No Shelter Left novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Awards Night

Jude sat in the sound booth at the back of the Starling Hall with a cue sheet on his knee.

Below him, four thousand people filled the seats.

The engineer beside him ate a granola bar and watched a row of green meters.

He had run the Awards for nine years, and he had asked only one question when Jude walked in.

"Who's on the sheet?"

"Mae Lark," Jude had said. "Cue forty-one."

"That's not an artist on tonight's program."

"It is now."

The engineer had looked at the line Jude had written in pen.

Then he had said, "Okay," and gone back to his granola bar.

Jude had spent four days earning that "okay."

On Monday a judge would hear Larkin Management's injunction. Tonight there was no order, only a threat.

Aisling had read the threat standing in his kitchen and set it face down on the counter.

"I'll be sued either way," she had said. "I'd rather be sued for the truth."

Now, on the monitor, she stood in the wings.

She wore a plain black dress and no jewelry. Her guitar hung from her shoulder.

Beside her, Kaitlyn waited in white, with long sleeves and her hair down.

Someone had put color in her face.

She leaned a little to the left, and an assistant hovered behind her with a folded chair.

Brodie sat at the drum kit onstage, in the shadows, his sticks in his lap.

In the front row, Marianne sat with her hands knotted in her lap.

Jude's own hands were wet.

"Quiet night," the engineer said, chewing.

"Yes."

The door at the back of the booth rattled once.

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