It was a promotion Alicia Sessions had put together on Facebook and on Kayleigh’s website. Bishop had more or less shoehorned Sheri into working on various marketing projects for the Kayleigh Towne operation. The woman had been in retail all her life and had made some valuable contributions.

“It’s all scheduled, right?” Bishop asked.

“We’ve rented the room at the country club. It’d mean a lot to him. He’s a big fan.”

Not as big as someone I know, Kayleigh thought.

“And there’ll be some publicity too.”

“No reporters,” Kayleigh said. “I don’t want to talk about Bobby. That’s what they’ll want to ask me.” Alicia had been deflecting the press—and there’d been plenty of them. But when the steely-eyed personal assistant said no, there wasn’t room for debate.

Bishop said, “We’ll control it. Set the ground rules. Make sure they don’t ask questions about what happened at the convention center.”

“I can do that,” Sheri said, with an uncertain glance toward Bishop. “I’ll coordinate with Alicia.”

Kayleigh finally said, “Sure, I guess.” She pictured the last time she had lunch alone with Bobby, a week ago. She wanted to cry again.

“Good,” Bishop said. “But we’ll keep it short. Tell that fan it’ll have to be short.”

Having conceded one issue, Kayleigh said, “But I really want to think about the concert, Daddy.”

“Hey, baby doll, whatever you’re happiest doing.”

Bishop leaned forward and snagged one of the guitars his daughter kept in her living room, an old Guild, with a thin neck and golden spruce top, producing a ringing tenor. He played Elizabeth Cotten’s version of “Freight Train.”

He was a talented, syncopated fingerpicker, in the style of Arty and Happy Traum and Leo Kottke (and damn if he couldn’t also flat-pick as well as Doc Watson, a skill Kayleigh could never master). His massive hands totally controlled the fret board. In pop music, guitar was originally for rhythm accompaniment—like a drum or maracas—and only in the past eighty years or so had it taken on the job of melody. Kayleigh used her Martin for its original purpose, strumming, to accompany her main instrument—a four-octave voice.

Kayleigh remembered Bishop’s rich baritone of her youth and she cringed to hear what he’d become. Bob Dylan never had a smooth voice but it was filled with expression and passion and he could hit the notes. When, at a party or occasionally at concerts, Kayleigh and Bishop sang a duet together, she modulated to a key he could pull off and covered the notes that would give him trouble.

“We’ll make sure it’s short,” he announced again.

What? Kayleigh wondered. The concert? Then recalled: the luncheon with the fan. Was it tomorrow, or the next day?

Oh, Bobby …

“And we’ll talk about it, the concert. See how you feel in a day or so. Want you to be in good form. Happy too. That’s what matters,” he repeated.

She was looking out the window again into the grove of trees separating the house from the road, a hundred yards away. She’d done the plantings for seclusion and quiet but now all she thought was it would provide great cover so that Edwin could get close to the house.