Xo

and lecture venue from the nineteenth century. She noted the brass plaque that read:
    KAYLEIGH, OUR HOME “TOWNE” GIRL, GAVE HER FIRST CONCERT HERE.
    She’d been thirteen. The “first concert” part was not exactly true—she’d done churches and sporting events since she was nine or ten. But this was, yes, the first performance in a concert hall, though she’d shared the stage with a few other kids from the children’s choir of George Washington Middle School.
    “About a half hour,” she told Morgan.
    “I’ll be here,” he said. And began immediately to study the street for signs of Edwin Sharp or any other threat.
    Kayleigh found the key to the hall and slipped inside the musty place. That afternoon she’d contacted the foundation that owned it and explained that she was thinking about giving a concert there. Could she borrow the key to check the place out? They’d been delighted and she’d had politely to decline the several invitations by the staff to give her a tour of the venue. Her time was so limited, she’d said, that she wasn’t sure when she could get there.
    Inside, the murky hall resonated with its own brand of creaks and snaps but this time, unlike at the convention center, she wasn’t made the least uneasy by the atmosphere. She knew where the danger was.
    And it wasn’t in the shadows that surrounded her.
    Kayleigh headed straight for the loading dock in the back, opened the door and stepped outside, looking over the street, which ran parallel toOlive. A few minutes later she saw the red Buick driven by the man who had killed Bobby and tried to kill Sheri and who had kidnapped Mary-Gordon and Suellyn. He cruised past the theater to the stoplight. One of the sheriff’s deputies was following.
    Hell, she hadn’t counted on that.
    She couldn’t have the police near when Edwin died. What was she going to do? Give up? She was furious at the thought.
    The Buick waited for a light, signaling left.
    A block away the deputy, trying to be clever, slowed and turned left, apparently hoping to pick up the Buick after Edwin turned.
    She nearly laughed to see Edwin floor the accelerator and speed right into a largely residential neighborhood. He’d eluded the deputy completely.
    It was tough that didn’t work out, but now it’s plain to see
    When it comes to things that matter, all I really need is me.
     
    Stepping back inside, she opened her purse and slipped on leather gloves, then unfixed the twist ties securing the eight-inch filleting knife to the cardboard backing. She wrapped the blade in a tissue and slipped it into the inner pocket of her denim jacket.
    And then she double—no, triple—checked the other thing she’d brought with her.
    You still got that present I got you a coupla years ago?
    I have all your presents, Daddy….
    Kayleigh was now thinking of the song Edwin Sharp had played on the jukebox at the Cowboy Saloon yesterday. “Me, I’m Not a Cowgirl.”
    I haven’t got a cowgirl hat to shield me from the sun.
    My boots they have high heels. I don’t own a single gun.
     
    For Kayleigh Towne that last sentence was not exactly true.
    The present her father had given her was a Colt revolver. He’d bought it for her for protection when she was in her teens. Suellyn was away at college, their mother dead and he was spending insane amounts of time on the road, trying futilely to salvage his career.
    She’d fired it a few times but hadn’t liked the recoil or the noise, even with the earmuffs, and she’d thought: What a joke.
    The idea of taking a human life was impossible for her to imagine.
    And yet two years ago she recalled spotting a coyote, twitchy and probably rabid, in her garden behind the house, hissing and baring yellow teeth.
    Kayleigh had matter-of-factly blown the ragged thing away with a single shot to the head.
    That’s all Edwin Sharp was to her now.
    Not human. A mad coyote.
    She tore up and flushed the packaging materials for the knife and the receipt down the toilet in the staff bathroom.
    Determined, yes. But nervous as hell.
    And where is the fucker? Did he leave?
    No, he wouldn’t, of course. Because Kayleigh, the center of his universe, had called him a half hour ago—from a pay phone at the hospital where Sheri had been examined and released. She’d asked to meet him here. The stuffed redwood tree that Edwin and Mary-Gordon had bought for her at the museum had sported a label, on which Edwin had written a phone number. And the words,