XO

Chapter 61

“GRACIAS, SEÑORA DANCE.”

“De nada.”

In the garage of Jose Villalobos, Dance clicked off the digital recorder and began to pack away the cables and the microphones. She’d spent the day not as a law enforcement agent but as a recording engineer and producer, and Los Trabajadores had just finished the last tune-a son huasteco, in the traditional style of music from northeastern Mexico, featuring a resonant eight-stringed instrument like a guitar, a jarana, and a fiddle. The violinist, a wiry forty-year-old originally from Juarez, had played up a storm, even slipping into Stéphane Grappelli Hot Club de France improvs.

Dance had been delighted at the bizarre, captivating journey of the music and had to force herself to keep from clapping time to the speedy, infectious tunes.

Now, just after 5:00 P.M., she shared Tecates with the band and then wandered back to the Pathfinder. Her phone hummed and she saw Madigan’s text, asking if she would come in and review the transcript of her report about the Peter Simesky-Myra Babbage case, which she’d dictated last night.

She debated a moment-she was exhausted-but decided to get it over with. Scrolling through her iPhone she saw a missed call too.

Jon Boling.

She debated again about the “San Diego Situation,” as she’d taken to calling it. And the first thing in her thoughts was the kiss with Michael O’Neil.

I can’t call Jon, her mind told her.

As her finger hit REDIAL.

A trill of numbers. Then… voicemail.

Disappointed, angry and relieved, she disconnected without leaving a message, thinking that would be a good title for a Kayleigh Towne song: “Straight to Voicemail.”

A half hour later she arrived at the sheriff’s office. She was now an official honorary deputy and she strode past the desk sergeant and security without any challenges. Several law enforcers she hadn’t met waved friendly greetings to her.

She stepped into Madigan’s office. The chief detective had been officially reinstated; Edwin had dropped the charges.

“Don’t you ever do sprinkles?” she asked, sitting down on the battered couch, eyeing the cardboard cup he was enthusiastically excavating.

“What?” Madigan asked.

“On your ice cream? Or whipped cream or syrup?”

“Naw, it’s a waste of taste. Calories too. Like cones. I’ll give you my theory of ice cream sometime. It’s philosophical. You ever make it?”

“Make ice cream?”

“Right.”

She said, “The world is divided into people who make ice cream and yogurt and pasta and bread. And those who buy it. I’m a buyer.”

“I’m with you there. This’s yours.”

He produced another cup. Chocolate chip. A metal spoon too.

“No, I-”

“You say no too quick, Deputy,” Madigan grumbled. “You want some ice cream. I know you do.”

True. She took it and ate several big mouthfuls. It was nice and melty. “Good.”

“Course it’s good. It’s ice cream. There’s the statement, you want to take a look-see and let me know what you think.” He slid the papers toward her and she read.

Crystal Stanning had transcribed it from Dance’s tape and it was pretty accurate. She expanded on a thought or two. Then slid it back.

Even at this hour the San Joaquin Valley heat permeated the building. Hell, I’m going to Macy’s, pick up a one-piece and float in the Mountain View pool until I wrinkle. Dance stretched and stood up, about to say good night to the detective when his desk phone rang and he hit SPEAKER. “Yeah?”

Dance finished the ice cream. Thought about asking for some more, but decided against it.

Course it’s good. It’s ice cream…

“Hey, Chief, it’s Miguel. Lopez.”

“You worked for me for four years. I know your voice,” the man snapped, examining the volcano core of his own cup, maybe tallying up how many bites he had left. “What?”

“Something kind of funny.”

“You gonna tell me what or just let that hang?”

“You listen to KDHT?”

“The radio? Sometimes. Get to the point. What’s your point?”

The deputy said, “Well, okay. I was listening on my way home and there’s a call-in show. ‘Bevo in the Evening.’”

“Lopez!”

“Okay, so he’s the DJ and they do requests. What happens about five minutes ago is some listener requests a song. I mean, part of a song. One of Kayleigh’s.”

Dance froze. She sat down. Madigan barked, “And?”

