Double Booked For Death

FOUR

“SOMETHING TELLS ME THAT TODAY IS GOING TO BE A long, long day.”

The curt words came from James as he hung up the phone, which had been ringing almost nonstop all morning. The majority of the calls had been from teenage girls wanting to know a) how long the line was already, and b) would Valerie sign more than two books for her since she was Valerie’s Biggest Fan Ever. The clipped answers James gave to these questions were a) very and b) no.

“I know it’s a pain, James, but just keep being polite,” Darla told him, feeling more than a bit harried herself.

It was barely noon, and already yesterday’s positive thoughts were drifting perilously back toward negative territory. Was the payoff for this night’s event going to be worth the agony they all already were feeling? The first fans had already been in line at seven a.m. when Darla’s alarm clock went off. Girlish squeals had reached all the way to the third floor, sending her rushing to the window to see close to twenty black-caped girls of indeterminate age already queued up at the bottom step.

Fortunately, Valerie’s fans had been the only ones lined up. Darla had resigned herself to finding a busload of Bible-carrying activists milling about, so she’d been pleasantly surprised to find the sidewalk free of both Mrs. Bobby Jennings’s (a.k.a. Marnie’s) fellow congregation members and the presumably unaffiliated but equally unwelcome Lone Protester.

By ten o’clock, when the barricade guy finally showed up, the line of fans had reached the end of the block. Now, with the official barrier in place to keep the crowd in check, Jake had started handing out the coveted wristbands guaranteeing access to the signing that evening.

But though the fans may have been physically contained behind the barricades, their exuberance was not. The sound of laughing and shouting teenage girls was audible inside the store, drowning out the New Age soundtrack Darla had playing. Which meant the actual noise level outside must be getting up there in decibels. Adding to the ruckus were the occasional honks from passing vehicles—traffic control wasn’t due for a few more hours—with the inevitable shouted question, “Early for Halloween, aren’t you?” The occasional answering middle finger from one of the black-draped girls brought a few pithy comments in return, but none worse than Darla normally heard on a walk through the neighborhood.

Thank God, no one is complaining . . . yet, she thought, mentally crossing her fingers that her fellow shop owners would continue to take the situation in stride.

She’d forewarned her neighbors of the event so they could make their own preparations for the expected crush. Some were fans of Valerie Baylor’s and were thrilled to have her in the proximity; others simply saw the influx of hundreds of people, plus the inevitable press that would be covering the event, as a positive. The few who were not with the program simply gritted their teeth and chose to close early rather than weather the fan-girl storm.

“Wow, check this out!”

Lizzie, wearing her official Haunted High black cape over a sensible smocked blouse and a pair of mom jeans, held up her phone to display its small screen. A self-proclaimed middle-aged techno geek, she’d had her phone out most of the morning, checking the various social networks to see if word of Valerie’s appearance was making the rounds. Hers was one of those high-end models that surfed the Internet, served as a GPS, took photos and videos . . . and occasionally even was used to make calls.

“Darla, you should be proud. As of now, Pettistone’s Fine Books is one of the top trends on Twitter, and we’re showing as a hot topic on Alexa,” she confirmed. “Oh, and we’ve had the same number of hits on our website in just the past two hours as we usually get in a month. And that Facebook page for the store that I set up last week already has almost a thousand fans now.”

“Well, let’s just hope some of that momentum keeps up after Valerie has come and gone,” Darla muttered as she rang up the latest celebrity diet book for a bleached blond matron dressed two decades too young for her likely true age. “We could use an infusion of new customers. Not that we don’t love all our regular folks,” she clarified with a smile for the woman before her.

The customer rolled her heavily made-up eyes. “These teenage girls, what’s with them and their ghosts and vampires and wizards? They should try reading something more wholesome like we did when we were kids. Like Nancy Drew.”

“So long as they’re reading, I’m happy,” Darla replied. That catchphrase had become her mantra and kept her from succumbing to James-like snobbery anytime a customer hauled the latest blockbuster movie novelization to the register.

