Free Crowning the Slug Queen (A Callie Stone Mystery Book 1) by L.M. Fortin Page A

thinking the horn of a unicorn." They both laughed. She took the piece back from him and said, "Do you mind if I keep this?"
    "I was just going to sweep it up and throw it away with the rest, so feel free."
    She pulled a tissue out of her bag, wrapped the piece up and put it away. She dumped the rest of the glass in a nearby garbage can and gave the dustpan back to Wade.
    "Would you like a tour of backstage?" he asked. "I know the show will be downtown, but it can't hurt for you to know your way around here."
    "I'd love a tour. Backstage areas are some of my favorite places in the world." He smiled at her in agreement. Callie realized as she said it that any place behind the scenes of an event was really where she always wanted to be. It wasn't just that there was a sort of puppet master feeling to it; it wasn't the thrill of being in charge. In fact, the responsibility of being in charge was an event's greatest liability. No, she thought, it was the feeling of being the person with all the answers. Of knowing where the hidden rooms were that had the light switches to immediately change the ambience of a room or knowing the back hallways that allowed you to avoid all the attendees when you needed to get ahead of them to fix a problem. It was the fun of getting to know the staff in a hotel or conference center and being welcomed in like family as for a day or a week you worked with them as a team to create an experience for people who would never know that staff ever existed. In a subconscious way the attendees knew that the dessert buffet with chocolate fountain, meticulously cut fruit and an array of sauces didn't appear out of nowhere, but they never actually understood the coordinated effort it took to bring all those things together.
    Callie often felt like the conductor of a large orchestra where everyone had practiced their parts separately, but finally got to come together to play. And the whole was greater than the sum of the parts.
    She didn't have to explain any of this to Wade. It was part of his DNA.
    The immediate backstage area was fairly compact. To the right of the stage, where they cleaned up the glass, was an area only large enough to hold any actors waiting to enter the stage or hold a small piece of staging awaiting its entrance. Callie also noticed a set of elevator doors.
    "Where does the elevator go?" she asked.
    "Two places. Down into where most of our ready rooms for the cast are as well as storage. It also goes up into the stage rigging." He pointed upwards to where Callie could see a cat walk that ringed the stage. "Most of our staging is moved electronically, but there's still a manual system where you can bring the scrims and curtains up and down by hand if you want to."
    The left side of the backstage area was larger than the right and included a green room that looked as if it could hold eight or nine people and a second small room across the hall from it that held a variety of lights, switches and computers. "This is the a/v control room," said Wade. There was also a desk with a laptop, and a small table with a coffee maker and a microwave. "This is where you'll find me most days if I'm not out and about. With a big show, of course, we control the a/v from the sound booth at the back of the mezzanine seating area. However, all the commands go through here."
    Callie understood the unstated message. If there was some sort of stage emergency, this room was where you'd go to try and fix the problem as it was really the control center for the whole theater.
    They went back out into the hallway to a door at the end. The short landing fronted a door to outside the theater and inside stairs that went down. They went down the stairs to the theater's basement level. "This is where our other cast rooms are located. There's also a laundry room, a kitchen and a large open room we generally use for a cafeteria when we bring in shows that have lots of extras. The door to the loading dock is also here." Callie