “We need hats. And pink fuck-me shoes.”

“Oh, yeah,” Agnes said. “That’s what we need. Give me the house book and call Maria to call Downer.”

Lisa Livia shoved the dress back in the bag, handed the book over to Agnes, punched in Maria’s number on her speed-dial, waited a moment, and then raised her voice. “Maria? That dipshit Downer sent another flamingo.”

Agnes took the book and headed for the house, thinking, Ibet Garth can landscape, as she tried to ignore the flamingos honking at each other behind her. Hot flamingos, she thought. Igot hot flamingos and a $14.95 Whore Mother of the Bride dress from Betsie’s Bon Ton. That can’t be good. Maybe. Shane would probably like it. Not that it mattered since that was over with. Only guys who hadn’t killed from now on-that was her motto.

There was some progress: She’d broken up with a lying, swindling pig of an adulterer and stopped sleeping with the secretive but adept hitman who put acid in her basement.

“Who says I never learn?” she told Rhett when she was back in the kitchen, and went to take her shower.

Later that evening, after Shane had come back, monosyllabic and surly again, and Agnes had gone through the house book and made notes-Brenda really did have excellent taste-she finished the cake designs; made her To Do List for Thursday; packed up her engagement ring for resale; and fed ribs to Lisa Livia, Carpenter, Garth, Joey, and Shane (which was good, like feeding a large, demented, but sort-of-functional family). Then she and Lisa Livia cleaned the kitchen and socked away the leftovers while the men went down to the basement to bring up the Venus, making a lot more noise than just lifting a statue should have entailed, after which she left Carpenter and Lisa Livia on the screened porch discussing Greek art and automatic weapons with a bottle of bourbon; sent Garth out to the barn after telling him he should ask a girl to the wedding- “Me?” he said; “It’s the hottest ticket in town,” she told him, “and you’ve got a backstage pass.” -and took bourbon and coffee out to where Shane was sitting on the high dock.

She sat down beside him. “So, how was your day?”

“I’ve had better.” Shane took one of the mugs and the coffeepot from her.

She opened the bourbon and held out her mug, and he poured coffee into it and into his mug, and then she topped off his mug with the bourbon and did the same for hers.

“Listen,” she said. “About last night. You and me. I’m not really ready for… I mean, this thing with Taylor and all… I think I need…”

“Okay,” he said.

That was easy, she thought, not sure how relieved she should be about that.

They sat back and watched the rest of the sun leave the sky and she could feel some of the tension leave his body in the peace of the evening.

“What did Taylor want?” he said finally.

“He brought the health inspector out to shut down the wedding.”

“Did you kill him?”

“No. He wants his engagement ring back, can you believe it?”

“Yeah. No class at all. Want to tell me about the health inspector?”

“Joey’s on it. But what exactly did you put in my basement?”

“Acid,” he said. “It’s to open the bomb shelter down there.”

“A bomb shelter wasn’t on the inspection checklist when I bought the house. Why do you want to open it?”

She was surprised that Shane actually looked a bit sheepish. “There’s a chance Frankie Fortunato’s body might be in there. And the five million dollars he stole twenty-five years ago.”

“Five million dollars,” Agnes nodded. “And you were going to tell me this when?”

“I didn’t know until Joey told me yesterday.”

“Did it ever occur to anybody to tell me that the reason people kept showing up in my kitchen with guns pointed at me was that there was five million dollars in my basement?”

“We didn’t want to worry you,” Shane said and told her the story Joey had told him, part of which Lisa Livia had told her years ago anyway, except for the bomb shelter part

“Lisa Livia is not going to be happy about this,” Agnes said, but a part of her mind slid to the fact she could have five million dollars in her basement.

“We’ll know tomorrow,” Shane said.

Agnes took a deep breath. “All right. So how was your day? You kill anybody?” She stopped, realizing with horror that he might have. “That was supposed to be a joke. You know, like you asked me if I killed Taylor. I don’t really want to know-”

“I didn’t kill anybody.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Agnes-”

“I’m still sort of…” She searched for a word that wasn’t insulting. “… freaked… by your… job.”

“Good,” he said. She jerked her head up. “Good?”