“The request was in an email. Signed, ‘A Kayleigh fan.’ It was for ‘Your Shadow.’ The last verse only. The DJ thought it was kind of funny, just the one verse, and played the whole song. But I got to thinking-”

“Oh, Christ,” Dance whispered. “Nobody ever played the fourth verse-to announce Congressman Davis’s killing!” She thought of Lincoln Rhyme’s comment: And he’s smart, right? He started with phones to keep you busy, then switched to other ways to play the song, like radio call-in requests?…

“Shit.” Madigan was nodding. He asked Lopez if the email had said anything else.

“No. Just that.”

Madigan disconnected without saying good-bye. He immediately called the station and got put through to the studio, told Bevo it was police business and asked that the email be forwarded to him. As they waited, he muttered, “And, hell, you know, we’re still looking for the connection between Simesky and Myra Babbage and the other killings-Bobby and Blanton, that file sharer, the attack on Sheri Towne. But nobody’s found anything yet.”

A moment later a flag popped up on his computer screen. The email request to the studio from a cryptic account, of random letters and numbers, was nothing more than what Lopez had already told them. Madigan called the Computer Crimes Division and forwarded it. A few minutes later they learned that it was an anonymous free email account and had been sent from a hotel in the Tower District.

“Let’s get the list of guests staying there,” Madigan said.

But Dance frowned. “Won’t do us any good. He won’t be a guest. He would’ve just picked up the wireless signal in the lobby, or even from the parking lot. Probably he’s got some connection with the area. But not the hotel.”

“You think that the assassination plot was just a coincidence? And there really is a stalker?”

“Well, we know it can’t be Edwin. He has an alibi. And it doesn’t need to be a stalker. It could be anybody, trying to frame Edwin to cover up the attacks-of Bobby, the file sharer or Sheri Towne…” She shook her head. “Or maybe those were just to establish a pattern… and the real intended victim’s next on his list.”

“Shit. How’d we miss this?… But who’s the new vic? What’s the fourth verse?”

Dance recited,

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.

Madigan sighed. “Kill somebody in their home. That’s like the other verse, about the road-not very fucking helpful.”

“There’s the reference to ‘floating.’ Another river, pool, some other body of water?”

“I don’t have a clue. We’ve got a dozen lakes around here, nothing big close to town, though. Hundreds of miles of riverbanks. And must be a thousand pools. More.”

“Okay, maybe there’s some connection with the Tower District. But we’ve got to narrow it down more.” Dance thought for a moment. “You know, there was some physical evidence that Charlie’s people found that we never really looked at, because we had enough to figure out what Simesky and Myra were up to.”

Madigan called Charlie Shean, at CSU, had a conversation with him and jotted notes. After hanging up he said, “What wasn’t accounted for was gangue… industrial by-product stuff, or whatever it is. Never heard of that before. Human bone dust too. And Marlboros. Did Simesky or Myra smoke?”

“I never saw them.”

The chief glanced at his notes. “Also the boot print, with the really sharp toe. And some neatsfoot oil-leather treatment for baseball gloves. Maybe the dearly departed Peter Simesky played on a fascist softball league.”

A to B to Z…

Dance cocked her head. “That’s not all it’s used for.”

Chapter 62

FINALLY, KAYLEIGH TOWNE was back in her own house, her sanctuary.

If only for a few hours. Alicia had texted that she wanted to see her about some matters having to do with the concert but she didn’t want to meet her at Bishop’s house.

I hear you there, sister. And when Alicia suggested they meet at Kayleigh’s she readily agreed. Darthur Morgan had driven her back here and then he’d collected his own car and said good-bye.

“Tell you, ma’am: been real good working with you.”

“Still ‘ma’am,’ after all we’ve been through?”

“That’s right, Kayleigh ma’am.” And he’d cracked what she believed was his first smile.

She laughed and hugged him, which he responded to stiffly but with good humor.

Then he’d driven away and Kayleigh was alone. But the relief she felt because Edwin wasn’t really a dangerous stalker was fading and ill ease seeped in to replace it-which had nothing to do with the events of the past few days and those horrible people using her as an excuse to kill the congressman.

No, it was a discomfort that struck closer to home.

Hey, lookit the good news, KT. The bad guys’re dead and Edwin’s out of the picture. So, no more talk about canceling any concerts…

Why hadn’t she said no to her father? Just insisted that they cancel? Didn’t he get that danger wasn’t the reason she didn’t want to go ahead with the concert? It wasn’t even that Bobby was dead, that Sheri’d nearly died… She just plain and simple didn’t want to get up onstage.

