“Good.”

“And your boss is doing his thing.”

The head of the Monterey branch of the California Bureau of Investigation, Charles Overby, the consummate artist at press conferences, was enlisting the aid of the public to be on the lookout for Edwin Sharp and Kayleigh Towne.

The many fan sites too were abuzz and included pictures of the suspect and his victim, though Dance supposed that anyone with a TV or iTunes subscription knew what Kayleigh Towne looked like.

“How’re you doing?” O’Neil asked, echoing his earlier question.

A curious inquiry.

But not so curious in the context of where they’d left their personal lives just before he returned to Monterey.

But now was not the time for those considerations.

“Fine,” she said. Which didn’t mean fine at all but was like a fencer’s parry. She hoped O’Neil got it.

He seemed to. He asked. “What’s your ETA?”

She glanced at Harutyun and posed the question.

“Half hour,” he said.

Dance relayed this to O’Neil and added, “Better go, Michael. We’re doing about two hundred miles an hour here.”

Drawing a rare smile from the mustachioed deputy.

They disconnected. She leaned back against the headrest.

“You want me to slow down?” Harutyun asked.

“No, I want you to go faster,” Dance said.

He did and she closed her eyes once more.

“WHAT DO YOU think?” Edwin asked cheerfully. He waved his arm around the trailer, which was perfectly neat and scrubbed. It was also stifflingly hot.

Standing in the kitchenette, still cuffed, Kayleigh didn’t answer.

“Look, a high-def TV and I’ve got about a hundred DVDs. And plenty of your favorite foods.” He opened cabinets to show her. “Whole Foods. Organic, of course. And your favorite soap too.”

Yes, it was, she noted. Her heart sank at this foresight on his part.

She also noticed several lengths of chain in the trailer, fixed to the walls, ending in shackles. Apparently Edwin’s idea of thoughtfulness was to glue lamb’s wool to the metal clamps that would fit around her ankles and wrists.

Mr. Today …

Then, once again, his smile faded. “If you’d gone out with me, like I asked,” Edwin said, “we wouldn’t’ve had to go through all of this. Just dinner. And stayed in my rental for a few days, while they fixed your house. What was the big deal?”

Kayleigh sensed he was shivering with anger.

Edwin has a reality problem. All stalkers do.

His voice grew cold again. “I know you’re not a virgin…. I’m sure you didn’t want to fuck anybody, it just sort of happened. You did fuck Bobby, didn’t you? … No, I don’t want to know.” He reflected for a moment. “And I’m sure you didn’t do anything weird—you know, disgusting. Sometimes the good girls—the ones in glasses and buttoned-up blouses—they can do really sick things. But you wouldn’t.” He looked at her closely. But then like a light switch clicking on, his face warmed and he was smiling. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re mine now. It’s going to be okay.”