XO

Chapter 32

DANCE WAS IN the sheriff’s office with P. K. Madigan and Dennis Harutyun.

There was another law enforcement jurisdiction present too: Monterey County.

Via Skype, Michael O’Neil’s calm eyes looked back at them from 150 miles away. He was the person she’d tapped to look into the Salinas partner of Frederick Blanton, the murdered file sharer. She might have sent the request to TJ Scanlon in her own office. But on a whim she’d decided to contact O’Neil instead.

Madigan was briefing the Monterey deputy. “Edwin never went home last night. Kayleigh said that about ten-thirty she heard a car start somewhere in the park out in front of her house. Her bodyguard said he thought he heard it too.”

The invisible snake…

“Kathryn and I want to interview him but he’s not answering his phone. We don’t even know where he is. This morning a deputy spotted his car on Forty-one, a pretty major road here. He tried to follow but Edwin must’ve seen him and wove around in traffic and got away.”

O’Neil said, “Tough to follow with just one car.”

“And I haven’t got a lot of people to spare, what with protecting witnesses and Kayleigh,” Madigan muttered. “We cover more than six thousand square miles. Grand total of about four hundred and sixty patrol deputies.”

O’Neil winced. Monterey wasn’t small but that county didn’t embrace nearly as much territory with such little manpower. He asked, “Kathryn told me he’d picked up Kayleigh’s sister and niece at the airport. Any charges possible there?”

“Kathryn’s going to interview them some more,” Madigan said, “but doesn’t look like it. Edwin was the boy-next-door, didn’t do a thing wrong. The little girl loved him and the sister thought he was-get this-the nicest of Kayleigh’s boyfriends in recent years.”

Dance regarded the man on the screen-strong and solid but not heavy. O’Neil was wearing his typical outfit. Light blue shirt, no tie and a dark sport coat. Most detectives in the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office, like here, wore uniforms but O’Neil didn’t. He thought casual clothing got you further in investigations than khaki and pointed metal stars.

Dance briefed them about the interview with Sally Docking, Edwin’s former girlfriend. “I have to tell you that his behavior with her doesn’t fall into a stalker’s profile.” She explained that it had actually been Edwin who broke up with the woman.

“Still don’t trust him,” Madigan said.

“No. It’s just odd.”

O’Neil continued, “I paid a visit to Josh Eberhardt.”

The file-sharing partner in Salinas.

“How polite a visit?” Dance asked.

“I talked Amy into going with me.”

Amy Grabe, the FBI’s special agent in charge in San Francisco.

“They decided there’d been enough federal copyright violations to justify a raid. Joint task force.”

Which meant it wasn’t very polite. “Feet apart, spread ’em” had probably been involved. Dance and O’Neil shared a smile. It was hard to say, given the optical mechanics of Skype, but it seemed to Dance that he winked at her.

Of course, he hadn’t.

Then she admonished herself again: Concentrate.

“Good job, sir,” Madigan said and enjoyed a bite of what Dance believed to be pistachio ice cream. She’d missed breakfast and was thinking of asking for a cup of her own.

The Monterey detective continued, “They did find some file sharing going on out of his house but Eberhardt was more of a researcher. He keeps track of hundreds of above- and underground fan sites for musicians. Looks like he’d comb through them and get potential customers for illegal downloads. It really wasn’t all file sharing-it was file stealing and selling too. They charged a fee for the songs. They’d ripped off albums of about a thousand artists.

“There’s this really… dark underground of websites out there. They have to do with cultural things, mostly: books, movies, TV shows, music. A lot of them are about stealing the artists’ work-bootlegs, for instance. But most of them are about the celebrities themselves: Stephen King, Lindsey Lohan, George Clooney, Carrie Underwood, Justin Bieber… and Kayleigh Towne.

“And it’s all off the radar. The people posting use proxies and portals… and anonymous accounts. None of this shows up on Google. They’ve worked around that.” O’Neil gave them the list of websites whose addresses were only numbers or letters: 299ek333.com was typical. Once inside them, there were various pages that seemed nonsensical-“The Seventh Level,” for instance. Or “Lessons Learned.”

But navigating through the links, he explained, you got to the true substance of the sites: the world of celebrities. TJ Scanlon had found none of these.

O’Neil said, “It looks like that’s where Edwin’s getting a lot of his information. In fact, he posted plenty about the file sharer who got killed-the vic in Fresno.”

Madigan asked, “Anything that’d implicate Edwin in the killing?”

“No. He just urged people not to use file sharing.”

Of course, he wouldn’t slip up. Not clever Mr. Edwin Sharp.

O’Neil turned away for a moment and typed. Dance received an email containing several URLs. Harutyun took her phone when she offered it to him and he set to work typing them into a computer nearby.

O’Neil asked the room, “You’re monitoring all her calls?”

“That’s right but we’re trying to buy some time, make it harder for him to contact her with another verse,” Harutyun said. “We’ve given her and her family new phones, all unlisted. He’ll probably find the numbers eventually but by then we hope we’ll nail him on the evidence or witnesses.”

“I’d dig through those sites,” O’Neil advised. “You should be able to get some good information about him. Looks like he spends a lot of time online.”

O’Neil took a brief call and turned back to the screen. He said he had to leave, an interrogation was on the schedule. His eyes crinkled with a smile and though Skype didn’t allow for a clear image of where he cast his gaze, Dance believed it was to her. “You need anything else, just let me know.”

Madigan thanked him and the screen went dark.

They turned to the second monitor, on which Miguel Lopez had called up one of the underground sites O’Neil had found.

“Lookit that,” Crystal Stanning said.

The site, which boasted more than 125,000 fans, was a stalker’s paradise. It had pages for several hundred celebrities in all areas of entertainment and politics. Kayleigh’s was one of the most popular, it seemed. Within her pages was one headed “Kayleigh Spotting,” and was a real-time hotline bulletin board about where she was at the moment. “She Can’t Fool Us!” contained pictures of Kayleigh in various outfits-disguises, almost-so fans could recognize her when she was trying to remain anonymous. Other pages contained extensive bios of the crew and band members, fans’ stories about concerts they’d attended, discussions of which venues were good and bad acoustically, who’d tried to scalp tickets.

Other pages gave details of Kayleigh’s personal life, down to her preferences about food and clothing.

The page “WWLK, We Who Love Kayleigh” offered information about famous fans-people who had commented in the press about their affection for her music. As Dance scrolled through she found Congressman Davis’s name mentioned. He’d been quoted at a campaign rally about how much he appreciated Kayleigh’s talent, and her stance on immigration in her song “Leaving Home.” Dance followed a hyperlink to his own page and noted that he had reproduced the lyrics in full-with Kayleigh’s permission. Dance remembered he’d thanked Kayleigh for this earlier at her house.

“In the Know” offered press information, thousands of photographs, announcements from Kayleigh’s record company and Barry Zeigler, her producer. There was also a feed from her official site, giving updates-for instance, about upcoming events, like Friday’s concert and the luncheon today at a local country club for the Fan of the Month. Dance read the press release, written by Kayleigh’s stepmother, Sheri, noting to her relief that Edwin was not the winner.

Other links led to even more troubling pages, which offered bootleg albums, recorded illegally at concerts, and links to file sharing services. One page gave gossip about disputes within celebrities’ families, Kayleigh’s included, though aside from tepid public spats with Bishop, Sheri and a few musicians, like the man who’d interrupted the award ceremony, her gossip page was pretty sparse.

She’s a good girl…

Another page offered for sale items of Kayleigh’s clothing, including undergarments, undoubtedly not really hers. There were risqué pictures of her too, though it was obvious they’d been manipulated with Photoshop.

This explained Edwin’s innocuous and infrequent online activity that TJ Scanlon had found earlier. That was the public side of Edwin Sharp; this was the stalker’s real internet life. Though they couldn’t tell for certain, a number of the posts with initials ES or ESS in the username were probably his. Dance assessed that the grammar, syntax and construction of many of these posts were reminiscent of the ones they knew he had done.

Dance hoped they could find even a hint of a threat to Kayleigh Towne, so they could invoke the stalking statute But, no, this trove of Edwin-related activity wasn’t much more helpful than the other. As with the more public sites, most of the posts that were or might be his didn’t appear threatening in the least; if anything, he staunchly defended Kayleigh. Nor were they able to identify particular potential victims. Other fans were far more insulting than he was, some viciously so. Edwin came across as nothing more than a loyal, if strident, fan. Dance reflected that it was likely Edwin Sharp was not the only obsessed fan Kayleigh Towne had. Indeed, reading the posts suggested that he might be among the more innocuous.

There wasn’t a single aspect of these celebrities’ lives that was private. Kathryn Dance leaned away from the computer screen. She actually felt unclean from the imperious, invasive attitude of the posters-as if the entertainers and celebrities that were the objects of their interest were simply fodder for amusement and self-gratification.

It was as if the more successful you were at pleasing the populace, the more they felt entitled to suck your soul from your body.

Crystal Stanning took a phone call. Dance paid no attention to her until she noticed the deputy’s shoulders rise and her brow furrow-a configuration often signaling bad, or at least perplexing, news. “You sure?” she asked.

By now the others in the room were watching her.

She disconnected, grimacing. “That was my husband. He took Taylor, that’s our son, to football practice, the early one before school starts? And, it was weird. I told him about the song the perp’s playing, Kayleigh’s song? And he said somebody got into the PA system at the high school field and rigged the tape player so the third verse played over and over.”

“Oh, hell,” Madigan muttered. “He’s not using the phones.”

Thinking ahead of them once again.

And what were the clues in the lyrics? Dance looked over the sheet that Harutyun had printed.

One night there’s a call, and at first you don’t know

What the troopers are saying from the side of the road.

Then you see in an instant that your whole life has changed.

Everything gone, all the plans rearranged.

Dance did a double take at the verse, which spoke to her personally-thinking about the death of her husband. A trooper’s call was how she’d learned of the accident.

Then she forced the thought away.

Where did the perp have in mind for attacking next? Somewhere by a roadside?

A glance at the map of the Madera-Fresno area revealed what had to be a thousand miles of roads.

Another thought occurred to her: the assault on Bobby Prescott and on the file sharer followed closely on the calls to Kayleigh; they had perhaps an hour or so to identify and save the next victim.

Chapter 33

MADIGAN SAID, “REMEMBER, ‘road’ could mean more than just a highway.”

Dance nodded. “Road crew. Like Bobby. Let’s call them. I told them to be careful but we ought to let them know he’s played another song. And Alicia Sessions. At the Cowboy Saloon I could see Edwin didn’t like her any more than he did Bobby.”

She opened her notebook and displayed the numbers she had for everyone in the crew. Dance, Harutyun and Stanning notified them all. Half of the crew were at the convention center; the other half at the luncheon venue, being held at a nice country club in the northern part of town. Kayleigh would be singing a few songs so they’d set up a small performing space. Tye Slocum was en route to the venue, but Dance alerted him about the danger. Alicia, it seemed, had run out of gas on the way to Kayleigh’s luncheon but was safe. She was waiting in a coffee shop for a service truck.

Dance bent toward the screen and was reading through one of Kayleigh’s unofficial sites, which gave details of the luncheon. A lot of posters wished they could have gotten tickets but they’d sold out quickly.

Madigan was speaking into his phone, “Come on, how hard is it? The fucking car is a mile long! And goddamn bright red.” He glanced at the others with a shrug, meaning the snake remained invisible.

Dance called Kayleigh, who’d just arrived at the luncheon, on the singer’s new mobile number and told her of the possible threat.

“No! Not again. Are you sure?”

“Afraid we are. We haven’t said anything to the press about using the song verses as announcements so we have to assume it’s really a threat. Where are your sister and niece?”

“They’re at home with Daddy and Sheri.”

