“Thank you, honey,” the woman offered tentatively.

Her father lifted the milk as if toasting.

“Daddy.” Her eyes avoiding his, Kayleigh said quickly, “I’m thinking of canceling.” It was easier to stare toward where a murderous stalker had been spying on her than to make eye contact with Bishop Towne.

“The concert?” The big man grunted. His ragged vocal style was not a function of any emotion, of course, but was simply because that’s the way he talked. No lilting tones, never a whisper, just a guttural rasp. It hadn’t always been that way; his voice—like his joints and liver—had been a victim of his lifestyle.

“I’m thinking of it.”

“Sure. Course. I see.”

Sheri tried to deflect what might be an uncomfortable moment. “If there’s anything I can do? … I’ll bring some dinners by. Tell me what you’d like. I’ll make you something special.”

Food and death had always been linked, Kayleigh now thought.

“I’ll think on it. Thanks, Sheri.”

The word “Mom,” had, of course, never been on the table. Kayleigh didn’t hate her stepmother. Either you were a woman of steel, like Margaret, her mother, and you fought with and—at times—corralled a man like Bishop Towne, or you took the residual prestige and the undeniable charisma and you surrendered. That was Sheri.

Though Kayleigh couldn’t blame her. Nor could she her father either. Margaret had been his first choice and, despite the others along the way, they’d still be together if not for fate. There was no one who could take his first wife’s place so why even try? Yet it was impossible to imagine Bishop Towne surviving without a woman in his life.

He grumbled, “You tell Barry?”

She nodded toward her mobile. “He was the first one I called. He’s in Carmel with Neil.”

Tall, fidgeting Barry Zeigler, her producer, was full of nervous energy. He was a genius in the studio. He’d produced some of the biggest hits of the nineties, when country got itself branded with the adjective “crossover” and began to transcend its Nashville and Dallas and Bakersfield roots to spread to mainstream TV and overseas.

If anybody had created a Kayleigh Towne sound it was Barry Zeigler. And that sound had made her a huge success.

Zeigler and the label hadn’t escaped the shadow of Edwin Sharp either, though. The stalker had inundated the company with emails criticizing instrumentation choices and pacing and production techniques. He never dissed Kayleigh’s voice or the songs themselves but argued that Zeigler, the recording techs and backup musicians weren’t “doing her justice.” That was a favorite phrase of his.

Kayleigh’d seen several of the emails and, though she never told anyone, she thought Edwin had a point on a few of the issues.

Finally Sheri said, “Just one thing. I mean—” A glance toward Bishop, sipping the milk he drank as religiously as he had once drunk bourbon. When he didn’t object to her getting this far, she continued, “That luncheon tomorrow—for the fan of the month. You think we can still do that?”