“This is our time,” Opal was saying. “This is our moment—our chance to shine. We’re all heroes of our fate, makers of our own destiny, and the creative powers of a greater source are coursing through our veins, inspiring us—uplifting us—making us reach beyond our limitations and plugging into a higher power. Can you feel it?”
Murmurs of assent echoed through their little circle.
“I said, can you feel it?!” said Opal, louder now.
“Yes!” cried the serial killer.
“I do!” said Suzy.
“I can feel it!” said the bobbing ponytail.
“Let’s pray,” said Opal, and closed her eyes. “Oh, Lord, give us the grace to rise above our limitations and embrace an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving universe.”
“Amen,” murmured Opal’s team, and with a loud yell they broke out of the huddle, and then it was time for the talk show queen to walk out onto the big stage.
Even from where she stood, Odelia could hear the roar of applause and cheers from the crowd as they greeted their famous hostess.
“I just hope no one tries to kill her while she’s on stage,” said Gran, whose cheeks were flushed. In spite of her misgivings, she’d clearly enjoyed this experience of being admitted into Opal’s inner circle and going through her private pre-show ritual.
“Well, I just talked to the guy in charge of security and he confirmed that Jacqueline Jackson left the building and won’t be admitted if she returns.”
“Jacqueline isn’t the only suspect, though, is she? I’m keeping an eye on that Kurtz fellow.”
“I’m keeping an eye on all of them,” said Odelia, who was starting to subscribe to Gran’s theory that there were probably more people holding a grudge against Opal than there were people who didn’t.
“If there’s a shooter in the audience…” Gran began.
“Impossible. They would never get a gun past security.”
“Unless it’s one of them plastic guns, the ones that can be printed with a 3D printer. They don’t show up on security scanners.”
Odelia heaved a deep sigh. “Let’s just hope nothing happens. I don’t want Opal to die on my watch. Well, I don’t want her to die, period, but especially not on our watch.”
“If that happened, I’m sure she’d kill us,” said Gran acerbically.
Chapter 13
Opal was clearly in her element. As she launched into her opening monologue, the crowd was laughing at her jokes, and it was obvious the woman was born to do this job.
“She’s good, Max,” said Dooley as we watched on. We’d found ourselves a prime spot to watch the show, where we were out of sight for both the audience and the cameras.
“Yeah, she certainly is,” I agreed.
Odelia, meanwhile, stood chewing her bottom lip and looking particularly ill at ease. As a detective hired to protect Opal this was a tricky moment: the star was seated on stage in front of an audience of about a hundred people. Anyone could simply walk up to her and do her harm. Several security people were present, but Odelia was still nervous.
“The killer is probably up there,” said Dooley, whose train of thought was clearly following my own. He was pointing to the series of booths behind the audience, near the studio’s ceiling. “I once saw a movie where the killer sat in one of those booths with a sniper rifle,” he added cheerfully. “Luckily he missed that time and Clint caught him.”
“Not helping, Dooley,” I said as Odelia’s gaze now traveled up to the booths indicated and the chewing intensified. If this went on her lip wouldn’t survive the onslaught.
“I’m sure the security people wouldn’t let a sniper with a sniper rifle into the building,” I said, and Odelia nodded, clearly on the same page.
“Oh, but this particular sniper paid off a member of the security team,” said Dooley. “Very easy to do, and you’ll never find out who it was they paid off to turn a blind eye.”
“God,” Odelia groaned, and suddenly took off, presumably to check out those booths.
“Now look what you’ve done. Odelia has gone off to find your sniper.”
“He’s not my sniper, Max. I didn’t pay him to shoot Opal. Someone else did.”
“We better go and help her,” I said, and turned to follow Odelia.
I almost bumped into Harriet and Brutus, who’d suddenly materialized.
“Where are you going, Max?” asked Brutus.
“Dooley thinks there might be a gunman hiding in the rafters,” I said.
“Oh, crap,” said Brutus and both him and Harriet joined us in our hot pursuit.
We mounted a staircase and soon found ourselves in an area of the studio that obviously didn’t attract the attention of the cleaning crew, as there were dust bunnies everywhere, and a sizable layer of grime and soot. It was also very hot up there. Not the best seats in the house, I imagined. Soon we were crawling higher and higher, and temperatures were rising. Finally we arrived in a narrow darkened corridor and I could see Odelia already opening the door to one of the booths located one next to the other.
As I joined her and took a peek inside, I saw lots of technical equipment, and a lone technician seated behind a panel with plenty of buttons and knobs and switches. He looked up when Odelia walked in, lifted his headphones and said, “Everything all right?”
“Oh, sure,” said Odelia, giving him two thumbs up. “Just curious to see what kind of work goes into producing a show like this.”
“Plenty of sweat and tears, trust me,” said the guy, then let the earphones drop back onto his head and focused on what was happening down below on stage.
Odelia closed the door, and proceeded to the next booth. This one was empty, and only consisted of a couple of seats and monitors. Presumably so a producer or network executive could watch the show without being disturbed. There were two more booths, one of which held the guy in charge of the lighting, and one where three people sat staring at several screens showing different angles of stage and audience, and picking a different camera angle every couple of seconds. They didn’t even look up from their job.
“No snipers,” said Odelia finally. “Phew.”
“Phew,” Dooley echoed. “What a relief!”
“A lot of fuss for nothing,” Brutus grumbled.
“At least we got to see what the show looks like from way up here,” said Odelia.
And just as we were about to return down below, suddenly there was a loud scream. And as we looked down, I saw how a large section of the lighting gear detached itself from the frame holding it up and crashed onto the stage below, narrowly missing Opal!
“The killer is down there!” said Harriet.
Opal, who looked shook up, was escorted off the stage by two security people, but then seemed to reconsider and returned. “It’s all right!” she emphatically spoke into the camera. “Just a little accident. I’m fine. Can you clean this up?” she asked, talking to a crew member who’d rushed onstage to deal with the mess. “We’ll be good to go again in ten minutes,” she said, quickly regaining her cool. “We’re going to switch to commercials and then we’re back. So don’t you go anywhere.” And this time she did walk off stage.
Odelia was already running down the corridor and then pounding down the stairs, followed by the rest of us. And as she burst through the door downstairs into the main area behind the stage, she wasted no time finding Opal.
“Ah, there you are,” said Opal. “Let’s…” She glanced around. “Let’s go into my office.”
She headed into the office, and Odelia allowed the four of us to sneak inside before closing the door.
“Do you see what’s going on here?!” asked Opal, losing her composure. “That thing almost dropped on my head!”
The door opened and Gran entered. “What happened?” she asked.