Agnes and the Hitman

by Jennifer Crusie

  “I want to stay,” he said, but he drew her down the steps and out across the lawn close to the drive where he’d parked his Cobra, so she knew it was all for show.

  When they reached the car, he put his arms around her, and she leaned into his broad chest, trying to recapture the way she’d felt about him in the beginning, when it had felt like he was the perfect man for her. Was it just because he was such a good chef? she thought.

  There must have been more. Well, the good sex. That was always a selling point. And he’d been sweet. And she’d been so damn lonely.

  “I don’t know about having Maria’s wedding here,” Taylor said, rubbing her back. “It’s causing you so much stress, and this mess with this dead boy will ruin it anyway. You know how Evie Keyes hates gossip. If she finds out somebody died on the premises-”

  “Her son isn’t getting married in the basement,” Agnes said, pulling away. “He’s getting married in the gazebo, which is beautiful and corpse-free.”

  “I’m just saying.” Taylor tried to put his arm around her again, and she shrugged it off, feeling like a surly three-year-old. “You’ve been through a lot. Why don’t we just tell Evie to move it to the country club-”

  “No!” Agnes stepped back from him, feeling betrayed. “Evie’s just looking for an excuse to drag her son’s wedding over there, and if she does, we owe Brenda three months’ back mortgage payments. That was the deal, remember? We do the wedding in exchange for the first three months’ mortgage? Do you have nine thousand dollars? Because I don’t.”

  “Calm down,” Taylor said. “Brenda would let us work out a payment plan. I just don’t like seeing you stressed like this.”

  “What’s making me stressed is the thought of moving the wedding to the country club.” Agnes clamped down on her… irritation. Yeah, that was it, irritation. I’m not angry. I’m annoyed. “The wedding stays here. The fact that the kid died here has nothing to do with me or the wedding. It’s not like I killed him-” She winced at the thought.

  “A frying pan, Agnes,” Taylor said. “Jesus.”

  “Go home, Taylor,” Agnes said. “You’ve comforted me enough.”

  “I’m just trying to help you,” Taylor said. “You’ve been whining at me to get out here, and when I do-”

  “Right.” She smiled up at him in the moonlight, trying not to bare her teeth. “Hey, you know what? I got the attic bedroom painted last week, and it’s the most beautiful pale blue, like water. And the bed’s all made up. It’s all ready for you to move in-”

  “It’s hotter than hell up there,” Taylor said.

  “Not with the windows open and the fan going,” Agnes said. “And the low light is beautiful on those wood floors. It’s so peaceful and beautiful and-”

  “Agnes, I don’t have time to move right now,” Taylor said.

  Agnes crossed her arms over her raspberry-stained T-shirt. “Listen, I’ve been killing myself trying to get this house and this wedding together and-oh, yeah-write my columns and pay the mortgage to Brenda, and you’ve been out here, what, maybe three times this last month?”

  “Agnes, come on, honey,” Taylor said without putting much coaxing into the honey, and Agnes thought, Who am I kidding? This was a mistake from the beginning, and let her breath out in a huge sigh.

  “Okay, I knew this was coming, but Iwas ignoring it because-” She looked up at his truly handsome face that was going to look great on their cookbook cover and thought, Because I live for my work and you were good for my career. “-because I really wanted this to work. But it isn’t.”

  “Agnes, honey.” He reached for her.

  “No,” Agnes said, stepping farther back. “It’s not just you. A guy with a gun broke into the house tonight, and you know who I turned to? Joey. I completely forgot about you until you showed up, all I wanted was Joey. That’s all I want now.” And Shane, she thought, and tried to ignore that one. “So it’s not just you, it’s both of us. I was just lonely and-”

  “Agnes, you’re upset,” Taylor said, taking a step toward her, “but you’re forgetting something.” He gestured to Two Rivers. “We’ve got our dream, sugar.”

  She looked back at the house, the white columns gleaming in the moonlight and the windows shining gold in the darkness. “I know. I’ve loved this house since Lisa Livia brought me home from school with her that first summer.”

