Violence is not the answer, Agnes.

That depends on the question, Dr.Garvin.

– and she was not out of control, she was not angry, she was calm,she was shaking, but she was perfectly fine, and anyway it was a nonstick pan, not cast iron, so she was fairly certain she hadn’t done any permanent damage.

Fingers crossed, anyway.

Beside him, Rhett collapsed, overcome by the number of cupcakes still on the floor.

“I hate you,” she said to the unconscious boy. Then she picked up her phone and said, “Joey?”

“Don’t do anything, Agnes,” Joey yelled, the sounds of traffic in the background. “I’m on Route 17. I’m almost there.”

“That’s good,” Agnes said, realizing her voice was shaking, too. “He’s just a kid, Joey. He said he wasn’t trying to hurt anybody-”

The kid lunged to his feet, and Agnes screamed again and dropped the phone to swing the pan again, but this time he was ready for her, ducking under her arm and butting her in the stomach so that she said, “Oof!” and fell backward against the counter. He tried to backhand her, and she swung the pan again and hit him in the head, and then she couldn’t stop, she hit him over and over, and he yelled, “Stop it!” and grabbed for her while she swung at him, driving him back toward the hall door, screaming, “Get out, get out, get out of this house, get out of this house!” as he lurched back, and stepped in Rhett’s water dish and fell back against the wall and then through it, screaming.

Agnes froze, the frying pan raised over her head as he disappeared, and then the wall was solid again, and she heard a thud, and the screaming stopped, cut off.

She stood there with the pan over her head for a moment,

stunned, and then she lowered it slowly and clutched it to her chest, warm raspberry sauce and all, her heart beating like mad. She stared dumbfounded at the wall, waiting to see if he’d come rushing back through, like a ghost or something. When nothing happened, she went over and pushed cautiously with the pan on the place where the kid had disappeared.

It swung open and shut again, the hideous wallpaper that had covered it now torn along the straight edge of a doorframe.

“Oh,” Agnes said, caught between amazement that there’d been a swinging door behind the wallpaper and fear that there was also a crazed moron behind there.

“Agnes!” Joey yelled on the phone.

Agnes took a deep breath and stepped back to the counter and picked it up. “What?”

“What the fuck happened?”

“There’s another door in my kitchen, right next to the hall door.” Agnes went back and pushed it open again, avoiding the rusted, broken nails that lined the doorway edge, and peered into the black void. “Huh.”

“Where’s the kid with the gun?”

“Good question.” Agnes dropped her skillet on the counter, yanked open the utility drawer by the door, and got out her flashlight. She turned it on, shoved the door open with her shoulder, and pointed it into the darkness.

“What are you doing?” Joey yelled.

“I’m trying to see what’s behind this door. I didn’t even know it was here. Brenda never mentioned-”

“Agnes, you can explore that goddamn house later,” Joey said. “Take Rhett and get the hell out of there.”

“I don’t think the kid’s a problem anymore.” Agnes held the phone with one hand and peered down into the pool of light the flashlight cast on the floor below as Rhett came to join her, pressing close to her leg so he could peer, too. “He fell into a basement. I didn’t even know I had a basement back here. Brenda never said anything about one.

Did you know-?” She had been playing the light around the floor, and now she stopped as it hit the moron. “Uh-oh.”

“What do you mean, ‘uh-oh’?”

The boy was splayed out on what looked like a concrete floor, and he did not look good.

“I think he’s hurt. He’s definitely not moving.”

“Good,” Joey said. “He fall down the stairs?”

“There are no stairs.” Agnes squinted down into the darkness as the light hit the boy’s face.

His eyes stared up at her, dull and fixed.

Agnes screamed, and Rhett scrambled back, stepping in the raspberry sauce, which he began to lick up. “Agnes?”

“Oh, God,” Agnes said as her throat closed in panic. “Joey, his neck’s at a funny angle and his eyes are staring up at me. I think 1 killed him.”

“No, you didn’t, honey,” Joey said around the traffic noise in the background. “He committed suicide when he attacked an insane woman in the stupid house she bought. I’m almost there. You stay there and don’t open that door for anybody.”