The woman sniffed again in disapproval; then, catching a glimpse of Hamlet lounging behind the counter, her demeanor promptly changed.

“Oh, how cute,” she squealed, drawing a cold green squint from the feline in question. “Kitty gets to go to work with Mommy. I bet she’s a hard worker, too. What’s her name?”

“His name is Hamlet,” Darla replied, managing not to laugh at the gender confusion and the presumed cuddly relationship between the two of them.

The woman looked suitably impressed. “Oh, is he named after those cats at the Algonquin Hotel?”

Darla had heard this question before. Her customer was referring to the successive feline mascots that had been a tradition for several decades at the New York City landmark hotel. Most of those cats had been named Hamlet, too—though the most recent female holder of that post had broken tradition by being dubbed Matilda. Darla recalled reading of the famous Algonquin cats as a child, but she had forgotten about that quaint tradition until she moved to New York.

Now, she shook her head. “Nope, no relation,” she said with a smile. “Our Hamlet came by his name on his own.”

The story James had told her was that Hamlet, then a scrawny little kitten, had simply shown up in the store one day. Somehow, without anyone noticing him, he’d managed to pull a volume of Shakespeare down from one of the shelves and made himself a little bed. He was fast asleep on it when Great-Aunt Dee found him, his little paws pointing to the word “Hamlet” on the cover. So, Hamlet he became.

Darla finished checking out the woman, whose Hamlet sighting had seemingly blunted her pique over Valerie Baylor’s black-clad fans. Then she excused herself to sign for a UPS package. Lizzie, meanwhile, tucked her cell back into her pocket and began ringing up the next person. James had abandoned his post at the main phone—I refuse to speak with another crazed sixteen-year-old, he’d said—and was helping the handful of noncrazed customers who were actually shopping.

Returning from the stockroom after dropping off the package, Darla glanced at her watch again to see that time was doing a pretty fair semblance of freezing. The words “a long, long day” echoed in her mind. Sometimes it was the anticipation and not the actual event that was the killer, she thought with an inner grimace.

“Hold down the fort. I’ll be back,” Darla told the others and headed out the front door to see how things were going outside.

Controlled mayhem was the best description of what awaited her. All five hundred allowed fans must have been already standing in the line, which wrapped from the front of the store and around the block.

Oh my God, it’s like an undertakers’ convention, was Darla’s first thought upon seeing the sea of black . . . not that the color wasn’t already the official uniform of a large percentage of New York City’s women. That had been one of the first things she’d noticed after her move there; though, as Jake had pointed out with a grin, the pastels and earth tones that Darla favored made it easy to spot her in a crowd.

But few of the city’s stylish black-clad working women wore hooded black capes over long black shifts as did almost every one of these girls of various ages and ethnicities. Darla spotted several random teen boys among the crowd—fans, she wondered, or simply there to pick up girls?—dressed in black to match their female counterparts. And where in the heck had they all found these cloaks, anyhow? She sure hadn’t seen any Capes R Us stores back in the malls in Dallas. Clearly New York City had more shops catering to goth outerwear.

Although relatively well behaved, the waiting fans shouted back and forth to each other, swapping red lipsticks and comparing outfits. Since, at Jake’s direction, stoops were off-limits for seating, many of the fans were using the barricades as makeshift benches. Most, however, had simply plopped on the concrete sidewalk, their young bones apparently impervious to the late September chill that still seeped from the ground. At regular intervals, the hubbub would be split by one of those distinctive high-pitched shrieks characteristic of pubescent girls, causing nearby window glass to practically vibrate and Darla to fear her ears would spontaneously start bleeding.

Standing guard a few yards down the line was Jake’s off-duty cop friend, Reese. He was a tall guy with curly blond hair who looked like he spent a lot of time in the gym. Darla guessed he was a few years younger than she, probably no more than thirty. No doubt when he was in his twenties, he’d been considered a pretty boy.

