AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“This is now a crime scene—” Xavier began and then the earth began to shake. “What the hell?”
“Did you order some trucks?” Carpenter said to Agnes from the top of the ladder.
“Trucks?” Agnes said.
“Five of them. Dump trucks. Heading for your bridge.”
“No,” Agnes said, running for the tunnel.
Shane went to follow her and caught a glimpse of Brenda. She looked like the news about the trucks was making her feel much better.
Agnes ran through the kitchen, past the Venus and Lisa Livia, who said, “What now?” as if she didn’t care, then out through the hall and across the lawn, waving her hands and yelling, “Stop, no, go back,” but the dump trucks kept rolling across the bridge; first one, bumping over the fragile supports, onto the drive, across the lawn and down to the riverbank, where Cerise and Hot Pink honked their rage; then another, the bridge groaning before the truck went to the river; then a third, the supports screaming this time before the truck went on; and then, inevitably, the fourth hitting the bridge, the supports splintering with a crash, that truck sinking into the cut, leaving the fifth and last truck marooned on the other side.
“What are you doing?” Agnes screamed as she got to the bridge, but the driver was just as furious, waving his paperwork at her, asking what the hell business she had ordering five trucks of sand to cross a substandard bridge. “I’m suing you people,” he yelled.
“I didn’t order this,” Agnes yelled back. “What the hell is it?”
The driver pulled out an invoice. “Eighty cubic yards of pink sand, for a wedding at Two Rivers mansion.”
“Pink sand?” Agnes said, dumbfounded.
“Who ordered it?” Shane asked, and she jerked back, surprised to find him beside her.
The driver squinted at the invoice. “A Brenda Dupres.”
Agnes turned and yelled, “Brenda,” but Brenda was already tapping down the steps in her spike heels, looking enraged, a tiny blond D-cup tigress.
“What did you do to my clock?” she said, stamping across the grass, pulling her spike heels out of the earth with vicious energy.
“Some shithead showed up last night to kill me,” Agnes said to her, “and he shot up your damn clock instead. Now what the hell is all this pink sand?”
“Maria wanted a flamingo-themed wedding,” Brenda said, reining in her temper as she drew herself up. “I thought pink sand would fit right in with everything else here. I know how nasty the shore can look when the tide is out. But I never dreamed it would break the bridge.” She looked down to the river, where the first three trucks were dumping their sand on the shore, Kristy dutifully snapping pictures of it all. “One, two, three ...” She blinked her eyes at the truck stuck in the cut. “Four. There should be another truck—oh, yes, there it is.” She waved at the driver on the road to the bridge. “Five.”
“There ain’t nothing more coming out here, lady,” the driver from the wrecked truck said, “except a tow truck.”
“Oh,” Brenda said, sadly. “Looks like it’s the country club for the wedding then.” She smiled at Agnes. “Fiddle-dee-dee.”
Agnes turned on her. “No, it is not the country club.”
Anger is not your friend, Agnes.
Neither is Brenda Fortunato, Dr. Garvin.
Brenda smiled. “Agnes. Honey. The baker canceled. The florist canceled.” She took a step closer. “The photographer sent an assistant who doesn’t have a clue what she’s doing. The health inspector won’t let you serve dinner. You tried to kill the caterer.” She took another step closer. “The house is only half-painted. The bridge is out. Your kitchen is a crime scene. And you owe me for a very expensive antique grandfather clock.” She was almost nose to nose with Agnes now. “You simply can’t do it, Agnes. You’re finished.” Her eyes narrowed. “Give up.”
Agnes felt her breath go, felt the old dizziness take hold as the red washed over her again, and then she heard Lisa Livia in her head again, saying, Face it, Agnes, you’re a killer, thought of Shane, putting those two bullets in the guy in the laundry room, walking through the kitchen firing at the guy in the hall until his gun was empty, never losing his temper, no expression on his face at all. Another part of her brain knew that Shane had his arm around her waist, ready to haul her off if she went for Brenda’s throat, but the part of her brain where the red mist lived was changing course, looking at Brenda now, knowing that professional killers did not get mad. They just ended things.
“You listen to me,” she said to Brenda, her voice like ice. “On Saturday at noon, the cake will be beautiful, the flowers will be magnificent, the photographer who is taking pictures of the sand right now will be taking pictures of the bride, the catering will be amazing and legal, and the bridge will not only be back, it will be so strong that twenty trucks could cross it. And the house will be the house you have always dreamed of having, and, as God is my witness, will never have because I will defeat you utterly and completely, I will grind your face in the dust, I will make you nothing before the world, Brenda Dupres, and my kitchen will not be a crime scene because I will have proved that you picked up that goddamned frying pan in that goddamned bomb shelter and whacked your goddamned husband with it twenty-five years ago, and you will spend the rest of your life in an orange jumpsuit in prison where there is no moisturizer and your face will look like old luggage and the only man you’ll be able to seduce is a guard named Bubba with no teeth, so go back to your boat and pray, Brenda, get down on your knees and pray to whatever obscene and vicious god that made you that you do not cross me again because I will destroy you.”
Brenda had stopped, her mouth open, gaping, and Shane had loosened his hold on her, and a silence had fallen over the landscape in general.
“Agnes Crandall,” Brenda said finally, her voice tremulous, “I do declare, you’re insane.”
“And don’t you forget it,” Agnes said, and walked back toward her house.
When Agnes was gone, and a shaken Brenda had picked her way across what was left of the bridge supports to her Caddy parked on the far side, Shane found Carpenter. “Stay here. Check out that shelter. See if you can figure out anything about who came and went via that hatch in the gazebo. And keep an eye on Agnes.”
“Roger that,” Carpenter said, but he didn’t sound happy. “Where are you going?”
