Jeffery Deaver - XO

No, he couldn’t be doing that !

But the look on his face.

Oh, disgusting!

His half-open mouth, the lowered lids beneath the outcropping of eyebrows… it was too much for her.

She stepped back fast and stumbled. But the tree she’d grabbed to keep from falling was a small pine sapling and bent sideways under her weight.

And caught Edwin’s eye.

The motion stopped and he gazed toward where a horrified Kayleigh now crouched on the ground.

Did he see her? Was he coming toward her now, his pants unzipped?

Panicked, Kayleigh turned and fled, sprinting all out.

Dodging trees, brush, not daring to look behind her… Then the fence surrounding her precious garden loomed. She slowed but didn’t bother with the gate. She stretched her hands out and vaulted the fence like she used to do the horse in gymnastics class-always game to take on the challenge but often, like now, landing in a sprawl on the other side.

Heart drumming, she was on her feet and scrabbling into the house, slamming the door shut and wheeling about.

She looked over her garden. It was ruined ! Ruined forever. She could never step into it again without thinking of him and what he had been doing.

She pressed her face against the window.

The flashing continued for a moment.

Then it began to move toward the main road. She caught a glimpse of red as the car proceeded slowly to the intersection, turned right and vanished.

Kayleigh jumped as her phone rang, a steel guitar ring tone and a hum of vibration. She approached slowly. Was it Edwin, or someone else, calling with the second verse to “Your Shadow”? Announcing another killing?

She picked up the mobile. Looked down at the screen. After a moment’s hesitation, she hit ANSWER.

LAW ENFORCEMENT BRIEFING rooms are the same the world over: scraped, scuffed, dented, repaired with tape, filled with mismatched furniture and cryptic signage, grimy windows.

The Fresno-Madera Consolidated Sheriff’s Office was about average, though the smell of sour garlic was a unique addition, maybe from a late-shift Chinese dinner. Dance stood in front of the green-lit room with P. K. Madigan and Dennis Harutyun, whose taciturn face had offered a faint quasi-smile beneath his opulent mustache at the announcement that Dance was joining the team.

Her ruse at using him to slip into the observation room earlier was apparently forgiven.

Detectives Crystal Stanning and Miguel Lopez were here too. They, along with Detective Gabriel Fuentes, presently in the field, would be the Prescott homicide/Kayleigh Towne stalker task force, backed up by TJ Scanlon in Monterey (“You have a very bizarre idea of taking a vacation, Boss”).

Two civilians were in the room, as well. Dance had called Kayleigh Towne thirty minutes ago and asked her to join them. The woman had reluctantly agreed and Alicia Sessions had come along for moral support. Kayleigh was bleary-eyed and sallow, her impressive honey hair tied back in a taut ponytail and protruding from a burgundy sports cap without a logo as if she were trying to disguise herself.

She also, Dance noted, wore baggy jeans, not the usual closer-fitting numbers from her album covers and concerts, and a thick, long-sleeved knit shirt, which would be merciless in the heat.

The concealment would be futile, though, if that was the purpose, Dance could have told her. To Edwin Sharp she was the sexiest, most beautiful woman in the world, whatever clothes she wore and however makeup-free her face.

Kayleigh reported that Edwin had been spying on her again, forty minutes ago, parked at a new vantage point; apparently he’d gotten tired of the police driving past and staring at him in the parking lot of the nature preserve across the road from her house. So, right after he’d been released from the lockup, he’d headed to this new observation post for his high like an addict looking for meth.

The singer’s voice wavered as she told the story, suggesting to Dance that there was more to it than her just spotting him. She wondered if there’d been an actual confrontation between the two. But whatever might have happened, it was clear Kayleigh didn’t want to talk about it.

Alicia Sessions was dressed the opposite of her boss, almost pick-a-fight defiant: tight jeans, light blue cowboy boots, a green tank top with bright orange bra straps showing. Significant muscles too. Dance wondered what the rest of the tattoo, disappearing down her back, might be. Her face was grim and angry, some of that directed, it seemed, toward the deputies themselves as if they weren’t doing enough to protect her boss.

Dance said, “Chief Madigan’s been kind enough to invite the CBI to assist in the Prescott murder case and we’re going to be focusing on the possibility that it’s linked to the stalker who’s been troubling Kayleigh. I’m not here to step on toes and if you think there’s a conflict between your department and mine, you can come to me or Chief Madigan at any time. I’m helping because I’ve got some experience with stalkers.”

“Personally?” Lopez said.

Everyone laughed.

“They’re discouraged when they see a Glock Twenty-three on your hip.”

Kayleigh was among those laughing but it was too loud. Poor thing’s terrified, Dance assessed. Alicia watched warily.

“First of all, my associate in Monterey’s found out that there are no warrants or court orders on Edwin-nothing federal or in California, Washington or Oregon. A few traffic violations, that’s it. Which is a little unusual for a stalker; normally there’s a history of complaints. But, on the other hand, he could simply be very careful. And we know he’s smart.

“Now, I’m going to tell you a little about stalking and where I think Edwin fits into the diagnosis. There are several types of stalkers. The first type is known as simple obsessional. These are usually domestic situations. The stalker and his object have had some prior contact, usually romantic or sexual. Relationships, marriages or even one-night stands that go bad. Think of Fatal Attraction. ”

“Now that was a movie to keep husbands on the straight and narrow,” Lopez said, engendering uneasy laughter.

Dance continued, “Then there are erotomanic stalkers.”

“Like sex perverts?” Madigan wondered aloud.

“No, it’s more about love than sex. Traditionally erotomanic stalkers were women who fell in love with powerful men in higher economic or social classes. Like secretaries or shop clerks fawning over their bosses. But now, as many men fall into the category as women. The profile is that there’s been some minor, completely innocuous contact that the stalker misreads. They become convinced the subject of their obsession is in love with them but is too shy or reluctant to reciprocate.

“The third type is called love obsessional. These are the ones who go after celebrities, people they’ve worshiped from afar and come to believe they’re soul mates with. I think Edwin is a mix of erotomania and love obsessional. He honestly believes that you’re the woman for him. He wants a relationship with you and he believes that you feel the same about him.”

“That damn ‘XO,’” Kayleigh muttered. “It was just a form letter.”

Alicia said, “We send out thousands of them a week. It didn’t have anything personal about him except a name-and we’ve got an automail program that inserts that.”

“Well, you have to understand: all stalkers are more or less delusional. They range from serious neurosis to borderline personalities to truly psychotic: schizophrenic or severely bipolar. We have to assume that Edwin has a reality problem. And he doesn’t want to fix that because he gets a high out of contact with you-it’s as powerful as a drug to him.”