“Darthur’s with you?”

“Yes. And there’re about a dozen people here now. We’re expecting a hundred or so. There’s lots of security. You need a ticket to get in.”

Dance continued to read the screen; an idea occurred to her. “Kayleigh, this fan of the month. Who is it?”

“I think his name’s… hold on. Sam Gerber. Do you think he’s in danger? Oh, Kathryn, what are we going to do?”

“So he’s not there?”

“No, we don’t get started for another forty-five minutes or so. I came early for a sound check. Should we call him?”

“Do you have his number?”

“I’ll find it.”

As she waited, Dance looked down and her eyes caught a series of posts on the fan site. They’d been made just that morning.

Who is this Gerber? Is he worthy of our wonderful Kayleigh? He hasn’t posted much about her, hardly anything. Doesn’t seem fair to some of us that he’s going.

– ESKayleighfan

Just chill Edwin. there’s room for more than one fan.

– Musiqueman3468

yeah come on, he won a contest, whats the big deal? I’m happy for him. he gets to have LUNCH with Kayleigh!!!!!

– Suzi09091

He doesn’t deserve it. Other people do. That’s my point.

– ESKayleighfan

Kayleigh came back on the line with Gerber’s number. Dance jotted it down. “Thanks. We’re doing everything we can. I’ll call you back.”

She called Sam Gerber and got voicemail. It was a local area code and exchange so maybe not a mobile. She left an urgent message.

“He lives in Madera,” Madigan said. “I’ll get a car to his house. If we’re lucky he may not have left yet.”

“The road,” Dance mused. “Let’s assume Edwin’s going to try something on the route from Madera here.”

She realized that, despite Sally Docking’s report and the ambiguous evidence otherwise, she was making the assumption that Edwin was the killer. Still, she couldn’t help herself and she continued to scroll through the fan site, trying to put herself into the young man’s troubled mind.

WHAT SHE WANTED most was for Kayleigh to love her.

Sheri Towne knew she started from a disadvantage, of course. No, she wasn’t like Wife Number Three-the Child, as Sheri cattily thought of her, or Number Two, the Tarot Card Reader.

Yet Sheri was a lot younger than Bishop and in her own opinion didn’t bring a lot to the table. She was insecure and knew she was worlds away from Margaret, the strong woman who was Kayleigh’s and Suellyn’s mother. Sheri knew about her not because anyone in the Towne family talked about Margaret in front of her, least of all Bishop, but because she’d listened to and memorized all of Kayleigh’s songs; many of the early ones were about her mother.

Despite the tension, though, Sheri liked Kayleigh a lot, independent of being her stepmother, and she liked Suellyn and her husband, Roberto, and Mary-Gordon too. Oh, what a cute kid! Just the sort of child she wished she’d had, whom she would have had, if life had gone just a bit differently.

Sheri wanted badly to fit in. She loved Bishop, loved the odd mix of his power and his neediness, loved his talent-brilliant in the past and still glimmering now. (And maybe it would blossom again in the future; he talked sometimes about returning to performing. This was a secret that he’d shared with no one but her.)

Still, her connection with her new husband wouldn’t be complete if she couldn’t form a real relationship with Kayleigh. And not that superficial cordiality.

Hey there, Sheri, how ya doing? You have a good day now. Take care.

Hell. To Kayleigh, I’m like the most anonymous fan she sees at a concert.

She finally turned off the long drive from their house on the route to the highway. The car bounded along; the road, though paved, wasn’t much better than gravel.

And yet, maybe, just maybe, things could change. There’d been crumbs of hope. Kayleigh’s sending Sheri the occasional greeting card. A present on her birthday. And then a half hour ago she’d gotten an email from Kayleigh saying when she came to the luncheon, could she bring a couple of dozen of her CDs from Bishop’s house as giveaways to fans? Kayleigh’d forgotten them.

Thanks, Sheri. You’re a star!

The woman had been hurt that Kayleigh hadn’t even asked her to the event, which she herself had helped put together. But she’d noted the word “when” she came to the luncheon. So the girl hadn’t snubbed her at all. Maybe she’d assumed Alicia had asked her. Or maybe Kayleigh had just assumed all along Sheri would be attending.

Or was the invitation a backhanded apology, reflecting the girl’s cooling anger? The two had had an embarrassing fight at the show in Bakersfield not long ago. It had been minor, stupid, really. But some asshole had recorded a minute or two of their harsh words and the video had gone viral. Sheri had been mortified-even if, in her opinion, Kayleigh had started the fight.

All might be forgiven, though. Maybe Sheri wasn’t doomed to be the Evil Stepmother forever.

The condition of the road improved and she pressed the accelerator of the Mercedes down further, speeding along the deserted highway, groves of trees on either side.

Maybe she should get Kayleigh a present, thanking her. She-

The flat happened so fast she couldn’t respond before the car was careening along the shoulder. Sheri gave a faint scream and struggled to control the heavy vehicle, swerving perilously close to the trees, streaking by at seventy miles an hour.

But Sheri Marshal Towne had grown up in the Midwest and started driving at fourteen. Snow and powerful engines conspired to teach her how to handle skids. She now steered into the swerve, easing off the gas but never touching the brake.

Slower, slower… the car fishtailed, went straight, fishtailed some more, spewing gravel and leaves and twigs from the tires. But she managed to keep it from flying over the thirty-foot cliff to the right or slamming into the row of pines close by the opposite side.

Fifty miles an hour, forty…

In the end, though, the ground was too slippery-gravel and pebbles on hardpack-and she couldn’t quite prevent the crash as the big Merc slid off the road toward the trees, wedging itself into a ditch, and shuddered to a stop.

Her hands sweaty, her heart thudding, Sheri rested her head against the steering wheel.

“Lord, Lord, Lord,” she whispered, thankful she’d been to church that Sunday.

God had looked out for her.

She was thinking about Him when there was a loud crack and the windshield spiderwebbed; fragments of glass hit her in the head.

She blinked, more startled than hurt, and touched the small wound.

How would a rock-

Then again, a crack and flying glass-and this time she heard a loud bang outside.

Oh, God, no… Somebody was shooting at her! These were bullets!

She saw motion from the shadows between a tall stand of trees. Another flash. And the car resounded with a ringing thud. He’d missed the windshield this time.

Hunters?

Or was it that crazy man obsessed with Kayleigh?

Sheri popped the seat belt and slithered down to the floor as best she could, searching for her phone. Where, where, where?

One more shot. This wasn’t aimed for the windows either, but, like the other, for the rear of the car. A resonating bang as it hit.

Why would somebody shoot there? Sheri wondered manically.

And then realized: Shit. He was aiming for the gas tank! The stalker, Edwin Sharp-it had to be him! Why was he doing this? She hadn’t done anything!

She tried to roll down the side window of the passenger seat but the power was off. And the doors were wedged closed by the ditch.

Then the sweet, rich smell of gasoline grew thicker, reminding her of spending hot hours at the wannabe NASCAR track where her first husband raced every Saturday.

And as she sobbed, kicking futilely at the windshield, another thought occurred to her: the email about the luncheon hadn’t been from Kayleigh after all. It was Edwin Sharp who’d created an email address with Kayleigh’s name in it and sent the message to Sheri through the girl’s website, to lure her here.

Kayleigh hadn’t wanted her at the luncheon after all.

Chapter 34

KATHRYN DANCE HAD left the sheriff’s office fifteen minutes earlier.

After word that “Your Shadow” had been played at the football stadium during practice, the task force had split into three groups: one was trying to intercept Sam Gerber. Others were at the luncheon at the country club in northern Fresno, thinking that Edwin might try to find Gerber or maybe another victim there. And yet others were trying to find Edwin and his car, coordinating with Highway Patrol. Harutyun had also alerted medical teams that there might be an assault in progress. A burns center had been put on notice too; fire seemed to be one of the perp’s preferred weapons-inspired, perhaps, by Kayleigh herself.

Love is fire, love is flame

It warms your heart, it lights the way.

It burns forever just like the sun.

It welds two souls and makes them one.

Love is fire, love is flame.

Kathryn Dance was en route to the luncheon too; she didn’t know the roads in the area so it would have made little sense for her to participate in the manhunt. She thought it was best simply to be the point person at the country club and to reassure Kayleigh with her presence.

But as she piloted the SUV quickly through traffic, a thought occurred.

This happened sometimes, a little tapping, a hiccup in her mind, something she just couldn’t explain. A jump from Thought A to Thought B to… Thought Z. (Michael O’Neil had recently described it as her brain doing “one of its little dances.”)

No, no, this isn’t right. Edwin would be aware of the logistical difficulties of targeting a victim at the luncheon. But the event would provide a good distraction and draw off the police. And was Sam Gerber really a likely target? No. Edwin wouldn’t go after somebody he’d commented on in a posting. It was too obvious. Besides, why kill Gerber, one of fifty thousand harmless fans? He didn’t fit the profile of a stalker’s victim.

The crew was safe. Alicia was among people.

So who else might the target be?

Dance asked herself again the basic question: If Edwin was the stalker, what was his goal? Killing someone who threatened to keep them apart, whom Edwin was jealous of, who was perceived as Kayleigh’s enemy or whose death would bind them together forever.

Dance had recalled the gossip pages in the underground websites O’Neil had found, involving sensational stories reported by fans. A hot topic-since there weren’t many of them-was the tension between Kayleigh and her stepmother. There was even an embarrassing mobile phone video about a recent argument in Bakersfield.

This wasn’t a full-blown feud; Kayleigh seemed incapable of either the pettiness or the mean spirit that would involve. And from what Dance read, Sheri Towne seemed like a decent woman, solid, loyal to her new husband and even helpful in Kayleigh’s career. But Sheri was the most recent in a long line of stepmothers and she and Kayleigh never seemed to get along. The young woman hadn’t even invited Sheri to the luncheon she herself had helped with.

Thought Z…

Dance now called Bishop Towne and identified herself.

“Sure, Officer Dance,” the man grumbled. “What’s going on with that asshole? Heard he’s played another song.”

“Where’s your wife?”

“Gone off to that luncheon thing. Kayleigh invited her, after all.”

An alarm pinged within Dance, though she’d half expected that answer.

“When did she leave?”

“’Bout twenty minutes ago.”

“Did Kayleigh call her?”

“No, she emailed. Wanted her to bring some CDs to the lunch. Giveaways. Also said it’d be better if her sister and Mary-Gordon didn’t come ’cause that asshole Sharp.”

“So she’s alone?”

“Right.”

“Bishop, I think Sheri might be in danger. Edwin might’ve sent that email.”

“No!”

“Maybe. Which way would she go?”

“Oh, no, no…”

“Which way?”

“From the house, have to be Los Banos Road to Forty-one. You’ve got to do something! Please! Don’t let anything happen to her.”

It was unnerving to hear the gruff man sounding so desperate, so vulnerable.

“Give me her number.”

Dance memorized it. Then told him, “I’ll call you when I know something. What’s she driving?”

“I think she’s in… yeah, it’s the Mercedes. Silver.”

Dance first tried Sheri but the woman didn’t answer. She then called Kayleigh and learned, after a brief, awkward pause, that, no, Kayleigh hadn’t really wanted Sheri at the luncheon and hadn’t emailed her. Dance hit DISCONNECT with her thumb and the brake with her foot, skidding to a stop on the shoulder. She punched Los Banos Road into her GPS, and raced back onto the highway.

Los Banos was a narrow, winding line leading into the foothills toward Yosemite. It would be the only place where Edwin could attack Sheri. If she’d gotten to Forty-one, a wide, multilane road, then she would probably be okay.

But Dance knew Edwin wouldn’t let her get that far. He would have planned out the perfect site for the attack.

She tried Sheri’s number again. No answer.

In two minutes she was speeding through the forests on Los Banos.

