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“This might be that aspect we’ve been uneasy about all week,” Carpenter said mildly from beside him.
“Difficult decisions,” Shane said to Wilson. “Like murdering my mother and father in order to make my uncle the power in the family.”
“Ah,” Wilson said, staring at him. “You’re letting personal feelings cloud your judgment again.”
Joey growled and raised his gun, and Shane reached out and took it away from him.
“Enough.” He looked between the two old men. “I’m not either one of you. If I ever have a kid, no, when I have a kid, nobody will ever take him away from me. I’ll kill any son of a bitch who tries.” He stopped. “Not that I’ll have to. Anybody who wants him will have to come through his mother first, and God help that poor bastard.”
Wilson’s eyes grew even more wintry. “I gather you’re refusing the promotion.”
Shane prodded Casey Dean forward, her slender body rigid with fury now as she stared at Wilson. “Yes, but I’m giving you your Princess back.”
Wilson blinked at her. “You’re leaving her alive? Knowing that she’ll come after you again? That makes no sense. You’ll be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life, which for one of you will be short. Is that what you want?”
Shane looked into his uncomprehending eyes. “What I want, when I’m done here, is to go back to the house and tell Agnes about my day, find out what happened during hers. That’s always interesting. After that, I don’t know. We’ll think of something.”
He slung Joey’s gun out into the river, and Joey said, “Hey!” and Carpenter deposited the trunk onto Wilson’s boat and escorted Casey Dean on, too, where she glared at Shane and said, “This isn’t over.”
“I know,” Shane said.
Wilson got back on his boat, ignoring Dean, quivering with rage beside him. “You could have had it all. You’re throwing away immense power.”
“I know,” Shane said. “But nobody is above the law.”
“I am.” Wilson cast off, and the mobster on the bridge backed the boat away.
“Wait a minute, where’s my sister?” Dean snarled. “In the trunk,” Shane said, and she ran to it and began to flip the latches open.
Shane gave the boat time to make some separation, then hit 2 again on his phone even as he heard Dean scream, “Abigail!”
“What?” Wilson sounded distracted as he answered.
Shane could see his former boss on the bridge of the boat, staring at him. “One question,” he said as the boat drew even with the Brenda Belle.
“What?” Wilson said as Dean came running to the prow of the boat, her gun drawn even though she was out of range.
“How far away was my father’s boat when you pushed the button?” Shane said, and held up the detonator from the bomb Dean had put on his truck, the bomb now under Abigail’s body in the trunk.
Wilson’s jaw went slack, Casey Dean screamed again, and Shane pushed the button.
“Stop it!” Agnes yelled, trying to duck under Brenda’s skillet, and getting a glancing blow for her pains that made her head ring. She shoved her away and put the kitchen table between them, saying, “Ouch. Damn it, Brenda, stop it. You’re finished!”
“No.” Brenda started around the table. “You took my life and you’re gonna die!”
Agnes kept moving, trying to buy some time for her head to clear, the damn skirt making it hard to move sideways around the table. “Jesus, that hurt. What the hell are you doing? There are people everywhere, you’re not going to get away with this?—”
“You killed my clock,” Brenda said.
“You killed your own clock,” Agnes said, trying to gauge how far it was to the back door. “I told you, one of those whack jobs you hired to kill me shot it up.”
“You ruined my wedding dress!” Brenda circled the table, cutting her off from the back door.
Agnes tried to edge toward the hall door, and Brenda switched directions and cut her off there, too. “Look, the dress was Evie’s idea?—”
“You stole my husband!”
Agnes stopped. “Hey, I was engaged to him first.”
