Meg Gardiner - The Liar’s Lullaby

She grabbed her carabiner and clipped it to the trolley cable that hung from the zip line.

Into his radio, Rez said, “Get security. Send them through the luxury suites on either side of us and grab her.”

Tasia turned abruptly and stared at him. “I told him. Warned him. So he’s heard me. But he’s going to hear me again, right now, a whole lot louder.”

Jesus. “Come on, T—”

She waved the gun haphazardly in his direction. He flinched. She turned back to the crowd.

“Secret Service would have scoped it out beforehand.”

Oh, crap.

“But they won’t protect me. Au contraire . Loose cannon, loose lips, loose woman. I am on my own and in their sights. So it’s just me and my music and the peacemaker here.”

Onstage, the band segued into the intro to “Bull’s-eye.” On cue, the CO 2canisters rigged around the balcony began discharging. Clouds of white smoke swirled around Tasia.

Shirazi stared at the barrel of the Colt. He had no way to determine whether the gun was loaded.

“Tasia, if there’s a problem, come inside and let security handle it. You can’t take a gun onstage. You’ll terrify the crowd.”

“No, I won’t.” She smiled again, darkly. “Watch me.”

The director shouted in his ear. “Grab her.”

“I’m trying. Did you call security?” Rez shook the plate-glass door one last time. He ran across the suite, opened the main door, and leaned into the hall. The corridor was crowded. A guard was loitering nearby.

Rez waved at him. “Tasia’s locked on the balcony, freaking out. Go through the suite next door and grab her.”

Behind him, she called, “Rez, you idiot. He’ll get in.”

The security guard hustled to the adjoining suite and pounded on the door. Rez ran back to the plate-glass windows. Tasia looked manic and distraught, her face blurred by the swirling CO 2.

“I can’t let this happen.” She turned on her headset mike and began gesturing to the people sitting along the balcony in the adjoining suites. “Hey, everybody. Join the party.”

People looked up, surprised. As if she were hosting a street party, she waved everybody toward her. They held back, unsure.

“Come on!”

“What the hell?” the director said.

First one person, then another, stood up and climbed over the low barriers from the balconies of adjoining boxes. Then they all came. They swarmed over the barriers and mobbed her.

“Damn,” Rez shouted into his radio. “She’s surrounding herself with people so the security guards can’t get to her.”

More CO 2canisters lit off. Dozens of fans, hundreds, crowded around Tasia before they were lost in the white mist of carbon dioxide.

And understanding swept through Shirazi. “Tasia, no.”

He grabbed a chair and swung it into the plate glass. It bounced off. The pane was ultra-thick safety glass, and the blow left barely a mark.

The first round of fireworks ignited. Tasia faced the stage and raised the Colt.

STANDING CENTER STAGE, GUITAR IN HIS HANDS, SEARLE LECROIX HIT the high note at the end of the verse. The crowd reached toward him, swept up in his performance like wheat pulled forward by a prairie wind. He grinned and pushed the cowboy hat down on his forehead.

In the stands behind home plate, carbon dioxide swirled around Tasia. Lecroix hit the downbeat. On cue, she began to sing.

“Give me a shot of whiskey with a chaser of tears…”

Her soprano filled the air like silver. The crowd cheered. Lecroix felt a rush.

He hit the chord change to G major. Tasia’s voice gained power.

“Give me a shot of courage, blow away all my fears…”

Her magenta corset swam in and out of view through the smoke. The crowd was spilling onto the balcony around her. What on earth? And she had something in her hand. It caught the light.

A gun.

He lost the beat. The bass player glanced at him.

Theatrically, like she was a gunfighter practicing a quick draw, she swung the gun up, aimed at the stage, and pretended to pull the trigger. The second round of fireworks whizzed into the air from the stage scaffolding. Tasia jerked her hand up, miming recoil. The fireworks burst with a crackle and poured red light on the crowd.

It looked like Tasia had set them off. She raised the gun to her lips and blew on the barrel.

Wow. The girl wanted to tie the crowd in knots. Indulging herself in some fake gunplay— Drive the guys crazy, why don’t you?

More fireworks lit off, green and white. Again Tasia raised the gun, fake-fired, and blew on the barrel.

“Fire away, hit me straight in the heart…”

Lecroix’s own heart beat in double time. Above the stadium, two helicopters flew into view. The third round of fireworks burst, red, white, and blue. Tasia’s voice rocketed above them.

“Baby, give me a shot.”

She raised the gun again. Smoke obscured her.

A sound cracked through the ballpark like cannon fire.

BELOW THE BELL 212, the ballpark swept into view. Andreyev heard Rez yelling at him over the radio.

“The weapon’s not a prop and—”

A colossal bang cracked through Andreyev’s headphones.

“Christ.” Ears ringing, he called to the pilot of the other helicopter. “Break off.”

Was Tasia Goddamned McFarland firing at him? The second chopper veered right. Andreyev banked sharply, following it.

Hack shouted, “Too close!”

He’d banked too hard. He jerked the controls, but it was too late. His tail rotor hit the second chopper’s skids.

The noise was sudden, loud, everywhere. The chopper shook like it had been hit with a wrecking ball. The tail rotor sheared off.

Hack yelled, “Andreyev—”

The chopper instantly spun, losing height. Andreyev fought with the controls. “Hang on.”

The engines screamed. The view spun past Andreyev. Bay Bridge, downtown, sunset, scoreboard. God, clear the scoreboard, get past it and ditch in the bay and don’t auger into the crowd—

“Hang, on, Hack.”

The bay swelled in his windshield.

ONSTAGE, LECROIX HEARD metal shearing. He glanced up. In the sky above the stadium, debris spewed from one of the stunt helicopters. The crowd gasped. The chopper spun in circles, engine whining. It keeled at a sharp angle and dropped behind the scoreboard toward the bay.

The security guards waved at the band. “Get down. Look out.”

A slice of rotor blade buried itself in the stage like a hatchet.

The drummer leaped up, knocked over his kit, and hit the stage with his hands over his head. Lecroix threw down his guitar and jumped into the crowd.

A chunk of the chopper’s tail plunged like a meteor into the front row seats. Screaming, the crowd fled. Lecroix fought against the tide, aiming for the stands where CO 2canisters continued to spew white smoke.

Lightning seemed to run through him. He knew where the first God-awful banging noise had come from. And why it was deafening, infinitely louder than the pyrotechnics or guitar solo.

The gun had fired, next to Tasia’s headset mike.

A gearbox slammed into the field. The flight of the crowd became a stampede. Lecroix struggled to stay upright. And from out of the smoke Tasia came sliding toward the stage on the zip line. She twirled, slow as a lariat, hanging by the harness around her hips. Her head was back, arms flung wide, as if offering herself to heaven. Blood saturated her hair. It dripped like fat tears onto the fleeing crowd. Lecroix tried to scream, but his voice was gone.

JO RAN FROM the snack bar toward the shouts and wailing. She heard metal slicing metal. She rounded a corner and saw mayhem.