Still would be, in Darla’s opinion, had his nose not been broken in the past and apparently never properly reset, maybe for that very reason. Like Jake and everyone else in line, he was dressed all in black: long-sleeved black denim shirt with sleeves rolled to expose a hint of oversized biceps, black jeans, and black motorcycle boots. Darla figured the attire was less an homage to Valerie Baylor and more a nod to the boys in S.W.A.T. back at the office. His expression, or what she could see of it behind the wraparound sunglasses, reminded her of the blank mien cultivated by the Buckingham Palace guards. She noticed, too, that the older girls in line were shooting him appreciative looks in between arguing over Haunted High trivia with their friends.

Darla had met Reese earlier but there hadn’t been time for any chitchat, since the barricades were being delivered as he’d showed up. By then the crowd had begun to take on a girlishly moblike air. After a quick hello, he’d swiftly gotten to work, unloading the bright blue sawhorses from the truck and setting them up. Jake, a small electronic megaphone in hand, had begun organizing the waiting fans into a fair semblance of a line behind the ever-lengthening barrier.

“Hey, only about ten more hours of this. Think you can handle it?” Darla called to Reese now, over the sound of the crowd.

The palace guard cracked a smile. “Yeah, what every cop dreams of, spending a day riding herd on hundreds of teenage girls. How about you?”

“I’ll tell you that tomorrow, when I know if this day is going to go on the books as a fond memory to savor, or a nightmare to relive again and again.”

“As far as crowd control goes, this one’s a piece of cake,” he assured her. “I could tell you about some genuine nightmares, but this ain’t one of them. Don’t worry . . . Jake and I have it under control.”

His accent was a toned-down version of Jake’s, and amusingly at odds with his corn-fed, midwestern looks. His smile revealed a chipped front tooth, possibly a result of the same blow that had done the deed on his nose. Though Darla had always preferred dark-haired, dark-eyed men, she was finding herself more than mildly attracted to this cop. Unfortunately, now was neither the time nor the place to indulge in it.

A tug at her shirtsleeve dispelled any lingering doubt that today was all about business. She looked down to see a familiar pair of large black-framed glasses set on a heart-shaped face staring up at her in concern. The pigtails were absent this day. Instead, the girl’s wavy blond hair streamed over the shoulders of her scaled-down black cape, the effect only slightly spoiled by her pink backpack. A crooked application of red lipstick made her look less a vamp, however, and more like she’d just chowed down on one of those big red candied apples from the Texas State Fair.

“Hi, Callie,” Darla said with a smile, refraining from commenting on how cute the girl looked dressed as a mini-Valerie. Callie, she suspected, would not appreciate it. “Are you here for the autographing?”

The girl extended one thin wrist to display the bloodred band she wore. “I’m number 137. My sister is number 138. My mom made her and her friends take me with them, but they’re pretending they’re not with me. That’s okay, though, because I brought stuff to read.”

Callie’s serious expression morphed into one of preteen disdain. “Susanna says I’m too young for the Haunted High books, but I read at a college-freshman level. She only reads at grade ten. I think she’s only ever read about five books in her whole life.”

“So long as your mom says it’s okay for you to be here, you’re fine,” Darla replied, feeling a sudden kinship with this über-solemn girl.

She hoped that Susanna was responsible enough to keep an eye on her little sister all day long, as Darla could not. Indicating the man beside her, she added, “I have to get back inside the store now, but if you need anything, this is Reese. He and my friend, Ms. Martelli”—she pointed at Jake, who was heading down the walk toward them, her limp less noticeable because of the stacked boots she wore—“they’re in charge of security. If you need help for any reason, you go to them, okay?”

Reese gave the girl a noncommittal nod, obviously wavering between wanting to look accessible yet needing to keep up his tough-guy image. Callie, however, appeared suitably impressed.

“I will.” Then, turning to Darla again, she said, “But what about Hamlet? That’s what I came to ask. I’m worried he’d be scared by all the people.”

