TJ was the most alternative of the agents in the Monterey office of the CBI, who were in general a conservative lot. He was the go-to man when it came to long, demanding assignments, undercover work and any trivia regarding the sixties, Bob Dylan, tie-dye and lava lamps.
Quirky, yes. But who was Dance to judge? Here she was taking a week off in Fresno and sitting in a stiflingly hot garage to record obscure songs by a group of cheerful and likely undocumented farmworkers.
“Need you to check out something, TJ.”
She gave him what she knew on Edwin Sharp. She then recited the number of the caller who’d played the song for Kayleigh not long ago.
TJ asked, “Anything in particular? On Sharp?”
“The usual. But civil too. Stalking, lawsuits, restraining orders. Here and Washington state. Throw in Oregon for good measure.”
“Will do. Pine trees, pinot noir, cheese. No, that’s Wisconsin.”
“Have fun.”
“We are. I won Sadie a panda…. No, I’m serious. Lose the Slurpee. Centrifugal force will not do it…. So long, Boss.”
Dance disconnected. She tried Jon Boling but his phone went to voicemail. Another sip of wine and then she decided it was time for bed. She rose and walked to the window, drawing the drapes shut. Then brushed her teeth, ditched the robe and pulled on boxers and a faded pink T-shirt, way too big; Kathryn Dance was a nightgown girl only on special occasions.
She rolled toward the light, groping for the switch.
And froze.
The window!
Before leaving for Villalobos’s Dance had closed the gauze curtain and the heavy drapes; the first-floor room overlooked the parking lot, a four-lane street and, across it, a small park.
The same drapes she’d just closed once again.
Only she’d never opened them earlier. Someone else had been inside her room and pulled them apart.
Who had breached the DO NOT DISTURB barrier?
It hadn’t been Housekeeping—the room wasn’t straightened up, the bed still mussed from where she’d plopped down to call the children that afternoon.
Nothing seemed to have been disturbed. Her dark green suitcases were where she’d left them. The clothes still in the closet as before, carelessly dangling on theft-proof hangers, and the five pairs of shoes were exactly where she’d set them in a row near the dresser. Her computer bag didn’t seem tampered with and the computer itself was password protected anyway, so no one could have read her files or emails.
Shutting the light off, she walked to the window and looked out. It was eleven-thirty and the park across the road was empty … wait, no. Someone was in the shadows. She couldn’t make out a specific person but she saw the tiny orange glow of a cigarette moving slowly as the smoker would lift it for a drag.
She remembered Edwin Sharp’s slow, patient scan of her face and body in the restaurant that day. How he’d carefully read all the information on her ID card. Stalkers, she knew, were experts at getting information on people—both the objects of their obsession and those who threatened to impede their access. Edwin certainly had shown he was good at such research, knowing what he did about Kayleigh’s associates.
But maybe it was a coincidence. There might have been some electrical or plumbing issue and workers had had to come into the room, despite the sign on the door. She called the front desk but the clerk didn’t know if anyone had been inside.
She made sure all the windows were locked and the chain securely fixed to the door and she conducted one more examination of the park, through a crack in the drapes. The moon had emerged but it was still too dark and hazy to see much.
The orange glow of the cigarette flared as the smoker inhaled deeply. Then the dot dropped to the ground and vanished under a shoe or boot.
She saw no other motion. Had he left because she’d shut the light out and presumably gone to sleep?
Dance waited a moment more then climbed into bed. She closed her eyes.
And wondered why she bothered. Sleep, she knew, would be a long, long time coming.
Chapter 7
REELING THROUGH HIS mind was Jackson Browne’s “The Load-Out” from the seventies album Running on Empty, the tune an homage to roadies.
A sort-of homage. You got the impression the singer came first.
But don’t they always?
Still, nobody else ever wrote a song dedicated to Bobby Prescott’s profession and he hummed it often.
Now, close to midnight, he parked near the convention center and climbed out of the band’s Quest van, stretching after the marathon drive to and from Bakersfield to pick up the custom-built amp. Kayleigh Towne preferred that her musicians use amps with tubes—like old-time TVs and radios. There’d been a huge debate about which was a better sound: solid-state amps versus the tube models, with the tube purists contending that that older technology produced an indescribable “clipping sound” when played in overdrive, which digital amps had never been able to duplicate. Not surprisingly this had been Bishop Towne’s philosophy and when the Old Man, as his own roadies called him, was performing, the stage was filled with Marshall JCM2000 TSL602s, Fender Deluxe Reverb IIs, Traynor Custom Valve YCV20WRs and Vox AC30s.
Bobby was a guitarist as well (there weren’t many roadies, techs or personal assistants in the music world who couldn’t sit in at a show if they absolutely had to). He himself thought the richness of tubes was noticeable but only when playing blues.
He now unlocked the stage door at the convention center and wheeled the big unit inside. He also had a box of light mounts and safety cables.
Thinking again of the strip light falling that morning.