Xo (Kathryn Dance 3)

Dance had heard of JBT Global Entertainment--it was a competitor of Live Nation, which owned entertainment arenas and concert halls and Ticketmaster and had contracts with many rock, pop, rap and country superstars. These companies were typical of the 360 model, as in degrees. Global covered all aspects of a musician's professional life--producing the albums, pressing the few CDs that were still sold, cutting deals with download services and big corporations for exclusive promotions and--most important--booking musicians into live performances and arranging lucrative deals for movie sound tracks and advertising, known as synchronization.

Ironically, the music world has come full circle in a mere two hundred years: from live performances prior to the nineteenth century to live performances in the twenty-first.

Barry Zeigler's world was vanishing fast and Dance understood his desperate concern that Kayleigh might leave him.

The drama of the music Industry was, of course, important to Zeigler and the singer. But the subject had virtually vanished from Dance's mind now that she knew the private conversation had nothing to do with the Edwin Sharp case. Dance gave up her eavesdropping and collected her purse from inside, deciding she wanted to get back to the motel. As she waited on the porch for Kayleigh to return, she looked out over the darkening pine grove surrounding Bishop's house.

She was concentrating once more on how best to find a killer as invisible as a snake, who could be stalking them anywhere--even from the thousands of shadows surrounding the house at that very moment.

Chapter 44

AN HOUR LATER Kathryn Dance was doing some stalking herself.

She'd returned to the Mountain View, where she'd called her mother--the kids had gone to bed. Dance had dialed the number with some uneasiness, afraid she'd learn something more about Jon Boling's impending departure. But Edie Dance said nothing further on the subject, explaining that the children were doing well and Stuart, Dance's father, had her house ready for the guests and the party planned for this weekend.

After disconnecting, she debated calling Boling. Then decided not to.

Partly because she was a coward, she chided herself. But she also had work to do.

Stalking ...

She turned on the TV, a commercial network with a lot of commercials, so the many random flickers from the screen on the window shade would suggest someone was inside. She pulled on the only night-op camouflage she had: a navy sport coat, black jeans and a burgundy T-shirt. The outfit would have to do. For shoes, Aldo pumps; she had no tactical boots.

Finally ready, Dance slipped outside and stepped into the parking lot.

Her mission was to find out who might be the person with the bad habits of nicotine and, possibly, espionage. She'd just seen the glow of the cigarette again, in nearly the same place that she'd seen it earlier, in the park across the road. The smoker was still there.

She glanced out from behind a Caravan filled with dog show paraphernalia and a bumper sticker bragging that the driver was the proud owner of a German shepherd smarter than your honor student.

Dance focused again on the tiny orange glow in a recess between two thick stands of pine.

Was the cigarette just a coincidence? Dance might have thought so except for the fact that Sheri Towne's attacker had possibly been smoking. And that Edwin might still have the habit.

In any event, she wanted to get a glimpse of the person. If it was a teenage boy sharing a cigarette--or a joint--with his buddies, that would be that. If it was Edwin Sharp--or someone else she might have come in contact with recently--that would be a different matter.

Dance waited until a car entered the lot and drove past her, parking at the entrance. Then she stepped out of the shadows and made her way to the four-lane road and hurried across.

Very aware of the lightness on her hip where her pistol normally was, she circled wide and entered the park through one of the half dozen gaps in a rusty chain link fence.

She stayed close to the trees--the path through the playground would have offered a good view of her approach in the cool moonlight. She waved away lethargic but persistent late summer insects, and bats dipped close, dining on them. Keeping her eyes down to spot noisy vegetation and food wrappers, she moved forward steadily but slowed as she approached the cul-de-sac where the spy, or an innocent citizen, was ruining his health.

Twenty feet farther on she smelled cigarette smoke.

And she slowed even more, crouching.

She couldn't see him yet but noted that the place where he was sitting seemed to be a picnic area; there were several tables nearby, all of them chained to thick concrete posts in the ground. Was table theft from public facilities a big problem in Fresno?

She moved closer yet, one careful step at a time.

The orange glow was evident but thick pine boughs completely obscured her view of the smoker, about twenty feet away.

She reached out and gripped the bough, moving it aside.

Squinting ...

Oh, no! Dance gasped.

The lit cigarette was stuck into a fork of a sapling near a picnic table.