“Here and there,” Shane said.

“Who you work for now?”

“Joey. He called me to help his friend Agnes.”

“And you came riding into town all dressed in black?”

“Seemed the right thing to do. She’s pretty vulnerable out here alone.”

Xavier’s eyes were flat on Shane. “And you’re gonna keep her from being all alone, are you?”

“Yes.” Until I find out what’s going on here and get Joey the hell out of it.

Xavier stared at him for a moment more without comment and then bent back to the body, going through the pockets in silence.

Not much in there, Shane thought. The kid must have been dirt poor.

Agnes called down from the doorway above. “Doc Simmons is here. Okay if I have him look at Rhett while he’s waiting for you? Rhett ate a lot of chocolate, and that’s not good for dogs.”

“Sure, Miz Agnes. Then get him down here,” Xavier said.

“Dogs?” Shane said to Joey.

“The coroner is elected here,” Joey said to Shane. “Only guy who ran for it was a local veterinarian named Simmons whose business was going under.”

Only in Keyes, Shane thought.

“Hammond,” Xavier said. “You stay here with the body and wait for the coroner.”

Hammond nodded.

“You,” Xavier said, looking at Joey, “I’m going to want the pleasure of your company for some conversation later.”

You and me both, Shane thought, and followed his uncle and the detective up the ladder, determined to find out what a boarded-up basement, a moth eaten old bloodhound, and a food writer with a nice ass could have to do with his ex-mobster uncle before his notoriously unsympathetic boss terminated his career.


By one thirty Tuesday morning, Agnes had answered the same thirty questions at least a thousand times, grateful none of them had been, “Exactly how many men have you struck with a frying pan, Miz Agnes?” since the answer now stood at four, if you counted Shane. Hammond had thrown some variety into the mix by asking about Maria’s upcoming wedding- “She still as sweet and pretty as ever?” – and Doc Simmons had looked at Rhett and said, “Nothin’s gonna kill that ole hound, certainly not your most excellent cake, Miss Agnes,” and then, almost as an afterthought, pronounced the Thibault kid dead. Agnes had said, “Thank you, Doc,” put some cupcakes in a bag for him, and waved him off into the night, watching as he followed the ambulance crew with the body down the lane and over the rickety bridge to the main road. “Rest in peace, I guess,” she said to the tail-lights and went back to the kitchen, but she’d barely gotten there when the door chime went again.

“I’ll get it,” Joey said, sliding off the counter stool. “You tell Detective Xavier here whatever else he needs to know so he can go home.” He patted Agnes’s shoulder and kissed her cheek and then ambled out to get the door while Agnes turned to smile at Xavier, radiating innocence.

“You know everything about me already,” she said to Xavier, but a minute later, Taylor strode in looking blond, handsome, and concerned, and she had to say, “Except for him. Detective Xavier, this is my fiancé, Taylor Beaufort. Taylor, this is Detective Xavier.”

“Detective,” Taylor said in his soft drawl as he slid his arm around her. “Sugar, what the devil is goin’ on out here? Are you all right?”

“I’m just fine,” she said, a little rattled that she’d forgotten he existed. “What are you doing here?”

“I heard somebody broke in,” he said, his drawl getting less soft as he scowled in Shane’s direction.

Shane looked back with the same expression he’d had since she hit him with the frying pan: none.

“And how was it that you heard about the break-in?” Xavier asked.

“Everybody in town heard, Detective,” Taylor said. “Doc Simmons stopped for coffee on his way out here and mentioned it to his waitress who mentioned it to Maisie Shuttle who told my waitress when she stopped by the Inn for dessert.” He moved his hand up to Agnes’s shoulder. “Agnes, you must have been scared to death.”

“I’m fine.” He sounded truly worried, and Agnes tried to feel comforted by that.

“A boy broke in and tried to steal your fiancée’s dog, Mr. Beaufort,” Xavier said. “Would you know anything about that?”

“He tried to steal Rhett?” Taylor said, looking at Shane with astonishment.

“Not Shane,” Agnes said. “A boy. Shane is Joey’s nephew. He’s here to look out for me. Joey asked him to come.”

“I see.” Taylor didn’t look happy. “Well, no, I don’t see. Why would anybody want to steal Rhett? And why would Joey call his nephew? What-?”

“The house is isolated,” Shane said. “She shouldn’t be out here alone.”

Yeah, Agnes thought, and then felt like a wimp. Brenda had been just fine out here alone.

