XO (7 page)

They said good-bye and Dance and Kayleigh climbed into her dark green Suburban. Dance had left her Pathfinder at the Mountain View and had ridden here with Kayleigh in her SUV. Darthur Morgan began the drive back to Dance’s motel. He’d stayed out in the SUV to keep an eye on the street. Six or seven small hardcover books, leather bound, were in the front seat. The titles were stamped in gold, on the spine only. Classics, Dance guessed. He didn’t seem to read them when he was on
guard duty itself. Maybe they were his pleasure when he was in his room at night. A portal to take him away from the persistence of threat.

Kayleigh was looking out the window at the dimly lit or black landscape. “I envy them,” she said.

“How’s that?”

“It’s like a lot of the musicians on your website. They play at night and on weekends for their friends and families. It’s not for the money. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so good. Ha, modesty alert … But you know what I mean. I never really wanted to be a star. I wanted to have a husband and”—she nodded back toward Villalobos’s—“babies and sing to
them
and friends…. It just all got away from me.”

She was silent and Dance supposed she was thinking: If I wasn’t famous I wouldn’t have Edwin Sharp in my life.

Dance could see Kayleigh’s reflection and noted her jaw was set and there were possibly tears in her eyes. Then Kayleigh turned back, shoving her troubled thoughts away, it seemed, and said with a sly grin, “So. Tell me. Dish.”

“Men?”

“Like yeah!” Kayleigh said. “You mentioned Jon somebody?”

“The greatest guy in the world,” Dance said. “Brilliant. Used to be in Silicon Valley, now he teaches and does consulting. The most important thing is that Wes and Maggie like him.” She added that her son had had a very difficult time with his mother’s dating. He hadn’t liked anybody until Boling.

“Of course it didn’t help that one guy I introduced them to turned out to be a killer.”

“No!”

“Oh, we weren’t in any danger. He was after the same perp I was. It’s just that I wanted to put him in jail. My friend wanted to kill him.”

“I don’t know,” Kayleigh said ominously. “There’s something to be said for that.”

Thinking again, probably, of Edwin Sharp.

“But the kids love Jon. It’s working out well.”

“And?” the singer asked.

“And what?”

“You going to tell me or not?”

And here,
I’m
the kinesics pro. Dance debated but in the end
demurred. “Oh, nothing … just who knows what’s going to happen? I’ve only been a widow a few years. I’m in no hurry.”

“Sure,” Kayleigh said, not exactly believing the lame explanation.

And Dance reflected: Yes, she liked Jon Boling a lot. Hey, she probably loved him and on more than one occasion, lying in bed together during one of the few nights they’d spent out of town, she’d come close to saying so. And she’d sensed that he had too.

He was kind, easygoing, good-looking, with a great sense of humor.

But then there was Michael.

Michael O’Neil was a detective with the Monterey County Office of the Sheriff. He and Dance had worked together for years and, if she was instinctively on anyone’s wavelength, it was O’Neil’s. They worked in timepiece harmony, they laughed, they loved the same foods and wines, they argued like the dickens and never took a word of it personally. Dance believed that he was as perfect for her as anyone could be.

Aside from that little glitch: a wife.

Who had finally left him and their children—naturally, just
after
Dance started going out with Jon Boling. O’Neil and his wife, Anne, were still married, though she was living in San Francisco now. O’Neil had mentioned divorce papers being prepared but timetables and plans seemed vague.

This would be a topic for another evening with Kayleigh Towne, though.

In ten minutes they’d arrived at the Mountain View, and Darthur Morgan steered the Suburban to the front of the motel. Dance said good night to them both.

It was then that Kayleigh’s phone buzzed and she looked down at the screen, frowning. She hit
ANSWER
. “Hello? … Hello?” She listened for a moment and then said firmly, “Who is this?”

Hand on the door lever, Dance paused and looked back at the singer.

Kayleigh disconnected, regarding the screen once more. “Weird.”

“What?”

“Somebody just played a verse from ‘Your Shadow.’”

The title track of her latest album and already a huge hit.

“They didn’t say anything, whoever it was. They just played the first verse.”

Dance had downloaded the track and she recalled the words.

You walk out onstage and sing folks your songs.

You make them all smile. What could go wrong?

But soon you discover the job takes its toll,

And everyone’s wanting a piece of your soul.

“The thing is … it was a recording from a concert.”

“You don’t do live albums,” Dance said, recalling that Kayleigh preferred the control of the studio.

She was still staring at the screen. “Right. It’d be a bootleg. But it was really high quality—almost like a real voice, not a recording…. But who was playing it, why?”

“You recognize the phone number?”

“No. Not a local area code. You think it was Edwin?” she asked, her voice going tense with stress, looking up at Darthur Morgan, whose dark, still eyes were visible in the rearview mirror. “But, wait, only my friends and family have this number. How could he get it?” She grimaced. “Maybe the same way he got my email.”

“Could it be somebody in the band?” Dance asked. “A practical joke?”

“I don’t know. Nobody’s done anything like that before.”

“Give me the number. I’ll make some calls. And I’ll check out Edwin too. What’s his last name?”

“Sharp. No
e.
Would you, Kathryn?”

“You bet.”

Dance wrote down the number of the call and climbed out of the Suburban.

They said good night.

“I guess we better get home now, Darthur.”

As the vehicle pulled away, Kayleigh was looking around the empty parking lot as if Edwin Sharp were lurking nearby.

Dance headed inside, aware that she was humming one line to “Your Shadow” as it looped through her thoughts, unstoppable.

