Free Elly's Ghost by John R. Kess

turned onto
his side to face her. “So, what about you? What made you want to be a singer?”
    “Ever since I
was about four years old, anytime I was alone, I would sing. My dad was in the
choir at church, and when I was eleven, he brought me to a practice, and before
I knew it I was standing next to him, singing away every week during the church
service. It was my dad, twelve elderly people, and me.”
    Elly rolled onto
her back and pulled at the chain on the handcuffs. “When I was thirteen, a boy
named Alex asked me out on a date. I said yes, I mean he was—and still is—pretty
cute, but we didn’t date for very long. We were better as friends. He
introduced me to Jeremy and Brent, and all three of them wanted to be in a
band. They played together almost every day after school in Alex’s basement. I
remember the three of them could, on command, play any song, I mean anything.
It was amazing. They asked me to sing with them one day after school. I had so
much fun that I started hanging out with them all the time. Soon, I began
writing my own songs.
    “We started
playing in local clubs when we were fifteen. We played every venue and contest
we could find. One day, we caught a break. Someone who worked at a record
company heard us play. We had an audition, and they offered us a one-album
deal. It just took off from there.”
    “Just think,”
Jay said, “how many people look up to you and admire you for what you do.”
    Elly smiled.
“And I used to be one of those people looking up to other musicians. One day at
a concert, one of our fans had a seizure. They took her to the hospital. I
found out after the concert and went to see her in her hospital room.”
    “I’m guessing
she was a little excited to see you,” Jay said.
    “You have no
idea. Her family had to keep telling her to calm down, but after that we started
talking like sisters. We talked for about an hour. I gave her tickets and
backstage passes to our show in Philadelphia, so I got to see her again. That’s
the kind of stuff that makes it all worthwhile.”
    “That’s really
cool,” Jay said.
    “There’re some
things I don’t like about it, but I like that stuff.”
    “Does the public
ever get on your nerves? Do you get recognized everywhere you go?”
    “Yeah. They say
you get used to it, but I’m still not. I want to walk down the street to the
grocery store, by myself, and buy my favorite ice cream, but I can’t. I have to
have someone do it for me. It gets old being recognized everywhere.” Elly
sighed. “I guess it’d be kind of nice if the paparazzi knew where I was now,
though.”
    “That’s why I
wouldn’t like being famous,” Jay said, “because of the attention. It’d take a
really strong person to be able to handle it. I don’t know how you do it. I’m
sure you’ve had to deal with people asking for money, people trying to take
advantage of you, invading your privacy—”
    “You mean like
when a jerk put a camera in my dressing room shower, and the next day the
pictures were all over the Internet?”
    “That sucks.”
    “Mmm-hmm, that
did suck. I wanted to murder the person who did that. I cried for two days.”
    “It must be hard
knowing who to trust,” Jay said.
    “It can be.
That’s why …” Elly stopped herself.
    “What?”
    Elly hesitated,
then said, “That’s why I wanted to know … if you knew who I was.”
    “Wait, do you
mean you wanted to know if the reason I was helping you is because of who you
are?”
    “I—”
    “Because that’s
not the reason.”
    “I know that now,
and I’m sorry, but I didn’t know then. Like you said, it’s hard to know who to
trust.”
     

Chapter 8
     
     
    TUESDAY
     
    A ring of men
stood around Ben as he cried out in pain on the Montana forest floor. Ben’s screams
were replaced with the shouting of the father of the armed Afghani boy.
    “Hamasa!”
    The boy
suddenly yelled and swung the machine gun around to his front.
    Jay squeezed
the trigger. The