Xo

they were about the same age.
    Kayleigh glanced at the jukebox, embarrassed that it was her voice serenading them.
    “So,” Dance asked, “what happened?”
    “Okay, I’ll tell you.” She explained that as she was doing some prep work for the Friday-night concert a strip light—one of the long ones above the stage—came loose and fell.
    “My God. You’re all right?”
    “Yeah, fine. Aside from a sore butt.”
    Bobby, sitting next to Kayleigh, gripped her arm. He looked at her protectively. “I don’t know how it happened,” he said in a low voice. “I mean, it was a strip light, a cyc light. You don’t mount or dismount it for a show. It was there permanently.”
    Eyes avoiding everyone’s, big Tye Slocum offered, “And you checked it, Bobby. I saw you. Twice. All the lights. Bobby’s the best roadie around. Never had an accident like that before.”
    “If it’d hit her,” Alicia said, anger in her voice, “man, that would have been it. It could’ve killed her.”
    Bobby added, “It’s a thousand watts. Could also’ve set the whole place on fire, if the lamps had shattered. I cut the main power switch in case they did. I’m going to check it out better when I’m back tonight. I’ve got to go to Bakersfield and pick up a new amplifier and speaker bank.”
    Then the incident was tucked away and they ordered lunch. Dance was in fighting trim after the two-week-long kidnapping case—she’d shed nine pounds—and decided to splurge with an order of fries with her grilled chicken sandwich. Kayleigh and Tye ordered salads. Alicia and Bobby had tostadas and opted for coffee, despite the heat. The conversation turned to Dance’s musical website and she talked a bit about her own failed attempts at being a singer in San Francisco.
    “Kathryn has a great voice,” Kayleigh said, displaying five or six kinesic deception clues. Dance smiled.
    A man’s voice interrupted. “Excuse me, folks. Hey, there, Kayleigh.”
    It was the young man from the jukebox. Smiling, he nodded at Dance and the table and then looked down at Kayleigh.
    “Hello.” The singer’s tone had gone suddenly into a different mode, bright but guarded.
    “Didn’t mean to be eavesdropping. I heard there was some problem. You all right?”
    “Just fine, thanks.”
    Silence for a moment, the sort that means, Appreciate your interest but you can head off now.
    Kayleigh said, “You’re a fan?”
    “Sure am.”
    “Well, thanks for your support. And your concern. You going to the concert on Friday?”
    “Oh, you bet. I’ll be there. Wouldn’t miss it for the world. You sure you’re okay?”
    A pause, bordering on the awkward. Maybe Kayleigh was digesting the last sentence.
    “Sure am.”
    Bobby said, “Okay, friend. You take care now. We’re going to get back to lunch.”
    As if the roadie hadn’t even spoken, the man said with a breathy laugh, “You don’t recognize me, do you?”
    “Sorry,” the singer offered.
    Alicia said firmly, “Ms. Towne’d like some privacy, you don’t mind.”
    “Hey, Alicia,” the young man said to her.
    The personal assistant blinked. Obviously she hadn’t recognized the man and would be wondering how he knew her name.
    Then he ignored her too and laughed again, his voice high, eerie. “It’s me, Kayleigh! Edwin Sharp. Your shadow.”

 
     

Chapter 3
    A LOUD BANG echoed in the restaurant as Kayleigh’s iced tea glass slipped from her grip and slammed into the floor.
    The big glass landed at just the right angle to produce a sound so like a gunshot that Dance found her hand moving to the place where her Glock pistol—presently locked away in her bedside safe at home—normally rested.
    Eyes wide, breath rasping in and out of her lungs, Kayleigh said, “You’re … you’re … Edwin.”
    Her reaction was one approaching panic but, with a brow furrowed in sympathy, the man said, “Hey, there, Kayleigh, it’s okay. Don’t you worry.”
    “But …” Her eyes were zipping to the door, on the other side of which was Darthur Morgan and, if Dance was right, his own pistol.
    Dance tried to piece it together. Couldn’t be a former boyfriend; she’d have recognized him earlier. Must be an inappropriate fan. Kayleigh was just the sort of performer—beautiful, single, talented—to have stalker problems.
    “No embarrassment you didn’t recognize me,” Edwin said, bizarrely reassuring her and oblivious to her distress. “Since I sent you that last picture of me I lost a