God, he knew just how to get to her.

“So about a year or so after we got to LA, we got that big break everyone hopes for.” She ate slowly, sipping her coffee and the water, feeling her body respond. “Anyway, it was big right out of the gate. Our first CD just blew up. We lived in the worst little shithole apartment in Hollywood. Junkies in the alleys, hookers turning tricks in the scraggly bushes outside. And I was never afraid. That’s how stupid I was. Anyway. We went on tour. We stayed on tour for nearly two years except for the time when we were in the studio making the second CD, which also hit big. In the midst of this, Jeremy, our manager, and I, started seeing each other. Secretly at first but then I got pregnant. It was a surprise, but not one I was regretful of.

“We bought a house near Griffith Park. Big. My god. He wanted to marry me, but I didn’t think I was ready. I liked Jeremy, I loved him even, but not in that way I thought you should love someone you married.” She shook her head and looked at Todd, thankful for the sunglasses.

“It was good. Fame, so much money. They let us have a lot of freedom in the studio. Adele came and it was like a dream. And then the first letters began to arrive. It seems that along with the money and the house, I’d acquired a stalker. And as Adrian pointed out, I never did anything halfway, so my stalker wasn’t just sort of crazy, he was fully homicidal. We got guard dogs and they ended up being shot. Other dead animals were mailed to me, left outside the studio. It kept escalating. And now I had real fear because I had something precious to lose.”

She’d thought she was out of tears, but no. Todd handed her some tissues and she took the sunglasses off to use them.

“The label got a bodyguard for me. Two actually, and they worked on twelve-hour shifts. The cops were on it; they did really truly try to find him. And it sort of died down. The letters stopped, the phone calls stopped. But I still kept a guard with me at all times.

“On that day, yes, Adele had her two-year well-baby visit and, damn it, I wanted her to have as normal a life as possible, so we headed out in this ridiculous SUV Jeremy insisted on.”

Her hands had begun to shake, so she put her coffee down. Instead, Todd reached across to take them in his hands.

Erin took a deep breath and continued. “So about three miles from the doctor’s office, there was an accident at a stoplight. Our car was hit, but two others were too. John—that was our guard—saw the lady in the car in front of us in the intersection. She was hurt really badly; you could see it. I told him to go and help. I called 911 on my cell, and I guess that’s what enabled them to find us because the phone had a satellite chip in it. Suddenly someone jumped in the car and drove off. It took all of like forty seconds. I can’t even remember it all at this point. It’s all feelings. Terror.

“The cell phone fell and slid back under the seats. He drove so fast. I tried to get around the seats to Adele. She was screaming.” Erin still saw that face, Adele’s eyes wide, scared, her cries. “He—Charles Cabot, my stalker—hit me on the side of the head with something. I don’t know what it was, but they think it might have been John’s coffee mug, this big porcelain thing he carried around with him everywhere. I knew I had to stay conscious, but I saw stars and blood kept getting in my eyes. I remembered what the self-defense people said about not letting a kidnapper take you, no matter what. Adele was in her car seat. I didn’t know what to do, but doing nothing was wrong, so I kicked him. I levered up and kicked him in the head, and we ended up on the sidewalk. The SUV was already damaged, and he couldn’t get it restarted.

“I’d managed to get over the seat into the back with Adele. I put myself between them. He jumped over, on me. He kept hitting me and kicking me and”—she burst into full sobs—“he pulled her from her car seat and dragged us both into the lobby of this building we’d essentially crashed into. People had scrambled. I heard sirens, but he kept hitting me and then he shot me. He shot me and I begged him to let Adele go. I told him I’d go with him anywhere. On my knees, slipping in blood, begging him, and he still held her. He shot me again in the back as I slipped and fell forward. I couldn’t breathe. I was failing her; she needed me. I heard sirens and I prayed and prayed that they’d save her. He ran from the building, holding her and shooting. I crawled; people tried to help me, and I got to the doorway. I knew I was going to die. I felt it, you know? Just my hold on things was slipping, and that’s when I saw him drop her. She was bleeding and I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t work my arms, and she died and I wasn’t there. She wasn’t with me. She was scared, and I wasn’t there to protect her. I failed.”

He fell to his knees and pulled her to him; they both cried.

Through sobs so hard she had to run to the bathroom to vomit again, she told him the rest. How her relationship with Jeremy had fallen apart because she’d distanced herself and he hadn’t known how to reach her. The horror of the trial and finally moving back to Seattle and trying to start over.

And when she’d told him everything, she did feel lighter. The pain was still there. She still had a hole in her heart Adele should have filled with laughter, but it wasn’t an ugly secret weighing on her heart every moment anymore.

Even if he hated her after the telling or couldn’t deal with her baggage or whatever, she’d unburdened herself and she could breathe.

Todd had of course read the newspaper accounts, but hearing her tell it, watching her sob at helplessly witnessing her daughter’s death as she nearly died herself—it tore him up.