AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Oh, God.
Okay, calm down, she told herself. Think this through. She hadn’t killed him, the basement floor had. You hit him many times in the head with the frying pan—try explaining that one.
Okay, okay, but he’d attacked her in Brenda’s house. No, in her house. So it was self-defense. Yes, he was young and pathetic and heartbreaking down there, but he’d been a horrible person.
Why do you always hit them with frying pans, Agnes?
Because that’s what I always have in my hand, Dr. Garvin. If I were a gardener, it’d be hedge clippers. Think how bad that would be.
She punched in 911 on her phone, trying to concentrate on the good things: Rhett was fine, her column would be finished soon, Maria’s wedding was still on track for that weekend, Two Rivers was hers—well, hers and Taylor’s—pretty soon she was going to be living her dream, and her cupcakes were burning but she could make more?—
There’s a dead body in my basement and I lost my temper and I hit him with a frying pan many times, 1 was not in control?—
“Keyes County Emergency Services,” the police dispatcher drawled.
“There’s a dead body in my basement,” Agnes said, and then her knees gave way and she slid down the cabinet to sit hard on the floor as she tried to explain that the kid had been going to hurt her dog, while Rhett drooled on her lap.
“A deputy is on the way, ma’am,” the dispatcher said, as if dead bodies in basements were an every-evening occurrence.
“Thank you.” Agnes hung up and looked at Rhett.
“I have to make cupcakes,” she said, and he looked encouraging, so she got up to get the blackened cupcakes out of the oven and clean the floor and get back to work, thinking very hard about her column, and Maria’s wedding that weekend, and Brenda’s beautiful house that was now hers, and everything except the dead body in her basement and the goddamned frying pan.
Shane sat on a bar stool, in a shady nightclub on the wrong side of the tracks in a bad part of Savannah, Georgia, and tried to estimate how many people he was going to have to kill in the next hour. Optimally it would be one, but he had long ago learned that optimism did not apply in his profession. He felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket and pulled it out with his free hand, expecting to see the go or no go text message from Wilson. There were only three people who had his number, and they never called to chat. One of them was across the dance floor from him, which left two options. He glanced at the screen and was surprised to see joey.
Jesus. First time ever, and he calls in the middle of a job. Shane hesitated for a moment, then thought, Hell, you gave him the number for emergencies, and hit the on button. “Uncle Joe?”
“Shane, you on a job?”
“Yes.”
“Where you at?”
“Savannah.”
“Good,” Joey said. “Close. I need you home.”
Shane frowned. Home? You send me away at ten and now you want me home? “What’s the problem?” he said, keeping his voice cold.
“I got a little friend needs some help. She lives just outside Keyes in the old Two Rivers mansion. Remember it?”
Fucking Keyes, SC. Armpit of the South.
“Come home and take care of my little Agnes, Shane.”
You adopt another kid, Joe? Gonna take better care of this one? “I’ll be there in an hour.”
“I appreciate it.” Joey hung up.
Shane pushed the off button. Joey needing help taking care of something. That was new. Old man must be getting really old. Calling him home. That was?—
“I’m a Leo — and you?”
Shane turned to look at her. Long blonde hair. Bright smile plastered on her pretty face. Pink T-shirt stretched tight across her ample chest with the word Princess embroidered on it in shiny letters. Effective advertising, bad message.
“What’s your sign?” she said, coming closer.
“Taurus with a bad moon rising.” The hell with Joey. He had a job to do. He looked at the upstairs landing.