I’m not Superwoman, Daddy.

Your goals aren’t my goals.

Why was he so oblivious to that? The whole Industry was a huge bulldozer, pushing forward, forward, and if somebody got crushed-Bobby’s life, Kayleigh’s joy-so what? It was unstoppable.

No, of course Bishop Towne didn’t get that. All he got was that Kayleigh had to make money, had to feed her staff and family, had to feed the voracious fans, had to keep the record label and promoters happy.

And, she suspected, keep the memory of Bishop Towne alive-even among younger people who’d never heard him sing, hell, never heard of him at all.

And screw his daughter’s own peace of mind.

Screw what mattered most to her, just having a simple life.

Hm, she reflected. “A Simple Life.” Not a bad song title. She wrote it down, a few other phrases. Then she glanced at her watch. Alicia wasn’t due for another half hour. Kayleigh walked upstairs to her bedroom.

Through her mind went a verse from the now infamous “Your Shadow.”

You sit by the river, wondering what you got wrong,

How many chances you’ve missed all along.

Like your troubles had somehow turned you to stone

And the water was whispering, why don’t you come home?

Oh, what a time that had been, just sixteen, missing her mother so terribly, missing her baby, her father, just out of jail for the car accident, pressuring her to appear at some of his shows and launch her own career, which she wasn’t even sure she wanted. Overwhelmed, depressed. She’d driven to Yosemite by herself, gone hiking. And suddenly everything was too much for her. She’d looked down at the clear river and walked into it, on impulse. No plans, not really intending to hurt herself-or maybe she had been. Kayleigh didn’t know then and she didn’t know now. A minute later another hiker had plucked her out and sped her to the hospital. She was in danger more of hypothermia than drowning but not even much threat of that.

Now Kayleigh sat on the bed and read once more the copy of Bobby’s letter, which expressed his desire that most everything he had go to Mary-Gordon, a few things to Kayleigh. She didn’t know if this was legal as a will but if she took it to a lawyer she supposed the news would become public about Mary-Gordon’s parentage.

Bishop would explode. And the fans? Would they desert her? Kayleigh could honestly say that she didn’t much care about either of those happening, not in her present frame of mind.

But there was also a chance that the girl herself would find out. She’d have to learn at some point, of course. But not now, at this age. Suellyn was her mother and Roberto her father. Kayleigh would never think about disrupting the girl’s life. She slipped the envelope away in her top dresser drawer. She’d work out something to make sure the girl received what her biological father wanted her to have.

Yes, it was too late for Kayleigh when it came to Bobby and Mary-Gordon. But it wasn’t too late for the life she dreamed of. Find a man, get married, have lots of other babies, play music on the front porch-a few concerts now and then.

Of course there was that little part about “finding a man.”

Since Bobby, there’d been no one she felt really intense about. She’d been only sixteen then but she decided that the yardstick of love at that age was the best standard you could have, the purest, the most honest, the least complicated.

A single note in her mind’s ear. A C sharp followed by five other notes, and they carried a phrase, “How I Felt at Sixteen.”

She sang it.

Good meter and there was a lot that rhymed with “sixteen.” That was a key consideration in writing music. What rhymed with what. “Orange,” for instance, was not a word you ended lyric lines with. “Silver” was tricky too, though Kayleigh’d managed to work it into one of the songs on her recent album.

She sat down at the dressing table she used for her desk here in the bedroom. She pulled out a yellow pad and a few sheets of music staff paper. In three minutes she’d written the melody and a number of phrases and portions of the song.

I still recall how I felt at sixteen.

You were a king and I was your queen

Love was so simple, way back when,

I wish life could be like that again…

When I was sixteen…

Oh, Bobby…

Kayleigh cried for a full five minutes. Then grabbed some more tissues and dried her face; she’d used nearly two whole boxes this week.

Okay, enough of that…

She cranked up the Bose iPod player, tapped the Loretta Lynn playlist.

In the bathroom, she filled the bathtub, pinned her hair up and stripped, then sank into the deep water, listening to the album.

It felt wonderful.

Chapter 63

THEY HAD THEIR answer.