It was then she saw the smoke, maybe a half mile ahead.

She gripped the phone and started to dial Madigan, jamming the accelerator down even harder as she took a curve. Nissan makes a great SUV but it doesn’t corner like a sports car and she nearly went off the shoulder and into a ravine forty feet below.

You’re a bad driver to start with, she told herself. Don’t be stupid.

She brought the skid under control and slowed a bit. She called Madigan and left a message, telling him where she was and to get cars there immediately, fire trucks too. Soon she was speeding along a straightaway toward the smoke, which had gone from gray to black.

Burning tires? she wondered. Oil? A car wreck?

Dance skidded around this turn too and saw the horrific scene before her-the silver Mercedes had gone off the road and was in a ditch near the asphalt. The back end of the car was burning, though the front, not yet. The angle of the accident-with the car’s hood in the air-meant the gasoline from the ruptured tank was flowing backward. Still, the flames were spreading toward the passenger compartment.

There seemed to be movement from inside the car. Dance couldn’t see clearly but knew it would be Sheri, whose feet were kicking desperately against the windshield.

No, Dance thought. You’ll never break through a windshield! The side windows!

Dance brought the Pathfinder to a skidding stop on the shoulder and leapt out, opening the back door and reaching behind the seat to snag the small fire extinguisher. She pulled it out and turned toward the Merc but dropped the heavy canister. She bent to pick it up.

Which is what saved her from a bullet.

No, as it turned out, two or three of them.

“Jesus,” she gasped, dropping to the ground, earning a scraped elbow.

The bullets slammed, loud, into the sheet steel of the Pathfinder a foot or so from her head and shoulders. Where was the shooter?

She couldn’t tell. He was somewhere in the pine forest.

In shadows, of course.

Reaching for her phone, which sat on the passenger seat, to call 911, she rose. The shooter fired again and a slug snapped over her head, then another. Dance flattened herself on the ground as another bullet loudly punctured the side of the driver’s seat.

A cry echoed from the Mercedes.

Move, move, move!

Crawling fast, cradling the extinguisher, Dance made it to a fallen tree, about forty feet from the Mercedes.

She risked a look. The flames were rising faster now.

And from the gap in the dense pine forest she saw a ragged flash of gunshot. A bullet snapped over her head before she could duck.

The attacker would have gotten a look at her and if it was Edwin, he would recognize her as a CBI agent, which meant he might assume she was armed. If it wasn’t Edwin, or if he decided she didn’t have a weapon, the assailant could casually stroll a hundred feet in her direction and shoot her.

Dance then heard another wailing scream from the Mercedes.

A flash bloomed from the woods, and six inches from her face a bullet blew a handful of dry rotting wood into the air.

Chapter 35

“I SHOULD CHECK in with my people,” P. K. Madigan said angrily, nodding toward his office. “We’ve got an operation going here. Possible homicide. It’s urgent.” The bewildered chief was feeling panic-which was not a sensation he was used to.

Two California Department of Justice officers stood in front of him in the lobby of the detective division, back a bit, out of deference. Maybe. One was redheaded and one had black hair. They otherwise looked similar, trim, in suits. Polite. Very polite. Madigan was so shaken he’d forgotten their names. The redhead said, “Yessir, I’m afraid calls’ll have to wait. Same procedure you have in an arrest, I’m sure.”

FMCSO sheriff Anita Gonzalez stood nearby, her face too a mask of dismay more than anger. “This is nonsense, gentlemen. Utter nonsense. I’ve got a call in to the Sacramento office.”

Which had not, Madigan noted, returned that call.

The two officers obviously didn’t consider their present assignment as nonsense, utter or otherwise.

Their two suspects didn’t either: Detectives Madigan and Miguel Lopez, who were being arrested for breaking and entering, false imprisonment, misuse of legal authority, criminal trespass.

Madigan said, “Look, this is part of a plan by a perp we’re investigating. He’s trying to get some of us out of commission.” He explained to them what Kathryn Dance had said about how stalkers target people who are protecting the object they’re obsessed with.

The state officers weren’t much interested in that either.

The reason for the arrest was, Madigan knew before they’d even mentioned the charges, his decision to keep Edwin Sharp in the interrogation room longer than he should have. And to have Miguel Lopez go to Edwin’s house and gather evidence.

The dark-haired agent was saying, “Here’s how it’ll work, Detective. We’ll take you in and I’m sure the magistrate’ll expedite arraignment. Probably recognizance. Can’t imagine he’ll go for bail. You’ll be out in a few hours.”

“I don’t care when I’ll be out. The problem is I’ll be suspended until it’s resolved. That’s procedure.” Like Gabriel Fuentes, the detective so careless with his gun.

Gonzalez said to the officers, “We can’t afford to have the chief down now-not with the perp on the streets.”

The redhead said, “We know how you feel about this singer of yours. But…”

He didn’t add, That’s not enough to bend the law over.

Madigan wanted to hit him.

The panic swelled. Hell, this could be the end of his career-the only career he’d ever cared about. What would he tell his family?

And he’d bent the rules just a bit, done it for Kayleigh.

This singer of yours…

Goddamn Edwin Sharp!

The officers were debating but it was only the cuff issue.

“Oh, please,” Madigan said, sounding as desperate as he felt. “You can’t-”

“Look, gentlemen,” Sheriff Gonzalez said. “This is a critical operation. We think a murder could be occurring at any moment.”

Madigan looked back into his office again.

The redhead offered to Gonzalez, “You understand a warrant has been issued for his arrest? I’m sorry. We don’t have any choice.”

They took his Colt and ID and badge.

Madigan repeated, “At least let me check in with some of my people.” He was growing more agitated.

They debated a moment but settled for, “You’ll be out in an hour.”

“Two, tops.”

And they also decided yes on the cuffs.

Chapter 36

DANCE HUDDLED BEHIND the fallen pine tree.

There’d been no more shots; was the assailant still there? Waiting for her to show? It would make more sense for him to leave. He’d have to assume that Dance had called in reinforcements and would have fled. He couldn’t risk staying any longer.

Or could he?

Clutching the fire extinguisher, she debated. If I don’t do something now, Sheri’ll die. She’ll burn to death.

Dance looked up cautiously, then ducked down again. No gunshots.

She thought of her children, how she couldn’t stand the idea of their being orphans. Thought too that she’d specifically gone into kinesic analysis and investigations to avoid tactical situations that might put her life in danger.

And here, I’m not even on duty, she thought.

Another cry from the car, but muted. Sheri Towne was losing the battle.

Now. It has to be now.

She leapt to her feet and began to sprint to the Mercedes, just as the flames were reaching into the passenger compartment.

Waiting for the bullets.

None came her way but still she dove into the ditch, out of the line of fire of the shooter in the woods, and crawled fast to the car. Inside, Sheri was pounding on the windshield with bloody hands. She was retching and coughing as the smoke roiled into the interior. Dance’s skin prickled in the heat from a grass fire surrounding the car.

The woman inside turned desperate eyes to her and mouthed something.

Dance gestured for her to move back and she slammed the extinguisher base into the passenger-side window. It shattered easily. Dance tossed the extinguisher away-it wasn’t going to do any good on a fire like this-and reached inside to yank the woman out. Sheri was convulsing in spasms and coughing hard, spittle flying from her mouth. Tears streamed down her sooty face.

The agent dragged her thirty feet from the car, crouching, in case the attacker was still there with his gun. They sprawled on the ground in a depression by the roadside.

The woman dropped to her knees and vomited hard and tried to stand.

“No, stay down,” Dance said, starting for her SUV and her phone to see if Madigan had gotten her message and, if not, to call 911.

Which was when she heard a loud bang behind her and felt something slam into her lower back. She pitched forward onto the hard, sunbaked earth.

Chapter 37

DENNIS HARUTYUN WAS standing over the gurney Kathryn Dance lay on, face down.

The medic was on the opposite side from the deputy, laboring away on her back.

“No leads yet,” the detective said.

With her perpendicular view of the scene, Dance could see the ever-efficient CSU team scouring the grounds where the attacker had nearly killed Sheri Towne… and Dance herself. But there wasn’t much left; the fire had spread and taken out some of the trees and brush where he’d been standing.

“That hurt?” the med tech asked.

“A bit.”

“Hm.” He continued working on her, without otherwise acknowledging her answer.

After a few minutes: “You almost through there?” Dance asked, irritated that the doctor was taking so long and that he hadn’t responded to her comment about the pain. She should have said, “Yeah, hurts like hell, butcher.”

“I think that’ll do it.”

She pulled her shirt down.

“Just a scratch. Wasn’t deep at all.”

Dance was sure she’d been shot in the back-her immediate thought was of her friend, the crime scene expert, Lincoln Rhyme, who was a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down. How can I be a good mother if I can’t walk? she’d thought, tumbling over Sheri Towne from the impact. In fact, what had happened was that the fire extinguisher she’d tossed aside had landed in the burning grass and exploded, sending either a rock or a piece of its own casing flying into her back. She’d lain stunned for a moment then had turned to see on the ground a big disk of white foam or powder from the detonated extinguisher. And she’d understood, then crawled on to the SUV and retrieved her phone and-giving up on Madigan-called 911. A quarter hour later the police and fire and medical teams arrived.

The medic took his bad bedside manner and wandered off to tend to his other patient-Sheri Towne, who was sitting next to her husband. She was breathing oxygen and staring at her bandaged hand. Her long nails were, coincidentally, the color of fresh blood.

“It’s a real mess,” Harutyun said. He explained that Edwin had complained to the state DOJ about his detention and the illegal search. Madigan and Miguel Lopez had just been arrested, though released right away, no bail required, but they were no longer active-duty law enforcers.

“Oh, no,” Dance said in a harsh whisper. “He’s out of commission?”

“Sure is.” Harutyun added bitterly, “The perp took out Gabriel Fuentes, stealing his gun. Now it’s the Chief and Miguel. The whole team now’s Crystal, me and you.”

“Any sightings of Edwin?” Dance asked.

“No sign of him or that bull’s-eye-red car of his. The luncheon went on as scheduled. Kayleigh didn’t look too good, to hear the stories. She sang a few songs, had lunch with the fan and then left. People were saying she wasn’t really there. Not mentally.”

Dance nodded toward the smoldering Mercedes. “Pretty dangerous to be on Kayleigh’s bad side.”

“Still have trouble seeing that for a motive for murder.”

“It’s a stalker’s reality, not our reality,” she reminded.

Harutyun looked toward Sheri and Bishop. “She nearly burned to death but what she took hardest was that Kayleigh didn’t really ask her to the lunch.”

“What’s the story on the email he used to invite Sheri to the party?” Dance asked.

“Set up an anonymous account this morning. Something like ‘KTowne’ and some numbers. Sent from an Internet café in the Tower District. One of the deputies checked but nobody recognized Edwin’s picture. ’Course, the baristas said they’d had about two hundred people in over the course of the morning.”

“And sent it to Sheri’s address that was what? On Bishop’s website?”

“Kayleigh’s own.”

“Sure.”

There was silence for a time.

“Hey, Charlie.” Harutyun nodded to a round, pinkish man, approaching in a jumpsuit. “You know Kathryn Dance, CBI? This’s Charlie Shean, head of our crime scene unit.”

He nodded to her, then, frowning: “That true about P.K.? He’s suspended? And Miguel too?”

“Afraid so.”

“And this stalker fellow’s the one orchestrated it?”

“We don’t know.”

“Bullshit and a half,” Shean muttered. And Dance got the impression that he wasn’t a man who cursed much.

“What’d your folks find, Charlie? Business cards? Phone bills with Edwin’s name on it?” Dennis Harutyun, of the thick mustache and unflappable face, seemed to be loosening up a bit.