“Keyes is a safe community,” Taylor said to Shane. “The former owner lived on her own out here without any problems. I don’t see-”

“A kid broke in with a gun and threatened Agnes,” Shane pointed out.

“Just a prank,” Taylor said stiffly. “She’s not laughing,” Shane said. “And he’s dead.”

“Dead!” Taylor looked down at Agnes. “I thought they just arrested him. What happened?”

“He fell,” Agnes said, skipping the pan where she’d swung the frying pan in case Taylor felt moved to blurt out her history with cookware as weaponry.

“He threatened your fiancée with a gun, and she defended herself,” Xavier said.

“Yeah,” Hammond said. “With a frying pan. Can you believe it?”

“What?” Taylor said, alarmed.

Agnes grabbed Taylor’s arm and yanked him toward the hall door. “It’s late. Let me walk you to your car.”

“Wait a minute.” Taylor stopped and mouthed the words frying pan? at her.

She scowled at him. You just shut up about that frying pan.

“She won’t be alone,” Shane said. “I’m staying with her.”

Taylor straightened, forgetting the frying pan entirely, which made Agnes feel absolutely warm toward Shane.

She tugged Taylor toward the door again. “It’s ail right, he’s Joey’s nephew,” she said, trying to move him. “It’ll be okay.”

“I don’t know,” Taylor began at the same time Xavier said, “Where is Joey?”

Taylor looked back at the detective. “Oh, he said to tell you it was getting too late for him, so he was going on home.”

Xavier swore.

“Come on.” Agnes pulled Taylor out the door and into the checkerboard hall, and once they were there, momentum helped her get him through the front door. “Look, really,” she said to him once they were outside on the wide front porch, “it’s okay. Shane’s just here to make sure nobody else breaks in.”

“I want to stay,” he said, but he drew her down the steps and out across the lawn close to the drive where he’d parked his Cobra, so she knew it was all for show.

When they reached the car, he put his arms around her, and she leaned into his broad chest, trying to recapture the way she’d felt about him in the beginning, when it had felt like he was the perfect man for her. Was it just because he was such a good chef? she thought.

There must have been more. Well, the good sex. That was always a selling point. And he’d been sweet. And she’d been so damn lonely.

“I don’t know about having Maria’s wedding here,” Taylor said, rubbing her back. “It’s causing you so much stress, and this mess with this dead boy will ruin it anyway. You know how Evie Keyes hates gossip. If she finds out somebody died on the premises-”

“Her son isn’t getting married in the basement,” Agnes said, pulling away. “He’s getting married in the gazebo, which is beautiful and corpse-free.”

“I’m just saying.” Taylor tried to put his arm around her again, and she shrugged it off, feeling like a surly three-year-old. “You’ve been through a lot. Why don’t we just tell Evie to move it to the country club-”

“No!” Agnes stepped back from him, feeling betrayed. “Evie’s just looking for an excuse to drag her son’s wedding over there, and if she does, we owe Brenda three months’ back mortgage payments. That was the deal, remember? We do the wedding in exchange for the first three months’ mortgage? Do you have nine thousand dollars? Because I don’t.”

“Calm down,” Taylor said. “Brenda would let us work out a payment plan. I just don’t like seeing you stressed like this.”

“What’s making me stressed is the thought of moving the wedding to the country club.” Agnes clamped down on her… irritation. Yeah, that was it, irritation. I’m not angry. I’m annoyed. “The wedding stays here. The fact that the kid died here has nothing to do with me or the wedding. It’s not like I killed him-” She winced at the thought.

“A frying pan, Agnes,” Taylor said. “Jesus.”

“Go home, Taylor,” Agnes said. “You’ve comforted me enough.”

“I’m just trying to help you,” Taylor said. “You’ve been whining at me to get out here, and when I do-”

“Right.” She smiled up at him in the moonlight, trying not to bare her teeth. “Hey, you know what? I got the attic bedroom painted last week, and it’s the most beautiful pale blue, like water. And the bed’s all made up. It’s all ready for you to move in-”

“It’s hotter than hell up there,” Taylor said.

“Not with the windows open and the fan going,” Agnes said. “And the low light is beautiful on those wood floors. It’s so peaceful and beautiful and-”

“Agnes, I don’t have time to move right now,” Taylor said.

Agnes crossed her arms over her raspberry-stained T-shirt. “Listen, I’ve been killing myself trying to get this house and this wedding together and-oh, yeah-write my columns and pay the mortgage to Brenda, and you’ve been out here, what, maybe three times this last month?”