Dance, Dennis Harutyun and Pike Madigan were in the tiny apartment of Alicia Sessions, and they were surveying the evidence they’d just uncovered. Cowboy boots, with needle-sharp toes, like those that made the prints behind Edwin’s house. And in the kitchen was neatsfoot oil for treating Alicia’s equestrian tack; Dance recalled her quarter horse bumper sticker and her love of riding. They found cartons of Marlboros in her apartment. The dwelling also was in the Tower District, near the hotel from which the email request for the fourth song had been sent.

But far more incriminating were the two garbage bags full of Edwin Sharp’s trash stolen from his house in Fresno, including receipts and some mail addressed to him in Seattle-to plant at Kayleigh’s, to convince the police and jury that Edwin was the one behind the attacks and that he had killed Kayleigh. And hidden under Alicia’s bed was Deputy Gabriel Fuentes’s pistol case-without the weapon-stolen from near the theater when the cop was tailing Edwin.

“Alicia knew where Gabriel was,” Dance had reminded them. “She was in the briefing at headquarters.”

At first they’d been unable to come up with a motive for setting up Edwin Sharp. But a moment ago Dance had learned the answer. To Madigan and Harutyun, she was displaying two dozen sheets of paper, all pretty much the same-attempts to forge Kayleigh’s handwriting on a note that read:

To who it may concern

Just want to say a few things to the people close to me if anything happens to me on the road… Can’t help but thinking about Patsy Cline in that airplane… Well, if anything does, I’d like Alicia to take over as front for the band. She knows the songs as good as me and can hit those high notes better. And one more thing, I want you to have one hell of a party and make sure she sings “I’m in the Mood (for Rock ’n’ Roll),” which she inspired me to write.

I see you in heaven, luv you all!

Kayleigh

“Jesus,” Madigan muttered, “Kayleigh’s the fourth victim. The last verse. ‘Trouble can find us in the heart of our homes.’ Alicia’s going to kill her in her house.”

Dance ripped her phone from the holster and punched in the singer’s number.

I SHOULD WRITE a song about things like this, Kayleigh thought, thoroughly enjoying the bath, the soundtrack of Loretta Lynn, the violet scent of the candle she’d lit.

“The small pleasures,” she sang. No. “The little pleasures.” Scans better. The extra syllable helped.

It would be about how the tragedies in life, the things we can’t control, are often diminished, if not cancelled, by the small things.

“An antidote to pain.”

Nice line, she thought. Nobody’d ever used “antidote” in a song that she knew of. Good. But then… wait. Hold on. You don’t have to write a song every five minutes.

But she didn’t actually write them. She never did. That was the secret. They wrote themselves.

In the other room she heard her phone ringing. Kayleigh debated. Ignore it. Four rings, then voicemail.

“I love the summer rain… It’s an antidote to pain…” Hm, she thought wryly. Awful! Just because some lines come fast doesn’t mean they’re any good. But part of being a pro is knowing what sucks and what doesn’t. She’d work on it.

Then, hearing the mobile trill again, she thought of Mary-Gordon. Was Suellyn calling because she was sick, did she want Kayleigh to bring a special toy from the house? Concern for the little girl was what prodded Kayleigh out of the tub. She dried off and dressed fast in jeans and a blouse. Pulled on socks. And her glasses.

Maybe it was Alicia calling back. What exactly did she want to talk to her about, out of Bishop’s hearing?

Could be anything, she decided. The assistant and Bishop had never really gotten along. Her father liked women who fawned. Alicia did what she was supposed to for him-he was the head of the company-but there was always some tension between them because she would not kowtow to the big man.

She picked up the phone. Ah, Kathryn’s number. She hit the CALL-BACK button.

As it rang, she glanced out the window. It was dark now but she made out Alicia’s blue pickup truck sitting in the drive. Kayleigh hadn’t heard her arrive but she could let herself in. She had a key.

Dance’s phone clicked.

Kayleigh started to say, “Hey, how’re-?”

But the agent said urgently, “Kayleigh, listen to me. I don’t have time to go into the details. Alicia Session’s on her way there. She’s going to kill you. Get out of the house. Now!”

“What?”

“Just get out!”

Downstairs, the kitchen door opened and Alicia called out, “Hey, Kayleigh. It’s me. You decent?”