“He’s good, whoever he-or she-is. No footprints, tire treads or trace other than the five million bits of trace you’re going to find in a forest. Though we did get a little cigarette ash that’s recent, just past the perimeter of the burn. Analysis’ll take time.”

Dance explained about seeing the person smoking outside her motel room window. “I didn’t catch anything specific, though.” She added, “Edwin did smoke. Still may, but I don’t know for sure.”

The crime scene chief said, “The gun was a nine-like Gabriel’s Glock-but we don’t have any casings or slugs from his so we don’t know if there’s a match. No immediate prints on the casings we found.”

“And I didn’t get any description here either,” Dance muttered. “He was in the shade of the trees.” Stalkers were not only good at disguises; they were good at camouflage too. Anything that helped them observe their target undisturbed and unobtrusively, for as long as possible. “Did Sheri see anything?”

“Haven’t been able to interview her. Smoke inhalation was pretty bad.”

It was then that a vehicle sped up to the scene. Dance instinctively reached for her absent Glock once again. But then saw it was Kayleigh Towne’s dark green SUV, driven expertly by Darthur Morgan. They hadn’t stopped completely before the singer was out of the Suburban and running toward Bishop and Sheri. She bypassed her father completely and bent down and threw her arms around her stepmother. Morgan didn’t seem happy his charge had come to the site of a shootout but Dance supposed that, aside from relations with her father, Kayleigh could be pretty single-minded.

Dance was too far away to hear the conversation but there was no doubt about the messages in the body language: apology, regret and humor.

A heartfelt reconciliation was under way.

Bishop Towne stood and embraced them both.

Family is about love and affection but about friction and separation, too. Yet, with work and luck, the distances-geographic and emotional-can be shrunk, even made to vanish. What struck Dance at the moment was not what she was witnessing in this reunion, but a very different thought: about her and Jon Boling and the children… and what her mother had learned about Boling’s move to San Diego.

Once again, Kayleigh’s lyrics echoed, from the very verse that had inspired the attempt on Sheri Towne’s life.

One night there’s a call, and at first you don’t know

What the troopers are saying from the side of the road,

Then you see in an instant that your whole life has changed.

Everything gone, all the plans rearranged.

Is that what would happen to her? Was everything changed, the life she’d tacitly hoped for, for herself and her children, with Boling?

And where, she thought with some bitterness, is my shadow, someone looking out for me, someone to give me the answers?

Chapter 38

A PLEASANT, IF hot, September evening in Fresno.

It was a quiet time in the Tower District-featuring the famous Art Deco theater, at Olive and Wishon, which boasted an actual, if modest, tower (though the neighborhood had probably been named for another tower some distance away).

Tonight, locals were returning from early suppers at Mexican taquerias or boutiquey cafés or were visiting art galleries, tattoo parlors, discount stores, ethnic bakeries. Maybe headed for the movies or an improv comedy club or community theater. It wasn’t San Francisco but you weren’t in Fresno for art, music or literature. You were here to raise a family and work and you took what culture was offered.

Tonight, teenage boys had come to the District to cruise the streets in their pimped-out Subarus and Saturns, enjoying the last few evenings free from homework.

Tonight, girls had come here to gossip and sneak cigarettes and to look toward, but not at, boys and sit over sodas for hours and talk about clothes and looming classes.

And tonight Kayleigh Towne had come to the District to kill a man.

She’d formulated this plan because of one person: Mary-Gordon Sanchez, the little girl Edwin Sharp had-whatever the police said-kidnapped.

Oh, God, she was furious.

Kayleigh had always looked forward to being a mother but those plans had been delayed by her own father, who felt that a career wasn’t compatible with a home life.

“Hell, KT, you’re a child yourself. Wait a few years. What’s the hurry?”

Kayleigh had gone along but the maternal urge within her only grew.

And to think that Mary-Gordon had been in danger-and might be in the future-well, no, that wasn’t acceptable.

Edwin Sharp was going down.

The sheriff’s office wasn’t going to do it. So Kayleigh would, all by herself.

I’d prefer together, I’d hoped for two not one.

You and me forever, with a daughter and a son.

It was tough that didn’t work out, but now it’s plain to see

When it comes to things that matter, all I really need is me.

With these lyrics, which she’d written years ago, rolling through her mind, Kayleigh Towne climbed out of the Suburban, which Darthur Morgan had parked on Olive Avenue. They were in front of a Victorian-style auditorium. It was Parker Hall, a small theater and lecture venue from the nineteenth century. She noted the brass plaque that read:

KAYLEIGH, OUR HOME “TOWNE” GIRL, GAVE HER FIRST CONCERT HERE.

She’d been thirteen. The “first concert” part was not exactly true-she’d done churches and sporting events since she was nine or ten. But this was, yes, the first performance in a concert hall, though she’d shared the stage with a few other kids from the children’s choir of George Washington Middle School.

“About a half hour,” she told Morgan.

“I’ll be here,” he said. And began immediately to study the street for signs of Edwin Sharp or any other threat.

Kayleigh found the key to the hall and slipped inside the musty place. That afternoon she’d contacted the foundation that owned it and explained that she was thinking about giving a concert there. Could she borrow the key to check the place out? They’d been delighted and she’d had politely to decline the several invitations by the staff to give her a tour of the venue. Her time was so limited, she’d said, that she wasn’t sure when she could get there.

Inside, the murky hall resonated with its own brand of creaks and snaps but this time, unlike at the convention center, she wasn’t made the least uneasy by the atmosphere. She knew where the danger was.

And it wasn’t in the shadows that surrounded her.

Kayleigh headed straight for the loading dock in the back, opened the door and stepped outside, looking over the street, which ran parallel to Olive. A few minutes later she saw the red Buick driven by the man who had killed Bobby and tried to kill Sheri and who had kidnapped Mary-Gordon and Suellyn. He cruised past the theater to the stoplight. One of the sheriff’s deputies was following.

Hell, she hadn’t counted on that.

She couldn’t have the police near when Edwin died. What was she going to do? Give up? She was furious at the thought.

The Buick waited for a light, signaling left.

A block away the deputy, trying to be clever, slowed and turned left, apparently hoping to pick up the Buick after Edwin turned.

She nearly laughed to see Edwin floor the accelerator and speed right into a largely residential neighborhood. He’d eluded the deputy completely.

It was tough that didn’t work out, but now it’s plain to see

When it comes to things that matter, all I really need is me.

Stepping back inside, she opened her purse and slipped on leather gloves, then unfixed the twist ties securing the eight-inch filleting knife to the cardboard backing. She wrapped the blade in a tissue and slipped it into the inner pocket of her denim jacket.

And then she double-no, triple-checked the other thing she’d brought with her.

You still got that present I got you a coupla years ago?

I have all your presents, Daddy…

Kayleigh was now thinking of the song Edwin Sharp had played on the jukebox at the Cowboy Saloon yesterday. “Me, I’m Not a Cowgirl.”

I haven’t got a cowgirl hat to shield me from the sun.

My boots they have high heels. I don’t own a single gun.

For Kayleigh Towne that last sentence was not exactly true.

The present her father had given her was a Colt revolver. He’d bought it for her for protection when she was in her teens. Suellyn was away at college, their mother dead and he was spending insane amounts of time on the road, trying futilely to salvage his career.

She’d fired it a few times but hadn’t liked the recoil or the noise, even with the earmuffs, and she’d thought: What a joke.

The idea of taking a human life was impossible for her to imagine.

And yet two years ago she recalled spotting a coyote, twitchy and probably rabid, in her garden behind the house, hissing and baring yellow teeth.

Kayleigh had matter-of-factly blown the ragged thing away with a single shot to the head.

That’s all Edwin Sharp was to her now.

Not human. A mad coyote.

She tore up and flushed the packaging materials for the knife and the receipt down the toilet in the staff bathroom.

Determined, yes. But nervous as hell.

And where is the fucker? Did he leave?

No, he wouldn’t, of course. Because Kayleigh, the center of his universe, had called him a half hour ago-from a pay phone at the hospital where Sheri had been examined and released. She’d asked to meet him here. The stuffed redwood tree that Edwin and Mary-Gordon had bought for her at the museum had sported a label, on which Edwin had written a phone number. And the words, “Call me.”

She’d nearly thrown it out yesterday but had decided not to-because this plan had begun brewing in her mind the moment she saw his number.

Standing at the grimy window in the service door to the dock, she now wiped her hands on her jeans. Then, finally, Edwin Sharp appeared, walking in that eerie gait of his, not a care in the world. As if the murders and kidnappings were nothing to him.

He made a beeline for the auditorium, carrying his camera with him. He paused and began to take some pictures. If he snapped one of her she’d have to steal his camera and get rid of it.

Remember that.

Kayleigh took a deep breath. Through the thick denim of her jacket, she felt the knife in her inner pocket. Against her belly, the gun.

Not you, not him, not her, not them. In the end we’re all alone

Whatever’s needing to get done, I can do it on my own.

That’s all I need, just me.

Chapter 39

FROM THE WINDOW, she could see the flash from his camera as he took pictures of his shrine. Coming to Fresno, she realized, would be a pilgrimage to Edwin Sharp.

More sweat spreading on hands and forehead, heart pounding in vivace tempo.

Steady girl, you can do this. Think of everybody at risk.

Think of Mary-Gordon, think of Sheri.

He’s a rabid coyote. That’s all he is.

She paused. No, don’t do it. Get the hell out of here! Before you fuck up your life forever.

But Kayleigh Towne decided:

I can do this, I can do this. For my sister, for Mary-Gordon, for anyone else who’d be at risk.

For me.

Your shadow…

She stepped out onto the loading dock and looked toward Edwin. He turned, that skewed smile contorting his face. She gave a cautious nod and looked down at the asphalt, crumbling and cracked and sprouting dry weeds. Another brief nod. As if shy, as if uncertain.

As if innocent.

“Well, lookit this.” He glanced behind her and around. No Darthur Morgan. “You’re alone?”

“Yeah. Only me.”

“Where’s Darthur?”

“Up the street. I gave him the slip.”

He said, “Good.” He looked up at the theater. “You know, I wish that concert of yours’d been recorded… Thirteen years old and you had the whole house in your hand. Nobody cared about the other students. It was just you. Only you, Kayleigh.”

The show had been written up in one of the tiny local papers. He must’ve read about it there.

Edwin followed her inside.

“We’re thinking of filming a concert here.”

“A video. Cool! Excellent. When?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“Like re-creating your first concert? That’d be so neat. You’ll have to do ‘Walking After Midnight.’ Like you opened with back then.”

Jesus. He knew that too?

Edwin studied her again. “Wow, you’re looking spec-tacular today. Your hair… it’s so beautiful. After your voice, your hair’s probably my favorite part about you.”

Kayleigh struggled to remain placid as she recalled his request to send him a lock of her hair. From her pillow would have been best. Oh, Lord…

“I don’t have much time,” she said.

“I know. They’re always watching you.”

They?

He put his hands on his hips and smiled. His jeans were tight. She thought about the incident outside her house, tapping out the music, or doing something else? He peered down at her adoringly from under those overhanging brows.

Kayleigh Towne wondered if she was going to be sick.

“Oh, my God,” he whispered. “Hearing your voice on the phone? It just made my whole day. My whole year! I was sitting at Earl and Marge’s having dinner and feeling kind of bad. Then to hear you. After all these months, finally hearing you.”

“That’s a good diner.”

“The pies looked nice. I like cherry pie, if there’s milk with it. But I cut all that out.” He patted his belly. “Staying trim, you know. Mr. Today. That’s such a great song. I hope it becomes an anthem for women. Don’t settle for abuse, don’t settle for less than you deserve. You know what I mean?”

Of course she did. She’d written the song. It was odd, though, how many fans didn’t get the meaning, as obvious as it was.

