Except I can’t.
I’m a fucking coward.
The gun lowered.
“Oh, Kayleigh, they’ve brainwashed you so badly.
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
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.
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,
“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.