THROUGH HER PHONE Kathryn Dance heard Kayleigh’s voice catch. Then she whispered, “She’s here! She’s downstairs. Alicia!”

Oh, no. How to handle it?

Dance, Harutyun and Madigan were in the FMCSO cruiser speeding away from Alicia’s apartment in the Tower District. Dance told the men that Alicia was already at Kayleigh’s house and then said into the phone, “Is Darthur there?”

“No, he’s gone. We thought it was all over with, with Simesky dead.”

“Get out. Can you run into the woods?”

“I… No. I’m upstairs. I don’t think I can jump. And I’d have to go past her if I went downstairs. Can I talk to her? Why does she-”

“No, you have to hide, stay away. She has a gun. We’ll have troopers there as soon as we can but it’ll be twenty minutes. Are you in a room with a lock?”

“My bedroom. Yes. But it’s not much.”

“What about a weapon?”

“My gun’s downstairs, locked up.”

“Just barricade yourself in the room. And stall.”

“Oh, Jesus, Kathryn. What’s going on?”

“Barricade yourself as best you can. We’ll be there soon.”

The siren spread outward on the hot, dry air and the urgent blue and white lights ricocheted off cars and signs and windows as they raced through the evening.

“KAYLEIGH?” ALICIA CALLED again from downstairs.

Where was she? Kayleigh wondered. Still in the kitchen? The den?

“Down in a minute.” She stared at the door.

Close it, girl! What’s the matter with you. Buy time. Lock it, barricade it.

At the door she called, “Just out of the shower. I’ll be down in five.” She closed and locked the door. But the chair she tried to wedge under the knob was too low. Her dresser was too heavy to move. The vanity table wouldn’t stop Mary-Gordon.

Find a weapon. Anything.

A nail file? A lamp?

Don’t be an idiot, jump!

She ran to the window. Below her was not only concrete but a wrought-iron fence. If she didn’t break her back she’d be impaled.

Listening at the door again, ear against the wood.

“Kayleigh?”

“Be down soon! Have a beer or make some coffee!”

Jump out the window. It’s your only chance.

Then Kayleigh thought suddenly: no fucking way.

I’m fighting.

She grabbed the vanity stool and ripped off the Laura Ashley padded covering. The furniture was five pounds of hard wood. Not much but it would have to do. I’ll lure her up here and bash her head in.

Kayleigh moved to the door, listening. She took a firm stance, gripping the stool like a baseball bat.

Then her phone rang.

Squinting at the screen. The number was vaguely familiar. Wait… It was Edwin Sharp’s! She recalled the number from the label of the redwood tree toy he’d helped Mary-Gordon pick out.

“Hello, Edwin?”

He said tentatively, “Hey, Kayleigh, listen. I’m almost there. Alicia asked me not to call you, just to come over. But, I don’t know, what’s this all about? Is it some kind of settlement thing? I don’t want anything from you. It wasn’t your fault what that guy with the congressman did.”

And with a heart-shaking jolt, Kayleigh understood. For whatever reason Alicia had set up Edwin. She’d asked him here too and was going to make it look like he killed her.

“Oh, Edwin, there’s a problem.”

“You sound funny. What’s the matter? I mean-”

“Stay away! Alicia’s here. She’s going to kill me. She wants to-”

A pause. “You’re not, like, serious?”

“She’s setting you up. She’s here now.”

“I’ll call the police.”

She said, “I did. They’re on their way.”

“I’m five minutes away.”

“No, Edwin, don’t come here! Go to Bradley Road, the minimart. Stay there, stay with people. That way nobody can blame you for whatever happens.”

It was then that Kayleigh smelled smoke.

Edwin was saying something. She ignored him and turned her ear toward the door. Yes, the crackle of flames was coming from downstairs.

No, no! My house, my guitars! She’s burning them! Like Bobby and the file sharer and Sheri, she’s going to burn me too.

“Kayleigh, Kayleigh?” Edwin’s voice rose from her phone.

“There’s a fire, Edwin. Call the fire department too. But don’t come here. Whatever you do.”

“I-”

She disconnected.

And the bitter, stinging smoke began to seep under the bedroom door.

Chapter 64

THE SMOKE AND flames were growing.

Love is fire, love is flame…

My house, my house, Kayleigh thought as tears of sorrow, of pain from the smoke, of fear rolled down her cheeks. My guitars, my pictures… Oh, this can’t be happening!

