Xo

  Breathless with tears: "I did what he wanted. Why is he going to hurt us?"

  Dance said sympathetically, "We can help you, Sally. But we can't do anything for you or your mother or brother if you're not honest."

  In fact, she'd already talked to the local authorities and made sure that both Sally's mother's and brother's houses were being guarded, though the family members didn't know it at this point.

  Sally struggled for breath. "Please. I'm sorry. I lied. He told me I had to. He told me if anybody asked, I was supposed to tell them that he was the greatest guy and never stalked me or anybody and he broke up with me, not the other way around. I'm sorry but I was scared. Send the police to my mother's. And my brother. He's got the babies! Please! I'll give you the addresses."

  "First, tell me the truth, Sally. Then we'll see about the police. What's the real story between Edwin and you?"

  "Okay," the woman said, wiping her face with tissues one of the agents behind her provided. "Last year Edwin was a security guard in the mall where I was working and he saw me and it was like, bang, he got totally obsessed with me."

  Because she looked like Kayleigh Towne.

  "He started this campaign to win me over. And one thing led to another and we started going out. Only he got weird. I wasn't allowed to do this, couldn't do that.... Sometimes he just wanted to sit and look at me. He'd just stare or lie in bed and stroke my hair. It was so fucking creepy! He'd tell me how beautiful I was, over and over. The fact is he thought I looked like this singer--the one he liked. I think I mentioned her before. Kayleigh Towne."

  Sally scoffed, "We had to play her music all the time. He talked about her every day. Mostly it was 'poor Kayleigh this, poor Kayleigh that.' Nobody understood her, her father sold the family house she loved, her mother died, the fans don't treat her right, the label doesn't record her right. He went on and on. I couldn't take it. I just left one night. It was sort of okay for a month. He stalked me, yeah, but it wasn't terrible. But then his mother died and he freaked out. I mean totally."

  The stressor event that had pushed him over the edge.

  "He came over, crying and acting all weird, like his life was over with. I felt bad for him--and I was scared--so we got back together. But he just got stranger and stranger. He wouldn't go out at all, he made me drop all my friends, he got jealous of men at work. He thought I was sleeping with every one of them there. As if ... All he wanted was for me to be at home with him. Look at me and watch TV and have sex. He'd play her music when we did that. It was horrible! Finally ..." Sally debated and pulled her sleeve up and displayed a scar on her wrist. "It was the only way I could get free. But he found me and got me to the emergency room. I think that convinced him to back off."

  "When was this?"

  "December, last year."

  The second stressor event, the one that had initiated his stalking Kayleigh.

  Dance made a decision. "He's kidnapped her, Sally."

  "Who, Kayleigh Towne?" she whispered. And yet she didn't seem too shocked.

  "We'll protect you and your family, Sally. I promise. And we'll get him and put him in jail for the rest of his life--he's also killed some people."

  "Oh, no. My God, no."

  "But we can only do that if you help us. Do you have any idea where he might go?"

  Another debate raged within her.

  She knows something. Come on, Dance thought. Come on....

  "I ..."

  "We'll get the police to your family, Sally. But you have to meet us halfway."

  "Well, he said he had this, like, religious experience, seeing Kayleigh sing for the first time. An outdoor concert, a couple years ago. He said if he could live anywhere, that's where it would be. In a cabin in the woods near there."

  "Where?" Dance asked.

  "Some town in California, on the ocean. Monterey. I don't know exactly where it is."

  Dance finally looked away from the screen and caught Madigan's eye. She looked back at the tearstained face of her subject. "That's all right, Sally. I do."

  Chapter 73

  AS THEY DROVE along, Edwin Sharp was singing, loud and more or less in key.

  She gets gallons to the mile, not the other way round, And the tailpipe, it really makes a pretty nasty sound, The heater hardly works at all and forget about the air.

  Duct tape's been involved in most of her repairs.

  But she's big and fast and solid and I know I can depend On her to always be there ... unlike a lot of men.

  She's my red Cadillac ... my red Cadillac.

  She gets me where I'm going, and she always gets me back.

