Shane looked at him, almost pitying him in his stupidity. The dumb fuck has a plan. He pulled the gun back. “Sure.” His assignment was to take out Casey Dean, world-class hitman, but if this guy was a world-class hitman, Shane was Princess’s date to prom. Some guys were all PR, no game, and Dean was sure as hell turning out to be one of them.

When Dean had put on his jacket, he looked downright confident, his eyes sly as they went to the desk. “So I really don’t know anything, but I’m definitely leaving town, just like you said. Okay if I get my passport from my desk drawer?”

Shane nodded. You bet. Commit suicide with my gun. That’s what I’m here for.

The man turned his back and opened a desk drawer, and Shane brought his gun up.

Dean swung around, a small gun in his hand, and Shane fired two quick shots, hitting him in the chest. Dean fell back, disappearing behind the desk.

Below, the music pounded, drowning out everything. Shane walked forward, gun at the ready, and rolled the man over, surprised to find there was still a spark of life in his eyes. Not surprised to see his two shots were so tightly grouped they appeared to be one hole, but not happy to see them an inch off target.

Fucking Joey, making him lose focus. Fucking Keyes. Fucking little Agnes, too, whoever she was.

A funny look came over the man’s face as Shane aimed the gun at his forehead. His eyes blinked rapidly. “Wait,” he gasped. “We can make a deal.”

“Oh, come on,” Shane said. “You know who and what you are. You lied. You’d have completed the contract because otherwise you’d never get another job.”

“No-” Dean said, and Shane fired, the round making a perfect black hole in the center of his forehead. Shane leaned over and checked Dean’s pockets, finding a business card with just a phone number on it. He pocketed it.

He pulled out his cell phone and hit number 3 on the speed-dial.

It was answered on the first ring: “Carpenter.”

“Painting’s done. You’ll have to help him on to the next world on your own, Reverend. I won’t be at debrief.”

There was a brief moment of silence. “Wilson won’t like that.”

“The target had no information on contractor or his target.”

“Roger.”

Shane put the phone away and picked up the voucher.

Then he crossed the room to the window, reached under his shirt, retrieved the heavy-duty snap link attached to the rear of his body armor, clipped it to a bolt holding a drainpipe, turned outward and jumped, the carefully coiled bungee cord snapping out until it jerked him to a halt three feet from the street and bounced him back up half the distance. As he went down the second time, Shane pulled the quick release and landed on all fours. Right next to his Defender SUV.

Keyes again.

Fuck.


At eleven thirty, an hour and a half after the kid had gone screaming through her kitchen wall, Agnes pulled another pan of chocolate-raspberry cupcakes out of the oven, stopped rehearsing her story for the next wave of police-It’s a nonstick frying pan, so it’s really very light, it couldn’t kill anybody-and wondered what Dr. Garvin would say about all of this. Well, she knew what he’d say. He’d look at her and say, “How are you feeling right now, Agnes?”

And if she said, “Fine, Dr. Garvin,” he’d give her that look that said, Myass, Agnes, except court-appointed psychiatrists couldn’t say that.

She tried to remember the list of terms he’d given her to help her describe how she’d felt when she hit her fiancé with the frying pan: Mean/Evil. Worthless. Revengeful. Bitchy. She remembered wondering where outraged and betrayed and sickened by the unsanitary assault on a dining surface had been. “He was actually doing her on my clean kitchen table,” she’d told him, in what she’d thought was a perfectly calm voice. “I mean, Jesus Christ, of course I hit him with a frying pan!”

“Hit who with a frying pan?” Joey said from the doorway.

Agnes looked up from where she’d been talking to the cupcakes. “Am I going to go to jail for hitting the kid with the frying pan?”

“No,” Joey said, mystified. “You didn’t kill him, he fell through the wall. You all right?”

“Well.” Agnes leaned against the counter. “There’s some stuff I didn’t tell you.”

Joey came in and put his arm around her, the weight of muscle going to fat a comfort on her shoulders. “Like what?”

“Remember I told you I was engaged after college and my fiancé cheated on me?”

“Yeah, the bastard.”

“Well, when I found out he lied to me, I kind of hit him.”

“Good for you.”

“In the face. With a frying pan. Nonstick. Broke his nose.”

“Oh.” Joey nodded, still supportive but wary now. “He file a police report?”