The door was hot to the touch now and outside the window, reflections of the flames from downstairs flickered across trees and the lawn.

Kayleigh debated. Where was Alicia? She couldn’t stay downstairs in the flames, of course. She’d probably left.

Well, fuck her. I’m saving my house!

Kayleigh ran into the bathroom and grabbed a fire extinguisher, years old but, according to the gauge, still charged. She unlocked the bedroom door and eased it open. The fire was concentrated in the hallway on the ground floor and on the stairs themselves, the carpeting. It gave off thick clouds of astringent smoke from the flaming nylon. Sparks zipped through the air. Kayleigh caught a full breath of the foul stench and retched. She lowered her head and got a breath of more or less clean air, another. She stood. The fire wasn’t out of control yet. If Alicia had left she could put out enough of it to get to the kitchen, where there was a much bigger extinguisher. And the hose in the garden.

She eased out.

Just then a huge bang from downstairs resounded through the house, a flash in the smoke. A bullet plowed into the door near her head. Two more.

Screaming, she dove back into her room and slammed the door, locked it. Kayleigh decided she had no choice but to risk a twenty-five-foot jump to the ground. Would she break her legs and just lie there in agony until Alicia shot her? Would she get speared on the fence and bleed out?

But she wouldn’t burn to death, at least. Running to the window, she flung it open and looked out toward the road. Not a single flashing light yet. Then she gazed down, trying to judge angles and distances.

She found a place she might land, just past the fence. But then she saw, at the exact spot she’d land, Alicia’s shadow, moving back and forth, almost leisurely. She was at the front door and probably anticipating Kayleigh’s jump and aiming at that very spot.

Shadows…

Kayleigh sat down on the bed, grabbed a picture she had of Mary-Gordon and hugged it to her chest.

So, this was it.

Mama, Bobby, I’ll be with you soon.

Oh, Bobby…

She thought of the song she’d written for him years ago. “The Only One for Me.”

More tears.

But just then another gunshot resounded from downstairs… Then two or three more. Kayleigh gasped. Could the police be here after all?

She ran to the window and looked out. No, no one was here. The driveway was empty, except for Alicia’s truck. And there were no flashing lights on the horizon.

Two more shots.

And from downstairs, a voice calling her name.

A man’s voice.

“Kayleigh, come on, hurry!”

She opened the door cautiously and peered down.

Jesus! Through the smoke she could just make out the form of Edwin Sharp, beating down the flames on the stairs with his jacket. Alicia lay on her back, on the marble of the hallway, eyes gazing up, unseeing. Her face was bloody. She’d fallen onto a patch of burning wood floor and her clothes were on fire.

Kayleigh understood: Edwin had ignored her warning and continued to the house anyway.

“Hurry!” he cried. “Come on! I called the fire department but I don’t know when they’ll be here. You have to get out!”

His slapping at the flames wasn’t doing much to stop the spread, though he’d beat out a narrow path down the stairs to the ground floor.

She made her way along this now. He was pointing into the den. “We can get out that way, through the window!”

But she said, “You go! I’m going to fight it.”

“No, we can’t!”

“Go!” she shouted and turned the small extinguisher on the flames.

Edwin hesitated, coughing hard, and returned to flailing away with his jacket. “I’ll help you.”

She gave him a smile and called, “In the kitchen, there’s another extinguisher. Beside the stove!”

Choking, Edwin staggered through the arched doorway and returned a moment later with the extinguisher, much bigger than Kayleigh’s, and started to douse the flames too.

With a horrified glance at Alicia’s burning body, Kayleigh ran out the back door and returned a moment later with her garden hose. She began attacking the stubborn fire as Edwin, next to her, blew bursts of foam from the big extinguisher. They both retched and coughed and tried to blink away tears from the smoke.

The singer and her stalker held their own but only for a time. Soon Edwin’s extinguisher ran out and an outrider of fire melted her garden hose.

Too late… no! My house.

But then sirens sounded and outside the evening darkness filled with flashing lights as the first fire trucks arrived. Men and women in their thick yellow outfits hurried into the house with hoses and began battling the flames. One fireman bent over Alicia’s body, no longer burning but smoldering badly, and felt for a pulse. He looked up and shook his head.