What could go wrong … what could go wrong … what could go wrong?

DANCE STOPPED AT
the Mountain View bar and got a glass of Pinot Noir then walked to her room and stepped inside. She’d hung the
DO NOT DISTURB
sign on the knob earlier and she left it there now, looking forward to that mother’s rarity—sleeping late.

She showered, pulled on a robe and, sipping the wine, plopped down on the bed. She hit speed dial button three.

“Hey, Boss,” TJ Scanlon said cheerfully, answering on a half ring. Odd noises emanated from the background. Ringing, shouts, calliope music, though Dance realized that she didn’t know exactly what a calliope was.

“Are you in an arcade or something?”

“Carnival. Date. We’re in line for the roller coaster but I’ll go around again for you.” His voice faded as he spoke away from the phone. “It’s my boss…. Right. You better finish that Slurpee before we get on…. No, I’m telling you. Really. Does the word ‘inverted’ mean anything?”

TJ was the most alternative of the agents in the Monterey office of the CBI, who were in general a conservative lot. He was the go-to man when it came to long, demanding assignments, undercover work and any trivia regarding the sixties, Bob Dylan, tie-dye and lava lamps.

Quirky, yes. But who was Dance to judge? Here she was taking a week off in Fresno and sitting in a stiflingly hot garage to record obscure songs by a group of cheerful and likely undocumented farmworkers.

“Need you to check out something, TJ.”

She gave him what she knew on Edwin Sharp. She then recited the number of the caller who’d played the song for Kayleigh not long ago.

TJ asked, “Anything in particular? On Sharp?”

“The usual. But civil too. Stalking, lawsuits, restraining orders. Here and Washington state. Throw in Oregon for good measure.”

“Will do. Pine trees, pinot noir, cheese. No, that’s Wisconsin.”

“Have fun.”

“We are. I won Sadie a panda…. No, I’m serious. Lose the Slurpee. Centrifugal force will not do it…. So long, Boss.”

Dance disconnected. She tried Jon Boling but his phone went to voicemail. Another sip of wine and then she decided it was time for bed. She rose and walked to the window, drawing the drapes shut. Then brushed her teeth, ditched the robe and pulled on boxers and a faded pink T-shirt, way too big; Kathryn Dance was a nightgown girl only on special occasions.

She rolled toward the light, groping for the switch.

And froze.

The window!

Before leaving for Villalobos’s Dance had closed the gauze curtain and the heavy drapes; the first-floor room overlooked the parking lot, a four-lane street and, across it, a small park.

The same drapes she’d just closed once again.

Only she’d never opened them earlier. Someone else had been inside her room and pulled them apart.

Who had breached the
DO NOT DISTURB
barrier?

It hadn’t been Housekeeping—the room wasn’t straightened up, the bed still mussed from where she’d plopped down to call the children that afternoon.

Nothing seemed to have been disturbed. Her dark green suitcases were where she’d left them. The clothes still in the closet as before, carelessly dangling on theft-proof hangers, and the five pairs of shoes were exactly where she’d set them in a row near the dresser. Her computer bag didn’t seem tampered with and the computer itself was password protected anyway, so no one could have read her files or emails.

Shutting the light off, she walked to the window and looked out. It was eleven-thirty and the park across the road was empty … wait, no. Someone was in the shadows. She couldn’t make out a specific person but she saw the tiny orange glow of a cigarette moving slowly as the smoker would lift it for a drag.

She remembered Edwin Sharp’s slow, patient scan of her face and body in the restaurant that day. How he’d carefully read all the information on her ID card. Stalkers, she knew, were experts at getting information on people—both the objects of their obsession and those who
threatened to impede their access. Edwin certainly had shown he was good at such research, knowing what he did about Kayleigh’s associates.

But maybe it was a coincidence. There might have been some electrical or plumbing issue and workers had had to come into the room, despite the sign on the door. She called the front desk but the clerk didn’t know if anyone had been inside.

She made sure all the windows were locked and the chain securely fixed to the door and she conducted one more examination of the park, through a crack in the drapes. The moon had emerged but it was still too dark and hazy to see much.

The orange glow of the cigarette flared as the smoker inhaled deeply. Then the dot dropped to the ground and vanished under a shoe or boot.

She saw no other motion. Had he left because she’d shut the light out and presumably gone to sleep?

Dance waited a moment more then climbed into bed. She closed her eyes.

And wondered why she bothered. Sleep, she knew, would be a long, long time coming.

REELING THROUGH HIS
mind was Jackson Browne’s “The Load-Out” from the seventies album
Running on Empty,
the tune an homage to roadies.

A sort-of homage. You got the impression the singer came first.

But don’t they always?

Still, nobody else ever wrote a song dedicated to Bobby Prescott’s profession and he hummed it often.

Now, close to midnight, he parked near the convention center and climbed out of the band’s Quest van, stretching after the marathon drive to and from Bakersfield to pick up the custom-built amp. Kayleigh Towne preferred that her musicians use amps with tubes—like old-time TVs and radios. There’d been a huge debate about which was a better sound: solid-state amps versus the tube models, with the tube purists contending that that older technology produced an indescribable “clipping sound” when played in overdrive, which digital amps had never been able to duplicate. Not surprisingly this had been Bishop Towne’s philosophy and when the Old Man, as his own roadies called him, was performing, the stage was filled with Marshall JCM2000 TSL602s, Fender Deluxe Reverb IIs, Traynor Custom Valve YCV20WRs and Vox AC30s.