The Miranda Contract (2 page)

Chapter 2

Miranda

T
here wasn’t anything
actually wrong with the hotel, but Miranda Brody found herself crying her eyes out in the bathroom, with her back against the door and the balls of her palms crushed against her eyes. On the other side of the door her retainers hovered and checked the time, read and returned texts, and generally waited for Miranda to recover from what they assumed were regular pop diva antics.

But it wasn’t a tantrum. She wasn’t pouting because of hotel management. She hadn’t broken up with her high profile boyfriend, or just got out of a five star rehab program. When it came down to it, although Miranda Brody was a teenage pop sensation on both sides of the Pacific and throughout most of Europe, she just wasn’t particularly stuck up or demanding.

She didn’t even have a boyfriend anymore. Or a drug problem. Or overbearing parents or jealous siblings. Miranda was weirdly sane, almost normal. After coming third in an American music reality show, Miranda had been snatched up and signed by a music company to cash in on her national profile. At first it had been exciting. It had been all her dreams, and more. But now her music wasn’t even her music, and when she saw posters of herself in magazines or on billboards she felt like she was looking at someone completely different.

There was a knock on the door, the third in ten minutes, perfectly choreographed in even intervals. It was Evie, probably, and Miranda shifted the palms of her hands from her eyes to her ears, trying to block out the woman’s voice.

“I don’t need anyone,” Miranda said, but it came out too low for the crowd on the other side of the door to hear. She sniffed and blew out her tremulous breath. She did it again, tried to center herself. “Just go away. Go away until Sully gets here.”

Without waiting to hear whether Evie and the others understood, Miranda pulled herself together and stood up in the bathroom. She rubbed at her eyes, drying away the wetness there, and then tugged at her dark hair, capturing it into a ponytail. She caught her reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors but forced her attention away. She had seen enough of this other Miranda during the three months of touring, first in the States, then across to Japan and down to…

Jakarta.

Miranda knew she wasn’t going to be able to forget about Jakarta. She could smile at the cameras, look serious and then flighty during interviews, but she couldn’t get the image of the boy out of her mind. He burnt so brightly, so hot that she felt the flames on her skin, could smell the gasoline blowing off of him. His arms were akimbo, relaxed and dying.

Like a star, the reporters had written.

But Miranda only remembered the face blackening, being pulled away from her by security, the relaxed boy slipping away into nothing, smothered into death.

She breathed out again, twice; like she had been taught.

Jakarta was behind her now. The last leg of her Human Tour was in Melbourne, Australia – somewhere out past those hotel walls. Her ride from the airport had been swift. She hadn’t looked up and most of the time her eyes were closed behind her large shades. She didn’t know these people who met her, who smiled at her, touched her, wanted to make her so happy. Her regular crew were still in Jakarta, except for Evie and a couple of the dancers. It had all been so rushed, like an evacuation.

And Sully was still back in Indonesia, cleaning up her mess, as usual. He was her constant throughout the Tour. The backup singers, the dancers, the audio and light crew were all replaceable, and had been changed several times through the last three months, but Sully was her rock. He was her family when she was on the road, and probably most importantly, he was her friend.

He was the only one who made her feel safe.

Normally.

But now she was in Australia and alone amongst the industry vultures. She was nineteen, of course, and an adult who could handle the pressures, but she didn’t want to handle them alone. She’d been doing the music thing for four years, but the past two had been insane with her face recognized across most of the Western world.

There was another knock on the door. Miranda looked at her phone next to the basin. Three minutes had passed, another scheduled reminder that she was needed somewhere.

She ran the taps and splashed cool water on her face, reaching for the hand towel as she walked to the door. She opened it with another practiced exhale and looked out into one of her rooms. Evie was standing there with her skinny arms crossed. Behind her were two hotel workers fussing about near the bed, but they didn’t look up. For a second Miranda thought of her mom and felt like she was going to cry again.

“You look awful,” Evie said.

“Thanks,” Miranda said, sniffing. “Is Sully here?”

The backup singer shook her head, and then thrust a pamphlet into Miranda’s hands. It was a press release for the record company’s welcome party. Apart from the venue and the Australian flag tucked up in the corner, there wasn’t anything especially different about it.

“It looks fine,” she said and handed it back to Evie, but Evie shook her head.

“Read it,” she snapped.

Miranda looked at the sheet again, her eyes glazing over as she read about sales figures, reviews and the tendency for these parties to ‘absolutely rock!’ She shrugged and handed the pamphlet back again.

“I don’t get it.”

