Xo

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 think 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