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“Same thing you,” Joey coughed. “Trying to get Four Wheels. And you just fucked it all up.” He hacked and then spit. “Fucking Brenda told Xavier that Four Wheels and I whacked Frankie.”
Nothing has gone right since I hit Keyes, Shane thought. He amended that thought—there was Agnes. He shook his head. Mind on mission.
“Dumb shit is probably heading for Agnes now that we got him riled up,” Joey said.
Fuck. “Let’s go.” He grabbed Joey, who was reaching up to rub his eyes. “Don’t do that.” He looked around to see a blinded Garth walk into a tree and almost knock himself out.
“Great.” Shane grabbed Garth with the other hand. “My team.” A Spiritual Humanist cleaner, an old mobster, an addled swamp rat, and an angry food columnist.
“We’ll get ‘em next time,” Garth said between coughs.
“Wasn’t all your fault,” Joey said, trying to get his shirttail up to his eyes.
Go team, Shane thought, and pointed them in the direction of the Defender.
The tow truck had arrived and pulled the wrecked sand truck out of the crumpled bridge, and as a bonus had taken Brenda away, too; she’d hitched a ride to get her Caddy from town now that she’d moored the Brenda Belle at Two Rivers. Kristy had toured the grounds to “like, take some background shots and get the hang of the place,” and then she’d come back in time to help Agnes get LL’s bourbon-sedated body upstairs into bed to sleep it off, abetted by a curious Rhett, who had followed them up the stairs to see what they were going to do with her. He’s seen way too many bodies moved lately, Agnes thought, and then her cell phone rang and she answered it.
“Hey.” Joey said hoarsely. “Somebody might be coming to the house who might be dangerous.”
“Really?” Agnes said. “Because that almost never happens here. With advance notice. Should I get my frying pan?”
“No joking, Agnes, it’s Four Wheels.”
“This would be Grandpa, right? The guy who drove for your robbery and then went out to the swamp to breed the rest of the Wheels?”
“That’s him.”
“Great.” Agnes crossed the second-floor hall from Lisa Livia’s room into one of the front bedrooms, now full of Maria’s wedding gifts and the dress form with Maria’s newly arrived white wedding dress, and looked down the lane. Nothing. Rhett peered out the window, too, unperturbed. “It looks peaceful out there now. Should I call the police?”
“Shane says Carpenter can handle it, and we’re on our way.” A bolt of red came shooting down the lane in a cloud of dust, swerving to make the turn, and Rhett barked. “Whoops.”
“What?” Joey called out from the phone.
“Spoke too soon. I think Four Wheels is here,” Agnes said as the car spun out, a decrepit, rusted-out, engine-misfiring red rattletrap, the Stars and Bars painted on the hood.
“Stay inside and lock the doors,” Joey ordered. “Let Carpenter handle him.”
“Carpenter’s in the basement, and Doyle’s out there all alone.”
Doyle walked out onto the front lawn, holding his paint sprayer on his hip like a six-shooter.
The driver’s door flew open as the car rocked to a halt in front of the ruined bridge, and an old man spilled out onto the gravel, face-first, struggling to get to his feet, a bottle rolling away from him.
“This might not be the trouble you’re afraid it is,” Agnes said into the phone. “He’s drunk. Standing up seems to be beyond him at the moment.”
“Is he armed?” Joey asked.
“I don’t see a gun.”
Doyle shouted something and stomped across the lawn toward the bridge, waving the paint sprayer.
“Oh, hell,” Agnes said. “Doyle’s going after him. Hurry up, Joey.” She turned off the cell phone, told Kristy to stay inside with LL and keep Rhett with her, and ran down the stairs to save her handyman, yelling for Carpenter as she went.
“I ain’t tellin’ you again,” Doyle was yelling as she came out the front door. “Get off me lass’s land or I’ll pummel you.”
The old man had managed to pull himself up to one knee. He was bleary eyed and blinking, trying to focus.
Another car turned down the lane: Brenda Dupres coming back to Two Rivers in her baby blue Caddy.