“Don’t worry about Hamlet. He’s been lounging around the store happy as a clam despite the noise. I’ll run him back upstairs to my apartment in a little bit. He’ll probably sleep the rest of the day and not bother anyone.”

Or so she hoped. The last thing this event needed was Mr. Hell on Paws racing about, no matter that he was properly dressed for it. And if he escaped out the front door . . . well, she wasn’t sure who she feared for more, Hamlet or the outside world.

Mollified, Callie trudged back to her spot in line.

“Cute kid,” Reese commented after her. “But I sure hope for her sake she lightens up by the time she gets to high school. That bookworm thing doesn’t go over much with the guys.”

“What’s wrong with being a bookworm?” Darla demanded, bristling on the girl’s behalf. She had been a bookworm herself and had managed to get a few dates despite that.

Reese seemed to realize he’d stepped in it, for he raised both hands in surrender. “Sorry, I didn’t mean anything. I’m just not much on wasting my time on books . . . not that there’s anything wrong with selling them or anything . . .” He trailed off as he obviously recalled that books were the livelihood of the woman paying his check this day. “Uh, no offense.”

“None taken,” Darla replied with a brilliantly fake smile.

Barbarian, she inwardly groused, recalling why she never had been attracted to corn-fed blond musclemen. Most of them looked upon a book as nothing more than a handy item to prop up the leg of an uneven couch.

“I’ll send Lizzie out with some sandwiches and drinks for you and Jake in a few minutes. In the meantime, keep up the good work, and let me know if any spontaneous outbursts of reading occur, okay?”

Still smiling, she drew aside Jake, who had joined them in time to overhear the last exchange, and muttered in her ear, “So where did you say you found Mr. Literary Guild, here?”

“Hey, he’s a good guy,” Jake protested mildly as they headed toward the store entrance. “He might not settle in with a book every night like some people, but he has a photographic memory and better street smarts than most cops I know. Not only that, he was the guy who jumped out from behind a squad car and pulled me out of the line of fire the day I was shot. I owe him my life.”

Feeling abruptly and suitably chastened, Darla spared another look back at Reese. He’d resumed his tough-guy stance and was dutifully ignoring the occasional “Oooh, baby!” shouted his way by one or another of the girls. In the brief time she’d known Jake, the woman had never given more than the barest details of what had happened that day that ended her police career, but Darla guessed it had been pretty bad. She was more than willing to give Reese the benefit of the doubt now, knowing his role in the affair.

“Besides,” Jake added, giving her a friendly nudge in the ribs, “he’s damn good-looking. If nothing else, I keep him around just so I can drool over him.”

Darla gave a surprised little laugh. Jake had never hinted at any sort of personal relationship, and the only people she’d seen visit the woman besides herself were James and Lizzie. Truth be told, she’d assumed upon their first meeting that Jake batted for the other team, as Darla’s terminally unenlightened ex-husband would have put it. Not that Darla cared about the older woman’s orientation, nor had Jake ever even hinted at wanting anything more than friendship between the two of them, but she’d just . . . assumed. Now, seeing Jake’s obvious appreciation for a guy who reasonably could be termed a hunk, Darla reconsidered. Had she fallen into the age-old trap of stereotyping a strapping female cop?

Aloud, she merely said, “Well, he seems to have everything under control here. You did warn him we might have some unwelcome visitors, didn’t you?” she added, referring to the possibility of protesters from two different camps.

Jake nodded. “Don’t worry, kid, he’s been briefed. Though if any of those people were going to show, they probably would be here by now.”

“You’re probably right.” Darla breathed a small sigh of relief. Surely Jake knew more about this sort of thing than she did. “Anyhow, I’ll have those sandwiches out to you in just a bit, after I take Hamlet back upstairs.”

The remainder of the afternoon inched by without any incident, save for a steady influx of black-caped girls needing to use the restroom. All too aware of how customers could treat the facilities, Darla had made the girls go in one at a time, threatening to revoke the wristband of anyone who left the area in less-than-pristine condition.

