by Lamar Giles
ME
Florian, if you still have access to the soundboard, keep mic 25 hot as long as you can.
The dancing ellipses appeared; I couldn’t wait on the response. Before Olivia’s intro music began, before the announcer attempted welcoming her to the stage, I tossed my mask aside and sprinted up the stage steps to a chorus of surprised gasps and shouts for security.
I caught a flash of white—Paula Klein—in the wings observing and yelled to her, “Help me if you can.”
I was out there. Looking over the monitor boxes and the footlights at an uninterested crowd that didn’t seem to think I was more than some stagehand prepping for the next act. I flipped the mic’s power switch, thumped it twice, sending a percussive one-two throughout the venue. Raised it to my lips, like I was kissing an old friend.
“I gotta talk fast because they’re going to shut me down soon. I’m Kya Caine. My friend Fuse Fallon is backstage about to get wrecked over lies.”
Someone booed. A few sporadic followers joined. Most didn’t care. This wasn’t going to work if they didn’t care.
“We did not kill Paris Secord!” My shout reverbed throughout the venue. Snatching attention. Not everyone. Enough. I kept going. “But we know who did.”
I glanced back the way I came, security guards barreled up the steps.
“A man who goes by the name Winston Bell killed Paris, who you may know better as DJ ParSec.”
Paula Klein blocked the guards. It seemed. At first.
Then she sidestepped, swept an arm in my direction with a show woman’s flourish, as if to say, “Be my guest.”
Classy, Paula.
I backpedaled to the far end of the stage while three burly security guards closed in on me. I needed more time. More time.
There was one thing I knew how to do that always stopped a show.
“New DJ ParSec music, right now,” I said, and put everything I had into a high C note that wasn’t quite Mariah Carey’s level (whose was?) but close enough for government work, as Mama said.
The guards froze in place. A slow clap started in the audience the longer I held it. Five seconds. Ten. I was running out of air.
I stopped, lowered the mic, and gathered myself. Only one shot at this. “Paris was our friend, but we weren’t always friendly. That’s what happens. We had peaks and valleys, but we weren’t ever without love.”
In the wings, next to Paula Klein were the Clutch Boyz, curious enough to return. Olivia Merrick who looked rightly pissed—sorry. And, most surprising, Omar Bless himself. He was a stark contrast to Paula in his black-on-black ensemble. A yellow diamond chain hung from his neck, nearly to his navel. He peeled off his designer shades to watch my show. Expressionless.
“This is a song she wrote. It’s called ‘Everything, I’m Not.’ ”
And I did the thing I’d never thought I’d do again. Gave them a show.
All of me doesn’t fill this space.
All of me is all out of place.
A part of me is all, do I stay?
And all you do is take away.
At first, I was skittish, expecting any number of things to happen. My mic would go dead. Security would rush me. The crowd’s boos would drown my vocals.
Except if someone was scrambling to kill my mic, Florian scrambled better. If the security wanted to tackle me, I’d entranced them like sirens did to sailors in nautical legends. And the crowd, they bought into my a cappella performance because I was good at this. Always had been. Would’ve made Mama proud.
Halfway through the second verse, my mic cut out. I knew it was coming. But as I went mute and the security approached to get me off the stage, the crowd began booing. Hissing. When a guard grabbed my arm, a water bottle rattled by our feet. Then another. Then more assorted trash.
The guards hesitated, allowing a chant that had started in the back to amplify and reach me.
“LET HER SING! LET HER SING! LET HER SING!”
As much as the spectators cheered me on, and as special as this moment was because it was one of Paris’s song, I still didn’t love this. I only hoped that my gift was enough of a distraction to save the one friend I had left.
I allowed myself to be escorted offstage, despite the demands of the audience. Past Paula, and the Clutch Boyz, and Omar Bless, who said, “You killed it, shorty.”
Olivia Merrick—visibly angry—did not compliment me. I got it.
