The Liar’s Lullaby. Meg Gardiner

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      Rez glanced at his watch. “Celebrity’s tough.”

      “Tough? It’s a life sentence. And life’s a bitch, and I’m a bitch, and then you die. Like Princess Di.”

      Over the radio, Andreyev said, “Three minutes. We are inbound, beginning our run.”

      “Roger,” Rez said.

      In three minutes a computer program would set the special effects sequence in motion, and Tasia would make her grand entrance as the helicopters overflew the ballpark. And she was blowing a damned cylinder.

      “And I’m not camera shy. But there’s an eye in the sky, watching me. Satellites, NSA, paparazzi. On TV, online, whenever I turn my back. I’m in their sights. Fawn in the headlights. Doe in the brights. Do, re, mi, fa, so long, suckers.”

      She stalked out the plate-glass doors onto the balcony and stared down at the forty thousand people who filled the ballpark. The music bounced off the glass, distorted echoes of the Star-Spangled chorus.

      Rez followed her outside. “Let’s get you rigged. It’s going to be fine. It’s just a stunt.”

      The breeze off the bay lifted her hair from her neck like swirls of caramel smoke. “It was a stunt in the movie. But in the movie, the star didn’t do this. You know why?”

      Because she’s sane. “Because she’s not you.”

      Because the star wasn’t as ravenous for stage time as Tasia McFarland. Because the star wasn’t brave or wild enough to hook herself to a zip line and fly forty feet over the heads of the crowd as fireworks went off from the scoreboard, singing the title song from the movie.

      Bull’s-eye was the latest in a series of action films that featured guns and slinky women. Long Barrel. Pump Action. The stuntmen had their own names for these movies. Handguns and Hand Jobs. Planes, Trains, and Blown Brains.

      But the flick was a hit, and so was “Bull’s-eye,” the song. Tasia McFarland was top of the charts. And she wanted to stay there.

      “Movie stars don’t do their own stunts because they don’t know jack about life and death,” she said.

      Her eyes shone. Her makeup looked like an overstimulated six-year-old had applied it after peeping at Maxim.

      “Stop staring at me like that,” she said. “I’m sober. I’m clean.”

      Too clean? Rez thought, and his face must have shown it, because Tasia shook her head.

      “And I’m not off my meds. I’m just wound up. Let’s go.”

      “Great.” Rez forced encouragement into his voice. “It’ll be a breeze. Like Denver. Like Washington.”

      “You’re a lousy liar.” She smiled. It looked unhappy. “I like that, Rez. It’s the good liars who get you.”

      In his ear, Andreyev’s voice rose in pitch. “Two minutes.”

      Tasia’s gaze veered from the empty suite to the heaving field. She squirmed against the tight fit of her jeans.

      “The harness feels wrong.” She pulled on it. “I have to adjust it.”

      A carabiner was already clipped to the harness. Rez reached for it. She slapped his hand. “Go inside and turn around. Don’t look.”

      He glared, but she pushed him back. “I can’t sing if my crotch is pinched by this damned chastity belt. Go.”

      And she thought that adjusting her panties in full view of a stadium crowd was the modest option? But he remembered rule number one: Humor the talent. Reluctantly he went inside and turned his back.

      Behind him the plate-glass doors slammed shut. He spun and saw Tasia lock the doors.

      “Hey.” Rez shook the door handles. “What are you doing?”

      She grabbed a chair and jammed it under the handles.

      “This isn’t a stunt, Rez. He’s after me. This is life and death.”

      

      ON THE FIELD, sunburned, thirsty, crammed on a plastic chair surrounded by thousands of happy people, Jo Beckett sank lower in her seat.

      The band was blasting out enough decibels to blow up the sonar on submarines in the Pacific. The song, “Banner of Fire,” was hard on the downbeat and on folks who didn’t love buckshot, monster trucks, and freedom. The singer, Searle Lecroix, was a pulsing figure: guitar slung low, lips nearly kissing the mike. A black Stetson tipped down across his forehead, putting his eyes in shadow. The guitar in his hands was painted in stars and stripes, and probably tuned to the key of U.S.A.

      The young woman beside Jo climbed on her chair, shot her fists in the air, and cried, “Woo!”

      Jo grabbed the hem of the woman’s T-shirt. “Tina, save it for the Second Coming.”

      Tina laughed and flicked Jo’s fingers away. “Snob.”

      Jo rolled her eyes. When she’d offered her little sister concert tickets for her birthday, she figured Tina would pick death metal or Aida, not Searle Lecroix and the Bad Dogs and Bullets tour.

      Despite her taste in music, Tina looked like a junior version of Jo: long brown curls, lively eyes, compact, athletic physique. But Jo wore her combats and Doc Martens and had her UCSF Medical Center ID in her backpack and her seen-it-all, early thirties attitude in her hip pocket. Tina wore a straw cowboy hat, a nose ring, and enough silver bangles to stock the U.S. Mint. She was the human version of caffeine.

      Jo couldn’t help but smile at her. “You’re a pawn of the Military-Nashville complex.”

      “Sicko. Next you’ll say you don’t love puppies, or the baby Jesus.”

      Jo stood up. “I’m going to the snack bar. Want anything?”

      Tina pointed at Lecroix. “Him. Hot and buttered.”

      Jo laughed. “Be right back.”

      She worked her way to the aisle and headed for the stands. Overhead, sunlight glinted off metal. She looked up and saw a steel cable, running from a luxury suite to the stage. It looked like a zip line. She slowed, estimating the distance from the balcony to the touchdown point. It was a long way.

      A second later, she heard helicopters.

      

      ANDREYEV PUT THE BELL 212 through a banking turn and lined up for the pass above the ballpark. The second helicopter flanked him. The sunset flared against his visor.

      “Ninety seconds,” he said. “Rez, is Tasia ready to go?”

      He got no reply. “Rez?”

      He glanced at the video monitor. It showed the balcony of the luxury suite.

      He did СКАЧАТЬ