“Hey.” She yanked it back, and started grabbing dishes from it and slinging them out into the hall as fast as she could, one after the other, while he yelled, “Goddammit, Agnes, what the hell are you doing?”

How are you feeling right now, Agnes? Bite me, Dr. Garvin.

“I hate a liar, Taylor,” she said as she sent the last of the teacups after the dinner plates and started on the saucers. “You’ve been lying to me, just like you’re lying to me about these crap dishes, you’ve beenlying to me about Brenda, and that makes me mad.”

He tried to grab the box from her, but she was in hyperdrive by now, diving to the bottom for soup bowls.

“Because Idon’t get it. I don’t get why some people are so goddamn selfish”-a bowl went flying-”that they think it’s all right”-and another-”for them to lie in their goddamn teeth”-and another-”so that they can get what they want.” She stopped for a moment to breathe and looked him in the eye. “Why do you and Brenda get to lie and cheat and everybody else has to play fair?”

“Agnes, it’s not what it looks like-”

“Hold it,” Agnes said, plate in hand, hot anger going cold in an instant. “Do not even think about pulling that line on me, you and your fine Southern gentleman crap-”

Taylor’s face darkened. “Now wait a minute-”

“-because you are no gentleman, betraying a commitment-”

“-I keep my commitments-”

“And you expect me to be your wife?” Agnes shrieked in his face, forgetting she was about to dump him. “Some fineSouthern gentleman, betraying his own wife-”

“I haven’t betrayed my wife!” Taylor snapped.

“What?” Agnes said, stopped in her tracks, and then as Taylor’s face grew slack with the realization of what he’d just said, she sucked in her breath and said, “You’re married? You’re already married to somebody else?”

“Now, Agnes,” he said, and as a red haze flooded the kitchen, she lunged for the counter and grabbed the nearest thing at hand.

“You’re my obvious replacement,” Wilson said to Shane as he prepared to go. “A seasoned professional, an unblemished record, and, we thought, no personal ties to distract you from your work.”

“My uncle is hardly a personal tie,” Shane said. “He’s called me for help once in twenty-five years.”

“Right before you made the only mistake of your career,” Wilson said, no expression in his voice at all.

“The mistake was not mine,” Shane said.

“You’ve caught bad intel before,” Wilson said. “You should have caught it this time. Can you honestly say you weren’t distracted by personal issues?”

Shane met his eyes squarely. “I-”

His cell phone rang.

Since he was staring at one of the four people who had the number, and the second one was in the boat, watching him with nonjudgmental eyes, and the third was in the house, throwing dishes, it had to be Joey.

Wilson waited and Shane knew it was a test.

It rang again.

Shane answered it. “Yeah?”

“Agnes okay?” Joey asked.

“She’s in the house throwing dishes at Taylor.” Take a cue from my voice and hang up, Joey.

“Shit. If that hairball says the wrong thing, she’ll kill him.”

“You’re exaggerating.” Shane met Wilson’s eyes. He wasn’t passing the test.

“She’s on probation already,” Joey said. “She’s bashed two fiancés and had one dead guy in her basement. As long as she’s throwing dishes, she’s probably okay, but she ends up with another assault charge or, God forbid, another body, and-”

“Hold it,” Shane said, and listened.

The house was silent.

“Fuck,” he said, and sprinted for the back door.


Agnes stood very still as the kitchen swung around her. There was a faint roaring in her ears, and the floor rocked, and she let the box fall off the counter and onto the tile, where the rest of the dishes in it smashed. “Agnes?” Taylor said.

“Your wife.” She took a step forward and raised her hand, surprised to find a meat fork in it.

She’d been expecting a knife.

“Agnes.” Taylor tried to move away, but she put the fork on his Adam’s apple and pressed hard and he stepped back against the table, arching his back to get away from her until his shoulders touched the swinging door to the basement.

“Behind you is the door the kid fell through last night,” Agnes said calmly. “He died, so I think you should stay very still right now.”

“Ag-” He tried to turn his head and sidle away, and she pressed harder, breaking the skin.

“Do you know how sharp this fork is? Of course you do. Stand still and talk fast. How long have you been married to Brenda? You are married to Brenda, right? You didn’t bring another woman into this just to mind-fuck me?”

“Agnes, it doesn’t mean-”

She pressed a little harder and the blood began to drip down his neck. “Did I ever tell you about my anger problem, Taylor?”

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple sliding along the tine of the fork. “Yes.”

“How long have you been married to Brenda?”

“Not long.”

“You lie.” She pressed harder.

Taylor’s voice came out strangled, probably because he was afraid to swallow. “May second.”

“The day before we signed the house papers.” He knew all along, he’s known about the swindle from the beginning, he lied and lied and I believed him, he lied-

“Agnes, honey, it was a terrible mistake.” He swallowed again, sweating now. “I knew it right away, but I couldn’t leave her, it was the only way I was sure of keeping the house. For us. For us.”

Agnes could hear herself breathing hard, just like in the horror films. Almost like watching herself, listening to herself. He knew all along, he lied to me, he lied.

“I did it for us, sugar.”

You son of a bitch. She clenched her jaw and there was a rushing in her ears as she tried to shove the fork through his goddamn throat, but her hand wouldn’t move. She threw her shoulder into it, and itstill wouldn’t move.

“No,” Shane said from behind her.

“Thank God you’re here,” Taylor said, still pinned to the wall. “She’s nuts. Get her away from me and call the police.”

