Time Out (Foolish Games Series)

by Leah Spiegel

  “We are certainly looking into it,” Vance gave a curt nod. “The Islamic extremists group used the 02 Arena, a place they see as evil - and a place they blame for corrupting the morals of Muslim youth, to retaliate for the suspicious death of Aarif Kumar. We don’t have any further intelligence connecting the two events, but Home Land Security has raised the threat level to ‘elevated’ for now.”

  “We have,” Vance looked down at his wrist watch. “At least three hours until the parking grounds are open to the public, and I’ve been told another three hours until amphitheater opens its gates to the public, so let’s reconvene in about three hours so we can go over where everyone will be positioned for the show tonight. Thank you all,” he dismissed us.

  Even though Robert Vance was confident that he could ‘contain’ the situation, I think the rest of the crew, the old crew anyway, felt tentative about the idea of someone being so skilled and deadly that he made Cyrus look like someone who just had a chip on his shoulder.

  “I know I personally feel safer just talking about it,” Warren added dryly as we shuffled out of the seats.

  “And I know, I could be sleeping in right now,” Lizzie groaned.

  Warren looked her up and down like she was something tasty to eat, in her cut off denim shorts that were so short the white material of the pockets peeked out in the front paired with a loose white top that slid off of one of her tan shoulders.

  “I remember a time when you didn’t sleep at all in the morning,” Warren added suggestively.

  I thought Lizzie would verbally slap him a witty comeback but she just giggled like they were sharing a private joke that wasn’t really so private.

  “What are we going to do to kill the time?” Warren looked like he was asking Lizzie, but he then turned to Hawkins as if waiting for a response. “We still have six hours until the show.”

  I knew from past experience that when the band had too much time on their hands that they would go biking, skateboarding, or chase each other around in the venue’s golf carts. So it didn’t take long before we spotted Harlow kicking a soccer ball around on the lawn of the amphitheater with a few other members from the crew, since even they had time to kill.

  “Hey, Joie, come play with us!” Riley beckoned me with a wave of his hand.

  “I’m on Joie’s team!” Lizzie called dibs on me right away. “I’m not in the mood to sweat,” she added under her breath.

  “We’ll flip a coin for her then,” Riley offered, like I was an object to barter over.

  Hawkins turned to me with a pleasantly surprised look on his face. “I didn’t know that you played soccer?”

  “Yeah, she’s good…like Mia Hamm good,” Lizzie answered for me as we crossed the lawn. “She almost took our high school team all the way to states.”

  “I’m not Mia Hamm good,” I made it clear to Hawkins.

  “Whatever,” Lizzie rolled her eyes. “You’ll see what I mean.”

  “No pressure or anything,” I sighed to myself.

  Though it was strange how my nerves disappeared when I actually joined the game. I loved the thrill of playing soccer. It required so much from my body, like stamina and skill, that it kept my interest. I had to be physically tough enough to block and defend the ball with my body, but I also had to be skilled and quick enough with my footwork to move around the other players.

  The crew wasn’t playing an official game; more like a group of guys kicking a ball around. Still, it wasn’t long before Warren - and my shoulders and hips - were knocking into each other side by side as we fought for possession of the ball. Warren, who was less experienced, tried to take off, but the momentum of the ball got away from him. I quickly sprinted ahead knowing that I just had to outrun him to gain possession of the ball. All those cigarettes must have finally caught up to him because I easily beat him to the ball.

  As I swiftly continued toward Blakely, the tall thick African American drummer who was acting as goalie, I noticed a gaping hole to his left where a lawn chair was set to mark one of the goalposts. Soon the ball was sailing through the air and Blakely didn’t have enough time to adjust his body as the ball zipped past him for a goal.

  “Yes!!!!!” Riley shouted, and for a second I thought he was going to pull off his t-shirt and fall to the ground on his knees in celebration.

  “I’m nothing like Mia Hamm,” Hawkins said mockingly as he placed his hands on his hips and took a second to catch his breath causing me to laugh.