He shrugged. “Some women get turned on by it. Not that I’m against that, but it’s not-”

“Turned on?” Agnes looked out over the water. “Huh. Well, it wasn’t unappealing when you killed the guy who was trying to kill me. I mean, after I stopped throwing up, I was definitely on your side.” And if you find five million dollars in my basement…

“Agnes-”

“And I’m sure that anybody you’ve killed had done something to deserve it-”

“Agnes-”

“Like John Cusack in Grosse Pointe Blank-”

“Agnes, it’s okay.”

“Did you ever kill the president of Paraguay with a fork?”

“The fork is your weapon.” He took her hand. “If it helps, every target has known exactly why I was there.”

Agnes swallowed as his palm touched hers, warm and safe, and then she nodded. “This very special organization you work for. Is it the mob?”

Shane looked at her as if she were nuts. “No. Jesus, Agnes. I work for the U.S. government.”

“You what?” She drew her hand away from him, stunned. “The government kills people?”

“Yes, Agnes,” Shane said. “It sends them to war and it sends them to the electric chair, and sometimes, when it wants to be more efficient and merciful, it sends me. I’m much more precise and efficient than a bomb dropped from ten thousand feet.”

“Isn’t there due process or something?” Agnes said. “They can’t just kill people.” He looked at her steadily, and she thought, Of course they can. “Never mind.”

The ensuing silence was filled with flamingo honking. It had been going on all along, but it was easier to tune out now that there were two and the under-note of panicked loneliness was gone. The honking was now a duet of “Can you believe we’re stuck with these morons in this godforsaken backwater?” which was much better than Cerise’s earlier solo of “My God, I’m alone, I’m alone, I’m alone, I’m alone, I’m alone…”

“I’m glad you work for the government instead of the mob,” she said. “I mean, that’s a great retirement plan, right? Health benefits?” Shane put his arm around her.

His arm was nice, a warm weight on her shoulder without really weighing her down. She let it stay there. It was a friendly arm, she decided, not a sexual arm. She wasn’t going back on her decision to not have sex with him by not moving away from him now. They were pals. That was it. That was a pal arm.

She looked up at him. “Is it okay if I pretend you’re an insurance salesman for a while?”

“Sure,” Shane said.

“How was your day, dear?

“I almost sold a policy, but the client gave me the finger.”

“Well, don’t give up. You’ll get Salesman of the Year yet.”

“Yeah, I want that gold watch.”

They sat again in companionable silence-theirs, not the flamingos’-until the mosquitoes got too bad, and then Agnes reluctantly moved away from his warmth and stood up. “Time to go in.”

She looked back toward the house, where Lisa Livia’s bedroom on the second floor was lit up. “It’s nice to see the second-floor lights on. Makes the house look happier.”

He looked back at the house, too. “That Lisa Livia’s room?”

“Yep.”

“Why didn’t you take a bedroom up there instead of that dark little housekeeper’s room?”

Agnes thought about her big, cool, blue bedroom in the attic. “I was making a master suite on the attic floor, for when Taylor moved out here with me. It was going to be a symbol of our commitment, moving into that bedroom together. But he kept putting off coming out here, and I kept getting sidetracked by other things, and I think… if I moved up there without him, it meant I knew I was going to be alone, that he wasn’t coming out.” She smiled at him. “You should take the other bedroom on the second floor. Two of the bedrooms are full of wedding gifts, but the one next to Lisa Livia’s is made up for guests.”

He shook his head. “Too far away from you. I can sleep on the air mattress across the doorway.” He stood up.

Agnes nodded, feeling guilty as all hell. “Okay. Seems awfully uncomfortable.”

“I’ve had a lot worse,” Shane said.

He walked her down the dock, stopping with her when she slowed at the path for the barn.

“Could you check on Garth for me?” she said, squinting down the path. “He’s all alone out there in the barn, and I feel funny going down there at night. A guy should be checking on him.”

“I don’t want you alone in the house.”

Agnes shook her head. “I’m not alone. Lisa Livia is in there. And you’re right here. Somebody would have to be suicidal to try anything now. Besides, bad things come in threes. I’ve been attacked in there three times already. I’m safe.”

“Yeah, that works,” Shane said.