“Look at that. An old percolator.” He nodded toward an ancient coffeemaker. “That’s what my mother’d use.”

Her eyes stayed on the canister as she said, “Listen, Edwin, what I wanted to talk to you about. I was pretty upset you picked up my sister and niece.” She’d decided she couldn’t make it sound like he was her new best friend. He’d be suspicious if she was too nice. She looked at him now sternly.

“Oh, that. Sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. I was worried.”

“Worried?”

“About Ritchie.”

“Who’s that?”

“Ritchie Hampton, the guy your father was going to send to pick up Suellyn and Mary-Gordon. You don’t know about his record?”

Record? What was he talking about? “Well… no.”

“Okay, what happened was, I was in a café. Your father and Sheri happened to be there-”

“Happened?” Kayleigh asked suspiciously.

The smile seemed to deepen slightly. “Okay, I’ll admit. I followed them there. I thought they were going to meet you for breakfast. It’s been hard to park out in front of your house. I keep getting hassled by the deputies.”

Well, yeah. He was actually complaining, as if he honestly didn’t get it that somebody might object to his spying? Still, her role required her to say nothing, but just nod sympathetically.

Edwin examined the coffee percolator. Lifted the lid, with a glass dome in the center, and replaced it. “I heard Bishop call Ritchie and ask him to pick up Suellyn and Mary-Gordon. I know your father doesn’t drive anymore, but Sheri could’ve driven him to pick them up. Why couldn’t her grandfather come to pick up that little girl?”

Kayleigh’s very thought at the time. Bishop, though, had been too busy with Congressman Davis.

“But anyway, he asked Ritchie. You know, Ritchie’s had three speeding tickets and one reckless in the last year. License’s been suspended a couple of times. And even your father doesn’t know he was pulled over at a DUI roadblock. He was let go but he’d been drinking.”

Kayleigh stared. How on earth does he know these things?

“Your father was going to have your sister and that precious little niece of yours in the hands of a man who drives that badly? I’m sorry. I couldn’t let that go by. And if I’d come to you or to him and said anything, you’d’ve called the cops, right? And ignored me. I wasn’t going to let anything happen to the people most important to you in the world. I even used my middle name, in case the lawyers or your father had told them to look out for somebody named Edwin.”

Lawyers or father. But not me. He was truly delusional.

“You know, you really come on too strong. Don’t you see that?”

“I guess I get a little carried away.” Was his smile genuine or a leer? She couldn’t tell. Despite the dry heat, Kayleigh Towne shivered. He added, “You’ll feel more comfortable when you get to know me.” Another look at her hair. “I like you alone.”

“What?”

“I mean, instead of at the Cowboy Saloon. All those other people around. Wasn’t natural, you know.”

No, she didn’t know.

“Well,” Kayleigh said uncertainly.

He grew somber. “I’m really sorry about Bobby. I know you guys were close. You went out, right?”

What an actor he was! Sorry? You killed him!

And then she reflected, Wait, how does he know Bobby and I were close?

“Yeah, thanks. He was a good friend.”

“Friend. Yeah.”

“It’s pretty tough.”

“Oh, it’s gotta be.” His face screwed up like a funeral director’s. “I feel so bad for you.”

“And all his other friends and family,” Kayleigh reminded, trying to keep an edge from her voice.

“Sure. Do the police have any leads?”

You prick.

Pull out the gun and blow the motherfucker away. Put the knife in his hand later.

But, no. Be smart.

“I don’t think so.”

“You want to get that iced tea?” he asked. “Your fave?”

She said, “I really can’t. I better get back.”

“I love you, Kayleigh.” He said this casually as if he were saying the earth is round, or the dollar is U.S. currency.

“Well-”

“It’s okay. I know the situation. I’m amazed they let you out on the town by yourself.”

“They?”

“You know who I mean. Everybody… from the song. Everyone wants a piece of your soul.” He was exhaling hard, shaking his head, “I worry about you so much.”

Insane. Pathetic and completely insane.

Now! If you wait any longer you won’t be able to do it.

“Hey, let me give you something.”

“You have something for me?” he asked, surprised.

She stepped forward, smiling, convinced that as she got close she’d be overwhelmed by a repulsive smell but all she could detect was faint deodorant or aftershave. Was it what her father used? Okay. That’s weird.

Kayleigh reached into her jacket and, gripping the knife blade, wrapped in tissue, she slipped the handle into his palm quickly. He instinctively closed his fingers around it. She backed up fast.

“What’s this, a pen?” he asked. Maybe thinking it was something for him to write her letters with.

Then he realized what it was.

Edwin’s smile faded. And he looked up to see the girl of his dreams holding a large revolver pointed at his chest. She pulled the hammer back. It seated with a loud click.

Chapter 40

THE KNIFE DROOPED in his hand, his eyelids and shoulders sagged too. “Kayleigh… no.”

“Don’t move.”

“Oh, Kayleigh.” Smiling again but sorrowfully. “Do you know what kind of trouble you’ll get into, you do this?”

She stayed strong.

“This’d be terrible. So terrible. Don’t do this to yourself. Please! Think of your fans, think of your family.” As if he was genuinely worried for her, not himself. “It’s the first thing the police’ll look for, setting me up. They won’t want to believe you did it, they’ll hope it isn’t true, but the deputies have been there before. It happens all the time. Domestic, stalking… It happens all the time.”

“You killed Bobby!”

Thick brows knit further, making him even more ominous. “I didn’t do that, of course not. And I heard about the attack on Sheri. I’m sure they told you I was behind that too. But I’d never hurt anybody close to you. It’s all lies.”

Shoot him! she told herself. And yet her finger remained outside the trigger guard. The gun wavered for a minute then she thrust it forward. Edwin Sharp didn’t even squint.

“And you kidnapped my sister and niece.”

“Maybe I saved their lives. From Ritchie’s driving, like I told you.”

She looked around but held the gun steady.

“You’re a smart woman, Kayleigh.”

And she had flashback of a recent conversation she’d had with her father, who’d called her a “smart girl.”

“You called me from a pay phone but can anybody place you where you made that call? It’ll be in my cell phone records. That’ll be easy to find… And, I’m sure you used gloves or a paper towel when you were handling this.” A glance at the knife. “And you probably bought it at a store with a self-checkout. But they’ll link it to you, Kayleigh. That’s what they do for a living.”

“Shut up! I’m going to kill you!”

He examined the knife. “It’s new so they’re going to check every store in town that sells this brand. There won’t be that many of them. You’d pay cash but all they have to do is look at the data-mined records of anyone who bought this model knife in the past few days with cash. They’ll figure out the exact store and register fast because you probably only bought this one thing, right? That’s a giveaway. They’ll get a warrant to collect the cash paid into the checkout machine. They’ll fingerprint the bills. And they’ll trace serial numbers of the bills you got from an ATM. That’s all recorded, you know.”

Of course it isn’t!

Is it?

Don’t listen to him. Scream for help then pull the trigger…

“There could even be a video or still picture of the self-serve transaction. It’ll take them all of five minutes to link you to this knife. And meanwhile there’ll be rookies searching the trash around the area here to look for bags and packaging and the receipt.” He glanced toward the toilet, which trickled as it continued to fill. Or the sewer pipes here. They’ll get you in an interrogation room and, Kayleigh, you’re such a good, honest person, you won’t hold up; they’ll have a confession in ten minutes. Madigan won’t want to but he won’t have any choice.” He glanced at her hand. “Can you even carry a concealed gun legally?”

I’ll do it on my own.

Except I can’t.

I’m a fucking coward.

The gun lowered.

“Oh, Kayleigh, they’ve brainwashed you so badly. I’m not the enemy. They’re the enemy. Here, I’m going to set the knife down.” He wiped it on his shirtsleeves, removing his own prints, and then he rested it on the floor. “That way there’ll be no connection between us. You take it and use it or throw it out. This never happened.”

He sounded so sincere. Kayleigh wished Kathryn Dance was here to look at the stalker and nod that he was telling the truth or shake her head that he was lying. He stepped back and she eased forward, picked the knife up and slipped it back into her jacket.

“Think about this, Kayleigh: Sure, you’re being stalked. But not by me. Maybe it’s the reporters and photographers. Maybe it’s your father. He claims he wants what’s best but does he? I’m not so sure. And what about the others? Maybe… I don’t know-Alicia, Tye Slocum-oh, keep an eye on him. I’ve seen how he looks at you. And Barry Zeigler. He’s holding on to you pretty tight. Who else does the label have as big as you? Neil Watson-but come on, he’s like a bad tribute act to himself. And who else is out there watching you, stalking you? Fans and strangers. People who don’t even know your music, but only that you’re beautiful and famous and rich. And they figure, why should you have all those things and not them? They don’t get how hard you work for them, how much you sacrifice.”

She whispered, “Can’t you just leave me alone? Please!”

“Oh, Kayleigh, you don’t want me to leave you alone. You just don’t know it yet.”

Chapter 41

“LEAVING HOME…”

Her hit song about the middle-aged immigrant woman being deported back to Mexico. The lines kept running through Kayleigh’s mind as she packed several suitcases and lugged them downstairs to the living room of her house, where Darthur Morgan took them from her and placed them in the SUV.

Alicia Sessions was there too, helping her with the temporary move in her Ford F150. Kayleigh hadn’t wanted her to go to the trouble but the woman insisted on schlepping guitars, amps and boxes of provisions from Whole Foods-the store where organic-minded Kayleigh shopped, as opposed to Safeway, the source of the staples in the household where she was bound.

“I can really manage.”

“No problem at all,” Alicia said.

“Well, stay for dinner, at least.”

“I’m seeing some friends in town.”

As efficient as she was, as important to the operation, Alicia remained largely a mystery to Kayleigh, the band and crew. She was a loner, who’d lived on the periphery of the professional music scene for years, performing alternative and post-punk in New York and San Francisco, without much success. She’d get her job done for Kayleigh and the business and then disappear in the evenings and on weekends for horseback riding and listening to music. Who the friends she was meeting tonight might be, Kayleigh had no idea. She assumed Alicia was gay. While the singer didn’t care one way or the other, aside from hoping she was in a loving relationship, in the country world the taboos were falling, but slowly; the genre was still the sound track of middle, conservative America. And Kayleigh guessed Alicia wasn’t comfortable bringing up her preferences.

After the SUV and Alicia’s pickup were loaded, Kayleigh turned and looked over the house, as if for the last time.

Leaving home…

She climbed into the driver’s seat of the SUV, Morgan in the passenger for a change, and gunned the engine, then headed down the long drive, Alicia’s truck following.

Expecting to see him, him, in the lot of the park, she rolled fast through the turn onto the road, skidding. Morgan grabbed the handhold and gave a rare smile. Kayleigh glanced around and into the rearview mirror but there were no red cars.

“It’s for the best,” he said.

“I suppose.”

She realized that he was looking at her face closely. “Something happen at the theater?”

“What do you mean?” Kayleigh kept her eyes pointed fiercely straight ahead, avoiding his as if he’d think: Oh, I know. She lured Edwin into that hall to kill him. I recognize that look.

“Just checking to see if everything’s all right,” he said placidly. “You get an odd phone call or run into somebody there?”

“No, everything’s fine.”

Kayleigh reached for the radio but her hand paused then returned to the wheel. They drove all the way to Bishop Towne’s house in complete silence.

She parked in the drive and Morgan helped Alicia carry the boxes, musical equipment and suitcases to the porch, then the guard strode into the night to check out the perimeter. The two women went inside.

The small ground floor might have been an exhibit in a wing of the Grand Ole Opry. There were pictures and reviews and album covers-mostly of Bishop Towne and his band, of course. Some were photos of women singers whom Bishop had had affairs with long ago-and whose albums had been nailed up only after Wives Two through Four appeared. Unlike Margaret, they wouldn’t have known about the earlier indiscretions and would have assumed the women were professional associates only.