  “Can we flip again?” Lizzie gasped from further down the field.

  “No way in hell,” Riley sang.

  We continued to play the game well into the afternoon, but it didn’t take long until I realized I needed to play down my skills because it was meant to be a friendly game of soccer, not a death match. So I found myself passing the ball off to Riley or Harlow when we neared the goal, but Riley quickly chucked that ball back over to me. When I ‘accidentally’ missed the goal, Riley threw me a dirty look.

  “What?” I shrugged innocently enough.

  “You’re throwing the game for your boyfriend.”

  “No, I’m throwing the game,” I kept my voice down low for only him to hear, “Because we’re so far ahead in points that were practically playing football.”

  “So? This is the only manly thing Harlow and I’ve got going for us.”

  “Yeah, watching me play,” I cracked a grin. “That is the manliest thing, I couldn’t agree more.”

  He snickered at my quickness before taking off to get in position again.

  When Vance finally rounded up the crew again, most of them looked sweaty, exhausted and a little beat up. I even saw one crew member grab ahold of another’s shoulder as he gasped from the stich in his side.

  “Well—I’m going to need a shower before the show,” Hawkins came up behind me bringing my focus back to him. Beads of sweat were dripping off his face and his grey shirt was damp. “Would you care to join me, Ms. Hamm?” he flashed a wicked grin.

  “Someone’s going to need to help hose you down,” I agreed.

  As we left, I overheard Warren say to Lizzie, “Well I’m going to need a shower before the show—”

  Chapter Five

  After everything that happened at yesterday’s concert, I wasn’t surprised when Hawkins insisted that I watch the show from the safety of the lighting crew’s platform later that night. It was a small rectangular space that hung down from behind the top of the pavilion roof and looked over the thousands of fans in the crowded seats below.

  The last time Hawkins had insisted that I hang with the lighting crew it was at a stadium in a section that was blocked off from the rest of the crowd. I knew the extra precautions were for my protection, or at least they had been in the past because we had mistakenly thought Cyrus, the psychopathic stalker was just another person in the crowd at the time.

  Lizzie climbed down the ladder like steps, which led on and off of the platform, bringing me out of my thoughts when she landed beside me.

  “Warren wouldn’t stop giving me shit until I agreed to watch the concert from here,” she huffed, but secretly I think she liked him fussing over her.

  “Just like old times,” Riley turned in his swivel chair to grin up at us from his place next to the computerized keyboard which controlled the lights for the show.

  “I just wish it was under better circumstances,” I sighed, causing Riley to take a sideway glance down at the crowd below.

  “Do you think he’s out there?” Lizzie asked, no louder than a whisper. “Trying to figure out another way to create a bomb or smuggle one in?”

  “Yeah, I do,” Riley confessed, sending a shiver down my back from knowing that someone with that mentality was in the crowd below.

  “But what I don’t understand,” Riley continued. “Is why someone would go to all that trouble…broken up bits of C.D. cases and a shattered mirror…and then not follow through with it?”

  “I guess to send a message,” I remembered what Harl
ow had said last night.

  “But wouldn’t it have been an even bigger message to just let the thing blow up?” he countered. “You know Cyrus would have jumped at the opportunity.”

  “Maybe they have something bigger planned,” the words were out of my mouth before I could even realize what I was saying. Everyone paused, as we stared at each other.

  “That’s exactly why,” Riley murmured with another glance down at the sea of faces, causing Lizzie to openly shudder. “You guys are seriously starting to kill my buzz.”

  Fortunately for Lizzie, Rob Harlow came down the ladder next; completely shifting our mood.

  “Hey guys,” he flashed a grin our way before taking a seat next to Riley. “What brings you guys back here so soon?” he joked, and I could tell he was trying to make an effort to be nice to us because we were Riley’s friends, which I thought was absolutely adorable.

  “I don’t know, I guess someone made a faulty ‘bottle of gravel?’” I said sarcastically.