I was going to be a tough act to follow.
I always was.
Once the pounding stopped, I heard it all.
Kya’s play drew the attention of the masks on the other side of the door, but I didn’t dare step outside. Only listened to it all. She told the truth, and she sang. For ParSec, and for me.
I love you too, Kya.
Her voice was beautiful, until it wasn’t. Her mic went dead, and shortly after, more pounding on the door.
The wood would buckle, splinter, and a horde of masks would have their way.
Resigned, I palmed a handful of red gummy bears, shoved them in my mouth. Why not?
“Fatima,” a familiar voice called, “if you’re in there, open it. It’s Detective Barker and amphitheater security.”
Sticky, half-chewed gummies cascaded off my lips. Scrambling, I opened the door. The detective had two large men in Security T-shirts with him. All masks had dispersed. I hugged him like he was my favorite uncle.
Gently, he pried me off, embarrassed. Maybe a little mad. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do. Come on.”
Detective Barker escorted me through the VIP entrance, where a distraught Shameik gave me the “what’s up?” shrug.
I mouthed, Later, man.
A lot of phones were out, snapping pics. Recording.
We ended up at Barker’s car, the same one he’d pulled me over in. In the backseat, my friend. I leapt across the seat, throwing my arms around Kya.
When Barker got behind the wheel, he twisted, had the Big Mad face. “You girls … I don’t even know what to say. What happened here? Where’s Winston Bell?”
Kya did not appear to be listening, her eyes on her phone.
Barker said, “Are you not hearing me? Did he get away?”
“Not for long,” Kya said happily.
“It worked?” My head nuzzled beside hers, watching her phone.
“It worked.”
“What worked?” Barker demanded, flustered.
Kya, prim and proper, placed her phone in her lap. “We should go to the station now. Best you’re not driving when you hear this.”
“Start from the beginning,” Barker ordered.
Symmetry was always my preference. While I should’ve been quaking over the repercussions—known and unknown—of what me, Fuse, Florian, and Shameik pulled off, I was comforted by the location of our confession. The same interrogation room I’d occupied the night we’d found Paris. Instead of me and two scary cops, it was Fuse and me, facing down the adults in our lives. Together. It was becoming our thing.
Mama came, smacking her nicotine gum and threatening murder telepathically. Fuse’s parents were present, her mom in hospital scrubs and her dad with his tie tugged loose. All mad, but a little awed too—even if they wouldn’t admit. Five minutes into our story, Barker held up a hand, cutting us off. “Don’t say anything else. I need to talk to the chief and maybe an assistant district attorney. I don’t know where any of this stands legally. Jesus, girls.”
He stomped out of the room, leaving us with the parents. I’d have rather dealt with an angry police chief.
They all blew at once. An eruption of:
“What the—”
“Are you crazy, stupid, or a little of—”
“I’m going to strangle you when there are no cops around—”
Beneath the table, Fuse’s fingers curled into mine, and we took the onslaught. We’d been through worse.
We were not on stable legal grounds. Barker, his chief, and a frazzled man from the district attorney’s office de
cided they didn’t want to hear another word about what happened before, or during, the concert. Not without some thought, and other lawyers present—really, not without their butts covered. District Attorney Office Guy was all, “This is so unorthodox. You girls are minors. We need to tread carefully.”
Fine by me. I knew plausible deniability when I saw it.
Since we were never officially under arrest, by midnight we were released to our parents, which was worse than being under arrest. They marched us to the cars silently, took our phones, effectively severing any communication between us, then drove us in separate directions, to our separate homes. Though I imagined the reckoning was similar for us both.
I only saw Kya in passing for the next week. At school, an entire army of educators prevented one-on-one contact. Principal Corgis would not suffer any more of Dad’s wrath. The bridge in our forced separation was Florian, who remained on the outer rim of the memorial concert debacle while benefiting the most from it. (More on that later.)
