“Hit who with a frying pan?” Joey said from the doorway.

Agnes looked up from where she’d been talking to the cupcakes. “Am I going to go to jail for hitting the kid with the frying pan?”

“No,” Joey said, mystified. “You didn’t kill him, he fell through the wall. You all right?”

“Well.” Agnes leaned against the counter. “There’s some stuff I didn’t tell you.”

Joey came in and put his arm around her, the weight of muscle going to fat a comfort on her shoulders. “Like what?”

“Remember I told you I was engaged after college and my fiancé cheated on me?”

“Yeah, the bastard.”

“Well, when I found out he lied to me, I kind of hit him.”

“Good for you.”

“In the face. With a frying pan. Nonstick. Broke his nose.”

“Oh.” Joey nodded, still supportive but wary now. “He file a police report?”

Agnes nodded. “He dropped the charges, though.” Tell me I’m okay, Joey.

“Well, this is different. It won’t-”

“And then three years ago, I got engaged to that crime reporter I told you about?”

“Yeah,” Joey said, definitely on guard.

“And two years ago, he cheated on me with my assistant? And I caught him with her on my kitchen table?”

“You didn’t tell me that part”

“And I hit him in the back of the head with a cast-iron skillet.” Tell me I’mokay, Joey.

“Oh, shit, Agnes.”

Ouch. “So if the cops look me up…”

“Did you kill him?”

“No. They put a plate in his head. He’s fine.”

“You do any time?”

“Probation with court-ordered therapy and community service.” Agnes leaned against Joey, grateful for his bulk beside her. “A soup kitchen. It was nice. Good people worked there.” Tell me I’m okay, Joey.

“You’re good people, too, Agnes.” He patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry. This was self-defense. You’re all right.”

Agnes looked up at his dear, ugly mug. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Joey said, and looked at her straight, the way Joey always did.

“Good.” She straightened up to go back to work. Self-defense was legitimate. Brenda would have pounded the kid in self-defense, too. “What were you coming in to tell me?”

He looked uncomfortable. “I called somebody to come help you, and I was waiting for him outside, and then the next bunch of cops pulled down the drive. We got trouble.”

Agnes put the cakes on the bread table. “You mean besides the cop in the hallway and the dead body in the basement?”

“The cop in the hallway is a dumb-fuck deputy, he’s not trouble,” Joey said. “But now we got Detective Simon Xavier comin’ across your bridge.”

“Who?” Agnes peeled off her oven mitt.

“Xavier,” Joey said. “The one cop in Keyes who actually knows what the fuck he’s doing.” Agnes felt cold. “Joey?”

There was a crash from the direction of the old housekeeper’s room, now her bedroom, and Agnes said, “That’s that deputy. He keeps wandering around saying, ‘So this is what Two Rivers looks like inside.’ Like he’s looking for something. I told him to stay in the hall. I even gave him a cupcake.”

Joey jerked his head toward the housekeeper’s room. “Go get him. I’ll talk to Xavier.”

Agnes swallowed. “Joey, am I going to jail?”

“No, honey,” Joey said. “But don’t hit anybody else with a goddamned frying pan.”

Agnes went cold. I’m in trouble if Joey’s warning me. “Right.” She forced a smile for him, took a deep breath, and started for the housekeeper’s room.

“Aw, wait a minute.” Joey caught her arm and handed her the frying pan.

“What’s this for?” she said.

“I take it back,” he said. “If that deputy tries anything funny, you can use this. They can’t get you for self-defense.”

“Oh, funny,” she said, but she took the pan and tried a smile. “Joey, you’re the best.”

“Go on,” he said, but he blushed just the same. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she told him. “Kind of. This has been a really lousy day, but it’s almost over, the cops are going to take the body away, I’m not in any trouble… right?” She looked at him, trying not to seem anxious.

“Right,” Joey said firmly, but his eyes slid away from hers. Oh, God. Agnes smiled at him as sanely as she could and headed for her bedroom, not relieved at all.

Once in the housekeeper’s room, Agnes clutched her frying pan tighter and felt her way toward the bedside lamp.

“I told you nothing happened in here,” she called out, looking around for the cop. “It was all out in the kitchen.” Not that I’m upset with you, sir. Please don’t arrest me.

The wind blew the curtains away from the window by the bed, and she saw that the bedside table was tipped over, and then a hand clamped over her mouth and somebody said, “Shhhh,” and she swung the pan up over her head hard and connected with a smack that reverberated into her shoulders.

He wrenched the pan out of her hand. “Stop it.Joey sent me.”

She yanked away from him, and he let her go so that she tripped, falling against the bed, and then she fumbled on the floor for the light and clicked it on, breathing hard.

He loomed up over her as her heart pounded, a big guy, dressed in black-black pants, black T, black denim jacket-looking like he’d been hacked out of a block of wood: strong, weathered face; black, flat eyes-shark eyes, she thought-cropped dark hair going gray at the temples, now a little bloody on the right; tense, hard, squared-off body, all of it alert and concentrated on her. But the thing she noticed most, as she tried to keep from having a heart attack, was that he looked like Joey. Younger than Joey, bigger than Joey, but he looked like Joey.

She swallowed. “Who are you and what the hell are you doing in here?”

“I’m Shane. Joey sent me.” He jerked his head toward the kitchen, no wasted movement. “Who’s out there?”

Agnes got to her feet, wishing she had her frying pan back. “Shane. Okay, Shane, thank you for scaring the hell out of me, but this is my house, so I’ll ask the questions.” She took a deep breath. “Joey sent you. Why?”

“I’m here to protect some kid. Little Agnes?”

“That’s me,” Agnes said.

There was a silence long enough to hear crickets in, and Agnes thought, If he makes some crack about me being not little, I’m gonna hit him again, and then he spoke.

“I’m here to protect you,” he said, sounding resigned. “Unless you hit me again, in which case, whoever I’m supposed to save you from can have your ass.”

“Protect me.” That wasn’t good. She’d been worried about the police finding out about her record, but Joey thought she needed to be protected from something else, something only somebody like this guy could stave off. Which meant something was seriously wrong. Not that the guy who was now a corpse in her basement hadn’t been a tip-off, but if Joey thought something was so bad that she needed this guy, it must be really bad, because a guy like this could protect her from… Anything.

Out in the front hall, Brenda’s ugly black grandfather clock began to chime the hour in big gongs that sounded like Death’s oven timer, and Agnes looked at Shane again.

Big. Broad. Dark. Strong. Handsome if you liked thugs. Looked like Joey. And he was here to keep her safe.

How are you feeling right now, Agnes?

Could be worse.

“Okay, Shane,” Agnes said as Brenda’s clock gonged midnight. “I got Joey in the kitchen, a cop in the front hall, a dead body in the basement, and you in my bedroom. Where do you want to start?”