Agnes and the Hitman (36 page)

“It explains the machine gun mounted in the prow of the boat to anyone stupid enough to ask questions of a boat with a machine gun mounted in the prow,” Shane said, and then called to Carpenter. “Where are we putting the first receiver?”

Carpenter pointed at the GPS screen on the console in front of him. “On the eastern tip of Barataria Island. Second one, here on Middle Marsh Island, southern tip. Third one to the south, on Bull Island. That will give us good coverage.”

“Why are we looking on the water?” Joey asked, finished with his task.

“Casey Dean was on a boat the last time we saw him,” Carpenter said. “I think it makes sense he’s probably living on a boat. Makes him mobile in this area, and he can hide among the thousands of barrier islands and waterways.”

“This Wilson guy,” Joey said. “You like working for him?”

“I might not be working for him much longer,” Shane said.

Joey smiled. “You going to stay here?”

“No, I’m in line to get his job.”

The smile disappeared. “You want that?”

“It’s a step up,” Shane said.

“To where?” Joey asked.

Shane glared at his uncle. “You’re the one who sent me away twenty-five years ago to military school. This is the path you put me on. Why are you asking me questions about it?”

“I sent you away to protect you,” Joey said.

“From who?”

Shane was surprised as his uncle seemed to grow smaller in the swivel seat “Shane, what’s going on now, it’s all part of stuff that was never taken care of twenty-five years ago. There’s been a truce all those years. But this Wilson guy, that ain’t where you should be. You don’t want to be like him.”

“A truce between who?” Shane asked.

Joey hesitated. “The Don and me.”

“And now the truce is over?”

“I don’t know. But it wasn’t no coincidence you was in Savannah when I needed you.”

Considering he’d been working overseas
90
percent of the time in the previous five years, Shane didn’t think it was a coincidence, either. “Why would Wilson want me in the area? I’m getting a little tired of you old men playing me. Why is the truce breaking down now? What’s at stake?”

“You’re at stake,” Joey said.

“First transmitter goes in here,” Carpenter announced as he slowed the boat to slide the prow of the boat onto the tip of an island. Shane didn’t move. “What do you mean, Joey?”

Joey sighed and ran a hand across his coarse beard. “Your father ...” He stopped and shook his head. “This ain’t good. You don’t need this now.”

“My father.” Shane stood over his uncle, looking down at him. “You never told me a damn thing about my father. You’ve always acted like he never existed. That he was some fly-by-night guy who got my mother pregnant. Big family secret.”

“Nah,” Joey said. “Your father was a stand-up guy. He treated my sister right. I promised them both when you were born, if anything ever happened, I’d take care of you.”

“And then you sent me away,” Shane said, anger pulsing in his veins.

“I sent you away to save you.” Joey stopped and shook his head.

Shane grabbed his uncle’s T-shirt, pulling him close.
“Enough.”
He could feel the blood pounding in his head, a rushing in his ears, Carpenter coming close to him, but his focus was on Joey. “Enough with
the fucking games,
Joey.”

“You’re a Fortunato,” Joey said, talking faster. “Your father was Roberto, the oldest brother, the one who was supposed to be the Don. You’re the Fortunato heir, Shane.”

“Oh, fuck,”
Shane said, and let Joey go.

Instead it was Taylor, equally pulverizable, looking like hell.

“Your murdering slut of a thieving wife is out on her boat,” Agnes said, jerking her head toward the dock. “Next time, don’t come through the house.”

“I’m sorry,” Taylor said, and his voice was low, not the coaxing, flirting tease she’d come to loathe. “I truly am sorry, Agnes. I’ve screwed up everything.”

“True. Get out.” Agnes rolled the resisting fondant over the pin and moved it to the first layer of Palmer’s groom’s cake, smoothing the top and then beginning on the sides, where things quickly went wrong.
You can do this,
she told herself
Goddamn fondant.

“I mean it,” Taylor said, coming into the kitchen and
making
Rhett growl louder. “She just said all the right things, Agnes.”

“She’s good at that. Leave.” Agnes frowned as she smoothed the fondant. It looked so easy when they did it on TV—

“She killed that old man, didn’t she?” Taylor said, and Agnes looked up. “I heard about it. They were talking about it in town, that she drove right into him. Almost into you. She was aiming for you, wasn’t she?”

“Yeah,” Agnes said, watching his face. He did look truly miserable. “And she stripped Lisa Livia of everything she had, and now she’s trying to destroy her granddaughter’s marriage. She’s a real fucking prize, your wife.”

“She stole from Lisa Livia?”

“Taylor, she was going to steal this house from me, why is it so hard to believe she’d rip off Lisa Livia?”

“Geez.” He paused. “Well, I won’t lie to you, Agnes—”

“Sure you will,” Agnes said, and went back to her rapidly hardening lurid green icing.

“I was going to help her cheat you out of this house.” Taylor shook his head. “I figured you were going to do another book, you’d have plenty of money, what the hell.”

“Fuck you,” Agnes said, bent over the edge of the cake.

Angry language, Agnes.

Fuck you, too, Dr. Garvin.

You’re an idiot, Agnes. Anybody can say “Fuck you.” Do something smart for a change.

Agnes straightened and stared at her fondant.
Did you just call me an idiot, Dr. Garvin? Dr. Garvin?