It’ll be one hell of a water bill the next month, she thought in resignation, but at least she was pretty sure there would be no need to call out the hazmat crew to take care of things later.

Around four p.m., a brief flurry of shouting and honking almost sent her into a panic until she saw the source was not the Lord’s Blessing gang. Instead—though almost as annoying—a local television news team had showed up to interview some of the fans about the upcoming arrival of their author heroine. Any publicity . . . Darla reminded herself, knowing she should welcome what amounted to free advertising.

After about twenty minutes, the reporter and her camerawoman rushed up the steps and into the store. They attempted to buttonhole James first, but he stopped them short with his patented look and pointed in Darla’s direction. Taking the hint, the pair hurried over to where Darla was unpacking more copies of Ghost of a Chance. Before she could make a pitch for Pettistone’s Fine Books, however, the perky blond reporter leaped right into her questions

“It seems not everyone here is a fan of Valerie Baylor. What can you tell us about the girl standing outside holding the sign?” she demanded as she shoved a microphone in Darla’s direction.

The Lone Protester was back! Darla felt a sudden surge of panic that manifested itself as a figurative punch to her gut. She managed, however, to hide her dismay as she answered, “Sorry, I don’t know anything about it. I suggest you ask her.”

“I already did,” Perky persisted, her cap-toothed smile widening. “She claims that she found some of the old Val Vixen romances in a used book store and admired her work, so she sent her ghost manuscript to the author to get her opinion. Next thing she knew, her story was being published under Valerie Baylor’s name as the first Haunted High book.”

“That sounds like something you need to ask Valerie or her attorneys,” Darla countered, her bright smile matching the reporter’s. “I’m just the bookstore owner. That’s Pettistone’s Fine Books,” she reiterated, looking squarely into the camera. “We’re in Brooklyn at the intersection of Crawford and—”

“Thanks, that’s all we need,” the reporter broke in, flipping off the smile as she gave the “cut” signal. “Check out the eleven o’clock news tonight and maybe you’ll see yourself.”

To her camerawoman, she added, “C’mon, let’s go back outside. There was the cutest girl in black glasses all dressed up like the big kids. I want to interview her.”

“Sic ’em, Callie,” Darla muttered as the pair hightailed it to the door. With any luck, the blunt little girl would keep the reporter occupied for a while. Setting down her box cutter, Darla followed more slowly after them, peering out the window for a look. Sure enough, the Lone Protester stood across the street clutching her sign. This one, however, read, “Valerie Baylor Will Be SORRY She Stole My Book.”

“Wow, sounds like a threat,” Darla exclaimed. “I hope Valerie brings those bodyguards of hers with her.”

“Yeah, well, maybe she deserves something bad to happen to her.”

The snide words came from Lizzie, who had joined her at the window. Her normally pleasant features looked downright outraged, and Darla stared at her employee in surprise. True, Lizzie tended to be overdramatic, but Darla had never before seen any true venom from the woman.

Catching her expression, Lizzie gave her chin a stubborn lift. “Really, Darla, don’t you keep up with the industry news? I’ve read more than one rumor that Valerie’s lifted plots from other writers. In fact, I, uh, might happen to know someone who, uh, has personal knowledge of it.”

Darla frowned as she glanced from Lizzie to the protester and back again. “Do you mean you know that girl out there?”

“Oh no. Certainly not!” Lizzie waved her hands in the universal erase-everything-I-just-said gesture. “Sorry, I was overreacting. I’m just feeling sorry for myself, I guess. I—I got another rejection on my romance novel query yesterday.”

Lizzie’s brown bob dipped as she lowered her head, and Darla heard an unmistakable sniffle. Impulsively, she gave the woman a hug.

“I’m so sorry. I knew you were still working on your manuscript, but I thought you’d decided to concentrate on getting your master’s in feminist literature so you could teach.”

“Yeah, well.” Lizzie made a furtive swipe at her eyes and managed a crooked smile. “I figured I’d give it one last shot. After all, I’ve been trying to get that book published for the last ten years, so I didn’t want to call it quits until I knew there wasn’t any more hope.”