“He’s dead, Joey. I have to call the police.” This is bad. This is bad. This is not going to look good.

“The police can’t help you with this one,” Joey said. “You stay put. I’m gonna get you somebody until we figure this out.”

“Some body. Right.” Agnes clicked off the phone and looked back down at the dead body in her basement.

He looked pathetic, lying there all broken and dead-eyed. Agnes swallowed, trying to get a grip on the situation.

How are you feeling right now, Agnes?

Shut the fuck up, Dr. Garvin.

Don’t say “fuck,” Agnes. Angry language makes us angrier. Gosh darn, Dr. Garvin, I’m feeling… She put the beam on the boy again. Still dead.

Oh, God.

Okay, calm down, she told herself. Think this through. She hadn’t killed him, the basement floor had. You hit him many times in the head with the frying pan-try explaining that one.

Okay, okay, but he’d attacked her in Brenda’s house. No, in her house. So it was self-defense. Yes, he was young and pathetic and heartbreaking down there, but he’d been a horrible person.

Why do you always hit them with frying pans, Agnes?

Because that’s what I always have in my hand, Dr. Garvin. If I were a gardener, it’d be hedge clippers. Think how bad that would be.

She punched in 911 on her phone, trying to concentrate on the good things: Rhett was fine, her column would be finished soon, Maria’s wedding was still on track for that weekend, Two Rivers was hers-well, hers and Taylor’s-pretty soon she was going to be living her dream, and her cupcakes were burning but she could make more-

There’s a dead body in my basement and I lost my temper and I hit him with a frying pan many times, 1 was not in control-

“Keyes County Emergency Services,” the police dispatcher drawled.

“There’s a dead body in my basement,” Agnes said, and then her knees gave way and she slid down the cabinet to sit hard on the floor as she tried to explain that the kid had been going to hurt her dog, while Rhett drooled on her lap.

“A deputy is on the way, ma’am,” the dispatcher said, as if dead bodies in basements were an every-evening occurrence.

“Thank you.” Agnes hung up and looked at Rhett.

“I have to make cupcakes,” she said, and he looked encouraging, so she got up to get the blackened cupcakes out of the oven and clean the floor and get back to work, thinking very hard about her column, and Maria’s wedding that weekend, and Brenda’s beautiful house that was now hers, and everything except the dead body in her basement and the goddamned frying pan.


Shane sat on a bar stool, in a shady nightclub on the wrong side of the tracks in a bad part of Savannah, Georgia, and tried to estimate how many people he was going to have to kill in the next hour. Optimally it would be one, but he had long ago learned that optimism did not apply inhis profession. He felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket and pulled it out with his free hand, expecting to see the go or no go text message from Wilson. There were only three people who had his number, and they never called to chat. One of them was across the dance floor from him, which left two options. He glanced at the screen and was surprised tosee joey.

Jesus. First time ever, and he calls in the middle of a job. Shane hesitated fora moment, then thought, Hell, you gave him the number for emergencies, and hit the on button. “Uncle Joe?”

“Shane, you on a job?”

“Yes.”

“Where you at?”

“Savannah.”

“Good,” Joey said. “Close. I need you home.”

Shane frowned. Home? You send me away at ten and now you want me home? “What’s the problem?” he said, keeping his voice cold.

“I got a little friend needs some help. She lives just outside Keyes in the old Two Rivers mansion. Remember it?”

Fucking Keyes, SC. Armpit of the South.

“Come home and take care of my little Agnes, Shane.”

You adopt another kid, Joe? Gonna take better care of this one? “I’ll be there in an hour.”

“I appreciate it.” Joey hung up.

Shane pushed the off button. Joey needing help taking care of something. That was new. Old man must be getting really old. Calling him home. That was-

“I’m a Leo – and you?”

Shane turned to look at her. Long blonde hair. Bright smile plastered on her pretty face. Pink T-shirt stretched tight across her ample chest with the word Princess embroidered on it in shiny letters. Effective advertising, bad message.

“What’s your sign?” she said, coming closer.