Shane was holding on to her wrist; that’s why her hand wouldn’t move. That was annoying. “Let go of me,” Agnes said through her teeth.

“No,” Shane said to Taylor, still holding Agnes’s hand. “You will not call the police.”

“The hell I won’t,” Taylor said, and then realized belatedly that he was still forked. “Get her off me.”

“I won’t kill him,” Agnes said to Shane, trying to sound calm and reasonable through the red mist. “You can let go.”

“Don’t do it,” Taylor said. “She almost killed her last fiancé.”

“He’s fine now,” Agnes said. “He has a plate in his head. He can’t walk under magnets, but how often does that happen? You can let go.”

“If the police should ever hear of this,” Shane said to Taylor, “she will be the least of your problems.”

“All right,” Taylor said, keeping his eyes on Shane. “Let go of the fork,” Shane said to Agnes. “I want him dead,” she said.

“Eventually, he will be,” Shane said. “Let go of the fork.”

“He lied to me,” Agnes said, her breath coming hard. “I want him dead now.”

“Not your decision. Let go of the fork or I’ll take it.”

She looked into Taylor’s clueless, cheating, lying face, the same dumb, smug, cruel face a million women had probably looked into that day-it wasn’t me, I didn’t do it, it’s your imagination, I can explain, it’s not what it looks like-and thought, If we killed them all when they did it, they’d stop doing it, and tried to lunge, which was when Shane yanked her hand back and almost broke her arm as he dragged her behind him.

Taylor grabbed his throat and turned to run, and Shane hauled him back with his free hand as Agnes clutched her arm and tried to get to Taylor again.

Shane lifted Taylor up off his heels, holding Agnes at arm’s length.

“Remember,” he said calmly. “No police. If the police come asking anything at all about tonight, Agnes and her fork will look like a pat on the back compared to what I will do to you.”

“You don’t scare me,” Taylor said, looking terrified.

“Then you’re dumber than I thought,” Shane said, and threw him into the hall.

Taylor scrambled for the front door, slipping on the black-and-white tile floor and cutting himself on the pieces of broken china there, and Agnes thought, No! and started after him, but Shane still held the arm with the fork and yanked her back, dragging her into the housekeeper’s room and slamming that door behind them while she kicked at him, toppling them both onto the bed.

“Knock it off,” he said, pinning her to the mattress while he tried to take the fork from her, but she held on to it with a death grip, so frustrated she wanted to stab it into a wall, and he finally snaked one arm underneath the hand holding the fork and around her neck, applying pressure to get it away from her. He pressed her down on the comforter, her shoulder and neck hurting as he pried at her fingers. “Let it go, Agnes,” Shane said, and she tried to writhe free and then she heard Taylor’s car engine start, rev up, and then fade away, and she thought, Damn it, damn it, DAMN IT, as Shane yanked the fork away from her, almost breaking her wrist.

“Go to hell!” she said, snarling with rage and frustration and pain, and he said, “Oh, give it up,” and eased back. She rolled under him and struck out savagely, so damn mad at men that she wanted to pound him, and he dropped the fork and grabbed her wrists and jerked them over her head, slamming her back down on the bed, on top and in control again.

“Will you give up?” he said, as if she were just an annoyance, and she tried to knock him off, jerking under him, breathing hard, and watched his eyes change, grow darker and hot as she moved.

Oh, right, she thought, goddamn men, and then she felt the weight of him on top of her, felt all that rage fuse in her body in a need for hard contact, and all her frustrated fantasies about him hit her, all the lust she’d buried because she’d been engaged, damn it, and suddenly she wanted payback, wanted to cheat on Taylor, wanted to pound somebody, wanted to fuck somebody, and her anger kicked into something lower and sharper and a lot more focused.

Physical exercise is a good way of defusing anger, Agnes.

Way ahead of you, Dr. Garvin.

Shane let go of her wrists and straightened away from her, and she reached up and grabbed a handful of his T-shirt and yanked him back down, rolling so that he was under her.

He didn’t fight her much.

She straddled him, holding wads of his T-shirt in her fists. “I’m really mad,” she said, gritting her teeth, her breath coming hard as she smacked his chest on every word. “Really, reallyFURIOUS.”

“Yeah,” he said cautiously.

She leaned down on her fists, practically growling at him, her teeth clenched. “My court-appointed psychiatrist says I should vent my anger in nonviolent physical exercise.” She smacked him in the chest again, and he winced and caught her wrists.

“You know, Agnes, that’s not the hottest thing any woman has ever said to me.”

She yanked her wrists free and pounded her fists into his chest again, then let go of his shirt to strip off her dress and throw it on the floor.

He stopped frowning. “Course, it’s not the worst thing any woman has ever said to me, either.” He ran his hands up her sides to cup her breasts.

“Don’t take this personally,” she spat. “This is rage, not lust.”

“This would be better if you didn’t talk.” Agnes rolled off the bed to shove off her underpants. “Never mind.” Shane sat up to strip off his shirt. “Say anything you want.”

“No, I’ll be quiet,” Agnes said, breathing hard as he stood up to take off his jeans. “I mean, I’m mad as fucking hell-” She kicked the bed as she thought of that incredible dickhead Taylor getting engaged to her to swindle her, lying to her, the rat bastard. “-but I realize you’re doing me a favor here. I can be accommodating.” She glared at him. “What do you like?”