XO (51 page)

Yes, it was, she noted. Her heart sank at this foresight on his part.

She also noticed several lengths of chain in the trailer, fixed to the walls, ending in shackles. Apparently Edwin’s idea of thoughtfulness was to glue lamb’s wool to the metal clamps that would fit around her ankles and wrists.

Mr. Today …

Then, once again, his smile faded. “If you’d gone out with me, like I asked,” Edwin said, “we wouldn’t’ve had to go through all of this. Just dinner. And stayed in my rental for a few days, while they fixed your house. What was the big deal?”

Kayleigh sensed he was shivering with anger.

Edwin has a reality problem. All stalkers do.

His voice grew cold again. “I know you’re not a virgin…. I’m sure you didn’t
want
to fuck anybody, it just sort of happened. You
did
fuck Bobby, didn’t you? … No, I don’t want to know.” He reflected for a moment. “And I’m sure you didn’t do anything weird—you know, disgusting. Sometimes the good girls—the ones in glasses and buttoned-up blouses—they can do really sick things. But you wouldn’t.” He looked at her closely. But then like a light switch clicking on, his face warmed and he was smiling. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re mine now. It’s going to be okay.”

He showed her the trailer more closely. The place was a shrine to her, of course. Posters and memorabilia, clothing and photos.

Kayleigh Towne everywhere.

But no weapons.

No sharp knives in the kitchen—the first thing she looked for. Also, no glass or ceramic. It was all metal and plastic. She noticed a pack of cigarettes and looked for a lighter. But there was none.

He followed her gaze. Edwin said quickly, “Don’t worry. I don’t smoke, not anymore. Just needed a few of those to point the finger at that bitchy Alicia. For you, Kayleigh, no cigarettes and no liquor. I’m clean. And I never did drugs—like that
friend
of yours Mr. Bobby Prescott.”

Sweat poured, her skin crawled. “This is hopeless, Edwin. You don’t think ten thousand people are going to be looking for me?”

“Maybe not. They might think you ran off with somebody you realized loved you and cared for you. They’ll still be thinking Alicia was behind it all, killed Bobby and tried to kill you.”

Was he that far removed from reality?

“But even if they
are
looking, they aren’t going to find us. They think we’re in Monterey, hiding out. Two hundred miles away. This bitch I went out with for a while told them that’s where we’d be. I knew she’d turn me in. I set that up a long time ago. We’re completely alone here…. On the drive? There wasn’t a single helicopter or roadblock all the way from Fresno. If they thought we were headed here, they could’ve shut down Forty-one in a minute. No, Kayleigh, they’ll never find us.”

“You put this all together … to, what? Win me over?”

“To make you see reason. Who else would go to all this trouble, except somebody who loved you?”

“But … the congressman? I don’t understand.”

He laughed. “Oh, yeah, that was interesting. I learned a lesson there.
I’ve stopped posting things online. That’s how Simesky found out about you and me. You didn’t believe me when I said the whole world was trying to exploit you.”

You and me …

“But something good came out of that. I
did
see somebody outside my house on Saturday night. It was Simesky or that Babbage woman but at the time I thought it was just kids. But that got me thinking. I’d set it up so that it looked like Alicia had been spying on me. I planted some evidence that’d make the police think she was the stalker. Sometimes it’s lucky how things work.”

Then Edwin grew impatient. He looked at her hair, her breasts, her legs. “Well, come on. You know what it’s time for.” He glanced toward the rumpled bed, beside which was a Bose iPod player. “You see that? I’ve got fifty of your concerts I recorded. I have a nice recorder. I saved up to buy it. We’ll play your concerts while we, you know….” His face blossomed with concern. “Oh, don’t worry. Yeah, I recorded them but I never sold the songs or shared them with anybody. It was just for me … and now for
us.
”

“Please, no, Edwin. Please.”

He stared at her hair, then leaned against the kitchen sink. “You shouldn’t be so … you know, standoffish. I did you a favor. Fred Blanton was a shit who stole your music. And Alicia, well, she probably
did
want your career. And Sheri? Oh, please. You deserve a better stepmother than her. She’s a store clerk who got lucky with Bishop. She’s not worthy of you, Kayleigh. They deserved to die. And Bobby? All he wanted to do was fuck you.” And once more he stared at her, awaiting confirmation of her infidelity.

Then he seemed to control himself.

She said, “At least, let me clean up? Just a shower please. I don’t feel comfortable like this.”

“I don’t think so.”

She snapped, “And you say you’re Mr. Today? Bullshit. I just want to take a fucking shower and you won’t let me?”

He frowned. “All right. Only don’t say words like that. Don’t ever say words like that again.”

“All right, I won’t.”

“You can take a shower. But you know I have the only keys and there’re no weapons here. And all the windows are barred.”

“I figured that. I really just want to clean up.”

He undid the cuffs and she rubbed her wrists.

Shoulders slumped, she walked through the narrow space into the bathroom.

“Oh, Kayleigh. Wait.”

She stopped and turned. He was awkward. Was his face reddening? “About that woman I was telling you about. The one in Seattle. You don’t have to be jealous. It wasn’t serious between us. I never slept with her. Really. Honest.”

Kayleigh could see he was lying but what shocked her was that he seemed honestly to believe that his fidelity was important to her.

He smiled. “Hurry back, love.” And he walked into the bedroom to wait.

EDWIN COULDN’T DECIDE
which of her songs was his favorite.

But then he realized that that debate was a clunker, another of his mother’s terms. It was like you didn’t have a favorite kind of food, you liked everything (well,
he
did, at any rate—he would have weighed three hundred pounds if Kayleigh hadn’t been in his life to keep him trim).

