Oh, great. “He doesn’t seem real bright,” Agnes said.

Maria scowled at her. “He’s a nice guy.”

“Not much of a future,” Agnes said.

“He serves and protects,” Maria said.

“I think he has a girlfriend,” Agnes said, having no idea what Hammond had.

“I’m engaged,” Maria said coolly.

“Okay, then.” Agnes began to clear up the cake plates. “Now I have to get Maisie Shuttle back on the job with the daisies and bake you some cake. What kind do you want?”

“Whatever holds up the icing,” Maria said. “The coconut was good.”

“Thank you,” Agnes said. “I’ll give you the chocolate raspberry for the rehearsal dinner.”

“Wonderful,” Maria said, but her voice was flat as she looked past Agnes to her intended, coming up the steps.

“Everything okay?” Palmer said.

“Yes, dear,” Maria said.

They looked at each other in fairly cold silence.

No, no, no, Agnes thought. “I have some cake,” she said to Palmer and prayed that whatever it was, they’d get over it by Saturday.

God, I’m shallow, she thought, and headed back to the house to make out her list of cake supplies and to work on her column. That had to be done by Saturday, too. Everything had to be done by Saturday.

Sunday’s going to be a good day, she thought.

Assuming she lived that long.

An hour after he left Two Rivers, Shane sat outside Joey’s diner in the Defender and worked at the message on his cell phone until he had it all decrypted:

WRONG TARGET HIT

CASEY DEAN STILL ACTIVE

CALL TO SET UP MEET TO DISCUSS ASAP.

“Fuck.” He’d killed the wrong guy. Too many intel screwups like this lately. Somebody needed to go in there and kick some ass. Wilson would have once, but he was getting old.

Rhett was hanging his head out the passenger window, looking miserable. I know how you feel, Shane thought. He slammed his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. First Joey and his little Agnes and his mysteries, and now this screwup.

Shane flipped open the cell phone and punched in number 2on the speed-dial. It was answered on the second ring.

“Wilson.”

“I’m in Keyes.”

“Why?”

“Personal business. What happened with the intel?”

Three seconds passed, which was a very long time in Shane’s experiencedealing with Wilson. The emptiness was tilled with clicking noises as the signal was encrypted, bounced between government satellites, and decrypted.

“I’ll meet you in Keyes this evening, twenty-two hundred hours,” Wilson said. “Location?”

Shane blinked. He always came to Wilson. “There’s a floating dock at the junction of the Blood River and the Intracoastal Waterway.”

The phone went dead and Shane closed it. He saw Joey lock up his diner and come slowly over, a newspaper in one hand. For the first time, he looked old to Shane.

“What’s in the back?” Joey asked, jerking his head toward the large box in the bed of the truck as he got in, shooing Rhett over at the same time.

“Air conditioner unit,” Shane said. “The one at Two Rivers isn’t enough.”

Joey raised his eyebrows. “Agnes come into some money, did she?”

Shane started the truck. “You shutting down for the day for real?”

“There’s someone I need to talk to,” Joey said. “Anybody I know?” Joey hesitated.

Shane figured he’d shown enough patience. “I got some questions, Joey. That’s just the first.”

Joey nodded. “Charlie ‘Four Wheels’ Thibault. Grandpa of the kid who died last night.”

Shane waited.

“I used to know him. Thinking I better go see him.”

Shane nodded. “I’ll drive you. Mind the slobber.”

“Nice ride,” Joey said, thumping the heavy side panel.

Shane pulled into the street and Joey pointed which way to drive. “So how’d you get to know this Four Wheels?”

“He was one of the guys back in the day,” Joey said. “How’s Agnes doing?”

Not subtle, Shane thought “She was with Evie Keyes and Brenda when I left.”

Joey shook his head. “Poor little thing.”

Shane thought of Agnes, round in those thin sweats, attacking that pepper on the chopping block, smacking him with the frying pan. Agnes was a lot of things, but poor and little weren’t two of them. “Why’d you ask Agnes about Rhett last night, Joey?”

Joey looked out the window. “I always ask about Rhett. I worry about them both out there all alone.” He turned back to Shane. “I’ve known her since she was a kid. She used to spend summers down here with Lisa Livia when they was in boarding school. They’d come into the diner and ask questions. Lisa Livia wanted to know how to run the place, she was all about the money.” He laughed. “That Lisa Livia, she’s no dummy. But Agnes, she wanted to know how to cook. All the time, wanting to know how to make this, why’d you put that in there, Joey?”

Shane kept his eyes on the road. He couldn’t get two words about the Thibaults, but about Agnes he was getting a book. Nice try, Joey.

“Then they grew up and didn’t come back anymore,” Joey went on, seeming almost wistful. “I get a Christmas card every year from Agnes, sometimes she’d send me stuff in the mail, stuff she finds she thinks I like, diner stuff. But then about three, four years ago, here Agnes comes again, asking questions ‘cause now she has a newspaper column, and she remembered me, she’s gonna write about me.”

Shane looked over at the old man. He was grinning like it was a joke, but he was proud.

“About me,” Joey repeated, shaking his head. “And then this editor in New York read the columns about me and said she wanted a book, and Agnes wrote one. The editor called it Mob Food. It came out last month, been selling real good, too, they say. That’s where Agnes got some of the money for her half of the down payment on the house.” He looked away, out the window. “My picture’s on the cover. Leaning on the diner counter.” He looked back at Shane. “I told her to forget about it, but Agnes said I had to be on the cover. And you know Agnes.”

Shane nodded. “I’m starting to.”

“She uses a lot of my stuff in her column, some other people’s, too. She got a lot of stuff from Brenda, too, see Brenda’s the one who taught her to cook-”

Enough. “So why did you ask Agnes about Rhett right before the kid broke in to take him?”

Joey looked out the window again. “Coincidence.”

Shane swerved to the side of the road and slammed on the brakes, putting a hand out to keep Rhett from sliding off the seat. Rhett looked up at Shane, then at Joey, then sighed and put his head back down.

Shane stared at his uncle. “That gun at Agnes’s was an old mobster’s gun. That kid was the grandson of an old mob guy. There weren’t that many old mob guys who retired down here, Joey. Just two, you and Frankie Fortunato, and now I hear about this Thibault guy. And I have to say that you retired down here pretty fucking young. You couldn’t have been forty, either one of you. So I’m thinking there’s a lot going on here that I need to know. Are you going to tell me this story? Or we gonna sit here all day?”

The seconds ticked away as Joey met his eyes; then he turned and looked out the window at the dark green woods of the swamp. Shane waited. The seconds turned into a minute, then two, and Rhett sighed once more. Then Joey sighed, deeper than Rhett, and looked back at Shane. He had a wan smile and he did look old. “You grown up, haven’t you?”

“I grew up a long time ago, Joey. You saw to that.”

Joey nodded. “Yeah. That was the idea.” He looked out the window, still nodding, and Shane waited. When he turned back, the man Shane remembered was there. Solid. The shark smile. “Okay, Frankie and me was driving down to Miami to do a job for the old Don, Frankie’s father. Our engine blew up right outside of Keyes. We got stuck here for a couple of days and we liked it. So we kept coming back every summer and then when we decided to retire,