Agnes and the Hitman

“I bet,” Joey said.

Wilson moved off to his boat, Carpenter with him to claim the jet boat, and Shane watched Joey’s eyes follow them. “What the hell was that?” he asked the old man.

“Nothin’ good,” Joey said, looking away.

Shane stepped closer. “You’re fucking with my life here, Joey. If you know something about this, anything about this, you tell me now. This is life and death, not some old mob game.”

“It was always life and death, Shane,” Joey said as Carpenter pulled up in the jet boat. “Guys like Wilson, they ain’t no different than the Don.”

“Damn it, Joey-”

“We’ll talk in the boat,” Joey said, remnants of authority in his voice that told Shane something of what he’d used to be.

“You’re damn right we will,” Shane said, but he followed Joey onto the jet boat.

Carpenter stayed at the wheel in the center console of the jet boat. Shane locked down an M6o machine gun on the front pole mount and loaded a band of ammunition into it. Along one side of the jet boat, Joey was securing an orange coast guard logo. He’d already put one on the other side of the boat as they pulled away from Wilson’s cabin cruiser. Carpenter pushed the throttle forward and they picked up speed until the boat planed out and they were cruising out of the Blood River onto the Intracoastal. “Why am I doin’ this?” Joey said.

“It explains the machine gun mounted in the prow of the boat to anyone stupid enough to ask questions of a boat with a machine gun mounted in the prow,” Shane said, and then called to Carpenter. “Where are we putting the first receiver?”

Carpenter pointed at the GPS screen on the console in front of him. “On the eastern tip of Barataria Island. Second one, here on Middle Marsh Island, southern tip. Third one to the south, on Bull Island. That will give us good coverage.”

“Why are we looking on the water?” Joey asked, finished with his task.

“Casey Dean was on a boat the last time we saw him,” Carpenter said. “I think it makes sense he’s probably living on a boat. Makes him mobile in this area, and he can hide among the thousands of barrier islands and waterways.”

“This Wilson guy,” Joey said. “You like working for him?”

“I might not be working for him much longer,” Shane said.

Joey smiled. “You going to stay here?”

“No, I’m in line to get his job.”

The smile disappeared. “You want that?”

“It’s a step up,” Shane said.

“To where?” Joey asked.

Shane glared at his uncle. “You’re the one who sent me away twenty-five years ago to military school. This is the path you put me on. Why are you asking me questions about it?”

“I sent you away to protect you,” Joey said.

“From who?”

Shane was surprised as his uncle seemed to grow smaller in the swivel seat “Shane, what’s going on now, it’s all part of stuff that was never taken care of twenty-five years ago. There’s been a truce all those years. But this Wilson guy, that ain’t where you should be. You don’t want to be like him.”

“A truce between who?” Shane asked.

Joey hesitated. “The Don and me.”

“And now the truce is over?”

“I don’t know. But it wasn’t no coincidence you was in Sava

Considering he’d been working overseas 90 percent of the time in the previous five years, Shane didn’t think it was a coincidence, either. “Why would Wilson want me in the area? I’m getting a little tired of you old men playing me. Why is the truce breaking down now? What’s at stake?”

“You’re at stake,” Joey said.

“First transmitter goes in here,” Carpenter a

Joey sighed and ran a hand across his coarse beard. “Your father…” He stopped and shook his head. “This ain’t good. You don’t need this now.”

“My father.” Shane stood over his uncle, looking down at him. “You never told me a damn thing about my father. You’ve always acted like he never existed. That he was some fly-by-night guy who got my mother pregnant. Big family secret.”

“Nah,” Joey said. “Your father was a stand-up guy. He treated my sister right. I promised them both when you were born, if anything ever happened, I’d take care of you.”

“And then you sent me away,” Shane said, anger pulsing in his veins.

“I sent you away to save you.” Joey stopped and shook his head.

Shane grabbed his uncle’s T-shirt, pulling him close. “Enough.” He could feel the blood pounding in his head, a rushing in his ears, Carpenter coming close to him, but his focus was on Joey. “Enough with the fucking games, Joey.”

“You’re a Fortunato,” Joey said, talking faster. “Your father was Roberto, the oldest brother, the one who was supposed to be the Don. You’re the Fortunato heir, Shane.”

“Oh, fuck,” Shane said, and let Joey go.

Agnes was rolling out grass green fondant and swearing at it, when Rhett growled at the hall doorway, and she looked up, ready to pulverize anybody with a gun.

Instead it was Taylor, equally pulverizable, looking like hell.

“Your murdering slut of a thieving wife is out on her boat,” Agnes said, jerking her head toward the dock. “Next time, don’t come through the house.”

“I’m sorry,” Taylor said, and his voice was low, not the coaxing, flirting tease she’d come to loathe. “I truly am sorry, Agnes. I’ve screwed up everything.”

“True. Get out.” Agnes rolled the resisting fondant over the pin and moved it to the first layer of Palmer’s groom’s cake, smoothing the top and then begi

“I mean it,” Taylor said, coming into the kitchen and making Rhett growl louder. “She just said all the right things, Agnes.”

“She’s good at that. Leave.” Agnes frowned as she smoothed the fondant. It looked so easy when they did it on TV-

“She killed that old man, didn’t she?” Taylor said, and Agnes looked up. “I heard about it. They were talking about it in town, that she drove right into him. Almost into you. She was aiming for you, wasn’t she?”

“Yeah,” Agnes said, watching his face. He did look truly miserable. “And she stripped Lisa Livia of everything she had, and now she’s trying to destroy her granddaughter’s marriage. She’s a real fucking prize, your wife.”

“She stole from Lisa Livia?”

“Taylor, she was going to steal this house from me, why is it so hard to believe she’d rip off Lisa Livia?”

“Geez.” He paused. “Well, I won’t lie to you, Agnes-”

“Sure you will,” Agnes said, and went back to her rapidly hardening lurid green icing.

“I was going to help her cheat you out of this house.” Taylor shook his head. “I figured you were going to do another book, you’d have plenty of money, what the hell.”

“Fuck you,” Agnes said, bent over the edge of the cake.

Angry language, Agnes.

Fuck you, too, Dr. Garvin.

You’re an idiot, Agnes. Anybody can say “Fuck you.” Do something smart for a change.

Agnes straightened and stared at her fondant. Did you just call me an idiot, Dr. Garvin? Dr. Garvin?

“But I’d never have helped her kill you,” Taylor was saying. “Jesus, Agnes, you’re worth twenty of her.”

“Twenty thousand.” Agnes looked at Taylor, perplexed, trying to figure out what it was about him that she was missing, that Dr. Garvin thought she should be paying attention to.

Tall, blond, gorgeous, desperate. Nope, he was the same complete waste of humanity she thought he was.

She went back to the cake. Maybe she could put the flamingos over the lumps. Maybe the lumps would make the flamingos look three-dimensional. Always a silver lining.

“You’re right,” Taylor was saying. “You’re twenty thousand times better than her. Agnes, if you’ll take me back, I think we can make it work.”