“You are hopeless,” Evie said and snatched the sheet, stepping back into the room and turning around twice, letting her short dress lift slightly. The girl was energized. Miranda shot a glance around the room as the hotel workers left, wondering how much coffee or energy drinks Evie had downed since they had arrived. The place looked spotless.

Evie had been singing with Miranda for a month, picked up in Seattle just before the trip to Japan. At first Miranda found her annoying. She was too loud for such a slender person: big pouty mouth, short styled blonde hair and a turned up nose. It wasn’t her original nose.

“New freaks,” Evie said. “It says we get new freaks.”

Miranda wasn’t following. It wasn’t unusual for Evie to carry on one-sided conversations, but Miranda took back the pamphlet and read it again, trying to work out what Evie was so excited about. At the bottom of the release, beyond the drone of statistics and promises, there was a paragraph on new ‘freaks’ being on display for the final concert. It was the first Miranda had heard of it.

“I didn’t authorize this,” she said.

Evie just grinned. “New freaks,” she said again.

Freak Chic
was one of Miranda’s top selling songs and The Human Tour was basically built around the song’s success. It was all about embracing the weird and she showcased ubers as dancers in her shows. Her company had hired eight of them over the course of the tour, although she didn’t really know them apart from choreography and the actual performances. Evie, on the other hand, made it her business to get to know them intimately.

“Do you think we’ll get a koala one?” Evie asked.

“I have no idea.”

She wondered what happened to the other freaks and whether they were still back in Jakarta. Maybe they were angry with her. Maybe they blamed her for the boy’s death. Maybe they were just tired of being looked at and exploited.

There hadn’t been many protestors in Jakarta, at least. The moral outrage against the concert might have stopped in the States. Her manager had told her not to worry about it, to forget about the radicals and the haters, but Miranda had seen the anger in the eyes of the protestors, placards damning her and her treatment of the ubers. It was just another spin in the whirlwind of her music career.

Miranda wanted to get off.

“You’ve got to go,” Miranda said to Evie.

“I know!”

“No, seriously, you have to go now. Leave my room. Go see Melbourne and buy things. I need to be by myself for a while.”

Evie shook her head, disgusted.

“You are not going to miss this party,” she said. “I will seriously hunt you down and kill you if you dare miss this party.”

Miranda looked at the press release for the last time and then back at Evie. There was something compelling about the girl, and she smiled and nodded.

“I’ll be there.”

And then she bundled Evie out of the room and locked the door.

She was in Melbourne for four nights. One concert, one record company party and a half dozen interviews. Moving to the balcony she parted the curtains and looked out into the afternoon. It was like any other city she’d been to. There was steel and glass and people far below criss-crossing the streets.

There were no protestors, no shaking signs and shouts of rage. It was quiet. She looked back to the door, to possibilities.

Back home, in Riverside, her family were asleep.

She needed to get out of the hotel.

Chapter 3

Dan

D
an pulled off
his helmet after kicking his bike stand into place on the curb. He looked across to the hotel and adjusted his pizza satchel. The street was packed with teenagers, milling around, and he saw a lot of bored older people sitting in cars up and down the street. Parents, he figured. Outside the double doors of the hotel, he checked the address again. It was one of the expensive ones. He pushed through to the lobby, ignored the frown at reception, and reeled off his customer name and room number while looking at the ceiling. He was waved through to the elevator and sighed as the lobby disappeared from view.

Dan wasn’t having a good night. Even without his mother’s performance at work, the afternoon and now evening wasn’t turning out well either. No tips, lots of attitude, a bit of indiscriminate nudity and two ‘no answers’ which meant cold pizza and no pay.

The elevator stopped and a long stretch of rooms extended in both directions, equally beige. He checked the number, heaved his satchel straps up to his shoulder again and walked out. It was strange that no one was walking around. When he found the number he knocked twice and checked his phone. He was within the time limit. No chance of the customer declaring the pizza free on this one.

The door was pulled open by a girl wearing glasses, and she squinted at him with her head tilted. Behind her, Dan saw the room was dark apart from a couple of free-standing lamps. A peal of laughter came from within, but the girl with the glasses guarded the entrance, pulling the door back.

“Are you the pizza guy?” she asked.

Dan looked at the two pizza boxes in his hand and then back at the girl without saying anything. She looked closer at his chest, at the logo for Birdie’s, and eventually pulled her neck back and seemed satisfied. He reeled off the order, announced the price and then had to wait while she slipped back inside the room and started collecting the money from her friends.

