Jeffery Deaver - XO

Now Kayleigh sat on the bed and read once more the copy of Bobby’s letter, which expressed his desire that most everything he had go to Mary-Gordon, a few things to Kayleigh. She didn’t know if this was legal as a will but if she took it to a lawyer she supposed the news would become public about Mary-Gordon’s parentage.

Bishop would explode. And the fans? Would they desert her? Kayleigh could honestly say that she didn’t much care about either of those happening, not in her present frame of mind.

But there was also a chance that the girl herself would find out. She’d have to learn at some point, of course. But not now, at this age. Suellyn was her mother and Roberto her father. Kayleigh would never think about disrupting the girl’s life. She slipped the envelope away in her top dresser drawer. She’d work out something to make sure the girl received what her biological father wanted her to have.

Yes, it was too late for Kayleigh when it came to Bobby and Mary-Gordon. But it wasn’t too late for the life she dreamed of. Find a man, get married, have lots of other babies, play music on the front porch-a few concerts now and then.

Of course there was that little part about “finding a man.”

Since Bobby, there’d been no one she felt really intense about. She’d been only sixteen then but she decided that the yardstick of love at that age was the best standard you could have, the purest, the most honest, the least complicated.

A single note in her mind’s ear. A C sharp followed by five other notes, and they carried a phrase, “How I Felt at Sixteen.”

She sang it.

Good meter and there was a lot that rhymed with “sixteen.” That was a key consideration in writing music. What rhymed with what. “Orange,” for instance, was not a word you ended lyric lines with. “Silver” was tricky too, though Kayleigh’d managed to work it into one of the songs on her recent album.

She sat down at the dressing table she used for her desk here in the bedroom. She pulled out a yellow pad and a few sheets of music staff paper. In three minutes she’d written the melody and a number of phrases and portions of the song.

I still recall how I felt at sixteen.

You were a king and I was your queen

Love was so simple, way back when,

I wish life could be like that again…

When I was sixteen…

Oh, Bobby…

Kayleigh cried for a full five minutes. Then grabbed some more tissues and dried her face; she’d used nearly two whole boxes this week.

Okay, enough of that…

She cranked up the Bose iPod player, tapped the Loretta Lynn playlist.

In the bathroom, she filled the bathtub, pinned her hair up and stripped, then sank into the deep water, listening to the album.

It felt wonderful.

THEY HAD THEIR answer.

Dance, Dennis Harutyun and Pike Madigan were in the tiny apartment of Alicia Sessions, and they were surveying the evidence they’d just uncovered. Cowboy boots, with needle-sharp toes, like those that made the prints behind Edwin’s house. And in the kitchen was neatsfoot oil for treating Alicia’s equestrian tack; Dance recalled her quarter horse bumper sticker and her love of riding. They found cartons of Marlboros in her apartment. The dwelling also was in the Tower District, near the hotel from which the email request for the fourth song had been sent.

But far more incriminating were the two garbage bags full of Edwin Sharp’s trash stolen from his house in Fresno, including receipts and some mail addressed to him in Seattle-to plant at Kayleigh’s, to convince the police and jury that Edwin was the one behind the attacks and that he had killed Kayleigh. And hidden under Alicia’s bed was Deputy Gabriel Fuentes’s pistol case-without the weapon-stolen from near the theater when the cop was tailing Edwin.

“Alicia knew where Gabriel was,” Dance had reminded them. “She was in the briefing at headquarters.”

At first they’d been unable to come up with a motive for setting up Edwin Sharp. But a moment ago Dance had learned the answer. To Madigan and Harutyun, she was displaying two dozen sheets of paper, all pretty much the same-attempts to forge Kayleigh’s handwriting on a note that read:

To who it may concern

Just want to say a few things to the people close to me if anything happens to me on the road… Can’t help but thinking about Patsy Cline in that airplane… Well, if anything does, I’d like Alicia to take over as front for the band. She knows the songs as good as me and can hit those high notes better. And one more thing, I want you to have one hell of a party and make sure she sings “I’m in the Mood (for Rock ’n’ Roll),” which she inspired me to write.

I see you in heaven, luv you all!

Kayleigh

“Jesus,” Madigan muttered, “Kayleigh’s the fourth victim. The last verse. ‘Trouble can find us in the heart of our homes.’ Alicia’s going to kill her in her house.”

Dance ripped her phone from the holster and punched in the singer’s number.

I SHOULD WRITE a song about things like this, Kayleigh thought, thoroughly enjoying the bath, the soundtrack of Loretta Lynn, the violet scent of the candle she’d lit.

“The small pleasures,” she sang. No. “The little pleasures.” Scans better. The extra syllable helped.

It would be about how the tragedies in life, the things we can’t control, are often diminished, if not cancelled, by the small things.

“An antidote to pain.”

Nice line, she thought. Nobody’d ever used “antidote” in a song that she knew of. Good. But then… wait. Hold on. You don’t have to write a song every five minutes.

But she didn’t actually write them. She never did. That was the secret. They wrote themselves.

In the other room she heard her phone ringing. Kayleigh debated. Ignore it. Four rings, then voicemail.

“I love the summer rain… It’s an antidote to pain…” Hm, she thought wryly. Awful! Just because some lines come fast doesn’t mean they’re any good. But part of being a pro is knowing what sucks and what doesn’t. She’d work on it.

Then, hearing the mobile trill again, she thought of Mary-Gordon. Was Suellyn calling because she was sick, did she want Kayleigh to bring a special toy from the house? Concern for the little girl was what prodded Kayleigh out of the tub. She dried off and dressed fast in jeans and a blouse. Pulled on socks. And her glasses.

Maybe it was Alicia calling back. What exactly did she want to talk to her about, out of Bishop’s hearing?

Could be anything, she decided. The assistant and Bishop had never really gotten along. Her father liked women who fawned. Alicia did what she was supposed to for him-he was the head of the company-but there was always some tension between them because she would not kowtow to the big man.

She picked up the phone. Ah, Kathryn’s number. She hit the CALL-BACK button.

As it rang, she glanced out the window. It was dark now but she made out Alicia’s blue pickup truck sitting in the drive. Kayleigh hadn’t heard her arrive but she could let herself in. She had a key.

Dance’s phone clicked.

Kayleigh started to say, “Hey, how’re-?”

But the agent said urgently, “Kayleigh, listen to me. I don’t have time to go into the details. Alicia Session’s on her way there. She’s going to kill you. Get out of the house. Now!”

“What?”

“Just get out!”

Downstairs, the kitchen door opened and Alicia called out, “Hey, Kayleigh. It’s me. You decent?”

THROUGH HER PHONE Kathryn Dance heard Kayleigh’s voice catch. Then she whispered, “She’s here! She’s downstairs. Alicia!”