“But I’d never have helped her kill you,” Taylor was saying. “Jesus, Agnes, you’re worth twenty of her.”

“Twenty thousand.” Agnes looked at Taylor, perplexed, trying to figure out what it was about him that she was missing, that Dr. Garvin thought she should be paying attention to.

Tall, blond, gorgeous, desperate. Nope, he was the same complete waste of humanity she thought he was.

She went back to the cake. Maybe she could put the flamingos over the lumps. Maybe the lumps would make the flamingos look three-dimensional. Always a silver lining.

“You’re right,” Taylor was saying. “You’re twenty thousand times better than her. Agnes, if you’ll take me back, I think we can make it work.”

Agnes jerked her head up.
“What?”

“You and me, honey. We can make it work.” He came closer, his face eager. “I was so damn dumb, I didn’t see that I already had it all with you. Two Rivers, the
Two Rivers Cookbook,
that cool blue bedroom upstairs ...” He cocked his head at her and smiled the smile that had curled her toes a week ago. “Come on, sugar, we were great together.”

“I’ve had better,” Agnes said, and went back to her fondant. “Since when?” Taylor said, outraged, and Rhett barked at him, a little snarl in there for garnish. Taylor took a step back.

“Since this week.” Agnes patted a fondant lump gently to smooth it out. No dice, it was going to have to be a flamingo.

“That Shane guy? Jesus, Agnes, did you even wait a minute after you stabbed me with that fork before you went to bed with him?”

Agnes stopped patting fondant to think about it. “Couldn’t have been much more than ten minutes. Fifteen, tops.”

“Agnes!”

Agnes straightened. “Taylor, you are in no position to become indignant. You got engaged to me to swindle me out of my life savings, and now you’ve discovered you married a murdering whore, and you’re trying to dump her and latch on to me to save yourself. It’s not going to work. Even if I were stupid enough to take you back, you think

Shane’s going to come home, find you in his bed, and just say, ‘Oh, okay, no problem’? Do you know what the man does for a living?”

“No,” Taylor said. “But I think if you explained that we’d reconciled—”

“Yeah, well, we haven’t.” Agnes picked up the cake round and turned to take it to the pantry and saw Brenda staring at them through the screened door.
Oh, sweet Jesus,
she thought, almost dropping the cake. “If you’ve come to borrow a cup of sugar, the answer is no,” she called to her.
Although I’ll trade you a cup for those account numbers in the Caymans.

“I came to see what Taylor was doing in here,” Brenda said, coming into the kitchen and fixing him with a basilisk stare.

Rhett growled again, but this time he crawled under the table.

Smart dog,
Agnes thought.

“Hello, Brenda,” Taylor said weakly.

“We were just talking about the catering,” Agnes said, taking the fondant-covered tier to the counter by the window. As she got closer to Brenda, she could hear her breathing. She was almost hyperventilating.
Anger,
she thought.
Been there, done that.

“I thought Taylor had decided he couldn’t do the catering,” Brenda said through clenched teeth, staring at her husband.

“He was just reiterating that,” Agnes said.
The stupid son of a bitch.

“Yes, I was,” Taylor said, trying to sound stern.

“And I was telling him that I understood that.” Agnes picked up the next cake tier and brought it down the counter. “So now you can both vacate my premises so I can finish this cake for Palmer.”

“Green?” Brenda said, contempt all but curling from her mouth.

“Golf course.” Agnes unwrapped her next ball of grass green fondant. “With flamingos. He’s going to love it.”

“Well, nobody ever accused you of having
taste,”
Brenda said. “Bless your heart.”

“Taylor,” Agnes said. “You can go now. You and the whore you rode in on. Bless her heart.”

Brenda exhaled through her teeth.

Taylor
looked helplessly from Agnes to Brenda while Agnes began to roll fondant, the heat of her anger making her strong and the fondant smooth.

“We can go into town now if you want, Brenda,” he said.

Brenda lifted her chin. “I suppose. I do hate picking my way across that dangerous splintered old bridge, though. I surely don’t see how anybody’s going to get to the wedding now. So I’ll call Evie—”

“Oh, the bridge is fine,” Taylor said. “Sturdy as all get-out. Much better than the old one. I drove right up to the house, so you just have to walk along the path.”

Brenda’s lips parted, but no sound came out.

Agnes smiled as she rolled fondant like a maniac. “That Shane. He sure is a miracle worker. Got that bridge in last night. It’s a beauty. And after that he hung the prettiest black shutters you’ve ever seen on every single window in Two Rivers. If you didn’t notice them, you make sure you look, Brenda, because they certainly are gorgeous. Check out the carriage lamps, too.” She beamed at Brenda.
“Now get the hell out of my house.”

Taylor
went over to Brenda and ushered her out the back door, turning as she went out to give Agnes one last look.

“No,” Agnes said, and he nodded and went out, a lost soul, which was what he deserved.

She rolled the fondant onto the rolling pin, lifted it over the cake, and flipped it on. “Don’t give me any crap,” she told the icing and smoothed it swiftly down over the sides.

Perfect

“No flamingos for you,” she said, and went to get the next layer, wondering exactly how much Brenda had heard and exactly how much trouble Taylor was in.

And why her subconscious thought she was an idiot.