“Thought so.” He watched her move up the path, the ties of the sundress jaunty on her shoulders, and he wondered why she’d bothered with ties since she didn’t have to untie anything to get it off, the whole thing just slipped off over her head. Probably so he’d think about untying it. Which he was doing right now-

His phone vibrated and he checked it and saw a text message from two hours ago. He pulled out his sat phone and punched in speed-dial l and Wilson answered on the first ring.

“Where have you been? I transmitted the intelligence to Carpenter’s van two hours ago.”

Eating pancakes. Checking out a bomb shelter. Thinking about ways to get Agnes alone. “Checking out what I can here.” What intelligence?

There was a long silence, which indicated what Wilson thought of that.

“Check the intelligence ASAP” The phone went dead.

Shane closed the phone. “Wilson sent some intel, probably on Casey Dean. Can you check and prep it for me?”

“Roger that,” Carpenter said, and nodded to the drive. “Isn’t that Agnes’s fiancé?”

Taylor’s Cobra was coming down the road followed by a van with the county logo stenciled on the side. They bumped over the bridge and parked at the side of the house, and Rhett ambled down the path to investigate.

“Yep, that’s him.”

The county van meant some kind of inspector. That was going to annoy Agnes. Maybe even make her furious.

Carpenter looked at him with interest. “You don’t seem to mind him being here.”

“Nope.” Shane watched Taylor get out and confer with the selfimportant little man who’d gotten out of the van. Agnes was going to hate him, too. Anger, coming right up. “I’m feeling pretty cheerful right now.”

Carpenter shot him an odd glance, then shrugged. “So about the intel?”

Shane looked at his watch. “I can give you half an hour. Then I’m going to have to save this idiot’s ass again.”

He went over to the van and climbed inside with Carpenter who got the air-conditioning going full blast. One wall of the van was lined with computers, communication equipment, and other machines Shane didn’t know the purpose of. The other side was lined with lockers holding the various tools of their trade.

Shane sat in one of the swivel chairs bolted to the floor while Carpenter took his in front of the large computer screen and brought up the intel that Wilson had sent.

“The FBI intercepted a call to Don Fortunato,” he said, looking at the screen. “Traced back to a pay phone in Savannah directing the Don to go to a pay phone away from his house and await a call in fifteen minutes, which would have been untraceable, but Wilson had a tail on the Don with a directional mike. The tail followed him to the pay phone and picked up most of the Don’s end of the conversation.”

Shane read the screen over his shoulder:

df: Yeah?

(six-second pause)

df: How the fuck do I know?

(eight-second pause)

df: No shit.

(four-second pause)

df: Hell yeah, I still want the job done.

(four-second pause)

df: Fuck you. We agreed on a price.

(seven-second pause)

df: All right. All right. Fuck it. We got a contract. You make sure you do your part. The rest can come on the back end. My consigliere only got the cash we agreed on with him for the front end.

(three-second pause)

df: Yeah, that’s the target. How’d you know?

(eight-second pause)

df: No shit? But you do nothing until I get there. I wanna be there. I wanna see it. I’m giving you an extra hundred large for that. Which you get when it happens, but not before the wedding. Got to be after. Got to show some respect.

(eight-second pause)

df: Today? Fuck. Yeah, he’s in Keyes. My consigliere. And he’s got the down payment in cash. But-

(nine-second pause)

df: The what fucking bridge? Talmud?

(two-second pause)

df: Okay, Talmadge. Two p.m. local. Breakdown lane, southbound, center of span.

(five-second pause)

df: Yeah, yeah. The money’s packed like you said.

(two-second pause)

df: You better be fucking worth it.

End of conversation.

Shane was already checking his watch. The payoff was taking place in an hour. “Where’s the Talmadge?”

“Did you cross a large suspension bridge coming out of Savannah heading into South Carolina when you came up here?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s it.”

“How far away?”

Carpenter got out of his seat and slid open the door leading to the driver’s compartment. “I’ll make it in fifty minutes unless we get caught in traffic.”

“That’s cutting it close.”

“Perhaps we should have been monitoring instead of in that tunnel.” Carpenter got in the driver’s seat and started the van.

“That’s not helpful now.” Shane opened up the weapons locker.

“What about Agnes?” Carpenter said, but he was already heading down the drive.

Shit. “Maybe she won’t kill him.”

“What if she does?”

“What’s one more body among friends?” Shane said.

Agnes had come in from consoling Cerise with shrimp and called the florist, powering through some rabbit of an employee on sheer leftover rage from the flamingo-napper who’d taken Cerise from the loving wings of her flock. “Hello?” Maisie said.

“This is Agnes Crandall,” Agnes snarled. “You can’t cancel the Keyeses’ wedding flowers if you ever expect to sell flowers in Keyes again. Are you insane?”

“Oh,” Maisie said, her baby-doll voice even higher than usual. “Oh, I’m so sorry, but I can’t, I just can’t, they’ll kill me.”

“Who?” Agnes said. “And don’t you dare hang up on me or I’ll kill you. And don’t think I won’t, Maisie.”

“The Fortunatos,” Maisie whispered into the phone.

“Why would the Fortunatos kill you for doing the flowers for one of their weddings? They’re a lot more likely to kill you for canceling on them.”

“You don’t know them,” Maisie said.

“Yeah, I do. A hell of a lot better than you do, evidently.”

“Not better than Brenda,” Maisie said.

“Maisie, Brenda is trying to stop the wedding. She doesn’t care that she’s putting you in harm’s way. The Don is coming for this wedding, he’s giving Maria away. Don Fortunato. The Silicon Don. That’s much tougher than Teflon. If he gets here and there are no flowers, you think he’s going to be happy?” Agnes dredged up memories of any mob movies she’d seen. “He’s going to ask who disrespected his grandniece. And you know what everybody is going to tell him?”

“What?” Maisie said, her voice a little moan. “Maisie Shuttle.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Get those daisies out here by Saturday morning and you won’t be sleeping with the fishes, Maisie. He’ll never know the hell you put us through. But if you don’t, I will tell him everything. I’ll tell him where you live, Maisie. I’ll tell him about the Scottie dog on your mailbox, so help me God, I will.”

“Oh, no, all right, all right.” The words were almost inaudible.

“Do not fail me, Maisie,” Agnes said, putting steel in her voice. “Or the first thing the Don will put a bullet hole through will be the Scottie on your mailbox and the second thing will be you.”

“No, no, no.”

“The flowers, Maisie, the daisies will be out here Saturday morning, won’t they?”

“Yes, Agnes.”

“Thank you, Maisie. You won’t be sorry. And the Keyeses will be very, very grateful. Oh, and Maisie? Put in some little flamingo pink touches, will you? Little touches.”

Agnes hung up, trying to feel guilty for having beat up on a helpless Southern florist, but basically, Maisie should never have canceled on a wedding; any good florist should have known better. She looked for her To Do List to mark Maisie off so she could go take a shower and put on something that had less of a history of sex and violence attached to it-Imay never wear this dress again-only to hear cars rumbling over the bridge just as the phone rang again. She waited until the rumbling stopped without an ensuing crash of timber and then picked up the phone.