The Ex-Change novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Fired

The sound tech didn't let us walk up to the villa.

He steered us sideways into the boathouse, a dim stone room that smelled of rope and engine oil.

Then he pulled the door shut behind him.

"I've got four minutes," he said. "Security's checking the guest rooms."

"They fired her," Jude said. "For what?"

"For insubordination." The sound tech turned Lowen's headset over in his hands.

"She told the network the finale needed a legal review," he said. "Forty minutes later a man was at her door with a cardboard box."

I thought of her two nights ago, grey with guilt, handing us a file she was afraid to copy.

"She told me about the clip," he said.

I looked at him.

"She told me two nights ago, before she gave you the tablet," he said. "She said if anything happened, I should find the two of you."

He shrugged, awkward.

"Every other show in Europe had blacklisted me, and she hired me anyway. I owe her."

"What do you do on this show?" I said.

"Everything that makes a noise." He took a thumb drive out of his shirt pocket. "Give me the tablet."

I hesitated, because it was all I had.

Jude put his hand over mine, a small steady weight.

"He's right," he said. "Give it."

The sound tech plugged the drive into the tablet and tapped it twice.

A bar crawled across the screen.

"Every earpiece and microphone goes through my board on the barge," he said, working.

"On Friday I can put a mic on the house speakers, and anything I like on the big screen."

He glanced up.

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