  Taylor tried to put his arm around her again. “Brenda said it was like having a second daughter when LL brought you home. That’s why we belong here, sugar. This is your family home.”

  That was a complete crock, but Agnes liked the sound of it, just the same. “You know, I sat on the high dock and dreamed about owning a house like this some day, and cooking with butter just like Brenda cooked with butter, and marrying a fine Southern gentleman like Brenda married the Real Estate King.” She looked back at Taylor. “And when I saw you here on the lawn saying, ‘Agnes, marry me,’ I thought I was finally going to be just like Brenda. Or Scarlett O’Hara. With butter.”

  “Agnes,” Taylor said. “You are Scarlett O’Hara with butter.”

  “Taylor,” Agnes said. “You have no idea what I’m talking about. It’s my dream not yours, you hate this house, that’s why you’re never out here. So give me some time to find a way to pay you back for your half of the down payment and what you invested rehabbing the barn-”

  “Oh, God, Agnes, I’m so sorry!” Taylor swept her into his arms, and Agnes found her nose smushed into Taylor’s shirt, which smelled faintly of butter and rosemary, which was probably another reason she’d said yes to him. “I’ve neglected you, sugar. I’ll move out here tomorrow!”

  “No,” Agnes said into his shirt, but he kept talking.

  “I’ll make it up to you, you’ll see,” he said. “It’ll be just like we planned it, I swear. We’ll be out here, living our dream, writing cookbooks that’ll make us even more money than Mob Food made you, we’ll have it all.” He let go of her just enough to get a line on her mouth and then he kissed her passionately, which Agnes went along with because he was a good kisser, but when he broke the kiss, she took a deep breath and stepped back.

  “No, Taylor,” she said. “I-”

  “We’ll talk about this next week,” he said, opening his car door, “sittin’ on our porch with a couple of juleps, talkin’ about the books we’re gonna write together, just you and me, Scarlett and Rhett at Two Rivers.”

  “I already have a Rhett,” Agnes said, but he was sliding into the

  Cobra.

  “Tomorrow is another day, sugar,” he said, and then the Cobra roared to life, and he peeled off toward the bridge, and she watched his taillights fade into the darkness.

  Maybe they could keep the business partnership going, and she wouldn’t have to pay him back. That would be good, since she had no money. And he was going to look so handsome on that book cover. Joey had looked really good on the cover of Mob Food, really authentic, but Taylor was young and handsome and, well, bankable. His picture was going to sell a lot of books.

  She could use some bankable. Brenda’s house was a real money pit.

  Rhett yawned, saying, “Ar ar ar,” which was probably a comment on Taylor, too, and then he shambled back toward the house, and she followed him. She could deal with Taylor after the wedding. Tomorrow was another day. Well, not tomorrow, either.

  “I am so not Scarlett O’Hara,” she said to Rhett, and went back to the kitchen, where Xavier and Hammond were packing up to leave, promising to return later that day, Hammond telling her to please say hi to Maria for him.

  When she’d handed them cupcakes, and they’d gone over the bridge into the darkness, Agnes turned to Shane and said, “I suppose you have more questions.”

  “No,” he said, still expressionless. “I got most of it listening to Xavier. You’re tired. I’ll make a bed down here where I can stay close, and we’ll go over everything in the morning.”

  “Thank you,” she said, struck by what a comfort that was, t
hat he knew she was wiped out, that he was going to stay close all night, that he’d be there in the morning. “I’ll get you pillows and blankets,” she told him, but after she brought them to him, she stood there, not sure what to do or say next, grateful he was there, large and solid and standing between her and the rest of the world, resisting the insane urge to blurt, “Would you like to sleep in the bedroom with me?” because that might be misconstrued, and she might think it was all right if it was misconstrued, that it would be good to have that much strength wrapped around her or at least between her and the window, except she had enough trouble already without sleeping with a stranger who was armed. Plus, there was Taylor, she was technically still engaged, and she held strong views on cheating. Usually backed up witha frying pan. “Thank you very much for watching out for me.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said. “Good night.”

  “Good night,” Agnes said, and went into the housekeeper’s room, holding the door open for Rhett. The last thing she saw was Shane, leaning against the kitchen counter, looking alert as all hell.