  “I know, can you believe that Vance guy?” Harlow scoffed. “Faulty bottle my—whoever did that knew what they were doing.”

  We all took a collective pause, before Harlow reached for his headset.

  “At least security’s aware of the problem now. You ready to do this, Riri?” he slapped Riley’s back and brought everyone’s focus back to the concert. Harlow put on his head piece and both guys turned back around to face the stage again.

  “Riri?” Lizzie mouthed, causing us to beam at each other before we had to look away again.

  No one would have guessed that the two of them had feelings for each other, if you didn’t know any better, because they were both appropriate about it, and probably the last two people who would try to shove their relationship in other peoples’ faces.

  Still, it was the little gestures that made me smile, like Rob placing a hand on Riley’s back as he moved the spotlight around or how their legs brushed against each other underneath the lighting equipment board as they worked side by side. Harlow was the obvious mentor, teacher-type figure in the relationship, trying to educate Riley - who was the listening and diligent student.

  At times throughout the night, Harlow and Riley would share a laugh over something private, and then at other times they were deeply discussing something related to the show. I had never seen Riley so comfortable with someone other than me before. They were just as in love with each other as Hawkins and I were.

  “And teacher—there are things that I still have to learn,” Lizzie sang, causing me to shoot her a look, but she just gave me a little shrug like she couldn’t help herself, and then stopped. Thankfully, neither one of them had overheard Lizzie serenading them a George Michael song.

  In fact, I’m not even sure they noticed that we were still there after a while. They were in their own little world so I wasn’t surprised at all when Riley gave me a little wink at the end of the show and followed after Harlow up the ladder off the platform.

  Chapter Six

  The next day I woke up in the hotel room determined to do some sightseeing while in Chicago. I wanted to visit Sears Tower and the Navy Pier, which had rides, gardens, and restaurants from what I could tell by Googling it. I didn’t know why, but I always seemed to be the only one who wanted to do something other than going from concert to concert night after night. Nevertheless, I needed a change, or I thought that I was going to claw my eyes out from boredom.

  I managed to wrangle up Lizzie, who seemed dead to the world at that hour in the morning, and Riley, who knew that I wouldn’t stop hounding him until I went on at least one sightseeing trip for that leg of the tour.

  Hawkins mumbled something about giving the keys to the Chevrolet Van to Ted, his bus driver, before kissing me goodbye and rolling over in the bed again. I didn’t bother Hawkins into going with us since he was the only one who really had a job to do today. I did feel guilty about waking Ted at this hour though when we could have easily just gone alone, but after the bomb scare Hawkins was adamant that we needed to be escorted around.

  I knocked on Ted’s hotel door, feeling even guiltier when he came to the door almost as dead to the world as Lizzie was, who at the moment, was snoozing against the wall. The side of Ted’s short pepper salt colored hair was sticking up, and he looked back at us through narrowed, sleepy eyes before groaning, “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry to wake you, Ted,” I sighed, thinking that I wasn’t going to put this poor man through this. We could find the Navy Pier on our own. “Hawkins said that you have the keys to the van?”

  “Van?” he seemed to ask himself and then nodded. “Oh yeah.”

  “Do you know where they are? We wanted to head out to the Navy Pier.”

  “Yeah umm,” he scratched the side of his head and mumbled, “Let me get ready.”

  “No, I’m sure we’ll be fine,” I assured him.

  “No, I don’t want you kids to get lost. Besides, I promised Hawkins. I’ll be down in a few minutes.” I was just about to insist that we would be okay on our own, but Ted had already shut the hotel door.

  “Well—I feel like crap.” I turned to Riley. “Should we still go?”

  “We’re already dressed and ready to go,” Riley sighed. “And who knows when you’ll get to see Chicago again?” He had a good point, which made me feel better about the situation. We managed to peel Lizzie off the wall before heading in the direction of the elevators.