Knowing how treacherous digital waters could be, we went analog in a series of passed handwritten notes through Florian the courier (who probably read every single one despite explicit instructions not to … desperate times).
I was fine. Kya was fine. My parents threatened to send me to stay with cousins for the summer. Kya’s mom didn’t have that option, so she yelled a lot, according to Kya’s many, many notes.
We couldn’t meet after school, not even for a moment, because Dad had one of his corporate underlings waiting with a car five minutes before final bell.
Five days of that. With occasional reminders by way of a Detective Barker phone call to our parents, and parents yelling at us, about how we’d made everyone upset.
The tone changed when Detective Barker called the Thursday after the concert.
That morning, sometime between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m., a package arrived on the gray concrete steps of the Ocean Shore Police Department. A tied, gagged, and slightly bruised Winston Bell.
Courtesy of the Dark Nation.
I’m smart enough to have known better.
I thought the apprehension of a rising music star’s alleged murderer, who might also be her estranged father, by what was, essentially, a fan cult, would’ve been more newsworthy. Not so in Ocean Shore.
The local stations ran the equivalent of their daily black criminal briefing. Winston’s—real name Onell, but he’d never be that to me—mug shot with a vague “being held in connection to the death of a local musician.” He might as well have been accused of robbing a 7-Eleven.
They didn’t even say Paris’s name.
In other news, two Hollywood studios announced different versions—authorized and unauthorized—of the Adelaide Milton story were going into production, and there was a rush for one to beat the other to theaters. The casting call had thousands of little girl actresses across the country getting blond wigs or dye jobs for auditions, hopeful that adopting Adelaide’s look got them noticed; they weren’t wrong. It made me so, so angry.
Paris mattered too.
She mattered enough that I needed to do something more. Something we talked about many times when we were younger, during late-night sleepovers, when we comforted each other over our MIA fathers.
It wasn’t going to go over well with Mama, or Detective Barker, or the district attorney.
I proposed what I wanted to Fuse in a furious exchange of notes via Florian. Fuse was apprehensive but agreed to play it my way on one condition: She got to go too.
Detective Barker was the first adult I approached thanks to a burner cell phone, courtesy of Florian. As expected, he said no, almost a reflex. I had a bargaining chip, though. The thing all of the adults in the equation pushed for from the moment Fuse and me told them everything we’d done: our silence.
Withholding the details of our “interference in the investigation” was actively encouraged. Detective Barker said it was to not jeopardize the case against Winston. Mama theorized OSPD didn’t want it getting out that children did the police’s job for them. Mama’s never been a dumb woman.
So my proposal became a demand. To which Barker replied: “You’re really going to extort me?”
“It’s a conversation. With one person. Isn’t that better than me having conversations with lots of people? Don’t we all get what we want?”
“It might not even be possible, Kya.” The detective was distraught, whiny. Strange to hear a grown-up talk that way.
“I’m sure you’ll find out. Soon.” I hung up, wishing Fuse could’ve been there to hear me, really, channel her.
It took a few days. Then Barker had to talk it over with our parents, who also rejected the idea … at first. They weren’t too different from the DA’s office, pushing for the particulars of it all to be buried. They wanted to move on from Paris in a way that just wasn’t possible for Fuse and me. They wanted this over.
To comfort them, we said it would be done after this. We said we’d be safe, and Detective Barker would be there the whole time. We said a lot of things to gain an audience with a monster.
Fuse and I were going to visit Winston Bell.
Jail had a smell. It was strong, burned my nose. Like generic mouthwash … not mint or spearmint, but that brown Listerine Mom’s great-aunt Dorthea kept a lifetime supply of, plus a little bit of pee underneath. The smell was a distraction from my totally irrational fear that once the doors shut behind me, I’d never be allowed to leave this place.
It was early, the arrangement dictated we go at the butt crack of dawn and Barker wouldn’t leave us alone, not for one second. Through the metal detector, past the lockers where we had to store our phones and keys and any other “contraband we might have on our persons,” through heavy doors that had to be unlocked by some unseen force watching us through not-subtle cameras.