  Okay, tomorrow is another day, she thought, and felt positively comforted and definitely not alone.

  Shane woke up the next morning when Agnes tripped over him trying to get out her bedroom door. “Good morning,” she said, looking half-asleep and completely confused. “You slept on the floor?”

  He picked up his air mattress. “If anybody came, I wanted to be close.”

  Agnes nodded. “Oh. I would have let you sleep with Rhett if I’d known you were that worried.”

  He thought about telling her that it wasn’t Rhett he was protecting, and then wondered if she’d have offered to let him sleep with her, and then wondered if that would have been a good idea. Then he watched her go around the counter and into her dangerous kitchen, wondering if she was naked under the thin red sweats she was wearing, which answered that question. At least for him it did. If it came to it, she’d have to do her own deciding.

  Focus on the problem, he told himself. Then get back to work before Wilson blows a gasket.

  Rhett flopped down beside Shane when he sat down at the counter. The table was right there, but he couldn’t watch Agnes from the table.

  Agnes put on her red-framed glasses and opened the large double door refrigerator. She loaded her arms with food, and then she shut the refrigerator door with her hip and came toward Shane to dump the stuff on the counter in front of him and take down a pan from overhead, every move effortless and efficient and distracting, especially with all of Agnes moving softly under her sweats.

  “So why would anybody want to kidnap Rhett?” Shane said, mostly to get his mind off Agnes, since he was pretty sure the answer was going to come from Joey. “Was anybody asking about him before this?”

  “Kind of.” Agnes took a white apron off a hook by the door and put it on-it said cranky agnes’s mob food on it under a drawing of Agnes in her glasses-and tore open a package of sausages wrapped in butcher’s paper and tumbled them into the pan. Then she turned on the heat under it, took down a wicked-looking fork from the magnetic rack, and began to poke the meat with it, not looking at him.

  “Kind of.” Shane watched her. She didn’t look happy.

  She turned and bent to look under the counter for something, her sweatpants pulling tight over her round butt. Agnes would never make a supermodel. Agnes was, Shane thought with a great deal of restraint, pattable. “What kind of kind of?”

  She put a bowl on the counter and took down a wire whisk. “Right before the kid got here, Joey and I were on the phone and he asked about Rhett. So Joey might know something if you ask him. Coffeemaker’s over by the sink if you want some.”

  “Okay.” Fuck. Joey again.

  Shane went around the end of the counter and found a big white coffeemaker and a coffee canister in the corner just as the meat in the pan began to cook. The smell hit him like a wave: Joey’s Italian sausage. Joey’s Italian breakfasts from when he was a kid.

  Forget that. Shane opened the jar and stared at beans instead of powder. “Uh.”

  Agnes came over, reached into the cabinet, took out a grinder, placed it on the counter, and then went back to her bowl. She splashed in a little cream and began to whisk the eggs, probably with more force than necessary. “I trust Joey. Joey is the best guy I know.

  Joey would never hurt me. Joey called you to come protect me.”

  “Yeah.” But the old bastard still knows something, and he’s gonna tell me about it. Shane hit the top of the grinder, probably with more force than necessary, and it burst into action, the odor of the ground beans filling the room, competing with the treacherous smell of the sausage while he tried to imagine what his uncle might be up to. When the beans were ground, he had to go past Agnes to fill the pot with water and was careful not to brush against her. Her hair was all tangled curls and she had no makeup on and her skin was rosy with sleep, and that was messing with his concentration, plus there was the damn Italian sausage of Joey’s. He’d been in a lot of treacherous places, but Agnes’s kitchen was topping them all.

  He poured the water in the coffeemaker, closed the top, pressed the button, and leaned against the counter to wait, searching for a safe topic that might tell him more about the mess he was pretty sure she was in. “So who’s Taylor?”

  Agnes frowned at him. “What do you mean, who’s Taylor? You met him last night.”

  “He have anything to do with the Thibaults and the mob?”

