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.