Xo

said, smiling. The title of one of her first hits. Kayleigh laughed. After a moment he said, “Hey, here’s a thought: I could drive up to Canada. Vancouver’s not that far from Seattle. I know some great places. There’s this beautiful garden in the mountains, where—”
    She smiled. “You know, Edwin, it’s probably best if we don’t get together. Just … I think it’s best.”
    A grin crossed his face. “Sure. Only … well, after everything, I just thought …”
    “It’s probably best,” she repeated. “Goodbye, Edwin.” She extended her hand.
    He didn’t take it.
    “So … you’re breaking up with me?” he asked.
    She started to laugh, thinking he was joking—like his reference to theflowers in the hospital last night. But his eyes narrowed, focusing on hers. And the smile morphed into the one she recognized from before. The faint twisting of his lip, fake. “After everything,” he repeated in a whisper.
    “Okay, you take care,” she said quickly. And gripped her key fob, unlocking the door.
    “Don’t go,” he said in a breathy whisper.
    Kayleigh looked around. The parking lot was deserted. “Edwin.”
    He said quickly, “Wait. I’m sorry. Look, let’s just take a drive and talk. We can just talk. Nothing more than that for now.”
    For now. What did he mean?
    “I think I should go.”
    “Just talk,” he said stridently. “That’s all I’m asking.”
    She turned fast but Edwin stepped quickly forward, boxing her in. “Please, I’m sorry. Just a little drive.” He looked at his watch. “You don’t have to be at the concert hall for six hours and thirty minutes.”
    “No, Edwin. Stop it! Get out of my way.”
    “You like men who talk, remember your song, ‘You Never Say a Word’? That’s not me. Come on. You liked talking to me at the restaurant just now.” He gripped her arm. “That was so much fun. The best lunch I’ve ever had!”
    “Let go of me!” She tried to push him away. It was like trying to move a sack of concrete.
    He said ominously, “You understand I was almost killed.” He pointed to his neck. “I was almost killed saving you! Did you forget that?”
    Oh, Jesus Lord. He shot himself. Alicia was innocent. He set her up. Edwin killed Bobby, he killed Alicia! I don’t know how but he did it.
    “Please, Edwin….”
    He released her, relaxed and looked contrite. “I’m so sorry! Look, this isn’t going well. Here’s the thing, you need a place to stay. The fire at your house. You could stay with me until it’s fixed.”
    Was he serious?
    She spun around and tried to bolt. But his massive hand went around her face and pinched hard. An arm gripped her chest and squeezed as he dragged her to the back of his Buick and opened the trunk. The struggle for air became more and more hopeless. As her vision crumbled to black, she heard—she believed she heard—a voice, singing in a whisper, “Always with you, always with you, your shadow….”

 
     

Chapter 70
    KATHRYN DANCE DIDN’T play coin toss with the phone.
    She decided to be an adult about the whole San Diego Situation. She rose and hit CALL as she pitched out her Starbucks carton.
    Her eyes were on the motel room trash can as Boling’s phone rang once.
    Twice.
    Three times.
    She disconnected fast.
    Not because she’d lost her nerve about talking to him; no, another thought surfaced.
    A to B to Z …
    How did Edwin Sharp know that Alicia Sessions had stolen his trash?
    That’s what he’d said in the hospital. Yet she’d never mentioned the fact. Dance had said only that Alicia had taken some things of his. That she had garbage bags in her apartment was never mentioned.
    Slow down, she told herself. Think.
    Could he have learned about it some other way? She decided no. At Kayleigh’s house last night he was unconscious for most of the time and only the medics spoke to him, not Madigan or Harutyun, the only others who knew about the trash. And Kayleigh and Dance were the first ones to visit him in the hospital.
    A logical deduction on his part? If Alicia was going to plant something of his it made sense for her to have taken his trash.
    Surely possible.
    But another explanation was that Edwin had put the two bags of his trash in Alicia’s apartment, along with the notes supposedly forged by the assistant, but that he himself had produced. He’d then planted the evidence outside his own house, like the neatsfoot oil trace and the bootprint, to implicate Alicia, suggesting she’d