But there were also a lot of pictures of Bishop and Margaret. He’d never taken those down, whatever the Later Wives’ jealous concerns might have been.

Mary-Gordon came running up to Kayleigh and flew into her arms. “Aunt Kayleigh! Yay! You’ve gotta come look. We’re doing a puzzle! I rode Freddie today. I wore my helmet, like you always say.”

Kayleigh slipped to her knees for a proper hug, then rose and embraced her sister. Suellyn asked, “How you doing, K?”

The singer thought: Considering I could be in jail for murder, not bad. “Hanging in there.”

Kayleigh introduced her and Mary-Gordon to Alicia, who smiled and shook their hands.

“Wow,” the girl whispered, looking at Alicia’s tattoos. “Those are neat!”

“Uh-oh,” Suellyn said. “I see trouble.” The women laughed.

Kayleigh greeted her father and Sheri, whose voice was still ragged from the smoke. Oddly, she now sounded much like her husband. Her skin seemed pale, though that might have been only because she was wearing none of the makeup she usually applied in swaths.

Kayleigh’s attitude toward her stepmother had changed 180 degrees since the attack, and she regretted her pettiness toward the woman. She now hugged Sheri, in whose eyes tears appeared at the display of affection.

Alicia gave Bishop and Sheri some details of the ad plans for the upcoming Canadian tour and then she glanced at her watch and headed off.

“Better you’re here,” Bishop said to Kayleigh. “I told you, you should’ve come. Right at the beginning, I told you. Sheri’s got the room made up. For that guard too. Where is he?”

Kayleigh explained that Morgan had remained outside to check the property. He’d be in, in a moment.

“I did a picture for your room, Aunt Kayleigh. I’ll show you.”

Mary-Gordon gripped the handle of one of the wheelie suitcases and sped off down the hallway. Kayleigh and her sister smiled.

“In here! Here it is, Aunt Kayleigh!”

She’d seen this guest room before and it had been functional, stark. Now the bed had new blue gingham linens, frilly pillow cases, matching towels, candles, some cheap decorations from Michaels craft store, like geese in bonnets, and framed pictures of young Kayleigh and her family-photos that had been in shoe boxes when last seen, before Sheri. It was really a very comfortable space.

She’d be sure to thank her stepmother-who, of course, had done all this work while injured.

Kayleigh admired Mary-Gordon’s picture of the pony and set it prominently on the bedside table. “Can we go riding tomorrow?”

“We’ll have to see, Mary-Gordon. It’s a busy time. But we’ll have breakfast together.”

“Grandma Sheri and Mommy made pancakes. They were pretty good. Not the best but pretty good.”

Kayleigh laughed and watched the little girl help unpack the suitcases and, with an expectant gaze toward Kayleigh, put away each article of clothing or toiletry where directed. As the girl made decisions about how to stow everything, she was absorbed and seemed to get huge pleasure from the simple tasks.

A tap in Kayleigh’s mind, like a finger flicking a crystal glass. An idea for a song. “I Could Learn a Lot From You.” A parent to a child. How the mother or father has gotten some things wrong in life and it’s the child who rearranges the adult’s perspective. It would have a twist. The first three verses would make listeners believe that the child was singing to the parent; only in the last would it be revealed that the parent was narrating the story. A melody came almost immediately. She sat down and wrote out the words and music on improvised staff paper.

“What’re you doing, Aunt Kayleigh?”

“Writing a song. You inspired me.”

“What’s ‘inspired’?”

“I wrote it for you.”

“Oh, sing it to me!”

“It’s not finished but here’s part of it.” She sang and the girl stared raptly at her.

“That’s a very good song,” Mary-Gordon announced with a furrowed brow as if she were the artists and repertoire director of a major label, passing judgment on a young songwriter’s submission.

Kayleigh continued to unpack, pausing momentarily to look at a picture of the family from fifteen or so years ago: Bishop, Margaret, Suellyn and Kayleigh on the porch of the old family house in the hills an hour north of here.

I’ve lived in LA, I’ve lived in Maine,

New York City and the Midwest Plains,

But there’s only one place I consider home.

When I was a kid-the house we owned.

The girl turned her bright blue eyes toward the singer. “Are you crying, Aunt Kayleigh?”

The singer blinked. “Well, a little, Mary-Gordon, but you know sometimes people cry because they’re happy.”

“I didn’t know that. I don’t think I do.”

“Not everybody.”

“Where does this go?” she asked, picking up a pair of jeans. And placed them carefully in the drawer at which Kayleigh pointed.

“TIDE’S TURNED.”

Dance heard the man’s voice behind her in the lobby of her hotel. She wasn’t alarmed. She knew his voice by now.

Though for a moment she didn’t recognize P. K. Madigan. He was wearing civvies-blue jeans, a plaid shirt, cowboy boots and a tan cap embroidered on the crest with a hooked fish flying out of the water.

“Chief.”

She was headed out-on her way to Bishop’s house to continue the interviews of Kayleigh’s family-but she diverted and walked up to him. She glanced into the bar. She almost asked, “You want some ice cream?” but decided: “Coffee? Soda?”

“Naw,” the big man said. “See you’re on your way out. Had to stop by and talk to you.”

“Sure.” Dance noted his slumped posture, very different from the in-your-face pose when she’d met him at the scene of Bobby’s death.

“Here’s the thing. Anita’s playing it by the rules. Nobody in the division can talk to me-for their sake too. I’m cut out completely. And you’re in charge now.”

Ah, the meaning of the turned tide, she realized.

“Not exactly in charge.”

“More than anybody else. Damn. Wish I’d listened to you back in that interrogation room and let that son of a bitch go then.”

Her heart went out to the detective. He seemed lost.

“I asked the sheriff if I could consult or anything. But she said no. It’d look bad. Might prejudice the case.” He gave a laugh, harsh and cold. “Didn’t know whether she meant the case against the killer or the case against me. So, I’m sidelined.”

“I’m sorry it worked out that way.”

He waved his hand. “Nobody to blame but myself. I feel worse for Miguel. He’s got a wife doesn’t work and three kids. Won’t have any savings.” He was awkward now. “I’ve got to stay off the radar, Kathryn, but I’m just wondering, is there anything I can do?”

“I don’t know, Chief. I’m interviewing, Charlie’s working on the evidence, Dennis is still looking into if anybody else has a motive to kill Bobby and the others.”

“Yeah, sure. I understand.”

“You could just take some time off, get some fishing in.”

“Funny about that,” Madigan said. “Yeah, I like it. Been going out every weekend for years. But fact is I spend more time thinking about cases than I do about the fish.”

“You get some good ideas, floating around?”

“Oh, you bet I do.” A grim smile. “But the thing is, until now, I’d get outa the boat, put my uniform back on and do something about it.”

“Sorry, Chief.”

“Got it. That’s okay. Just thought I’d ask.”

He was halfway to the door, when Dance called, “Chief, wait.”

Madigan turned and she said, “There is one thing, I’m thinking. Nobody’d have to know. But it’s not the… well, most pleasant job in the world.”

A fraction of a smile. “Well, all righty then. Let’s get to it.”

Chapter 42

IT WAS ABOUT eight-thirty in the evening when Kathryn Dance got to Bishop Towne’s house.

She greeted Kayleigh and the family, who flocked around her and thanked her for saving Sheri’s life. Damp-eyed, hoarse, the stepmother hugged Dance hard and bled gratitude.

Bishop offered his thanks too and then asked, “That sheriff, or deputy, Madigan? He got suspended?”

“That’s right. Two other deputies too.”

“That son of a bitch!”

“Daddy,” Suellyn warned. But Mary-Gordon was in the kitchen and out of hearing.

“Well, he is. And M-G’s going to learn words like that sooner or later.”

“It’s going to be later,” Kayleigh snapped.

Dance now explained, “We’re not making any progress putting together a case against Edwin. He’s either innocent or very, very smart. We don’t have any leads at all. I’d like to get a few more details from Sheri and”-with a glance at Suellyn-“from you and your daughter about when he picked you up at the airport.”

She was hoping to find something that she could use to infer threatening behavior, which would, in turn, justify an arrest for stalking. That would give her access to Edwin-with his lawyer’s approval-and she hoped to conduct a full kinesic analysis.

“At the least it could help get a restraining order. To keep him at a distance.”

“Oh, I’d love that,” Kayleigh said.

Dance noted she’d been crying recently. Because of Bobby? Today’s attack or some other reason?

Bishop escorted her to a small, dimly lit den, which smelled of pipe smoke and pine. Sheri and Mary-Gordon, her blue eyes sparkling, brought in cookies and a pot of coffee. The little girl’s golden hair was tied back in a ponytail, the way Dance’s daughter, Maggie, would often wear it, and for some reason Dance thought: How on earth am I going to tell Maggie and Wes that Jon Boling is moving?

But then Sheri ushered the girl from the room and sat down across from Dance, who forced aside her personal thoughts and began the interview.

Which, however, proved to be singularly unsuccessful. The woman could provide no more information about the attacker. She’d seen flashes of gunshots, and that was all. Not even an outline of the assailant.

Dance then met with Suellyn Sanchez. The matter-of-fact woman tried hard to recall something helpful but she confessed to Dance that she was still astonished that Edwin was the suspect. “He was just so nice and easygoing. And it sounded like he knew Kayleigh so well, they had to be friends.”

“And there wasn’t anything he said that could be taken in any way as threatening?”

When the sister hesitated, Dance said, “You’d have to testify to it. Under oath.”

The woman got it, deciding not to tell the lie she’d been about to. “No, nothing at all. Just the opposite. He sounded so protective. I actually felt good that somebody was looking out for her.”

Your shadow…

Strike one.

Next Mary-Gordon joined them. Dance showed her pictures of her own children and the dogs. The agent sipped her coffee and ate the cookies and chatted with the little girl, who meticulously set her place for her own cookie and milk and ate precisely.

With children, deception isn’t uncommon, of course; kids lie about as frequently as adults but their motives are clearer: missing candy, broken lamps. But the main problem with children as witnesses is that they don’t know how to characterize what they observe. Behaviors that seem suspicious to them might not be; and they’ll often miss the most egregious crimes because they don’t know they’re crimes.

Dance slowly shifted the conversation to the drive from the airport. But this talk too was futile. All the little girl remembered was a nice man who told her lots of neat things about the area and really liked her aunt. Her bright blue eyes sparkled as she talked about “Stan,” Edwin Sharp’s pseudonym.

She liked it that he was so helpful in picking out a present for Kayleigh. “He wanted me to get something she’d like. It was really neat! A stuffed tree.”

“Thank you, Mary-Gordon,” Dance said.

“You’re welcome. Will we see that man again, Mr. Stan? I liked him.”

“I don’t know, honey.”

“You can take a cookie with you, if you want. Or two.”

“I think I’ll do that.” Dance wrapped them up in a pink napkin. They were really good.

As they left the den, Suellyn said, “Not much to use, right?”

“Don’t think so but appreciate the help.”

After knocking and being waved in by Sheri, Darthur Morgan walked inside, his own bag in one hand and two books in the other. Mary-Gordon took his suitcase.

“No-”

“I’ll show you your room, Mr. Morgan.”

“You don’t have to get-”

“I’ll take it,” the little girl said and charged off, drawing a look of amused confusion from the huge man.

Dance said goodnight to Bishop and Sheri and then stepped outside. She found Kayleigh on the front porch swing. The two women were alone. Dance sat on a creaking rattan chair next to the swing. The singer lifted her hands, indicating her father’s house. “Look at this,” she said with an edge to her voice. “Look what’s happened. People’re dead, lives’re ruined. I’m hiding out with my father, for God’s sake. My life’s a mess. And we don’t even know for sure he’s behind it. He is, don’t you think?”

