“I talked to Joey, I got shot at twice, and I got you an air conditioner. Why are you going to lose the house?”

“Shot at?” Lisa Livia said.

“This morning while Evie and Brenda were here?” Agnes said. “Because I heard shots then.”

“They missed. Why are you going to lose the house?”

Then the other shoe dropped. “You got me an air conditioner?” Agnes swallowed hard. “You got me an air conditioner?”

He looked taken aback. “Well, you were having trouble with the central air unit you had-”

“It’s too small for the house,” Agnes said.

“-so I checked it before I left and you needed another one. It’s no big deal, Agnes.”

“Oh, my God,” Agnes said. “You got shot at and you still got me an air conditioner.”

“Agnes, it’s an air conditioner, not a kidney,” Shane said, and she wanted to say, It’s better than a kidney, after all that, you still remembered me? but all she said was, “Thank you very much. I’ll pay you back.”

“No, you won’t,” Shane said. “Think of it as room and board. What’s for dinner?”

“Joey brought me a tenderloin last night and I put it to marinade this morning,” Agnes said. “That’s easy and then we’ll have sandwiches from the leftovers for a while.”

“That’s worth an air conditioner,” Shane said.

“I’ll do more,” Agnes said.

“You’re easy, Agnes,” Shane said.

You have no idea. Take me. “An air conditioner. My God.”

“So what happened with the house?”

“That’s what I have to talk to Taylor about first.”

“If you tell me, I’ll fix it,” he said, and she almost told him, just because he was there, and because he bought her an air conditioner, and because he could do anything, she was pretty sure. “It’s nothing I can’t handle,” she lied.

“I’ll go put the air conditioner in,” he said, nodded to Lisa Livia, and went out the back door.

Agnes turned to start dinner and caught sight of Lisa Livia watching her with her arms folded. “What?”

“Finally, something good is happening to you.”

“Yes,” Agnes said firmly. “I got an air conditioner.”

“That’s not all you’re getting,” Lisa Livia said. “And that fathead Taylor is toast. Couldn’t happen to a shallower guy, either.”

“Don’t get all starry-eyed on me,” Agnes said, heading for the refrigerator. “Shane is not staying.”

“I know, that’s the beauty of it. He gives you an air conditioner, evicts that airhead from your life, gives you great sex, and then leaves. My God. The perfect man.”

“Are you staying for dinner?” Agnes asked with studied politeness.

“No,” Lisa Livia said. “He might decide to take you before dessert. I wouldn’t want to be in the way. I’ll come back tomorrow for leftovers after I’ve rummaged around on the Brenda Belle to see if Brenda’s got anything incriminating packed away. She’s about as smart with money in general as you are, so outside of scamming you for this house, I doubt she’s much ahead of you on anything.”

“I’m smart with money,” Agnes said.

“You’re an idiot with money,” Lisa Livia said. “So is Brenda or she wouldn’t be in this cash bind now. You’re the genius with words; I’m the genius with money. We should do something together with that. But not tonight. Tonight you’re going to be playing footsie with the hotsie.”

“You’re disgusting,” Agnes said, trying not to grin.

“Yeah, but I’m going to save your butt,” Lisa Livia said. “I’m not kidding about that Venus. I want it.” She took one more look at the basement door and left, and Agnes sighed.

That made two people who were going to save her butt. The place was filling up with people who wanted to save her.

She tried to feel exasperated about that, but she grinned instead. Then she went to make dinner.

Shane spent the rest of the afternoon wrestling with the new air-conditioning unit and with the idea that his good old uncle Joey was still keeping something from him. Considering what he’d already been told, it had to be something pretty serious, which did not bode well for his getting back to his regular employment, something that didn’t bother him as much as it would have the previous night. Doyle came by but didn’t offer to help with the AC, saying he needed to focus on the house painting, although Shane figured it would be at least a decade before he got the place painted at the rate he was going. About seven, he went inside and cleaned up, and Agnes fed him tenderloin and fresh corn and new potatoes and ice cream with homemade hot fudge, and he thought about telling her he didn’t eat that much and then plowed through all of it. She said, “I think I’m going to make a golf course cake with flamingos for Palmer’s groom’s cake,” and he said, “Okay,” because there wasn’t much else to say after that, and watched her finish her next day’s To Do List. It was long. Then she opened her laptop to work on her column, muttering about wedding cake, and he went out and finished getting the unit hooked up. After that, he sat on the back porch steps and watched the sun set with Rhett and then waited in the moonlight for Wilson to show up, all of which would have been peaceful if Agnes hadn’t been so tense and if Wilson hadn’t been coming to him. It was unheard of for Wilson to come to him. Plus it was well past nine and that waste of a human being Taylor hadn’t turned up yet. Everything was wrong.

At ten minutes to ten, he stood up to walk down to the dock and realized that Rhett wasn’t collapsed beside him anymore. He whistled and then, since that never worked anyway, he went around to the front of the house to find the dog and saw that the front door was open. Fuck.

He took out his Glock and moved silently into the hall and heard Agnes say, her voice tight, “You’re dead, I saw you die!”

“I just need to get the dog, lady,” somebody pleaded, and Shane relaxed a little as the voice cracked. A kid.

He edged closer to the door and saw the kid from the back, his jacket shabby, a Confederate Army cap on his head, a gun in his hand. Not good. And his hand was shaking. Even worse. An amateur.

“You are not getting my dog,” Agnes said. She was behind the counter, unarmed but looking plenty outraged, with Rhett in the open space beside the counter, looking unconcerned. And there were knives and frying pans all within her reach, so it could turn into a major mess fast.

Shane moved up silently behind the kid. Agnes put her hand out to the counter, and Shane saw that it was shaking just as he heard a boat out on the water. Wilson. Enough, he thought, and grabbed the kid by the neck and smacked his head into the doorframe.

The kid said, “Urp,” and dropped the gun and Shane shoved the swinging door to the basement open, lowered the stunned kid by the back of his shirt into the hole.

Then he pocketed the gun and grabbed the kitchen table and shoved it across the basement doorway just as he heard Taylor’s Cobra rumble across the creaking bridge.

“My meeting is here,” he said to Agnes, nodding out toward the dock. “And your fiancé finally got here. Keep that table across the door and don’t tell anybody the kid is down there. We’ll find out from him what’s going on after we get done with these guys.”

“Okay,” Agnes said, looking a little rattled, but determined.

“That’s my girl,” Shane said, and went out the back door, remembering too late that she wasn’t.

He had to get out of Keyes.

Agnes watched through the open back door as Shane walked out to the dock, calm as anything in spite of having just disarmed somebody and dropped him in a basement. They just didn’t make guys like him anymore, she thought, and then Taylor came into the kitchen carrying a large box that was heavy from the way he huffed as he put it down on the table Shane had just shoved across the basement door. He didn’t seem to notice that the table had been moved. Well, he hadn’t been in the house enough to really know where the furniture went.