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He approached. Finally she sucked in a solid breath and wiped tears of pain from her eyes. She blinked in surprise.
Walking through the woods, holstering his weapon, was Michael O'Neil.
She barked a laugh, which contained part relief, part joy and a dash of hysteria.
THEY SAT IN the bar, drinking Sonoma Cabernets.
Dance asked, "That was your car? That I saw pulling in fifteen minutes ago?"
"Yeah. I saw you crossing the street. You looked ... furtive."
"I was trying. Not furtive enough."
"So I followed."
She lowered her head to his broad shoulder. "Oh, Michael, I never thought it'd be a trap."
"Who was it, Edwin?"
"Probably. Yes, no. We just don't know. What did you see?"
"Nothing. A shadow."
She gave a faint laugh at the word, sipped her wine. "That's the theme of the case: shadows."
"He's still using that song you told me about?"
"Right."
She gave him an update of what had happened so far, including how the information on the website he'd found from the file sharer's partner in Salinas had let them save the life of Kayleigh's stepmother.
"So he's targeting family?" O'Neil, as a Major Crimes detective, had some experience with stalker cases too. "That's rare."
"Yes, it is." She added, "There's one verse of 'Your Shadow' left. But Kayleigh's written a lot of songs. She's convinced he's using fire because of her hit 'Fire and Flame.' Who knows what else he could decide to do? Each verse in 'Shadow' has a theme but they're also pretty vague so we can't figure out just who he's going to target next."
"How does the last verse go?"
Dance recited it.
You can't keep down smiles; happiness floats.
But trouble can find us in the heart of our homes.
Life never seems to go quite right,
You can't watch your back from morning to night.
"Maybe it's a love song but it's plenty creepy to me. And, right, it doesn't exactly give GPS coordinates about where he's going to attack."
"So," Dance asked, looking him over, "you just jumped in the car and drove three and a half hours after supper?"
O'Neil was not big on eye contact even with those close to him and he examined the bar and the ruby-colored ellipse of the light refracted through his wineglass. "With that fellow in Salinas, there was a Monterey connection. It made sense I come on over here."
She wondered if he'd have made the journey because he'd learned Jon Boling wasn't here.
The detective continued, "And I figured I should bring you a present. The sort I couldn't send FedEx. TJ said you came here unarmed. I checked out a Glock for you from CBI. Does Overby always insist on filling out so many forms?"
Yes, the head of her office would be worried that protocol involving firearms might end up with bad publicity for the Bureau. Well, for him.