  I love her like a sister, she's my red Cadillac.

  "We had to say good-bye to her," he called into the back of the van. "My red Buick. Sorry."

  Kayleigh was concentrating on not crying. This was a survival, not an emotional, issue. Her nose was already perilously stuffed up and she was sure if she started sobbing she'd suffocate. The tape on her mouth was a tight seal. She wasn't blindfolded but she was in the far back of the windowless van, on the floor. He'd pulled her boots off. Lovingly smelled the leather. Sick.

  They were about an hour from Fresno, though she didn't know which direction, probably in the foothills toward Yosemite or the Sierras because the road seemed to be at an incline. West or south, the landscape was flat. They stopped once, after Edwin had glanced into the rearview mirror at her and he'd frowned. He pulled off the road and climbed into the back; she'd shied away. He'd said, "No, no, made a mistake there." A thick strand of her hair had been imprisoned by the duct tape and Edwin had carefully loosened it and worked the hair free from the adhesive. "Can't have that." And he recited again how long it had been since she'd cut it. "Ten years, four months ... You could write a song. That'd be a good title."

  Then to her horror he'd pulled a brush from his pocket and run it through her hair gently, meticulously. "You're so beautiful," he'd whispered.

  Then the drive had resumed.

  He now sang, "'She gets me where I'm going and she always gets me back. She's my red Cadillac.' Love it, just positively love it."

  Kayleigh's hands were cuffed in front of her. She'd hoped she could grab one of the rear door levers, open it and tumble out, taking her chances on the road and traffic.

  But there were no door levers. He'd removed them. Edwin Sharp had planned this carefully.

  As he continued to sing, she felt the van turn off the main road and drive for a time along a smaller highway, one in bad condition. Definitely going up. Ten minutes later the tires began to crunch over dirt and gravel. Then the surface got even rougher and the vehicle strained uphill for several miles. Finally the van leveled off and ten minutes later came to a stop.

  Edwin climbed out. Then there was silence for a long moment.

  This isn't fair, she thought. It just isn't goddamn fair.

  You walk out onstage and sing folks your songs,

  You make them all smile. What could go wrong?

  "Hey there!" Edwin was opening the rear door, revealing a field surrounded by a pine forest. He helped her out and pulled the tape off her mouth--gently, though she was thoroughly repulsed once more by the touch of his skin on hers. She smelled his aftershave--yes, definitely her father's--and his sweat.

  She inhaled hard, shivering with relief. She felt like she'd been half drowned.

  Edwin stepped back and stared at her adoringly but there was no artistic admiration in his gaze now; his eyes lingered on her breasts and crotch.

  "My boots," she said.

  "Naw, I like you barefoot." A glance down. "We'll have to do something about that polish. It's a little too red, you know."

  Then he was gesturing at a small single-wide trailer, covered with camouflage netting. It sat in the middle of the clearing. "Familiar?"

  "Look, if you let me go, you can have a head start. Six hours, ten hours. And I'll arrange to get you money. A million dollars."

  "Doesn't it look familiar?" he repeated, irrita
ted that she wasn't understanding.

  She gazed around. It did, yes. But what was--

  Oh, my God ...

  Kayleigh realized, stunned, where she was standing. This was the property she'd grown up on! That her grandfather had cleared and where he'd built the family house. Edwin had put the trailer pretty much where the manse had been. There'd been a lot of clearing over the years but she could easily recognize landmarks from her childhood. She remembered that Edwin had been aware that she'd been upset Bishop had sold the property--just as he'd lost his own childhood house. How had he found the land? A deed search, she supposed.

  Kayleigh knew too that because the company that had bought up all of the private property here had gone bankrupt, there wasn't a soul around for twenty miles.

  Edwin said with a sincere intensity, "I knew how much this meant. This property. I wanted to give it back to you. You'll have to show me where you rode your pony and walked your dogs when you were a little girl. We can go for the same walks. That'll be fun! Maybe we'll do that before supper tonight."

  She supposed she should play along, pretend she was touched and then when his back was turned grab a rock and break his skull and run. But she couldn't feign. Revulsion and anger swirled within her. "How the hell can you say you love me and do this?"