“The whole town knows you’re here now,” she said. “The place is getting to be like Grand Central Station. I’m not alone anymore. I’m safe.”

He shook his head, but he let her go up to the house alone as he turned toward the path for the barn, and she felt warmed by his concern.

Okay, she thought as she went up the steps, he’s a killer. But he killed for the government, so that was… well, disturbing.

But the thing was, of all the people she knew, the people she trusted most were Joey, Shane, and Lisa Livia, and she trusted Carpenter, too, and he was Shane’s partner. Meanwhile people like chefs and county inspectors were venal and vile and treacherous. So…

Confusing.

She went through the screened porch and into the kitchen and screamed, “OH!” when she saw somebody standing by the basement door, realizing a second later that it was the Venus.

“It’s okay, she’s unarmed,” she told Rhett, who’d jerked awake. He growled and she said, “Humor. Har,” and bent to pat him, and then a movement in the hall doorway caught her eye and she saw a guy with a gun pointed at her and screamed again. Rhett launched himself toward the man, baying, and knocked her to one side as the guy fired, and then the man cursed as Rhett clamped his teeth on his leg, and Agnes flung herself at him, too, trying to keep him from shooting her dog, and he backhanded her, her glasses flying off as she hit the wall, and he shook Rhett off and turned the gun on her. She braced herself for the shots, but when they came, the guy jerked backward as bullets hit him, slamming him through the doorway as he shot wildly at the ceiling, into the hall, and out of sight, glass shattering and the clock gonging, and Shane walking through the kitchen, tiring impassively until there was a click, and even then he kept walking toward the hall, smoothly sliding the empty magazine out of the pistol and slamming another one home.

“You all right?” he said from the doorway to the hall when the noise stopped.

“No,” she said, crawling onto her knees and then getting shakily to her feet to follow him into the hall and stand behind him.

The man was splayed out on the checkerboard tile, his chest splattered with blood, his eyes staring up vacantly. There was a lot of blood and glass and splintered black wood from Brenda’s grandfather clock, which was dead, too.

“I think you got him,” she said, trying for cool and offhand.

“He hit you,” Shane said, and his voice sounded strange.

“Well, he won’t do that again.” Her jaw began to hurt where the guy had slugged her. She put her hand on it. Ice, maybe.

Shane knelt, went through the man’s pockets, pulled out a wallet, opened it, and extracted fifteen brand-new one-hundred-dollar bills.

“Did my price go up?” Agnes asked, still trying for cool. “Is that what I’m worth now?”

“No. The price didn’t go up. You’re worth a lot more than that. This is a food chain.”

“What?”

Shane stood, staring down at the man, his face like it was the first time she’d seen him, completely stonelike, but then he relaxed, and when he spoke again, his voice was almost normal. “Somebody put out a hit on you and hired a shooter, who looked at the target-a woman alone in an old house in the middle of nowhere-and figured anybody could do it. So he kept most of the money and hired this guy to do it for two thousand. And this guy hired Macy for five hundred. So when Macy failed last night, he had to do it.”

“So the guy who hired this guy is going to be showing up tomorrow? It’s going to happen again?” She could hear her voice going up at the end, almost a shriek, and she stepped on it, trying to keep calm.

Shane turned to her. “No. I’m taking this out of the house. Tomorrow, I’ll find the next person in the food chain, and from him, I’ll find out who let the contract, and I will end this.”

He looked huge in the hallway and very certain.

Agnes swallowed. “You can do that.”

“Yes.”

“I’m over any problem I had with your career choice.”

“Good,” he said. “How’s your jaw where he hit you?”

“It hurts.”

“Let’s put some ice on it.”

She looked at the body and the blood thickening on her nice hall tile. “And then we call Carpenter?”

“And then we call Carpenter.”

She nodded, desperately thinking of the good things in her life like Carpenter, who was new, and Garth… “This was the third time.”

“What?”

“Garth,” she said. “Garth wasn’t a bad thing. This was the third bad thing.”

He took a deep breath. “Let’s get some ice, Agnes.”

“Okay,” Agnes said, and went to get the ice.

