XO

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.”