“Maybe you can start again in another semester or two with a different project, something new for your thesis,” Darla tactfully suggested. “You’ve got talent. It’s just a matter of the right place and right time. You know that.”

Her words weren’t strictly meant as a balm. A couple of weeks ago, she had read a chapter of Lizzie’s book. Darla had found it to be surprisingly well written. Unfortunately for Lizzie and her hopes of publication, though, the plotline and writing style were dated, more typical of the romances that Val Vixen and other writers had put out back when Darla was in college. If Lizzie had been trying to sell the same book for a decade, as she said, chances were she was out of step with the market now.

Lizzie was nodding. “I know. I guess seeing that poor girl standing out there with her sign brought up some bad feelings.”

“That poor girl, as you call her, is likely just a delusional fan who made up this whole thing in her head. I’d bet money she’s never even been in contact with Valerie Baylor before. If she’s not careful, she’s going to get slapped with a restraining order.”

“You’re probably right,” Lizzie agreed. Then, with a small self-conscious smile, she added, “Well, I suppose I should’fess up. Did I ever tell you that I know Valerie Baylor? We were in English composition class together back in college.”

“Wow,” Darla replied, suitably impressed. “The best I’ve got is that I went to high school with the guy who invented the Eggspert Egg Slicer . . . you know, the commercial you see on late-night television?”

“Of course, she was still Valerie Vickson—V-i-c-k-s-o-n—back then,” Lizzie went on, apparently underwhelmed by Darla’s egg-slicer inventor. “This was before she got married to some snooty rich guy whose last name was Baylor. Of course, the marriage didn’t last, but I heard she got a big juicy settlement in the divorce. Not that she needed it, because her family already was richer than God.”

Her tone took on a sour note again. “I don’t know what she was doing at a state university, slumming with the rest of us,” she added. “Maybe she thought it would look better in her author’s bio, or maybe she was just researching the little people for her books. Oh, and that whole ‘Vixen’ thing as her pseudonym was a play on her maiden name. She always told us she thought ‘Val Vixen’ would look great on a romance novel cover.”

Darla had been listening with interest to Lizzie doing her version of the Biography Channel. Recalling the woman’s earlier outburst, she said sympathetically, “I’m guessing you and Valerie weren’t best friends, were you? You think she’ll remember you?”

“She’d better,” Lizzie proclaimed, her smile now bright.

They continued chatting as they finished restocking the display, with Darla keeping an eye on the clock. “James,” she called a few minutes later, “can you remind the folks back in the mystery section that we’re closing early to get ready for the autographing? Oh, and is Mary Ann here yet?”

Mary Ann Plinski, the same old friend of Great-Aunt Dee’s who’d helped out after her death, had volunteered to run the register during the event. She lived next door in an apartment over her brother’s antique store, so she could pop in at a moment’s notice, and since she’d helped out Dee before, she needed no training on the equipment. She would be the first stop once the eager fans finally made their way inside the store. Each would pay her for up to two books and then present the receipt to Lizzie or James at the signing table, where Valerie would sign their copies.

Mary Ann showed up just as they escorted out the last customer.

“My goodness, those kids are having a wonderful time out there,” she exclaimed with a smile after greeting everyone. Though she wore her pewter-hued hair in its usual French twist, she’d gotten into the spirit of things and had donned a vintage 1940s-era black gown that Darla suspected was borrowed from her brother’s inventory.

Darla locked the door after the older woman. “Are you sure we won’t be keeping you up too late tonight?” she asked her. “We’ll probably be here until eleven, maybe later.”

“Oh gracious, don’t worry about that,” Mary Ann declared, waving away Darla’s concerns with one wrinkled hand. “You get to be my age, and you don’t sleep too much, anyway. I’m always up at all hours, so tonight won’t be any different.”

