“Don’t move.” Agnes held up her pan. “I’ve called the police,” she lied. “They’re coming for you. My dog is vicious, and you don’t want to cross me, either, especially with a frying pan; you have no idea what I can do with a frying pan.” She took a deep breath, and the kid glared at her, and she looked closer at his face, and winced at the lurid welts of singed skin where the raspberry had stuck. “That’s gotta hurt. Not that I care.”

He worked his battered jaw, and she held the frying pan higher as a threat.

“So, tell me, you little creep,” Agnes said, “why were you trying to kill my dog?”

“I weren’t tryin’ to kill the dog,” the boy said, outraged. “I wouldn’t kill no dog.”

“The gun, Creepoid,” Agnes said. “You pointed a gun at him.”

“I was just gonna take him,” the boy said. “There weren’t no call to get mean. I weren’t gonna hurt him. I wouldn’t hurt nobody.” He touched the sauce on his face and winced.

“No, you just broke into this house to terrorize me with a gun,” Agnes said. “That’s not hurting nobody, that’s victimizing me. Do I look like a victim to you? Huh? You wouldn’t have tried this crap on Brenda, would you?”

He frowned up at her, the raspberry sauce crinkling on his face. “Who’s Brenda?”

“Everybody knows who Brenda is,” Agnes snapped.

She took a deep shuddering breath and reached for the phone again, and he rolled to his feet and lunged for her. She yelped and smacked him hard on the head with her pan, and he staggered, and then she hit him again, harder this time, just to make sure, and he fell back onto the floor, blood seeping down the side of his face, and lay still. She felt aqualm about that, but not much, because it was self-defense. Brenda would be proud of her, he’d broken into her house andshe’d defended it, he’d scared the hell out of her and-