Agnes and the Hitman Read online

  “What are you doing?” Agnes screamed as she got to the bridge, but the driver was just as furious, waving his paperwork at her, asking what the hell business she had ordering five trucks of sand to cross a substandard bridge. “I’m suing you people,” he yelled.

  “I didn’t order this,” Agnes yelled back. “What the hell is it?”

  The driver pulled out an invoice. “Eighty cubic yards of pink sand, for a wedding at Two Rivers mansion.”

  “Pink sand?” Agnes said, dumbfounded.

  “Who ordered it?” Shane asked, and she jerked back, surprised to find him beside her.

  The driver squinted at the invoice. “A Brenda Dupres.”

  Agnes turned and yelled, “Brenda,” but Brenda was already tapping down the steps in her spike heels, looking enraged, a tiny blond D-cup tigress.

  “What did you do to my clock?” she said, stamping across the grass, pulling her spike heels out of the earth with vicious energy.

  “Some shithead showed up last night to kill me,” Agnes said to her, “and he shot up your damn clock instead. Now what the hell is all this pink sand?”

  “Maria wanted a flamingo-themed wedding,” Brenda said, reining in her temper as she drew herself up. “I thought pink sand would fit right in with everything else here. I know how nasty the shore can look when the tide is out. But I never dreamed it would break the bridge.” She looked down to the river, where the first three trucks were dumping their sand on the shore, Kristy dutifully snapping pictures of it all. “One, two, three…” She blinked her eyes at the truck stuck in the cut. “Four. There should be another truck-oh, yes, there it is.” She waved at the driver on the road to the bridge. “Five.”

  “There ain’t nothing more coming out here, lady,” the driver from the wrecked truck said, “except a tow truck.”

  “Oh,” Brenda said, sadly. “Looks like it’s the country club for the wedding then.” She smiled at Agnes. “Fiddle-dee-dee.”

  Agnes turned on her. “No, it is not the country club.”

  Anger is not your friend, Agnes.

  Neither is Brenda Fortunato, Dr. Garvin.

  Brenda smiled. “Agnes. Honey. The baker canceled. The florist canceled.” She took a step closer. “The photographer sent an assistant who doesn’t have a clue what she’s doing. The health inspector won’t let you serve dinner. You tried to kill the caterer.” She took another step closer. “The house is only half-painted. The bridge is out. Your kitchen is a crime scene. And you owe me for a very expensive antique grandfather clock.” She was almost nose to nose with Agnes now. “You simply can’t do it, Agnes. You’re finished.” Her eyes narrowed. “Give up.”

  Agnes felt her breath go, felt the old dizziness take hold as the red washed over her again, and then she heard Lisa Livia in her head again, saying, Face it, Agnes, you’re a killer, thought of Shane, putting those two bullets in the guy in the laundry room, walking through the kitchen firing at the guy in the hall until his gun was empty, never losing his temper, no expression on his face at all. Another part of her brain knew that Shane had his arm around her waist, ready to haul her off if she went for Brenda’s throat, but the part of her brain where the red mist lived was changing course, looking at Brenda now, knowing that professional killers did not get mad. They just ended things.

  “You listen to me,” she said to Brenda, her voice like ice. “On Saturday at noon, the cake will be beautiful, the flowers will be magnificent, the photographer who is taking pictures of the sand right now will be taking pictures of the bride, the catering will be amazing and legal, and the bridge will not only be back, it will be so strong that twenty trucks could cross it. And the house will be the house you have always dreamed of having, and, as God is my witness, will never have because I will defeat you utterly and completely, I will grind your face in the dust, I will make you nothing before the world, Brenda Dupres, and my kitchen will not be a crime scene because I will have proved that you picked up that goddamned frying pan in that goddamned bomb shelter and whacked your goddamned husband with it twenty-five years ago, and you will spend the rest of your life in an orange jumpsuit in prison where there is no moisturizer and your face will look like old luggage and the only man you’ll be able to seduce is a guard named Bubba with no teeth, so go back to your boat and pray, Brenda, get down on your knees and pray to whatever obscene and vicious god that made you that you do not cross me again because I will destroy you.”

  Brenda had stopped, her mouth open, gaping, and Shane had loosened his hold on her, and a silence had fallen over the landscape in general.

  “Agnes Crandall,” Brenda said finally, her voice tremulous, “I do declare, you’re insane.”

  “And don’t you forget it,” Agnes said, and walked back toward her house.

  When Agnes was gone, and a shaken Brenda had picked her way across what was left of the bridge supports to her Caddy parked on the far side, Shane found Carpenter. “Stay here. Check out that shelter. See if you can figure out anything about who came and went via that hatch in the gazebo. And keep an eye on Agnes.”

  “Roger that,” Carpenter said, but he didn’t sound happy. “Where are you going?”

  “The swamp. I stopped Rocko, now I’m going to stop Four Wheels from sending any more kin to upset Agnes.” He looked back at the house. “I think she’s really upset. She was… different.”

  “What about Casey Dean?” Carpenter looked as close to exasperated as Shane had ever seen him.

  “Dean isn’t going to make his move until after the wedding,” Shane said, ignoring Carpenter’s real question, What about the mission?

  “How do you know that?” Carpenter said. “Because he sent you a text message and you believe it?”

  “Because the Don told him not to do anything until then.”

  Carpenter’s face was as impassive as ever, but his eyes said, Uh-huh.

  “Fine,” Shane said. “You observe the situation and develop a theory that will get me a line on Dean, I’ll go after him.”

  “All right,” Carpenter said. “I’ll work on that. Does that mean you don’t want me with you going after Four Wheels?”

  Shane nodded toward the house, where one of Thibault clan was spraying paint with abandon as he finished finishing the house at last. “I’m taking Garth. He knows the terrain.”

  Carpenter looked even more doubtful. “I don’t think he’s going to be much help if you run into trouble.”

  “I think I can handle one old man in the swamp, even if he is surrounded by his family.”

  Carpenter shook his head. “So far we haven’t handled much of anything.”

  Shane bristled. “I’m doing all right.”

  “You’re not focused. You haven’t been since your uncle called you in Savannah. Have you tried to figure out the big picture in this mission? Because there’s something about this that I don’t like-”

  “Wilson’s given us an op to run,” Shane said, ignoring the instincts that were telling him the same thing. “Take out Casey Dean. I know I screwed up-”

  “Twice.”

  “I know I screwed up twice,” Shane said, his voice tight, “but I will take out Casey Dean. I’m going after Four Wheels to close out the problems that have been distracting me.”

  Carpenter glanced over the house. “You think Four Wheels Thibault is your distraction here? If you don’t get focused, you’re going to end up in a body bag. Casey Dean has also screwed up by not taking us out. There’s something wrong with this whole mission, and it’s going to come down to whichever side stops making mistakes and does the job right. Soon. Don’t forget that.”

  “I’m not,” Shane said, not looking back at the house. “I’m closing out one loose end, finishing the job here. Then we take down Casey Dean and move on.”

  Assuming we can convince the general population that there’s no five mil at Two Rivers, Joey didn’t kill Frankie, and I can leave Agnes.

  Better not to share that with Carpenter.

  H