You know me by now, you’ve got to believe

You’re the number-one girl in the world for me.

I’ve sent her the papers and she’s promised to sign

It’ll just be a while, these things take some time….

And his words are so smooth and his eyes look so sad.

Can’t she be patient, it won’t be so bad?

But sometimes she thinks, falling under his sway,

She got Mr. Tomorrow; she wants Mr. Today.

Chapter 32

DANCE WAS IN the sheriff’s office with P. K. Madigan and Dennis Harutyun.

There was another law enforcement jurisdiction present too: Monterey County.

Via Skype, Michael O’Neil’s calm eyes looked back at them from 150 miles away. He was the person she’d tapped to look into the Salinas partner of Frederick Blanton, the murdered file sharer. She might have sent the request to TJ Scanlon in her own office. But on a whim she’d decided to contact O’Neil instead.

Madigan was briefing the Monterey deputy. “Edwin never went home last night. Kayleigh said that about ten-thirty she heard a car start somewhere in the park out in front of her house. Her bodyguard said he thought he heard it too.”

The invisible snake …

“Kathryn and I want to interview him but he’s not answering his phone. We don’t even know where he is. This morning a deputy spotted his car on Forty-one, a pretty major road here. He tried to follow but Edwin must’ve seen him and wove around in traffic and got away.”

O’Neil said, “Tough to follow with just one car.”

“And I haven’t got a lot of people to spare, what with protecting witnesses and Kayleigh,” Madigan muttered. “We cover more than six thousand square miles. Grand total of about four hundred and sixty patrol deputies.”

O’Neil winced. Monterey wasn’t small but that county didn’t embrace nearly as much territory with such little manpower. He asked, “Kathryn told me he’d picked up Kayleigh’s sister and niece at the airport. Any charges possible there?”

“Kathryn’s going to interview them some more,” Madigan said, “but doesn’t look like it. Edwin was the boy-next-door, didn’t do a thing wrong. The little girl loved him and the sister thought he was—get this—the nicest of Kayleigh’s boyfriends in recent years.”

Dance regarded the man on the screen—strong and solid but not heavy. O’Neil was wearing his typical outfit. Light blue shirt, no tie and a dark sport coat. Most detectives in the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office, like here, wore uniforms but O’Neil didn’t. He thought casual clothing got you further in investigations than khaki and pointed metal stars.

Dance briefed them about the interview with Sally Docking, Edwin’s former girlfriend. “I have to tell you that his behavior with her doesn’t fall into a stalker’s profile.” She explained that it had actually been Edwin who broke up with the woman.

“Still don’t trust him,” Madigan said.

“No. It’s just odd.”

O’Neil continued, “I paid a visit to Josh Eberhardt.”