When she reappeared the girl was flanked by a taller blonde girl with long hanging earrings. Dan figured they were both in their early-teens and considering the hotel wasn’t the cheapest in town he wondered how they’d managed to scrounge the money together for a room when they seemed so hard-pressed coming up with the money for their pepperoni and supreme pizzas.

“So you’re having a party?” Dan asked.

“Totally,” the new girl said. “I’m Donna and this’s Asi. What’s your name?”

“No we’re not, not really,” the dark-haired girl said, making angry eyes at Donna. “Just a few friends.”

“Oh yeah, right,” the blonde corrected herself. “It’s not a party.”

“But you’ve got supervision, right?” Dan asked.

“Totally,” Donna said, nodding vigorously. “Asi’s sister, is like, supervising us, yeah.”

“She’s eighteen,” said the girl with glasses, pushing them back up her nose, looking impressed.

Dan smiled and craned his neck a little as they took the pizza boxes. He could see another couple of girls with their faces up against the window looking out into the main street. And then there was a mess of arms and legs and bodies wrestling on the bed. Dan grinned and pulled back his head.

“Your sister’s got a friend,” he said.

“That’s Andy.”

“No kidding,” Dan said. “Are you girls spies or something?”

They both giggled and the blonde one nodded in a general way.

“You sure look the part,” he said.

“We’re waiting for Miranda,” Donna said.

“Miranda Brody,” Asi added, and then they both seemed overcome with something.

“The singer?” Dan asked.

“She’s staying across the road.”

He’d been hearing the name all day. Miranda Brody was an American celebrity and Dan figured that meant she spent her life gracing covers of magazines, entering mild controversies, and living it up without a care in the world. She was the singer-type celebrity which meant she probably had a manufactured, inoffensive and marketable sound. Dan hadn’t really heard her music, at least he didn’t think he had, but he figured he knew the type.

“She’s on the sixteenth floor.”

“And she’s only here for one concert.”

“Do you want to come in?”

Dan smiled at the girls and stepped back. Apart from the pop music which was now playing inside the room, the oblivious older sister getting it on with her boyfriend, the girls were barely pubescent and he had enough problems without stepping inside and possibly having his hair braided while they all chatted about Miranda Brody.

“Ah, look, I’ve got to get back to my deliveries,” he said, shouldering his satchel again. “But good luck with the celebrity watch. I hope you get to see her. And don’t get your sticky fingers all over the windows. This place is really serious about that stuff.”

He left them with the pizza and pop star, moving quickly to the elevator. Inside he allowed himself to scramble the music with his mind, reducing the repetitive sounds to static and then silence. He closed his eyes and felt the elevator moving slowly down to street level again. He tried not to think about his grandfather.

When Dan stepped out into the night he noticed two things had changed: the street was now thick with photographers, lights and film crews, and his bike was blocked in by the double-parked media. The electrical spikes from phones, satellite hook-ups and excess lights were almost as irritating as the bursts of camera flash. It had taken less than ten minutes to deliver the pizza but now his entire night would be compromised. Birdie’s rules were clear – if the pizza arrived late, it was always the delivery at fault, never the customer.

He only had one more delivery, and then he could go home and try to forget everything. He could forget that his grandfather was back, and he could forget about all the grandfather-related skeletons in his closet. He could forget he even had a closet.

Dan pushed his way through the gawkers at the back of the mob, squeezing past teenagers and in between couples. At his bike he realized that getting it started and then back on to the road was going to be impossible. It didn’t have enough grunt to intimidate the crowds into parting and even if it did he doubted his boss would appreciate the adverse publicity it’d bring.

The crowd shifted and seemed to move as one organism. Its many heads turned together, suddenly catching sight of the celebrity. Dan couldn’t resist looking as well, and saw a cluster of black suited men and women pushing their way through the outer rings of fans. Dan caught glimpses of a girl in their protective circle and he could tell she wasn’t comfortable with the attention. Her head was down and her hands were up to her face trying to block out the calls and screams. She wore shades and a baseball cap but Dan recognized her from the posters being thrust in the air by loyal fans all around him.

The flashes of cameras lit up her face behind the impressive wall of retainers and each time the cameras surged forward Miranda seemed to shrink back. The group were finding it difficult navigating the mob as well and for all their bulk and determination they didn’t seem capable of knocking down the fans, especially with all the cameras present.

A reporter hitched herself up onto the van next to Dan’s bike and with a hand from her assistant, managed to scuttle up to the roof. In less than thirty seconds she preened herself and stood with the hotel masterfully presented behind her. A cameraman was shooting film from across the street, clear of the chaos. Dan could tell that her microphone was transmitting live. Its signal sung into the night joining the chorus of other feeds from the dozen or so reporters at the scene.

