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“Five minutes on the dock.” He watched Agnes, wondering how she felt about her dock being used for his business meetings. Probably not as upset as her wedding being used for his hit.
Carpenter’s eyebrows were up a notch. “Let’s get moving, then.” He scooped up another forkful of pancake and got to his feet. “That was an elegant breakfast, Miss Agnes,” he said. “Simply wonderful,” he added, smiling at Lisa Livia.
“Thank you,” Agnes said, and smiled back, but she watched Shane, worry in her eyes.
Shane got to his feet, too, displacing Rhett, who snorted and then slept on. “That was my line,” he said to Carpenter. “The breakfast one. Except in the movie it was dinner.” He paused, realizing both Agnes and Lisa Livia were looking at him blankly now. Apparently they didn’t watch the classics, either. “Okay. Yeah. Great breakfast.” He tried a smile for Agnes, which didn’t really work. “Sorry.”
“No,” Agnes said, catching his meaning, another good thing about her. “It’s good to know.” She drew a deep breath. “I sure am looking forward to Sunday.”
“What happens Sunday?” Lisa Livia said.
“With any luck, not a damn thing,” Agnes said, and when Lisa Livia still looked blank, she said, “The wedding will be over, the house will still be mine, we’ll all be alive, and Shane and Carpenter will have sold that life insurance policy.”
“Life insurance policy?” Carpenter said.
“To Casey Dean,” Shane said. “Who will have cashed it in.”
“Ah,” Carpenter said, looking surprised at the security breach.
“It was on a need-to-know basis,” Shane told him. “She needed to know.”
“I guess she did,” Carpenter said, and Agnes smiled at him, a damn good smile this time.
“I miss a lot when I sleep late,” Lisa Livia said, looking from one of them to the other.
“Yeah,” Shane said, wishing for the first time in his life he could take the day off. He nodded to Carpenter. “Let’s go meet the boss.”
He wasn’t supposed to tell me that, Agnes thought, watching Shane and Carpenter walk down the path to the dock. He broke rules to tell me that. That made it better, that she was special enough that he’d break rules for her. And he was coming back to her, too. Maybe this time, she thought. Maybe?—
“So today we sink my mother’s boat,” Lisa Livia said.
“I really don’t have time.” Agnes put more cakes on the griddle for her. “I have to decorate a wedding cake and a groom’s cake because your rattlesnake of a mother did something to the baker, remember? There’s a wedding tomorrow.”
“Oh, right.” Lisa Livia sat down in Carpenter’s chair. “Maria’s bridesmaids come in today, don’t they?”
“Bachelorette party is upstairs on the second floor, which is also where they’re staying tonight. Bachelor party in the barn.” Agnes watched the pancakes bubble. “Taylor talked Palmer into it so he could get the money for renting it twice. Rehearsal dinner first Joey’s taken over the catering, so that’s something, and Kristy just called and said she’ll be here tonight to take the pictures, and Butch swears he’ll get Cerise and Hot Pink out of here as soon as he gets his work done at the zoo and can sneak a truck out. This afternoon, I have to get the bows on the gazebo, but Garth is a fast learner so he can help, and most of the real prep will be early tomorrow morning. The rental stuff’s all here, so that’s not a worry. Really, as long as Maisie gets her daisies here and I get the cakes done and Joey gets the catering done ...” She felt her stomach cramp as she thought about all the ifs between now and the wedding. “... we’ll be fine. Plus, you know, my column.” My career. Mother of God, I have to get my priorities straight. Once I figure them out.
“I believe you.” Lisa Livia picked up Carpenter’s fork and began to finish off his breakfast. “My plan for today is just to get the mildew off Venus, so I have time to help with whatever you need. When do you plan to switch out the flamingo theme for the daisies-and-butterflies theme?”
“I don’t know.” Agnes flipped the cakes. “I’m trying to take my cue from Maria because she doesn’t want to upset Evie after all the good flamingo work she’s done, but?—”
Lisa Livia’s cell phone rang, and she pulled it out and answered it. Her face went rigid while she listened. “What? I can’t be—” She listened again. “Give me your number.” She held out her hand and Agnes grabbed a pencil and her To Do List off the counter and handed it to her and she wrote a phone number down. “I’ll call you back.” She hung up, sheet white, and said, “Where’s your laptop?”
Agnes pointed to the end of the counter and LL went and got it. “Internet?”
“Wireless,” Agnes said. “Through the phone lines. What—” Lisa Livia shook her head, her breath coming faster, and began to hit the keyboard, typing fast She stopped and looked at the screen and said, “No,” and then typed again and looked at the screen and said, “No,” and typed again, and Agnes came around to see what she was doing.
Bank accounts. One after another until it looked like there were ten open windows on the screen. “Jesus fucking Christ,” Lisa Livia said under her breath.
“LL?”
“She look it all,” Lisa Livia said, her breathing short and shallow. “All what?”
Lisa Livia shook her head and Agnes looked at her and said, “Put your head between your legs. Now,” and forced her head down, just as LL started to slide.
“Brenda took your money,” Agnes said, her hand on LL’s neck, keeping her head down until she got some blood back in her brain.
“Not just mine.” LL’s voice was muffled. “Let me up.”