Dance sensed that something had happened recently, something Kayleigh did not want to share. She knew Kayleigh’s baseline behavior pretty well and there were now deviations in her eye contact and shoulder position. It would have to do with something internal-thoughts she was having, memories that she didn’t want to share with Dance, something she’d done wrong. And recently.

“I honestly don’t know. We always build cases slowly but generally there’s some definite evidence or clear witness testimony to tell us we’re headed in the right direction, at least. With Edwin, it’s all ambiguous.”

Kayleigh lowered her voice. “It’s all too much, Kathryn. I’m really thinking of canceling the show on Friday. My heart is totally not in it.”

“And your father’s okay with it?” Dance asked, because she’d noted the swivel of her eyes toward Bishop Towne and the decrease in volume when she used the word “canceling.”

“Yes,” she said, but uncertainly. “He seems to agree but then he goes on like I never mentioned anything. ‘Sure, I understand. But if you don’t cancel, when you play “Drifting,” I think you should modulate up to D for the third and fourth verses.’”

She waved her hand, indicating where they sat. “Remember what I was telling you after you recorded the group at Villalobos’s? This is all the stage I’d like, my front porch. Cook big dinners, get fat. Play for the kids and family, have a bunch of Mary-Gordons and Henrys. Don’t know why I picked that name. I don’t know a single Henry in the world.”

“You could have a family and still be a pro.”

“I don’t see how. That kind of life takes its toll.”

“Loretta Lynn did it.”

“Nobody’s Loretta Lynn. She’s one of a kind.”

Dance had to agree.

And yet despite Kayleigh Towne’s protests, she suddenly dug into her pocket and pulled out a pen and small pad of lined paper and jotted words and musical notes.

“A song?”

“‘Just can’t stop.’”

“You have to write your songs, you mean?”

Kayleigh laughed. “Well, that’s true. But what I mean is, that’s a line that just occurred to me. ‘Just can’t stop… spending hours… with you.’ First it was ‘spending time with you,’ but it needed the other syllable in ‘hours.’ I’ll write it up tonight.”

“The whole song?”

“Hank Williams said any song that takes more than twenty minutes to write isn’t going to be any good. Sometimes it takes me a day or two but for that one, it’s pretty much done.”

She hummed a very hummable few bars.

“You record it, I’ll buy it,” Dance said. “You…” Her voice faded as lights appeared through the trees. A car was approaching slowly.

Kayleigh stiffened. She whispered, “It can’t be him. I mean, it can’t. We weren’t followed. I’m sure not. And when we left, Edwin wasn’t at my place. He doesn’t even know I’m not there.”

Though Dance wasn’t so sure about that. It made sense for her to come here largely so she wouldn’t be alone-Bishop always had plenty of his crew around. And they could hope Edwin wouldn’t figure it out but he’d proved persistent, to say the least, when it came to finding Kayleigh’s whereabouts.

The lights seemed to stop, then continue on as if the driver wasn’t sure of the route.

Or didn’t want to be seen.

“Should we get Darthur?” Kayleigh asked.

Not a bad idea, Dance decided.

But before she rose to summon the guard, twin lights crested a hump in the drive and the car they were attached to stopped.

Kayleigh froze-literally in the headlights.

Dance eyed the vehicle carefully but it was impossible to see anything specific.

What was the driver doing?

Was it Edwin? Was he going to jam the accelerator to the floor and crash into the house, in a bid to kill Kayleigh and then take his own life?

Dance stood up and pulled Kayleigh to her feet.

Just as the car bucked and started forward.

Chapter 43

BUT THE VEHICLE turned out to be a very unthreatening-and slow moving-powder blue Ford Taurus.

And one did not need to be a kinesics expert to note the sea change in Kayleigh’s body language when she saw the driver.

“Oh, it’s Barry!” she cried, offering a smile.

A very tall man, lanky and long-faced handsome, was climbing out. He had a shock of black curly hair and round glasses. Kayleigh ran down the stairs and embraced him hard.

She said, “I didn’t expect you for a couple of days.”

Glancing once toward Dance, Zeigler said, “Really? I called Bishop earlier and told him I was driving in tonight.”

“Oh, that man,” Kayleigh muttered. “Never said a word.”

“I was in Carmel seeing Neil. I got your message about Bobby. Terrible. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s the worst, Barry.” Kayleigh turned to Dance and introduced them. Zeigler, Kayleigh’s producer at her record label, was based in Los Angeles. Dance realized he looked familiar and recalled, at Kayleigh’s house, seeing him in a half dozen framed pictures with the singer going back years. In one they both held a Recording Industry Association of America platinum record award, signifying that she’d sold more than a million of one of her songs or albums.

In jeans, a white T-shirt and dark jacket, Zeigler seemed a bit nineties to Dance but it was a reasonable look for a record producer from any decade. Except for a touch of gray and only at the temples, he didn’t look any different from the man in those photographs.

“And Sheri was attacked too?”

“She was hurt but she’ll be all right.”

“Do you have any leads?” he asked Dance. “Is it that guy Sharp?”

Kayleigh nodded and explained, “Barry knows all about our friend. Edwin’s sent plenty of letters to the label, complaining about production standards, orchestration, technical quality.”

“Pain in the ass,” Zeigler grumbled.

The law enforcement disclaimer: “We’re just gathering information at this point. But tell me, did he ever threaten you or anyone?”

“Like physically?”

“Yes,” Dance replied.

Zeigler shook his head. “He’s been more insulting. I mean, BHRC’s the third oldest record company in L.A. We’ve been producing Kayleigh for six years. She’s had eight gold and four platinums. We must be doing something right. But not according to Sharp. Just last week he sent us a two-page email about the acoustic dynamics on the download of ‘Your Shadow.’ He said it was off in the high ranges. Why was Delmore playing Dobro and not pedal steel?… He said, ‘Kayleigh deserves better than this.’ And then he said we should issue her on vinyl. He’s an analog hound.”

But Dance didn’t think comments about acoustic tonal quality, however harsh, rose to the level of threat under California Penal Code section 646.9.

Zeigler said to Kayleigh, “Bobby was the greatest guy in the world. I can’t believe somebody’d hurt him on purpose. And to die that way. You must be…” Then he grew silent, apparently deciding he shouldn’t be further revisiting the horror.

“Aaron and Steve said if there’s anything anybody at the label can do, you let us know. You’ve got the whole company behind you.”

“Barry, I think he’s going to keep doing this. He picks verses of my songs and plays them and then kills somebody or tries to.”

“That’s what Bishop was telling me.” The producer turned to Dance. “Can’t you arrest him?”

She demurred but Kayleigh said, “He’s too smart. They haven’t been able to find anything he’s done that quite breaks the law. Oh, this is just terrible.” The anger was gone and her eyes welled with tears. Then she tamed the emotion and the same stillness came over her as it did onstage.

Control…

Zeigler’s voice dimmed as he said to Kayleigh, “I want to say hi to Bishop and Sheri. But could I talk to you for a minute? Alone?”

“Sure.” To Dance she said, “Be right back.”

The two rose and walked into the living room, the producer ducking automatically as they approached the doorway arch. He had to be six feet, seven inches tall, Dance estimated.

She gave it a minute, then rose quietly and moved to the swing Kayleigh had just occupied, which was next to a half-opened window. From there she could hear their conversation. Whatever Zeigler was going to tell Kayleigh might have something to do with the case, even if neither of them realized it, provided she could make out the conversation.

As it turned out, their words were plenty loud enough to hear. Dance remembered that her children, when younger, believed that if they couldn’t see their parents, they were invisible and produced no sound whatsoever.

“Look, this is a terrible time to bring this up. But I… I’m sorry, I have to ask.”

“What, Barry? Tell me. Come on. I’ll worm it out of you. You know I can.”

“Are you talking to JBT Global?”

“What?”

“JBT Global Entertainment. The three-sixty outfit.”

“I know who they are. And no, I’m not talking to them. Why are you asking?”

Zeigler was explaining how a friend of a friend of a friend in the complicated world that’s entertainment had told him that Global really wanted to sign her.

“You were in discussions, I’d heard.”

“Barry, we get calls all the time. Live Nation, Global… I don’t pay attention to them. You know I’d never leave you guys. You’re the ones who made me. Hey, what’s this all about?”

It was odd to hear someone half the age of the producer talking to him as if he were a child with troubles at school.

“I told you I was in Carmel?”

“Seeing Neil, you said.”

Neil Watson, one of the superstars of the pop music world of the past twenty years.

“Yeah, to get fired.”

“No!”

“He’s going with… get this, SAV-More. Yep, the big box store, like Target and Wal-Mart. They’re producing him and backing his road shows.”

“I’m sorry about that, Barry. But I’m not talking to Global. Really.”

Dance’s website flew below the radar of the big business of music but she was aware of what Barry Zeigler was talking about: a complete shift in how people got that most addictive of drugs, music.

Before the nineteenth century, music was something that one generally experienced live-at concerts, opera, dance halls, bars. In the 1800s, the powerhouses of the Industry became the publishers of sheet music, which people would buy and bring home to play themselves, on the piano mostly. Then, thank you, Mr. Edison, wax cylinders came about, played on phonographs. A needle in an etched groove of the cylinder vibrated and reproduced sound through a flower-petal-like speaker. You could actually listen to music in your home, anytime you wanted!

The cylinders became disks, to be played on various wind-up machines-phonographs, gramophones (originally an Edison phonograph competitor), Victor Talking Machines, Victrolas and others. Soon the devices were powered by electricity, and in the late 1930s the miracle substance of vinyl became the standard for the records, which were differentiated by the speed at which the turntable revolved: originally 78 rpms, then 45 for singles and 33¹/₃ for long-playing, or LPs.

Later in the twentieth century, tape became popular-sound-faithful but inconvenient reel-to-reel models, followed by cassettes, perpetually looping eight-tracks, and then CDs, optical compact discs.

And though the media changed over the years, people could be counted on to spend millions and millions of dollars to bring music into their homes and cars. Artists often performed, of course, but concerts were mostly a form of promotion to sell the albums. Some artists never set foot on a stage and still grew rich from their music.

But then something happened.

Computers.

On which you could download and listen to any song or piece of music ever recorded.

In the new world order, disks and tapes weren’t needed and the record labels, which made fortunes-for themselves and artists-by producing, pressing and distributing albums weren’t as important either.

No longer did you have to buy a whole album; if you liked only two or three songs on it (and wasn’t that always the case?), you could pick what you wanted. It’s a mixed-tape universe nowadays, thanks to dirt-cheap download and streaming companies like Napster, Amazon, iTunes and Rhapsody and other services-and satellite radio-that let you listen to millions of tunes for a few dollars a month.

And you could even have most of your heart’s desires for free: with music, as with so many other creative arts in recent years, a sense of entitlement has grown pervasive. The little inconvenience of the copyright law shouldn’t stop you from getting what you want. YouTube, the Pirate Bay, BitTorrent, LimeWire and dozens of illegal file-sharing arrangements make virtually any song available free as air.

Record companies used to sue file shares-winning judgments of hundreds of thousands of dollars against broke college kids and housewives, and earning a public relations black eye in the process. Now, they’ve largely given up their police work.

And presently many artists were giving up too-or, more cleverly, were recognizing the value of offering some content at no charge to the public under the open source model. The theory is that free music downloads can generate new fans who will buy future albums and attend concerts, where all the money is being made.

All of which renders the traditional record stores and labels relics of the past.

People like Barry Zeigler are still needed as producers but as for-fee technicians only. With revenues from downloads tumbling, it’s hard for some of them even to make a living at their craft.

