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“You stole my family,” Brenda said, breathing hard, her eyes narrowing as she came closer.
“You ran your family off,” Agnes said. Maybe if she shoved the table at Brenda and?—
“You took my house?—”
“I bought your house, Brenda,” Agnes said as calmly as she could. “You took everything: Lisa Livia was mine, Taylor was mine, this house was mine?—”
“Uh, Brenda ...”
“—those were my goddamn black shutters!”
“You have excellent taste,” Agnes said, trying a different route.
“It’s my damn house,” Brenda shrieked, and swung the pan again, missing by a mile because the table was between them.
“Brenda, it’s over. The wedding is over. I keep the house.”
“Not if you’re dead,” Brenda snarled, and started around the table, frying pan raised.
Agnes gave up on talking her way out and screamed, “Hammond!” as she backed around the table.
“Forget him,” Brenda said, circling the table as Agnes circled, too. “Cops go down when you hit them with a frying pan just like any other man. You know that, Agnes.”
“No,” Agnes said, keeping the table between them. “Oh, God, is he still alive?”
“How should I know?” Brenda snapped. “Is it my day to watch him? No. Stand still, damn it.”
“Brenda,” Agnes said, kicking off her heels to make moving easier. “This is not a good plan. If you kill me, you don’t get the house. You’re not married to Taylor, you’re married to Frankie. You won’t inherit anything.”
“Fucking Frankie,” Brenda said, still circling, and Agnes decided her only chance was the back door. If she threw a chair in Brenda’s way and then sprinted for it, she might be able to attract enough attention from the dock that somebody down there would shoot Brenda before she got brained with the frying pan.
Except Brenda wouldn’t let her on the side of the table toward the door.
Damn it, Brenda, Agnes thought. Be nuts or cunning, not both, you bitch. She edged closer to the door, and Brenda moved to cut her off.
“You killed my clock and you stole my daughter,” Brenda said, literally spitting as she said it. “She thinks you’re family and I’m not. You helped that bitch Evie ruin my wedding dress. She wouldn’t invite me to a pigsticking, but she’s friends with you, she’s wearing the same dress you are. You’ve got my house. My husband was leaving me for you. You stole my life, you damn Yankee.”
“Brenda, you’re from fucking New Jersey!” Agnes yelled, and then
Brenda swung the pan again, and Agnes said, “Oh, my God, look!” and pointed to the housekeeper’s room.
Brenda looked and Agnes shoved a chair at her and lunged for the back door, only to scream as Brenda threw the frying pan, and caught her in the small of her back and knocked her to her knees. She rolled and grabbed for the pan as Brenda flung herself at her to get it back and then they were both rolling on the floor for it, claws and knees flying to the sound of ripping cloth. Agnes wrenched it away, and Brenda leapt to grab for another pan hanging too high above her head as Agnes scrambled painfully to her feet, trying to get out the back door, only to see Brenda fling herself across the counter for a knife instead.
Oh, fuck, Agnes thought and then screamed as Brenda came at her with the knife, deflecting it with the pan at the last minute.
Brenda slashed again and Agnes realized that she was going to have to kill her, that there was no way to run without getting the knife in the back, no way to defend herself without losing. Even as she had the thought, Brenda slashed again and the knife laid Agnes’s arm open, blood spurting all over the black-and-white tile, and she lost her breath and staggered back and slipped to one knee, and Brenda’s eyes lit up as she came at her.
Then a boom shook the house, and Brenda looked past her out the screen door, and yelled, “My yacht!” and Agnes gritted her teeth and swung the frying pan into Brenda’s knees as hard as she could.
Brenda went down in the blood on the floor, and Agnes got to her feet, ignoring whatever hell was breaking loose outside, and said, “Stop it, Brenda, we’re both hurt, just stop,” but Brenda got up, her eyes insane, and said, “You killed my yacht! My money was on that yacht, my passwords, you ruined my life!” and came for her, knife over her head, and Agnes swung the frying pan with everything she had right into Brenda’s crazy-eyed head, connecting and making her stagger back. She swung the pan again before Brenda could lunge again, driving her back toward the wall, and then Brenda slipped in Agnes’s blood and fell back hard into the basement door, grabbing for the
Venus, her hands slipping off the shiny surface of the unforgiving plastic, and then she disappeared without even a scream into the basement.
Agnes stood there holding the frying pan, waiting for the scream. There should have been a scream. How fucking crazy do you have to be to die without a scream? she thought, and then she realized that she was light-headed, which could be from catching the edge of a cast-iron frying pan on the temple or it could be from all the blood that was on her floor that used to be in her veins.
She dropped the pan and tried to stagger out the back door, but she slipped again and fell, the world looping around her, and she thought, Oh, God, I’m going to die alone in my kitchen, and then as the light narrowed down and she gave up, she heard the screen door slap and saw Shane bending over her, looking like he was shouting except Shane never got upset, so she was hallucinating, maybe it was her future flashing before her eyes, and then he picked her up and Carpenter was there and she thought, I’ll be okay now, and passed out cold.
SUNDAY
