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“Raspberry-chocolate heart-shaped cakes,” Agnes said. “I covered them with ganache and plated them, and I’m going to use raspberry sauce as ... Look, Taylor?—”
He closed the fridge door and opened the cupboard next to it. “I screwed up. I know this won’t make up for it, but it’s something. And besides ...” He grinned down at her. “I want to show the Keyeses I can cook.”
You gonna be smart or you gonna be dumb, Agnes?
Agnes drew a deep breath. “You want back in. You’ve looked around and realized you backed the wrong woman and that the Keyeses aren’t going to side with Brenda, especially since she’s losing her grip and killing people now, and your future is going down the tubes, and you want to switch sides.”
“Yes.” He looked embarrassed but determined.
“So you want to come back so you can be part of the wedding and have the catering business and the Two Rivers Cookbook and everything we were going to do.”
“Yes.” He was eager now, and she began to see how easy it had been for Brenda to lay things out for him. Almost like leaving a trail of bread crumbs for him to follow.
“Okay,” Agnes said, starting her own trail. “You can cater the dinner tonight and the wedding tomorrow, on two conditions. The first is that you work your ass off on this wedding and make sure it happens. You are on my side now, and you do everything in your power to make sure this wedding happens and that I keep the house.”
“Yes,” Taylor said.
“The second is that you sign your share of the house over to me.” Taylor’s face went blank.
“I’ll finish the cookbook with you, and I’ll let you cater out of the barn, but you sign your share of this place over to me. You tried to swindle me out of it, you sign it over to me. The house belongs to me entirely. I get it all.”
“Agnes,” Taylor said, trying to smile. “Agnes, honey, with the down payment and everything I put into the barn, that’s over a hundred and fifty thousand?—”
“The high price of being a bastard,” Agnes said. “You sign your half of the house over to me, and I’ll finish the cookbook with you and let you cater from the barn. Otherwise you lose everything.”
Taylor tried one more charming smile, which slid right off Agnes, and then he nodded. “All right. But maybe when you’ve had time to think about us again?—”
“I never think about us,” Agnes said. “Us is deader than a doornail. I have a new Us, and I’m keeping it. The only thing I want you for is this rehearsal dinner and the wedding tomorrow. Cook. And show Garth how to do everything, because you need an assistant and he needs skills, and for God’s sake, try to remember whose side you’re on this time.”
Taylor nodded and emptied her cupboards while she went to get a tray for him, not even trying to understand why he’d do anything like what he’d done to her, just crossing her fingers he’d stay on her side until the wedding was over or until Brenda found out what he was doing and came after him with whatever she was driving next. She was really going to miss Dr. Garvin.
“We’re much obliged, Mister Jimbo,” Carpenter said as the shrimp boat edged up to the floating dock at Two Rivers three hours later.
“Just Jimbo,” the burly man at the wheel of ancient boat said.
Shane watched in the furious silence he’d maintained since they’d hauled Joey ashore on the closest island and then used Carpenter’s sat phone in its waterproof case—of course Carpenter had his phone in a waterproof case—to let Joey call for help.
It had taken Jimbo a while to reach them, and Joey had done a guilt-stricken play by play over letting Agnes down on catering the rehearsal dinner, saying now they’d be sitting down to the dinner, now it was dessert, now they’d be breaking up for the bachelor and bachelorette parties, until Shane thought about holding his uncle’s head under water just to shut him up. It should have been a great relief to be on board the shrimp boat, watching Jimbo expertly reducing the throttle while turning the large wheel at the same time, but it was just one more thing that was pissing Shane off. He was supposed to be an expert, too, but if you judged by his performance the past couple of days, he was a fucking beginner, they’d have kicked him out of Hitman Prep, hell, they’d have kicked sand in his face at the Hitman Preschool?—
The boat touched the floats on the edge of Agnes’s dock with the slightest of bumps. Shane’s chest throbbed with pain, but it didn’t appear that anything had been broken, so at least his body hadn’t betrayed him?—
“I owe you one,” Joey said to Jimbo, touching the white bandage on his forehead.
“Call me any time you need help, Joey,” Jimbo said.
Shane could see lights on in every window in the main house and hear loud music thumping away in the barn, pretty much in time to the vein pulsing in his forehead —
“Sounds like we made it back in time for the bachelor party, but not the dinner,” Carpenter said. “I sure would have liked to have had some of that turkey?—”
Shane ignored him, and Carpenter fell silent as they trooped off the boat onto the dock.
Shane led the way up the metal plank to the high dock and then down the long walkway to land.
“You know,” Joey said, “it wasn’t your fault?—”
Shane shot him a look, and Joey shut up.
At the top of the dock Carpenter said, “My friend, you are taking this too much to heart,” and Shane faced him. “That’s three times— four if I count the time I ran into Casey Dean in the woods—that he’s beaten me. It’s obvious he uses women to front for him and protect him. That redhead in the room in Savannah with Marinelli was one of Casey Dean’s people, the same one with the RPG on the boat while he drove. And I let her go.”
