Agnes and the Hitman (46 page)

It was about nine when they heard Maria scream. Again.

“If she thinks Palmer is having sex with another stripper somewhere, I’m going to be annoyed,” Agnes said, but Lisa Livia shook her head and headed for the hallway calling, “What’s wrong, baby?” as Carpenter took the dish towel from her hands and said, “Go upstairs and do the bride stuff. I’ll hold the fort down here.”

“He’s okay, right?” Agnes said, not able to stand it anymore.

“He’s fine,” Carpenter said. “Somebody else isn’t, but he’s fine.”

Agnes nodded. “Okay, then. Do you think there’s any chance he’s going into a new line of work soon?”

“I think he could be persuaded,” Carpenter said.

“Yes, but would it be fair if I did that?” Agnes said. “I mean, it’s his work—” and then Lisa Livia yelled,
“Agnes, get
up
here!”
and she said, “Oh, just hell, Carpenter, what should I do?” and he said, “Get up there,” and she went.

When she followed the sounds of outraged female babbling, she found them all—Lisa Livia, Maria, and three bridesmaids all in slips and curlers—staring at Maria’s white wedding dress, now covered with purply red stains, the worst of which were two purply red handprints over the breast cups on the bodice. Small, Brenda-sized hands. She’s
completely out of control,
Agnes thought.
She’s just destroying things now, anything to screw
up
the wedding.

“It’s
ruined!”
Maria wept, and her bridesmaids clustered round her and wept with her.

“Yep.” Agnes looked at it as she listened for the van. A car door slammed outside and she jerked her head to see out the window, praying it was Shane, but it was just the first wedding guests, complete with a little girl who was probably going to cry through the whole ceremony.
Damned early birds, stay home and give your kid a nap.

“What is that horrible stuff?” Maria wept.

“Huh?”‘ Agnes said. “Oh, that’s the raspberry sauce from dessert last night.”

Maria looked at her, horror-struck. “That’s all you can say? It’s dessert? My God, Agnes, it’s
my wedding dress!”

Another car door slammed, and Agnes looked again. Still not Shane. What was it with all these people coming early? It wasn’t like you got extra cake.

“Look, honey,” Lisa Livia said to Maria. “You—”

“And you stay out of this,” Maria said, turning on her, with her acolytes around her. “You and your mouth, butting in all the time, that’s what got me that damn flamingo dress and that’s what I’m going to have to wear now and it’s all because of you—”

“Hey!”
Agnes said, seeing Lisa Livia flinch.

“I know,” Lisa Livia said to Maria, miserable. “Really, I know I screwed up—”

“That’s not good enough,” Maria snapped. “You swear to me that you won’t say anything today, not one word at my wedding besides polite conversation, you will not interfere in any way, you swear it to me now.”

Lisa Livia swallowed and nodded. “I swear I won’t say a word all day that isn’t ‘Hello, how are you, beautiful day for a wedding.’ I will not screw up anything else, I promise.”

Another car door. Agnes looked out the window. Not Shane.
Damn it.
He wasn’t dead. Other people died, not Shane—

“I don’t believe it,” Maria was saying, the bridesmaids nodding. “Like you could
stop
talking or interfering. This is like the worst thing that could happen—”

“Okay, that’s it,”
Agnes said.

Everybody turned at looked at her.

“I know this is wedding nerves,” Agnes said to Maria. “I know you’re a good sweet girl and you’ve had a terrible week, I know you love your mother, I know this isn’t you, but you just crossed the line.”

“Oh, please,” Maria said, looking put upon.

Agnes looked at the bridesmaids. “You should go get dressed.

Now.” When they hesitated, she added, “Go!” and Maria nodded, and they went. Agnes took a step closer to Maria. “Now listen, you. Taylor died last night with a fork through his throat. I know in the excitement of getting married you probably forgot that—” Maria flushed. “No, but—”

“—but he died in pain and terror choking on his own blood, so the fact that you’re going to have to wear a pink dress sewn in one night by a woman who makes a fraction of what you’re going to be spending on lunch once you marry this very nice boy who loves you—a woman, I might add, who stayed up all night to fix a dress that you dyed pink to play a joke on the mother of that boy—well, I just can’t get too worked up over your tragedy, Maria. You’re nineteen, you’re marrying a man who adores you, you’re going to be filthy rich, and, oh yeah, you’re going to have everything your mother never had because she worked her ass off to make sure you got it, and now your fucking grandmother just took all of it and her future from her, which is something you don’t seem to have much sympathy for. So while you’re screaming and moaning, you might want to look around and notice that you’re the luckiest person in this damn place and the rest of us have zero sympathy for you. Now go get those dumb curlers out of your hair and put on your pink dress and don’t give me any more tragedy about how you’re not sure Palmer loves you. If he’s been putting up with this drama princess act and he still wants to spend the rest of his life with you, he loves you.”

Maria looked at her, outraged, and then looked at her mother for support.

Lisa Livia shrugged. “Hello, how are you, beautiful day for a wedding.”

“Oh, well that’s just fine,” Maria said, and flounced off, but there was a wavering edge to her voice that gave Agnes hope.

Lisa Livia looked back at the dress. “Brenda did that.”

Agnes said, “Yep, and if she was nuts enough to do that, then she’s going to do some more stupid things today and get herself caught.”

She heard a door slam below and this time it sounded like a van, but when she looked out, she saw only Joey and Frankie getting out of Carpenter’s van.

“No,” she said, her blood going cold, and ran for the stairs.

When she broke the kiss, she said, “I want you to quit that damn job,” and he nodded. “Okay, then,” she said, and kissed him again, and then he let her go and realized she was wearing something very un-Agnes, a low-cut, tight pink dress that made her look like Jessica Rabbit.

“Nice dress,” he said, trying not to laugh, and more of the ugliness went away. It was never all going to go away—there was too much of it, and some of it still had to be dealt with—but Agnes was a pretty good antidote for right now.

“Lisa Livia picked it out,” Agnes said, starting to grin, too, which was good; he hated it when she was worried. Another reason to stop killing people for a living.

“Well, it looks great,” he said, because it did. Kind of.

“She bought one for Evie, too,” Agnes said. “I don’t believe Evie’s going to wear it, but it was kind of a mother-of-the-bride thing. Or something. Sometimes I don’t follow Lisa Livia’s thought processes.”

“I don’t follow Carpenter’s either sometimes, but it’s always good,”

Shane said, holding her away from him to look at the dress again. “It’s not the kind of dress yon could run in.”

“That’s very practical of you, dear,” Agnes said, and turned to go back to the house, which was when Shane saw that it was really tight through the rear and had no back at all.

“I really like that dress,” he said, and her laugher floated back to him.

Shane grinned, thinking,
That’s my girl,
and she turned and smiled back at him, and just for that second before she went on he imagined that she looked like his mother might have, smiling back at his father, and the need for vengeance rose up again like a knife. But vengeance had been Frankie and Joey’s to take, not his. And his father and mother had found each other in the beginning, had had each other for a while, had had a life together for a while.

It would have been so much worse never having found each other.

Agnes stopped at the porch door and looked back at him again in her Jessica Rabbit dress, so much love in her smile, so grateful he was back, and he grinned at her and she went inside and he walked down to see what was going wrong at the wedding.

Because everything was just fine at the house.