Agnes nodded. “He dropped the charges, though.” Tell me I’m okay, Joey.

“Well, this is different. It won’t-”

“And then three years ago, I got engaged to that crime reporter I told you about?”

“Yeah,” Joey said, definitely on guard.

“And two years ago, he cheated on me with my assistant? And I caught him with her on my kitchen table?”

“You didn’t tell me that part”

“And I hit him in the back of the head with a cast-iron skillet.” Tell me I’mokay, Joey.

“Oh, shit, Agnes.”

Ouch. “So if the cops look me up…”

“Did you kill him?”

“No. They put a plate in his head. He’s fine.”

“You do any time?”

“Probation with court-ordered therapy and community service.” Agnes leaned against Joey, grateful for his bulk beside her. “A soup kitchen. It was nice. Good people worked there.” Tell me I’m okay, Joey.

“You’re good people, too, Agnes.” He patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry. This was self-defense. You’re all right.”

Agnes looked up at his dear, ugly mug. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Joey said, and looked at her straight, the way Joey always did.

“Good.” She straightened up to go back to work. Self-defense was legitimate. Brenda would have pounded the kid in self-defense, too. “What were you coming in to tell me?”

He looked uncomfortable. “I called somebody to come help you, and I was waiting for him outside, and then the next bunch of cops pulled down the drive. We got trouble.”

Agnes put the cakes on the bread table. “You mean besides the cop in the hallway and the dead body in the basement?”

“The cop in the hallway is a dumb-fuck deputy, he’s not trouble,” Joey said. “But now we got Detective Simon Xavier comin’ across your bridge.”

“Who?” Agnes peeled off her oven mitt.

“Xavier,” Joey said. “The one cop in Keyes who actually knows what the fuck he’s doing.” Agnes felt cold. “Joey?”

There was a crash from the direction of the old housekeeper’s room, now her bedroom, and Agnes said, “That’s that deputy. He keeps wandering around saying, ‘So this is what Two Rivers looks like inside.’ Like he’s looking for something. I told him to stay in the hall. I even gave him a cupcake.”

Joey jerked his head toward the housekeeper’s room. “Go get him. I’ll talk to Xavier.”

Agnes swallowed. “Joey, am I going to jail?”

“No, honey,” Joey said. “But don’t hit anybody else with a goddamned frying pan.”

Agnes went cold. I’m in trouble if Joey’s warning me. “Right.” She forced a smile for him, took a deep breath, and started for the housekeeper’s room.

“Aw, wait a minute.” Joey caught her arm and handed her the frying pan.

“What’s this for?” she said.

“I take it back,” he said. “If that deputy tries anything funny, you can use this. They can’t get you for self-defense.”

“Oh, funny,” she said, but she took the pan and tried a smile. “Joey, you’re the best.”

“Go on,” he said, but he blushed just the same. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she told him. “Kind of. This has been a really lousy day, but it’s almost over, the cops are going to take the body away, I’m not in any trouble… right?” She looked at him, trying not to seem anxious.

“Right,” Joey said firmly, but his eyes slid away from hers. Oh, God. Agnes smiled at him as sanely as she could and headed for her bedroom, not relieved at all.


Once in the housekeeper’s room, Agnes clutched her frying pan tighter and felt her way toward the bedside lamp.

“I told you nothing happened in here,” she called out, looking around for the cop. “It was all out in the kitchen.” Not that I’m upset with you, sir. Please don’t arrest me.

The wind blew the curtains away from the window by the bed, and she saw that the bedside table was tipped over, and then a hand clamped over her mouth and somebody said, “Shhhh,” and she swung the pan up over her head hard and connected with a smack that reverberated into her shoulders.

He wrenched the pan out of her hand. “Stop it.Joey sent me.”

She yanked away from him, and he let her go so that she tripped, falling against the bed, and then she fumbled on the floor for the light and clicked it on, breathing hard.

He loomed up over her as her heart pounded, a big guy, dressed in black-black pants, black T, black denim jacket-looking like he’d been hacked out of a block of wood: strong, weathered face; black, flat eyes-shark eyes, she thought-cropped dark hair going gray at the temples, now a little bloody on the right; tense, hard, squared-off body, all of it alert and concentrated on her. But the thing she noticed most, as she tried to keep from having a heart attack, was that he looked like Joey. Younger than Joey, bigger than Joey, but he looked like Joey.