And then she double—no, triple—checked the other thing she’d brought with her.

You still got that present I got you a coupla years ago?

I have all your presents, Daddy….

Kayleigh was now thinking of the song Edwin Sharp had played on the jukebox at the Cowboy Saloon yesterday. “Me, I’m Not a Cowgirl.”

I haven’t got a cowgirl hat to shield me from the sun.

My boots they have high heels. I don’t own a single gun.

For Kayleigh Towne that last sentence was not exactly true.

The present her father had given her was a Colt revolver. He’d bought it for her for protection when she was in her teens. Suellyn was away at college, their mother dead and he was spending insane amounts of time on the road, trying futilely to salvage his career.

She’d fired it a few times but hadn’t liked the recoil or the noise, even with the earmuffs, and she’d thought: What a joke.

The idea of taking a human life was impossible for her to imagine.

And yet two years ago she recalled spotting a coyote, twitchy and probably rabid, in her garden behind the house, hissing and baring yellow teeth.

Kayleigh had matter-of-factly blown the ragged thing away with a single shot to the head.

That’s all Edwin Sharp was to her now.

Not human. A mad coyote.

She tore up and flushed the packaging materials for the knife and the receipt down the toilet in the staff bathroom.

Determined, yes. But nervous as hell.

And where is the fucker? Did he leave?

No, he wouldn’t, of course. Because Kayleigh, the center of his universe, had called him a half hour ago—from a pay phone at the hospital where Sheri had been examined and released. She’d asked to meet him here. The stuffed redwood tree that Edwin and Mary-Gordon had bought for her at the museum had sported a label, on which Edwin had written a phone number. And the words, “Call me.”

She’d nearly thrown it out yesterday but had decided not to—because this plan had begun brewing in her mind the moment she saw his number.

Standing at the grimy window in the service door to the dock, she now wiped her hands on her jeans. Then, finally, Edwin Sharp appeared, walking in that eerie gait of his, not a care in the world. As if the murders and kidnappings were nothing to him.

He made a beeline for the auditorium, carrying his camera with him. He paused and began to take some pictures. If he snapped one of her she’d have to steal his camera and get rid of it.

Remember that.

Kayleigh took a deep breath. Through the thick denim of her jacket, she felt the knife in her inner pocket. Against her belly, the gun.

Not you, not him, not her, not them. In the end we’re all alone

Whatever’s needing to get done, I can do it on my own.

That’s all I need, just me.