  It was an overcast day outside when we exited the hotel minutes later. The parking lot looked like a packed can of sardines with the large tour buses parked side by side. There wasn’t an available space open in the entire parking lot. I spotted the silver Chevrolet van parked by another similar van I knew that Warren let Gwyneth use to travel in.

  Judging by how tired Ted looked when we woke him, I knew we might be waiting by the van for a while, and it started to lightly rain, so we made a detour over to Hawkins’ purple tour bus. I thought we were going to have to jimmy the door open when we rounded the front of it but I was surprised to see that door was already half way open.

  “That’s weird,” I mumbled to myself as I led the way up the steps to the bus. I knew that it would have been impossible for Ted to have already beaten us to the parking lot when we hadn’t even stopped to enjoy our complimentary breakfast.

  The sound of our shuffling feet up the steps must have alerted whoever was upstairs because I heard the door to Hawkins’ bedroom door suddenly open. I came to an abrupt stop when my eyes locked with Robert Vance, who looked just as surprised as I was to see him on Hawkins’ tour bus.

  “What are you doing here?” I couldn’t help but sound suspicious because Hawkins’ bus had become like our home away from home while on the road too. Vance rocked back on his heels like he was buying some time to come up with an explanation, and clapped his hands.

  “Ahh…we’ve been checking all the buses for security type purposes,” he finally said while pointing his finger up to the ceiling. “It’s typical protocol—making sure that nothing suspicious is on the buses.”

  “Joie,” Riley nudged me. “There’s Ted,” he nodded at the bus driver crossing the parking lot.

  “Well now that you checked the bus,” I went to turn back around to face Vance again, but he was already on his way past me down the aisle. “You can leave….” I drifted off thinking what the heck?

  “You guys have a nice day,” Vance called over his shoulder as he stepped off the bus and left.

  “That was weird,” I murmured to Riley before turning to scan the bus. “What was he doing in Hawkins’ bedroom?”

  “I don’t know,” Riley shrugged. “But let’s not keep Ted waiting any longer—

  I wasn’t sure if I felt the explosion tremor up through my feet until it shook my legs or heard the sheer loud boom of it first, but it made all of us flinch and duck down. My eyes darted over in the direction of the sound before Riley’s golden brown eyes locked with mine.

  “Ted,” he gasped in utter horror as we
suddenly regained our composure and turned to flee back down the aisle in the direction of the where we heard the loud sound. Even Lizzie was wide awake now as we unloaded off the bus.

  Riley took off with me on his heels, but he stopped midway to put an arm up to brace himself from the scolding hot vapors coming off of the Chevrolet Van, which was now engulfed in flames. The sight made my stomach drop as the gaseous smell of the explosion filled my nose. Riley took off again around the side of the van in an attempt to save the bus driver, but as I watched I saw Riley’s shoulders and head suddenly drop; I knew the man hadn’t survived the blast.

  “That was meant for us,” Lizzie whispered beside me, confessing what my mind had not yet realized.

  I knew that I was someone who could remain calm even through the most difficult of times, like how I was with Cyrus on the highway so many weeks ago. I wasn’t sure if it was a survival skill that helped me handle these life and death situations I now found myself involved in, but often in these times I could think and feel much, much later. Except this time there wasn’t anything for my mind to think through, and it took something like being in Hawkins arms fifteen minutes later for the shock of what happened to dissipate and for the tears to finally come gushing out. Ted had been killed by a bomb that was meant for us.

  I watched the fire department extinguish the last of the bright flames that had licked every inch of the van until nothing but a blackened and burnt skeleton remained. I thought of Ted, the bus driver, that Hawkins had trusted enough to keep on the crew, which said a lot about how he felt about the man, especially when there was no real way of knowing who to trust anymore. But it wasn’t just Hawkins that liked the man, the horror of what had happened to Ted was evident on everyone’s face as most of the crew and the band watched on from across the parking lot and out of the way of the firemen.

  “I woke him up,” I confessed to Hawkins as I looked at the empty shell of the van. “He’d still be sleeping right now if it wasn’t…for me.”