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Shane took it. “Thanks.” He took the camera and zoomed in on the yacht. Wilson was on the bridge with another old man Shane recognized from intelligence briefings: the head of the mob in New York City. Another of Wilson’s puppets, Shane thought. Come to see the coronation of the successor in New Jersey. He handed the camera back to her.
“Appreciate it,” he said.
“No sweat.” She went back to the guests, and Shane walked over to Carpenter at the edge of the gazebo.
“You do what you had to?” Carpenter asked.
“Joey and Frankie handled it,” Shane said. “There’ve been some changes in the plan. Let’s find Casey Dean first.” He pulled out the pink cell phone he’d taken from Abigail’s bag the night before and hit number 1 on the speed-dial.
Shane stiffened as a woman’s voice answered: “Where are you, sis?”
He was still processing that when Carpenter nudged him and pointed. “Over there.”
Shane looked across the cluster of guests. The photographer had a cell phone in her hand, and she tossed her hair away from it as she listened in a way Shane remembered.
“Princess,” Shane said into the phone. “What’s your sign?”
He saw the photographer turn her head and stare right back at him.
“Where’s Abigail?” she said into the phone
“I’ve got her,” Shane said. “Casey Dean, I presume? We met before. In a bar in Savannah.”
“What do you want?” Casey Dean asked, glaring at Shane. “The Don’s dead, so your contract is, how should I say, defunct.” Shane could see her go rigid. “Bullshit.”
“You see Don Fortunato or his consigliere anywhere around?”
There was silence. Shane continued. “When the grandfather of the bride escorts her down the aisle, you’ll know I’m telling the truth. You do anything, I’ll have your ass.”
There were several seconds of silence; then Casey Dean spoke. “Where’s my sister?”
“We have her, along with the five million.”
“What do you want?”
“For now, the wedding to go off without a hitch. Are you clear on that?”
“Yes.” The word was a hiss. “But you’re fucking up, big-time.”
“Make sure to take some good pictures.” Shane hit the off button, but paused, thinking about what Casey Dean had just said. He looked at the pink phone, then hit 2 on the speed-dial and listened as the phone was answered.
“Yes?” Wilson said.
Shane turned the phone off, cold all over, and looked at Carpenter. “That thing we’ve been missing?”
“Yes?”
“I just found it.”
Fifteen minutes earlier, Agnes had met Lisa Livia in the kitchen and found her wearing not only the Bon Ton pink-hearts dress, but also the pink-heart necklace that had started the whole mess as Rhett’s collar.
“You’re kidding,” she said, and started to laugh.
“My daddy gave it to me,” Lisa Livia said, holding it out with one finger. “He said he’d had it appraised and it was worth about ten grand and he wanted me to have it”
“Ten grand?” Agnes said doubtfully.
“He’s wrong,” Lisa Livia said. “It’s worth at least thirty. The big hearts are pink quartz, but the spacers are pink diamonds. Good ones, too. He probably went to some fence in Savannah who low-balled him.”