Another ushered Kayleigh and Edwin toward the front door and they staggered outside. Kayleigh made her way down the stairs into the yard, coughing and spitting the terrible bits of soot and ash from her mouth. She paused on the lawn and vomited painfully. Then she looked back, realizing that Edwin was lagging behind.

She saw him on his knees on the porch. His hand was at his throat. He lifted his fingers away and looked at them. Kayleigh saw the digits were dark but not stained with soot, as she’d thought. Blood was flowing from a wound in his neck.

Alicia had shot him before he wrestled the gun away from her.

He blinked and looked at Kayleigh. “I think… I think she…” His eyes closed and he collapsed backward on the wooden deck.

Chapter 65

KATHRYN DANCE WAS sitting next to Kayleigh Towne on the steps of her house. They were bathed in a sweep of colored lights, blue and red, with flashes of white. Beautiful and troubling.

The young woman was diminished, her posture collapsed-chin tucked, shoulders slumped. She was smeared with Edwin Sharp’s blood, from trying to staunch the bleeding. In kinesic analysis Kayleigh’s carriage could be read as defeat and acceptance, the goal of every interrogator. But the pose was also an indication of exhaustion or disbelief.

P. K. Madigan was directing the FMCSO’s crime scene team in their search of the house, and the fire department was making sure there was no chance of the flames sprouting up again.

“I don’t understand any of this,” Kayleigh whispered.

Dance explained what they’d learned about Alicia and found in her apartment. “And in her truck? There was a Baggie filled with things she stole from Edwin’s rental. She was going to plant them here.” Dance then explained the why. “There was a note too. She’d forged your handwriting and did a pretty good job of it. If anything happened to you, you wanted her to take over the band.”

“She asked Edwin here tonight too so it’d look like he’d killed me. He gets arrested and nobody believes him when he claims he’s innocent.”

“Exactly.”

Kayleigh rubbed her face; her jaw tightened. “Alicia wanted to be me. She wanted fame and money and power. That’s what this fucking business does to people. It twists them, seduces them. I’m sick of it! I’m so sick of it.” She looked toward the medics. “I told him not to come. I knew he’d get blamed if anything happened. But he came anyway.”

As some EMTs got Edwin into one of the two ambulances, another approached them. “Agent Dance. Ms. Towne… Mr. Sharp’s lost a lot of blood. We’ve stabilized him as best we can but, I’m sorry to say, it’s not looking good. We have to get him to the hospital for surgery as soon as we can.”

“Is he going to live?” Kayleigh asked.

“We don’t know at this time. Was he a friend?”

Kayleigh said softly, “In a way. He’s a fan of mine.”

Chapter 66

TWO HOURS LATER, a tired-looking surgeon, a South Asian man in green scrubs, walked slowly down the bleached-lit hallway of Fresno Community Hospital toward the waiting area.

Dance looked at Kayleigh and together they rose.

The man didn’t seem to know whom to deliver the news to: the famous Fresno singer or the tall woman with the gun on her hip. He spoke between them as he said Edwin Sharp would survive. The blood loss was bad but he would ultimately recover fully. “The bullet missed the carotid and his spine.” Edwin would be coming out of the anesthesia now. They could see him for a few minutes if they wanted.

They found the recovery room and stepped inside to find Edwin staring groggily at the ceiling.

“Hey,” he mumbled. “Hey.” Blinking. “Feels like it did when I had my tonsils out.” His voice didn’t seem to be affected; he spoke softly, though, and a bit garbled. And he seemed completely drained.

Kayleigh said, “You look pretty good, all things considered.”

Though the bullet hole would be fairly small-about nine millimeters, of course-the eggplant-colored bruise extended well beyond the thick bandage covering the wound.

“Doesn’t, uhm, you know, hurt much yet.” He studied an IV drip, probably morphine. He added, “And I’m getting some pretty nice pills after I’m out, the, uhm, doctor tells me. The doctor, you know.

“I’m getting discharged tomorrow.” He had a loopy grin on his face and for once the smile wasn’t the least bit weird. “I thought I’d be here, you know, for a week. Maybe more than a week.” His eyelids dipped and Dance wondered if he was slipping off to sleep. They then opened once more. “A week,” he repeated drunkenly.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Kayleigh said. “I was pretty worried.”