He clicked the air conditioner on a little higher—with the camouflage tarp covering the trailer it was beastly hot inside. But he still kept the temperature warm. Kayleigh, he’d noticed before she headed to the shower, had been sweating. The beads on her skin had turned him on even more. He imagined licking her temples and scalp and grew even more aroused. It had been okay fucking Sally, with Kayleigh Towne’s voice singing through the speakers, but this would be a thousand times better.

The real thing.

Hey, that was a pretty good title for a song. “The Real Thing.” He’d mention it to her. He had this idea that they could write songs together. He’d come up with the words and she’d write the melodies.

Edwin was good with words.

He thought again: Wedding
afternoon.
Not wedding night. Afternoon.

That was pretty funny.

That got him wondering if she’d ever made out with anybody when she and her family had lived here. There was that line in her song where she referred to “a little teenage lovin’,” at the old house, which had made him absolutely furious when he’d first heard it. Then he remembered Bishop had sold the place when she was about twelve or thirteen. And because she was a good girl he doubted that she’d done anything more than kiss a boy and maybe do a little petting, which nonetheless also stabbed him with jealousy.

Bobby …

He hoped the fucking roadie had felt a lot of pain as he died. At the convention center he hadn’t screamed as much as Edwin would have liked.

Edwin listened to the running water, pictured her naked inside the shower. He was growing hard. He remembered the article in
Rolling Stone
about her.

Good Girl Makes Good.

And he decided to relent.

He’d forgive her for fucking Bobby. He’d ask her again and insist she be honest. He had to know but whatever she said, he’d forgive her.

He stripped his shirt off and kneaded his belly. Still a bit of excess skin from where he lost all that weight. But he’d kept the fat off, at least.

Anything for Kayleigh.

Should
he
take a shower too? No. He’d taken one that morning. Besides, she’d have to get used to having him on top of, or behind, her whenever he was in the mood, whether he was clean or not.

She was his wife, after all.

He turned on the radio and caught the news. It seemed the police hadn’t gone with the innocent interpretation of Kayleigh’s disappearance. Pike Madigan’s voice was explaining solemnly about the kidnapping and alerting people that it was likely that Edwin Sharp and Kayleigh Towne were on their way west, heading toward the Monterey area.

“We don’t know the vehicle they’re in, but go to the website we’ve set up and you can find Sharp’s picture.”

Ah, I knew I could count on you, Sally, you lying little slut. He wondered momentarily who’d gotten her to talk. Kathryn Dance came to mind. Had to be her.

Of course, the diversion about Monterey would buy them only so much time. They’d have to move but this place would be safe for a month or so. Kayleigh had said she liked Austin. Maybe they’d go there next. It was Texas; there had to be wildernesses to hide out in. But then she also had commented in her “On the Road” blog that she liked Minnesota. That might be a better place, especially when she had the baby. The weather would be cooler. Tough to be pregnant in the heat, he imagined.

Babies …

Edwin had Googled that cycle thing about women’s bodies. He wondered
where Kayleigh was with that. Then decided it didn’t matter. They’d make love at least every other night, if not more. He’d hit the target sooner or later.

He undid his jeans, slipping his hand into his Jockeys, though he didn’t need any preparation there.

Then the shower water stopped. She’d be toweling off now. He pictured her body. He decided to establish a rule that they had to walk around the trailer naked. They’d only get dressed when they went outside.

Inhaling deeply, he smelled the sweet scent of shampoo fragrance on the humid air.

“Edwin,” Kayleigh said, a playful tone. “I made myself ready for you. Come look.”

Grinning, he walked to the doorway and found her in front of the bathroom door, fully clothed.

Edwin Sharp blinked. Then the smile vanished and he cried out in horror.

“NO, NO, NO!
What’d you do?”

She’d found tiny blunt-end fingernail scissors in the vanity kit he’d bought. TSA approved for air travel and therefore safe.

But they would still cut. And that’s just what she’d done with them: she’d sheared off all her hair.

“No!” He stared in horror at the pile of glistening blond strands on the bathroom floor as if looking at the body of a loved one.

“Kayleigh!”

A two- to three-inch mop of ragged fringe covered her head. She hadn’t showered at all, she’d spent the ten minutes destroying her beautiful hair.

In a mad singsong, she mocked, “What’s the matter, Edwin? Don’t you like me now? Don’t you want to stalk me anymore? … It doesn’t matter, does it? You love
me,
right? It doesn’t matter what I look like.”

“No, no, of course not. It’s just …” He thought he’d be sick. He was thinking, how long does it take for hair to grow?

Ten years, four months …

She could wear a hat. No, he hated women in hats.

“I think it looks like you care a lot. In fact, you look real upset, Edwin.”

“Why, Kayleigh? Why did you do it?”

“To show you the truth. You love the girl on the album covers, on CMT, on the videos and the posters. In
Entertainment Weekly.
You don’t love me at all. Remember that day we were alone in the theater in Fresno? You said my voice and hair were the best things about me.”

Maybe he could find somebody to take her hair and make a wig until it grew back. How could he do that, though? They’d recognize him, they’d report him. No, no, no, no, no! What was he going to do?

Kayleigh taunted, “You want to fuck me now? Now that I look like a boy?”

He walked forward slowly, staring at the pile of hair.

“Here!” she screamed and grabbed a handful, flung it at him. It flowed to the floor and Edwin dropped to his knees, desperately grabbing at the strands.

“I knew it,” she muttered contemptuously, backing into the bathroom. “You don’t know me. You don’t have a clue who I am.”