Jeffery Deaver - XO

He walked forward slowly, staring at the pile of hair.

“Here!” she screamed and grabbed a handful, flung it at him. It flowed to the floor and Edwin dropped to his knees, desperately grabbing at the strands.

“I knew it,” she muttered contemptuously, backing into the bathroom. “You don’t know me. You don’t have a clue who I am.”

And then he got angry too. And the answer to her question was, Yes, I do know. You’re the bitch I’m going to fuck in about sixty seconds.

He started to rise. Then saw something in her hand. What-? Oh, it was just a cup. It had to be plastic. There wasn’t anything inside that could be broken or made into a knife.

He’d thought of that.

But one thing he hadn’t thought of.

What the cup held:

Ammonia, from under the sink. She’d filled it to the brim.

The cut hair wasn’t a message or a lesson. It was a distraction.

He tried to turn away but Kayleigh stepped forward fast and flung the chemical straight into his face; it spread up his nose, into his mouth. He managed to save his eyes by half a second, though the fumes slipped up under his lids and burned like red-hot steel. He cried at the pain, pain worse than any he’d ever felt. Pain as a creature, an entity, a thing within his body.

Screaming, falling backward, wiping frantically at his face. Anything to get away! Choking, gasping, coughing.

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!

Then more pain as she hit him hard in the throat, the wound where he’d fired the bullet into his own neck.

He screamed again.

Doubling over, paralyzed, he felt her rip the keys from his pocket. He tried to grab her arm but she was quickly out of reach.

The bitter, biting chemical flowed deeper into his mouth and nose. He sneezed and spit and coughed and struggled to catch his breath. Edwin staggered to his feet and shoved his face under the faucet in the kitchen sink to rinse the terrible fire away.

But there was no water.

Kayleigh had run the supply dry.

Edwin stumbled to the refrigerator and yanked it open, feeling for a bottle of water. He found one and flushed his face, the cold liquid little by little dulling the sting. His vision, though fuzzy, returned. He stumbled to the front door, which she’d closed and locked. But he took a second key from his wallet and opened the door, then hurried outside, wiping his eyes.

He looked around. He spotted Kayleigh running down the road that led to the highway.

As the pain diminished, Edwin relaxed. He actually smiled.

The road was three miles long. Gravel. She was barefoot.

She wasn’t going to get away.

EDWIN STARTED AFTER her, jogging at first, then sprinting.

The terrible burn of the chemical had diminished his passion but not eliminated it. He was all the more driven to fling her to the ground, rip her jeans off. Then over onto her belly…

Make her cry, the way he was crying. Teach her who was in charge.

He saw her disappear around a curve in the road, only a hundred feet away. He was closing fast.

Seventy feet, fifty…

Teach her that she was his.

And then he turned the corner.

He ran for ten more steps, five, three, slowing, slowing. And then Edwin stopped. His shoulders sagging, coughing hard from the run and the ammonia.

And he laughed. He just had to.

Kayleigh stood with two people: a uniformed deputy and a woman, who had her arm around the singer.

Edwin laughed once more, a deep, hearty sound. The sound his mother made when she was happy and sober.

The man was a deputy he recognized from Fresno, the one with the thick black mustache.

And the woman, of course, was Kathryn Dance.

The deputy held a pistol, aimed squarely at Edwin’s chest.

“Lie down,” he called. “Lie down, on your belly, hands to your side.”

Edwin debated. If I take one step I’ll die.

If I lie down I’ll go to jail.

Thinking, thinking…

In jail at least he’d have a chance to talk to Kayleigh, possibly to see her. She’d probably come visit him. Maybe she’d even sing for him. They could talk. He could help her understand how bad everybody else was for her. How he was the man for her. How he was Mr. Today.

Edwin Sharp lay down.

As Kathryn Dance covered him with her pistol, the deputy circled around, cuffed his hands and lifted him to his feet.

“Could I get some water for my eyes please? They’re burning.”

The officer got a bottle and poured it over Edwin’s face.

“Thank you.”

Other cars were arriving.

Edwin said, “The news. I heard on the news-you thought we were in Monterey. Why did you come here?” He was speaking to the dust and gravel but the person his words were intended for answered.

Dance holstered her pistol and replied, “We have teams in Monterey, true, but mostly for the press. So you’d think you’d fooled us if you listened to the radio or went online. To me, it didn’t make sense for you to go there. Why would you tell Sally Docking anything about a location unless you figured she’d tell us eventually? That is a pattern of yours, you know. Misinformation and scaring witnesses into lying.

“As for here? CSU found trace evidence near your house that could have come from a mining operation. I remembered Kayleigh’s song ‘Near the Silver Mine.’ You knew she was unhappy Bishop sold the place and it made sense you wanted to bring her back here. We looked at some satellite pictures of the place and saw the trailer. Camouflage netting doesn’t really work.”

Edwin reflected that Kathryn Dance was impressive but she quickly vanished from his thoughts entirely as he looked toward Kayleigh, standing defiant, feet apart, staring back coldly. Still, he had the impression that there was a spark of flirt in her eyes.

As soon as her hair grew back, she’d be beautiful again.

God, did he love her.

AT SEVEN-THIRTY THAT night Kathryn Dance was backstage at the convention center.

There’d been talk about canceling the concert but, curiously, Kayleigh Towne was the one who insisted that it go on. The crowds were rapidly filling the venue and Dance sensed the same electricity that she remembered from her times on stage as a folksinger, years ago.

There really was nothing like that utter exhilaration, the power of voice and music in unison, streaming from the speakers, the audience yours, the connection consuming. Once you’ve been up in front of the lights it’s easy to understand the addiction of having thousands of people in your spell. The power, the drug of attention, affection, need.

It’s why performers like Kayleigh Towne continue to climb up onstage, despite the exhaustion, the toll on families… despite the risk from people like Edwin Stanton Sharp.

The singer was dressed for the concert-in her good-girl outfit, of course. The only difference was that tonight she was the good girl who’d just been playing softball with friends; on her head a Cal State Fresno Bulldogs’ cap covered her shorn hair.

At the moment she was off to the side, “banging in” a new guitar. She wouldn’t perform on her favorite Martin until it had been restrung and completely cleaned-because of the human bone picks Edwin had given her. Dance, as unsuperstitious as they came, couldn’t blame her one bit; she herself might’ve thrown out the instrument and bought a new one.

“Well.” P. K. Madigan wandered up, accompanied by a short, round woman of about forty. She had a pretty face, rooted forever in her high school years, with big cheerful eyes and freckles, framed by page-boy-cut brown hair. Dance found it charming that they held hands.

He introduced Dance to his wife.