  He grinned and gently stroked her hair. She jerked her head away. He hardly noticed. "Kayleigh ... from the first time I heard your opening number at that concert in Monterey, I knew we were soul mates. It'll take you a little longer but you'll figure it out too. I'll make you the happiest woman in the world. I'll worship you."

  He covered the van with a camouflaged tarp, secured it with rocks and slipped his arm around her shoulders, very firmly. He guided her toward the trailer.

  "I don't love you!"

  He only laughed. But as they approached the trailer, his gaze morphed from adoring to chill. "He fucked you, didn't he? Bobby. Don't say he didn't." He eyed her carefully as if asking tacitly if it was true. And wanting to hear that it wasn't.

  "Edwin!"

  "I have a right to know."

  "We were just friends."

  "Oh, I don't know where it's written friends don't ever fuck. Do you know where that's written?"

  So, the sanitized language from earlier--in conversation and emails--had been phony, just another part of the innocent image he created. And she now knew that he hadn't been simply tapping his leg in time to the music the other day.

  They were at the trailer door now. He calmed and smiled again. "Sorry. I get my hackles up, thinking about him."

  "Edwin, look--"

  "I should carry you over the threshold. The wedding night thing, you know."

  "Don't touch me!"

  He gazed at her with some pity, it seemed, then pushed the door open and swept her up into his arms like she weighed nothing at all. He carried her inside. Kayleigh didn't resist; one of his massive hands firmly cradled her throat.

  Chapter 74

  "WE'RE ON OUR way," Kathryn Dance said into her phone, speaking to Michael O'Neil.

  She then gasped as Dennis Harutyun nearly demirrored his cruiser as the passenger side of the car came within inches of the truck he was passing. He skidded back into the lane and sped up.

  "Are you okay?" O'Neil asked. "Are you there?"

  "Yes. I'm ... yes." She closed her eyes as Harutyun took on another tractor-trailer.

  O'Neil was at his desk in his own sheriff's office. Dance opened her eyes briefly and asked, "What's in place?"

  "Two helicopters around Point Lobos--that's where Edwin first saw Kayleigh at the concert two years ago. And another chopper's covering the area from Moss Landing up to Santa Cruz. Concentrating on the deserted areas. CHP's setting up roadblocks around Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach and Carmel. We've got about forty Monterey county and city uniforms involved."

  "Good."

  "And your boss is doing his thing."

  The head of the Monterey branch of the California Bureau of Investigation, Charles Overby, the consummate artist at press conferences, was enlisting the aid of the public to be on the lookout for Edwin Sharp and Kayleigh Towne.

  The many fan sites too were abuzz and included pictures of the suspect and his victim, though Dance supposed that anyone with a TV or iTunes subscription knew what Kayleigh Towne looked like.

  "How're you doing?" O'Neil asked, echoing his earlier question.

  A curious inquiry.

  But not so curious in the context of where they'd left their personal lives just before he returned to Monterey.

  But now was not the time for those considerations.

  "Fine," she said. Which didn't mean fine at all but was like a fencer's parry. She hoped O'Neil got it.

  He seemed to. He asked. "What's your ETA?"

  She glanced at Harutyun and posed the question.

  "Half hour," he said.

  Dance relayed this to O'Neil and added, "Better go, Michael. We're doing about two hundred miles an hour here."

  Drawing a rare smile from the mustachioed deputy.

  They disconnected. She leaned back against the headrest.

  "You want me to slow down?" Harutyun asked.

  "No, I want you to go faster," Dance said.

  He did and she closed her eyes once more.

  "WHAT DO YOU think?" Edwin asked cheerfully. He waved his arm around the trailer, which was perfectly neat and scrubbed. It was also stifflingly hot.

  Standing in the kitchenette, still cuffed, Kayleigh didn't answer.

  "Look, a high-def TV and I've got about a hundred DVDs. And plenty of your favorite foods." He opened cabinets to show her. "Whole Foods. Organic, of course. And your favorite soap too."

  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 thi
nk 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.