Dance had heard of JBT Global Entertainment-it was a competitor of Live Nation, which owned entertainment arenas and concert halls and Ticketmaster and had contracts with many rock, pop, rap and country superstars. These companies were typical of the 360 model, as in degrees. Global covered all aspects of a musician’s professional life-producing the albums, pressing the few CDs that were still sold, cutting deals with download services and big corporations for exclusive promotions and-most important-booking musicians into live performances and arranging lucrative deals for movie sound tracks and advertising, known as synchronization.

Ironically, the music world has come full circle in a mere two hundred years: from live performances prior to the nineteenth century to live performances in the twenty-first.

Barry Zeigler’s world was vanishing fast and Dance understood his desperate concern that Kayleigh might leave him.

The drama of the music Industry was, of course, important to Zeigler and the singer. But the subject had virtually vanished from Dance’s mind now that she knew the private conversation had nothing to do with the Edwin Sharp case. Dance gave up her eavesdropping and collected her purse from inside, deciding she wanted to get back to the motel. As she waited on the porch for Kayleigh to return, she looked out over the darkening pine grove surrounding Bishop’s house.

She was concentrating once more on how best to find a killer as invisible as a snake, who could be stalking them anywhere-even from the thousands of shadows surrounding the house at that very moment.

Chapter 44

AN HOUR LATER Kathryn Dance was doing some stalking herself.

She’d returned to the Mountain View, where she’d called her mother-the kids had gone to bed. Dance had dialed the number with some uneasiness, afraid she’d learn something more about Jon Boling’s impending departure. But Edie Dance said nothing further on the subject, explaining that the children were doing well and Stuart, Dance’s father, had her house ready for the guests and the party planned for this weekend.

After disconnecting, she debated calling Boling. Then decided not to.

Partly because she was a coward, she chided herself. But she also had work to do.

Stalking…

She turned on the TV, a commercial network with a lot of commercials, so the many random flickers from the screen on the window shade would suggest someone was inside. She pulled on the only night-op camouflage she had: a navy sport coat, black jeans and a burgundy T-shirt. The outfit would have to do. For shoes, Aldo pumps; she had no tactical boots.

Finally ready, Dance slipped outside and stepped into the parking lot.

Her mission was to find out who might be the person with the bad habits of nicotine and, possibly, espionage. She’d just seen the glow of the cigarette again, in nearly the same place that she’d seen it earlier, in the park across the road. The smoker was still there.

She glanced out from behind a Caravan filled with dog show paraphernalia and a bumper sticker bragging that the driver was the proud owner of a German shepherd smarter than your honor student.

Dance focused again on the tiny orange glow in a recess between two thick stands of pine.

Was the cigarette just a coincidence? Dance might have thought so except for the fact that Sheri Towne’s attacker had possibly been smoking. And that Edwin might still have the habit.

In any event, she wanted to get a glimpse of the person. If it was a teenage boy sharing a cigarette-or a joint-with his buddies, that would be that. If it was Edwin Sharp-or someone else she might have come in contact with recently-that would be a different matter.

Dance waited until a car entered the lot and drove past her, parking at the entrance. Then she stepped out of the shadows and made her way to the four-lane road and hurried across.

Very aware of the lightness on her hip where her pistol normally was, she circled wide and entered the park through one of the half dozen gaps in a rusty chain link fence.

She stayed close to the trees-the path through the playground would have offered a good view of her approach in the cool moonlight. She waved away lethargic but persistent late summer insects, and bats dipped close, dining on them. Keeping her eyes down to spot noisy vegetation and food wrappers, she moved forward steadily but slowed as she approached the cul-de-sac where the spy, or an innocent citizen, was ruining his health.

Twenty feet farther on she smelled cigarette smoke.

And she slowed even more, crouching.

She couldn’t see him yet but noted that the place where he was sitting seemed to be a picnic area; there were several tables nearby, all of them chained to thick concrete posts in the ground. Was table theft from public facilities a big problem in Fresno?

She moved closer yet, one careful step at a time.

The orange glow was evident but thick pine boughs completely obscured her view of the smoker, about twenty feet away.

She reached out and gripped the bough, moving it aside.

Squinting…

Oh, no! Dance gasped.

The lit cigarette was stuck into a fork of a sapling near a picnic table.

That meant only one thing: Edwin or whoever it might be had seen her leave the motel and drawn her into a trap.

She spun around but saw no attacker. She dropped to her knees fast, remembering that his weapon of choice was a pistol, probably Gabe Fuentes’s stolen Glock. She wasn’t much of a target in the moonlight but you can spray ten or twelve rounds very quickly with a weapon like that and all you needed to do was point in the general direction of your victim.

Still no sign of him.

Where could he be?

Or had he lured her here to get into her room, steal her computer and notes?

No. He’d be coming after her.

She couldn’t wait any longer. She rose and turned, feeling a painful tickle of panic on her back, as if he were actually rubbing the muzzle of the gun along her spine.

But instead of returning in the same direction she’d come, she decided to head directly for the motel. This route was closer, though it required her to vault the six-foot fence. Still, she felt she had no choice, and she headed that way now, turning away from the lone cigarette and moving as fast as she could, keeping low, toward the road.

Thinking about getting across those four lanes, which would expose her to-

It was then that he sprang the trap.

Or rather she sprang it herself, tripping over the fishing line-or maybe guitar string-he’d strung across the route he’d anticipated she would take back. She fell hard, slamming into the packed dirt; there were none of the many pine needle beds here, which would have broken her fall. She lay gasping, breath knocked from her lungs.

Damn, oh, goddamn. That hurts! Can’t breathe…

She heard footsteps, not far away, moving in.

Closer, closer.

She desperately tried to scramble toward the road, where at least a car might be driving past, discouraging him from shooting.

But the asphalt was at least forty or fifty feet away, through the woods.

She tried to rise but couldn’t; there was no air in her chest.

Then through the still, humid night she heard behind her, the double snap of an automatic pistol’s slide, back and forward, chambering a round.

Chapter 45

KATHRYN DANCE TRIED once more to get to cover.

But there was no cover, nothing here but skinny pine trees and anemic brush.

Then a firm voice, a man’s from not far away, called in a sharp whisper, “Kathryn!”

She glanced about but could see no one.

Then the speaker called, “You, by the gym set. I have a weapon. I’m a county deputy. Do not move!”

Dance tried to see who this was. She couldn’t spot her attacker either.

There was an eternal pause and then from behind her she heard fleeing footsteps as the attacker escaped.

Then her rescuer was running too, in pursuit. Dance rose unsteadily, trying-still largely unsuccessfully-to breathe. Who was it? Harutyun?

She expected to hear gunshots but there was none, only the sounds of returning footfalls and a man saying in a whisper, “Kathryn, where are you?” The voice was familiar.

“Here.”

He approached. Finally she sucked in a solid breath and wiped tears of pain from her eyes. She blinked in surprise.

Walking through the woods, holstering his weapon, was Michael O’Neil.

She barked a laugh, which contained part relief, part joy and a dash of hysteria.

THEY SAT IN the bar, drinking Sonoma Cabernets.

Dance asked, “That was your car? That I saw pulling in fifteen minutes ago?”

“Yeah. I saw you crossing the street. You looked… furtive.”

“I was trying. Not furtive enough.”

“So I followed.”

She lowered her head to his broad shoulder. “Oh, Michael, I never thought it’d be a trap.”

“Who was it, Edwin?”

“Probably. Yes, no. We just don’t know. What did you see?”

“Nothing. A shadow.”

She gave a faint laugh at the word, sipped her wine. “That’s the theme of the case: shadows.”

“He’s still using that song you told me about?”

“Right.”

She gave him an update of what had happened so far, including how the information on the website he’d found from the file sharer’s partner in Salinas had let them save the life of Kayleigh’s stepmother.

“So he’s targeting family?” O’Neil, as a Major Crimes detective, had some experience with stalker cases too. “That’s rare.”

“Yes, it is.” She added, “There’s one verse of ‘Your Shadow’ left. But Kayleigh’s written a lot of songs. She’s convinced he’s using fire because of her hit ‘Fire and Flame.’ Who knows what else he could decide to do? Each verse in ‘Shadow’ has a theme but they’re also pretty vague so we can’t figure out just who he’s going to target next.”

“How does the last verse go?”

Dance recited it.

You can’t keep down smiles; happiness floats.

But trouble can find us in the heart of our homes.

Life never seems to go quite right,

You can’t watch your back from morning to night.

“Maybe it’s a love song but it’s plenty creepy to me. And, right, it doesn’t exactly give GPS coordinates about where he’s going to attack.”

“So,” Dance asked, looking him over, “you just jumped in the car and drove three and a half hours after supper?”

O’Neil was not big on eye contact even with those close to him and he examined the bar and the ruby-colored ellipse of the light refracted through his wineglass. “With that fellow in Salinas, there was a Monterey connection. It made sense I come on over here.”

She wondered if he’d have made the journey because he’d learned Jon Boling wasn’t here.

The detective continued, “And I figured I should bring you a present. The sort I couldn’t send FedEx. TJ said you came here unarmed. I checked out a Glock for you from CBI. Does Overby always insist on filling out so many forms?”

Yes, the head of her office would be worried that protocol involving firearms might end up with bad publicity for the Bureau. Well, for him.

“Charles is a triplicate kind of guy,” she said, smiling and adjusting her position on the seat as some pain from the tumble shot through her side.

He reached into his computer bag and handed her a black plastic gun case. “Fifty rounds. If you need more than that, well, we’re all in trouble.”

She took his arm, squeezed it. Wanted to rest her head against his shoulder again but refrained. “This was a vacation. That’s all it was.”

Just then Dennis Harutyun walked into the bar and Dance introduced them-though the local deputy remembered O’Neil from the Skype conference call. It was midnight but the detective looked as fresh as if it were the start of his daily tour, uniform shirt perfectly pressed. He said to Dance, “Charlie’s folks’ve been through the park. Nothing other than the cigarette and the fishing line used as a trip wire. We’ll send the cigarette in for DNA but there probably isn’t any. If he was smart, which he seems to be, he just lit the end, probably wore gloves. The line is nylon, the sort you’d buy in any one of a hundred sports or big box stores.”

O’Neil reported what he’d seen, which was very little. Dance had heard the weapon’s receiver but neither of them had actually seen a gun, much less the attacker himself.

The Monterey detective said, “Could be the weapon he stole from that deputy of yours, the one who’s out of commission now?”

“Yeah, could be. Oh, and it gets worse. You tell him?” Harutyun asked Dance, who said, “No.”

“The head of the detectives here and another officer were a little casual in a search and seizure. Edwin filed DOJ complaint and they’re suspended too.”

“Hell,” O’Neil muttered. “Pike Madigan?”

“That’s right. You saw him in our Skype conference.”

Dance glanced out the window and noted a few cars slowing as they drove past the now brightly lit park, filled with crime scene officers and uniformed deputies, flashing lights from cruisers. Dance wouldn’t have been surprised to see the big red Buick. But of course she didn’t.

“I think I better get some sleep.” A glance toward O’Neil. “You must be tired too.”

“Haven’t checked in yet either.”

No, he came to rescue me…

As Dance signed the drinks to her room, her mobile dinged with an incoming text. She’d turned it back on after her disastrous mission into the park.

“What is it?” Michael O’Neil asked, noting she was frozen, staring at the screen.

“It’s a text.” She barked a laugh. “From Edwin Sharp.”

“What?”

“He’d like to see me.”

“Why?”

“To talk, he says. He wants to meet me at the sheriff’s office.” Her eyes rose and she glanced at O’Neil and then Harutyun. “He also asked if I had a pleasant night.”

Harutyun exhaled in surprise. “That man is something else.”

She texted back that she’d meet him at nine.

He replied: Good. Look forward to spending some alone time with you, Agent Dance.