He frowned. Speaking slowly: “Didn’t bring me flowers, I notice. No flowers. Afraid I’d misinterpret it?” Then he laughed. “Joking.”

Kayleigh smiled too.

Edwin’s face grew somber. “Alicia… what was that all about? Did she go crazy? I mean, Alicia. What happened?”

Dance said, “She was going to kill Kayleigh and plant some things she got from your house so you’d get blamed for it. She forged a note saying that Kayleigh wanted Alicia to front the band.”

“She did that? Killed Bobby Prescott too? And attacked your stepmother?” Edwin asked.

Kayleigh nodded.

Then, echoing the singer’s comments of a few hours earlier, he added, “She did it…” Focusing again. “She did it to be famous. Everybody wants that, I guess. It’s like a drug. Like writing Harry Potter, being Daniel Craig. They want to be famous.”

Her eyes damp, Kayleigh whispered, “I don’t know what to say, Edwin… What a mess this’s all been.”

He tried to shrug but winced from the pain.

“You didn’t need to come to the house, Edwin. I told you it was dangerous.”

“Yeah,” he said, maybe being sardonic, maybe not quite grasping what she’d said. He was really drugged.

“What happened back there?” Dance asked.

He tried to focus. “Back there?”

“At Kayleigh’s?”

“Oh, at Kayleigh’s… Well, she told me about Alicia and the fire so I called the fire department but I couldn’t stop. You told me to stop, right?”

“I did.”

“But I couldn’t. I kept going to the house. When I got there I parked on the shoulder, so Alicia wouldn’t see me. I went through the trees and got to the house. The kitchen door was open and I saw Alicia by the stairs. She didn’t see me. I tackled her. She was really strong. I mean, you know, really. I didn’t expect that. The gun went off before I got it away from her. She jumped at me and I shot her. I didn’t think. I just pulled the trigger. I didn’t even know I got shot. All I remember is we were trying to put the fire out, you and me… and then I woke up here.”

His eyes closed slowly then leveraged open and he looked at Kayleigh. “I was going to mail you something before I left. There’s a card. I was going to send you a card. There’s a present inside too. My jacket. Look in the pocket. Where’s my jacket?”

Dance found the garment in the closet. Kayleigh fished through the pocket. She extracted a stamped envelope, addressed to her.

“Open it.”

She did. Looking over her shoulder, Dance noted the silly drugstore card with a mournful-looking dog on the front, the balloon above its head reporting, “I’m ‘Dog-gone’ sorry.”

Kayleigh smiled. “And I’m sorry too, Edwin.”

“Look in the tissue.”

She opened the square of thin paper; inside were three small guitar picks. “Oh, Edwin.”

“I got a deer antler in this pawn shop in Seattle. I made them out of that.”

“They’re beautiful.” She showed them to Dance, who agreed.

“I…” His eyes floated in an arc around the room and he remembered what he was going to say. “I sent them to you before but you sent them back. I mean, somebody sent them back. But if you want, you can have them now.”

“Of course I want them. Thank you so much. I’ll use them at the concert. In fact, I’ll thank you in person for them there.”

“Oh, no. I’m headed back to Seattle. I was packing up when Alicia called.” A wan smile.

“Leaving?”

“Better for you, I think.” He laughed. “Better for me too, you know. You think a famous star kind of likes you, then next thing some crazy people want to use you to assassinate a politician and some psycho’s stolen your trash to frame you for murder. Never thought being a fan could be so dangerous.”

Both Dance and Kayleigh smiled.

“Think I’m… think I’m… better off in Seattle.” His head eased toward his chest and he muttered, “It’s not as hot either. It’s really hot in… it’s hot here.”

Kayleigh smiled but said earnestly, “Edwin, you can’t drive like this. Wait a couple of days. Please. Come to the concert if you’re feeling up for it. I’ll get you a ticket front row center.”

He was fading fast. “No. Better. It’s better if I…”

Then he was sound asleep. Kayleigh looked over the picks and seemed genuinely moved by the gift.

She and Dance then left the hospital. They were in the parking lot when Kayleigh gave a laugh.

The agent lifted an eyebrow.

“Hey, you hear the one about the blond country singer?”

“Tell me.”

“She was so dumb she got dumped by her stalker.”