Shane had watched Agnes to see if she’d come unglued again at the shock of the shooting and the blood, but she’d held it together this time, except for that crazy little blip about the third bad thing, and then another moment when she looked at the Venus in the kitchen and said, with real relief, “She didn’t get hit.” Lisa Livia had come cautiously downstairs to find out what the hell the shooting had been about and had taken the blood in the hall pretty well, but then she was a Fortunato. Carpenter had shown up within fifteen minutes and removed the body from the house within the same amount of time, earning Lisa Livia’s admiration and Agnes’s gratitude, and his gentleness with them both was a lesson in itself, but when the hall was clean and he was gone and Lisa Livia had returned to her bedroom, Shane stopped Agnes from going back to the housekeeper’s room. “No,” he said. “Upstairs. It’stoo damn easy to get you in there.”

Agnes went still for a moment and then called to Rhett and headed for the stairs.

The bedroom on the second floor next door to Lisa Livia’s was larger than the housekeeper’s room, with a door to the back veranda and a good view of the Blood River, a door that also made it more vulnerable to attack from the outside, but anything was better than downstairs. Agnes needed to sleep someplace she’d never been shot at, and Shane figured that ruled out the first floor at Two Rivers completely.

“The bathroom’s here,” Agnes said, opening a door off the bedroom. “The other door’s off the hall, but we can lock it and then it’s like a private bath-”

“Right,” Shane said, watching her carefully. “Why don’t you just relax?”

“Sure,” she said.

“You’ll be safe in here. I’ll make sure of it.”

Agnes nodded, but it wasn’t a very certain nod. Shane went over and ran his hand up her neck and entwined his fingers in her hair, pulling her to his chest. “It will all work out.”

“You sure?” she murmured into his shirt as her arms went around him.

“I promise.” The words were out before Shane realized he said them, and once they were out there, he felt the weight of them. He couldn’t remember the last time he had promised anyone anything. It had always been a job. Shane took a deep breath and Agnes pulled her head back and looked up at him.

“You all right?”

Shane nodded, afraid to speak. Who knew what would come out of his mouth next?

Agnes pulled away and walked over to the door to the veranda and opened it. Shane followed her outside. The only sound was the lap of water on the beach and the creak of the floating dock bobbing in the water. Even the flamingos were quiet.

“I was always safe here,” she said, her voice tight “I mean, I was alone, but it was Keyes. Everybody knew there was nothing to steal. Everybody knew I was Joey’s friend. There was no reason for anybody to hurt me and a lot of reasons for people not to, so I was safe. I was alone but I was…”

She stopped, and he knew she was trying not to cry. He shifted his hands, wrapping his arms around her body, pulling her in tight.

“You’re not alone,” he said, and kissed her on the neck. She shivered, but not from fear, he thought. He hoped. “Come to bed,” he whispered into her ear and she nodded and then turned in his arms, and he knew what she was going to say. “I’ll sleep out here. You’ll be fine inside.”

“No,” she said. “I won’t be fine inside unless you’re in there, too. I know it’s just for tonight, but please stay with me.”

What if it’s for more than tonight? he thought, but he wasn’t sure about that, either, so he followed her back through the French doors and watched while she undressed, not ripping off her clothes in a rage this time but letting them drop as if she were too tired to do anything but let gravity take them, her round body lush in the moonlight, and he reminded himself that she needed comfort and sleep, not sex, even as he thought about taking her in every way possible as she climbed into the big guest bed by the glass doors. Then she patted the bed beside her, not bothering to cover her breasts as she leaned forward to him, and he stripped and joined her, the weight of his body in the bed tipping her to him so that he caught all her softness against him, trying to remember to be thoughtful and understanding instead of rolling her on her back. But she whispered, “Make me forget tonight for a while,” and he moved his hands down her curves, tasted her again as she moved hot beneath him in the quiet dark. He felt needed above all else, and knew it was more than just lust or even fear as he fell into her warmth and wetness, her body’s slide against him. And then even that thought faded as he lost himself in his need for her.

And when they’d both shuddered and come, he held her as she slipped into sleep, quiet next to him, no nightmares, and he watched the clouds in the night sky scuttle by and thought, This is a better room, and then he spooned himself against her and fell asleep, too.