This explained Edwin’s innocuous and infrequent online activity that TJ Scanlon had found earlier. That was the public side of Edwin Sharp; this was the stalker’s real internet life. Though they couldn’t tell for certain, a number of the posts with initials ES or ESS in the username were probably his. Dance assessed that the grammar, syntax and construction of many of these posts were reminiscent of the ones they knew he had done.

Dance hoped they could find even a hint of a threat to Kayleigh Towne, so they could invoke the stalking statute But, no, this trove of Edwin-related activity wasn’t much more helpful than the other. As with the more public sites, most of the posts that were or might be his didn’t appear threatening in the least; if anything, he staunchly defended Kayleigh. Nor were they able to identify particular potential victims. Other fans were far more insulting than he was, some viciously so. Edwin came across as nothing more than a loyal, if strident, fan. Dance reflected that it was likely Edwin Sharp was not the only obsessed fan Kayleigh Towne had. Indeed, reading the posts suggested that he might be among the more innocuous.

There wasn’t a single aspect of these celebrities’ lives that was private. Kathryn Dance leaned away from the computer screen. She actually felt unclean from the imperious, invasive attitude of the posters—as if the entertainers and celebrities that were the objects of their interest were simply fodder for amusement and self-gratification.

It was as if the more successful you were at pleasing the populace, the more they felt entitled to suck your soul from your body.

Crystal Stanning took a phone call. Dance paid no attention to her until she noticed the deputy’s shoulders rise and her brow furrow—a configuration often signaling bad, or at least perplexing, news. “You sure?” she asked.

By now the others in the room were watching her.

She disconnected, grimacing. “That was my husband. He took Taylor, that’s our son, to football practice, the early one before school starts? And, it was weird. I told him about the song the perp’s playing, Kayleigh’s song? And he said somebody got into the PA system at the high school field and rigged the tape player so the third verse played over and over.”

“Oh, hell,” Madigan muttered. “He’s not using the phones.”

Thinking ahead of them once again.

And what were the clues in the lyrics? Dance looked over the sheet that Harutyun had printed.

One night there’s a call, and at first you don’t know

What the troopers are saying from the side of the road.

Then you see in an instant that your whole life has changed.

Everything gone, all the plans rearranged.

Dance did a double take at the verse, which spoke to her personally—thinking about the death of her husband. A trooper’s call was how she’d learned of the accident.

Then she forced the thought away.

Where did the perp have in mind for attacking next? Somewhere by a roadside?