"What do you mean she 'ain't' here?" Kendall demanded. "Where the hell is she, then? Well?"

Having descended from his carriage, presently being hammered by rain worse than the forty days and night's worth that had troubled Noah, and having battered for what seemed an eternity on this lantern-jawed harridan's door, 'ain't here' were not words Kendall had any desire whatsoever to hear. Mrs. Hanney folded her skinny arms across her scraggy breast.

"And I should know? It ...