The clamor on the sidewalk outside had risen as the time drew closer to the magical Valerie hour. Darla felt her temples begin to thrum, though she wasn’t sure if it was from lack of food or from nerves. This was, after all, her first major event since taking ownership of the place. But just in case it was the former, she had that covered.

“Thai food is on the way,” she said, earning sounds of gratified approval from her staff. “In the meantime, let’s get those bookshelves moved so we can set up the autographing area.”

In a bit of clever carpentry, the shelves in the center of the store were all on casters. A flick of a lever unlocked each wheel, so an entire unit could be rolled away without unloading the books, allowing the store’s floor plan to be reconfigured with only a bit of effort. Soon enough, they had cleared a broad path down the center of the store. That accomplished, they created a mazelike pathway with the stanchions.

“Pack ’em in here like sardines,” Mary Ann said approvingly.

“Ooh, it’s like the waiting line for a ride at Disney World,” Lizzie declared in satisfaction.

“Or the line going through airport security,” James countered, drawing a disapproving moue from the woman, while Darla merely shook her head.

At the rear of the main room, they swiftly set up a table that they covered in black and red cloths, behind which Valerie would sit as she signed books. Lizzie arranged an artful pile of books on either end of the table—they’d be replenishing books all night long from displays and a few dozen more boxes still unopened along the back wall—while Darla moved the easel with its poster into place. For a finishing touch, Mary Ann draped black cloth over the shelving behind the table and covered the folding chair with a properly spooky black slipcover.

“The Thai has arrived,” James proclaimed as the women stepped back to admire their handiwork.

Over the next hour, the four of them took turns standing watch over the crowd while Jake and Reese made a run-through of the store and managed a final break to eat before the evening’s excitement began. Lizzie, meanwhile, went outside to hand out the first of the giveaways, an official Haunted High trivia sheet. Later would come the silicone bracelets with the various book titles on them, and then the Haunted High pins. When it was her turn to play security guard, Darla pulled on her black cloak and went to check on Callie first thing.

It was almost dark now, but the nearby streetlamps and security lights from the surrounding buildings provided adequate illumination to see what was going on. She found Callie sitting propped against the wall, her pink backpack in her lap as a makeshift table to hold the paperback she was reading. She looked up at Darla’s greeting and gave a lopsided smile that showed most of her red lipstick had worn off.

“I’m almost finished reading my second book,” she proclaimed over the noise of the teens surrounding her. “It’s a good thing I brought three with me. Is Valerie going to be here soon?”

“Any minute now. Did you get something to eat?”

Callie nodded. “Mom packed me enough for lunch and dinner, plus I’ve got a chocolate bar for dessert. Susanna”—she motioned to the petulant-looking brunette teen standing next to her huddled with two other girls, all three dressed in the requisite black capes—“she had one, too, but she said it would make her fat, so she gave hers to Mr. Reese.”

While Darla considered this, Callie scrunched up her small face in concern. “Is Mr. Reese your boyfriend?”

“No, he’s just a friend of my friend.”

“Whew,” the girl exclaimed, making an exaggerated swipe of her hand across her brow. “That’s good, because I heard Susanna tell Mimi and Janna that she’d like to jump his bones. That didn’t sound very polite, especially not if he already has a girlfriend.”

Darla glanced over at the teen in question and smiled sweetly, though she discovered to her surprise that she had to suppress a sudden impulse to give Susanna a good shake. “Don’t worry, Callie,” she replied through gritted teeth, “Mr. Reese is way too old for your sister. Now, sit tight, and when the line starts moving, I want you to hold on to your sister’s hand so you don’t get shoved or stepped on. Got it?”

“Got it.”

Satisfied for the moment that Callie was taken care of, Darla made her way down the line. She was pleased to see that the crowd continued to be civilized, save for those occasional earsplitting shrieks. She wondered if Jake and Reese had pre-intimidated the crowd into good behavior, or if Valerie’s fans were naturally well behaved. Either was fine by her.

Then she glimpsed the Lone Protester in her usual spot, and her good mood dissolved.