At the entrance to the hotel another small group of Miranda Brody’s people waited, but the gulf between the two groups seemed to be getting larger.

Dan looked at his watch.

Then he looked back up at the hotel across the street. The girls were probably pressing their little faces against the glass screaming their little hearts out. Everywhere he looked he saw the same thing: ecstatic screams, red faces, open mouths, posters of the pop star.

But the one they were all screaming for looked more like a scared little girl than a media magnet. It didn’t seem fair. The situation was ridiculous and without even the hint of a police presence it wasn’t going to improve. And that meant Dan’s final delivery would be delayed.

He closed his eyes, rubbing at them to clear the image of his shaggy, wide-eyed and bearded grandfather. He was getting a headache. Two loud-mouthed girls shoved him as they made their way to the front of the crowd. His bike teetered a little and other people started to move around it leaving Dan with a vision of chipped paint or a toppled bike.

Blue lightning streaked across his eyes as he opened them. Sometimes he hated the city.

More fans jostled around him, their screams pushing against him like a physical force. The pack surged forward and then back a little when it hit the ring of security. Dan felt himself getting pulled along. His bike was just out of reach.

He felt the electricity just under his skin now.

A part of him wanted to taser the whole bunch and leave them convulsing in the night. He looked around for another option but all he found was more tear-streaked hysteria.

It seemed inevitable.

His fingers twitched.

With another look at his besieged bike, Dan made the decision to save the girl. He clenched his fist and let the idea of stunning the crowd fall away.

He had other options.

The reporter on top of the van held her hair in place as she spoke to the unseen audience. He concentrated on the signals buzzing around her and isolated the woman’s mobile phone, accessing its number and contacts list. It was quite extensive and included a number of other industry reporters, many of whom were probably prowling through the crowds trying to get closer to the pinned celebrity.

Dan pulled out his own phone and mentally composed a text. Using his control over the electrical world he dragged the database of numbers from the reporter’s phone and brought it across to his own. The message was then sent to dozens of other numbers, some of them close by. Dan allowed himself to track them at least in the short term, but soon the signals were buzzing in all directions like a swarm of invisible wasps. It was a nice development.

He watched with satisfaction as the woman on the van reflexively touched her pocket. She had taken a break from directly talking to the camera and pulled out her phone. She looked at it closer and then across to the pack of Miranda’s security. Dan smiled as he saw the reporter’s face change from one of blank surprise to a more cunning flash of excitement.

The mobile network suddenly surged again as the texts continued flying back and forth through the invisible web of people and their phones. With a little effort Dan managed to heighten the urgency, duplicating messages around him and thrusting them in different directions, spinning them into oblivion.

The message was the same though.

And the people started to receive it and immediately reacted. The woman on the van slid down to the pavement right next to Dan. Her skirt rode up her thigh and she tried to pull it down as she raced across to her partner on the other side of the road. He was already gunning the car’s accelerator.

Other people started hurrying down towards the north end of the street like lemmings and behind them the parked vehicles hummed into action. More lights streaked across in all directions as cars pulled illegal u-turns and nearly ran down the scuttling fans and other gawking people.

Miranda Brody’s group remained pinned against the window of the hotel. They had received the message as well and Dan could see at least two of them puzzling over their phones.

“All in a day’s work,” Dan smirked and climbed on to his bike, kicking the stand back and rolling it to the roadside. He slipped his helmet on and turned the key. The street was already emptying and he had a clear passage to the south end of the street, just as he had planned.

A man grabbed his arm as he began to move off, surprising Dan. He struggled to free himself but the man held on. It was one of Brody’s people, all dark shades and expensive suits.

“Did you do that?” the man asked. He pulled off his shades and looked directly at Dan, eyeball to eyeball. “Did you just do what I think you did?”

Dan shook his arm again, pulling himself free.

“Man, I didn’t do anything,” Dan said. “This is all your mess.”

He kick started his bike and roared up the street, but the man’s eyes stayed on his back. Dan couldn’t resist a glance in his side mirror. Behind him he caught the convergence of Brody’s two groups of people as they ushered their star inside the hotel. Some of them were looking towards him but he didn’t care about them anymore.

He had his bike and a clear path to the last job.

The message he sent was already erased from his phone and the people who flocked to the other entrance of the hotel would later be wondering who sent them the text. Young celebrities were well known for media stunts so when they heard that a decoy was drawing their attention at the front of the hotel while the real Miranda was only just arriving at the back, there wasn’t anything to question.