We were directed toward a row of visitation stalls, to two dull aluminum stools that sat at a low counter. On the wall, an orange phone that communicated directly with the orange phone on the other side of thick glass with mesh wire running through it.
Something like an air horn sounded, a short blast. Then a heavy lock clacked on a door beyond the glass. A guard walked Winston in. He moved freely, though with a new limp. No cuffs or shackles, and he politely thanked the guard for showing him to us. He offered a weak smile, his bottom lip crusty and scabbed. What should’ve been the white part of his left eye was a scary, demonic red from broken blood vessels. The Dark Nation really worked him over.
He scooped up the phone receiver with a shaky hand. Kya did the same on our side, holding the earpiece in the general region between Barker and me. We all leaned in.
The guard on Winston’s side said, “These conversations are recorded.”
It sounded like a low-quality radio broadcast on our end, but we understood. It wasn’t a problem.
Winston said, “Thanks for coming, girls.” Like he’d initiated this.
“Thanks for being in jail,” I replied.
Kya moved the receiver away from me. “Did they tell you why we’re here?”
His gaze flicked from me, to Kya, to Barker, and back. “To give me a quote for my memoir? I’m going to have a lot of dedicated writing time, it seems.” His laugh was weak. That he had it in him to joke at all was disturbing and had me shuddering over the time I’d been alone with this unhinged man.
Kya sneered. “Did Paris know you were her father? Before it happened?”
He looked away and lowered the receiver. Nothing funny now. He returned the phone to his ear, gave two quick nods.
Kya’s breathing quickened. I know why she asked, and understood the impact the confirmation had on her. I took the receiver, gave her a moment to gather herself. I had things to say too.
“You know where you messed up, right?” I began. “How we got you?”
His eyes narrowed, became inquisitive.
“That’s what I thought.” Given how he’d left me to be devoured by the Dark Nation wolves, I was so going to e
njoy this. “It was the venue Wi-Fi, Winston. Or what you thought was the venue Wi-Fi.”
I broke down Kya’s plan—maybe more simply than she had explained it to me, Florian, and Shameik that night at the Savant, but I captured the essence. Shameik, in his concert-planning mode, got us access to the amphitheater Wi-Fi a day early, enough time for Florian to spoof the login page like she’d done at the high school. On the day of the concert, anyone in the amphitheater who tried to access the Wi-Fi found what seemed like a strange glitch, forcing them to log on twice. The first time was our fake page, giving us access to their phones if we wanted it. The second time was the real venue page. Florian had Winston’s phone number from our many texts, making it easy for her to identify him the moment he logged on.
Barker leaned close, hearing the extended version of this for the first time.
“To be honest, we never trusted the police to get this right—sorry, Detective.”
Barker didn’t seem amused.
I focused on Winston. “We also didn’t expect you to go nuclear option and sic the entire Dark Nation on us, so our plan wasn’t flawless. You actually might’ve gotten away fine if you didn’t follow me into Olivia Merrick’s dressing room.”
This was the part I was looking forward to most. I let it hang.
He bit. “What are you talking about?”
“See, when we got access to your phone, we put an app on it”—I cocked a thumb at Kya—“one she designed. SoundChek.” I made sure to give it the same gravitas Kya did when she spoke of it. “Inspired by ParSec, which is fitting. We thought if you got away, we might bug you and listen to your conversations for any clue that might lead us to you later. But you talked and talked and talked while we were together.”
“I broke that phone,” he said, slightly incredulous.
I pointed up. “The cloud, bro. Even with the concert being loud, and chaos happening all over, the app did a great job of recording you, and separating your voice. Then we played your game, by giving the recording to the Dark Nation. Once they heard what you said, and we provided a detailed description of you, they did the rest. Heard they found you in Canada. A lot of DJ ParSec fans there.”