  “Taylor?” She took another pan down from one of the hooks above her head, set it on a burner, turned the heat low under it, and picked up the butter. “No. God, no. Taylor is a local boy making good. Well, he’s forty-four, so the boy part is probably pushing it. He’s worked his way up through the kitchens of most of the area restaurants, and now he’s chef on the best restaurant on the Island over there on the other side of the Intracoastal.” She nodded in the direction of the water. “He’s a real self-made man, a hard worker, and a truly good chef. We’re just about finished with a cookbook that’s going to be a bestseller because his recipes are great, and that’s going to set up the catering business he’s going to run out of the barn he just renovated here. He has nothing to do with the mob and absolutely no reason to send anybody after Rhett You choosy about your eggs?”

  “I don’t want eggs,” Shane said. “You don’t need to feed me. Would he gain anything if you died?”

  “I want to feed everybody.” Agnes flipped a chunk of butter into the pan. It slid across the surface and then began to melt slowly, lighting with the coffee and the sausage for Best Morning Smell, Kitchen Division. “If I died, he’d get Two Rivers. We have a partnership agreement for the cookbook and the catering business, so the survivor gets it all. But he needs me to finish the Two Rivers Cookbook-his future’s riding on that book. It wasn’t him.” She picked up the red pepper, ran a knife around the stem, twisted it, and popped out the core with one smooth motion.

  Shane was impressed. “Did your mother teach you to cook?”

  “Oh, please,” Agnes said, taking down a knife. “My mother barely ate. She had a waistline to maintain. I didn’t taste butter until my best friend’s mother melted a chunk of it in a pan in front of me right here in this kitchen when I was fourteen. After that, there was no turning back. Any boy with a milk shake and a cheeseburger could have me.”

  “That explains Taylor,” Shane said.

  “Humor. Har.” Agnes began chopping the pepper with machine gun-like efficiency.

  “A catering business. I thought you were a newspaper columnist.”

  Agnes shot a guilty glance at her laptop, and kept chopping. “I am. But Taylor wanted the catering business and I wanted Two Rivers. So we bought it from Brenda together. I can write anyplace.”

  “Brenda,” Shane said, remembering Joey last night on the phone saying, “the old Fortunato place.”

  “Brenda Dupres,” Agnes said, introducing the pepper to the butter. “The Real Estate King’s widow and t
he closest thing to a mother I ever had. Closer than the one I did have, anyway. She’s the one who fed me butter. Fabulous cook, throws terrific parties, knows-”

  “Brenda Fortunato,” Shane said.

  “That was before the Real Estate King,” Agnes said. “And before I knew her. Mr. Fortunato was sleeping with the fishes by the time Lisa Livia brought me home with her.”

  Cousin Lisa Livia. Vague memories of an intense dark-haired girl time back. And Aunt Brenda. Good food, he remembered. Fancier than Joey’s, but that was before Joey had sent him to military school and everything in his old life had stopped like a slammed door.

  Fuck that. He inhaled the melting butter and put his mind back on the problem at hand. “But this wedding will be Fortunato not Dupres. The bride’s mother is a Fortunato.”

  “Lisa Livia? Yes.”

  “What about her father?”

  Agnes hesitated and then said, “He’s not around. LL never married him, so Maria’s a Fortunato, too.”

  Great. All Fortunatos, all the time. “What happened to him?”

  “Nobody knows,” Agnes said, turning away. “He was a bad choice. Twenty-seven-year-old wiseguy meets an eighteen-year-old high school senior. Lisa Livia went bananas for him until she caught him cheating. Then she went off on him and he hit her and that was it for LL.”

  Shane felt pretty certain he was missing something. “That was it?”

  Agnes nodded. “I had a scholarship to a college in Ohio, and we were graduating, so she decided to come with me. Johnny disappeared and we went to Ohio and Maria was born. The two of us raised her together until she was three and LL’s boss moved his company west and she went with him. It about broke my heart when they left.”

  She looked bereft for a moment, and Shane wondered how many times people had left Agnes and how the hell she had the courage to keep inviting them back into her life. Once had been enough for him. “And nobody ever found out what happened to Johnny?”

  Agnes turned back to the sink. “Nobody looked too hard. You could say he was a missing person who nobody missed at all.”